Shipley, key figure in Tech's '65 win over A&M, dies

Jerry Shipley played a central role in one of the most famous plays in Texas Tech football history during a senior season in which he was one of the Southwest Conference's leading receivers.

Shipley was a Monterey graduate who lettered for Tech in 1964 and 1965, seasons in which teams with quarterback Tom Wilson and running back Donny Anderson elevated the Red Raiders' stature in their early years in the SWC.

Shipley died Saturday after a battle with cancer. He was 78 and had lived most recently in Mansfield.

"He was a great guy, had a tremendous sense of humor and was one heck of football player," said former Tech System Chancellor Kent Hance, who lived next door to Shipley for two years in Bledsoe Hall. "He played his role on the teams with Donny Anderson and Tom Wilson. He was a great receiver, kind of a third-down receiver who didn't have blinding speed."

On Oct. 2, 1965 at Jones Stadium, Tech beat Texas A&M 20-16 on a trick-play touchdown with 1:07 left. Shipley took a short pass from Wilson, then lateraled to Anderson, who outran the pursuit and scored. The play covered 49 yards, statisticians crediting the first 7 to Wilson and Shipley and the last 42 to Anderson.

"It means a lot to me being a part of that," Shipley said in a 2011 interview with the Avalanche-Journal. "It means a lot being a part of Texas Tech history."

In the years after, Anderson and Shipley said the hook-and-lateral was not the play call, though they had worked on it in practice. After they broke the huddle, Anderson told Shipley, "Be looking for me" to come running by.

Shipley was split to the left, Anderson lined up to the right, and A&M was in a soft coverage to prevent a deep pass. Shipley bent his route toward the middle and then looked for Anderson.

"You halfway plan it coming out of the huddle," Shipley said in the 2011 interview, "and everybody was in the right position at the right time. The funny thing is, we ran that play in practice the rest of year, and it never worked again."

A&M had taken the lead on a touchdown with 1:38 left.

Shipley said he didn't see what happened with Anderson after they made the pitch because he got hit from behind.

"By the time I got uncovered, he had scored a touchdown," Shipley said. "Everybody was screaming, hollering. I didn't really know what had happened. But he was grinning ear to ear when he came back to me."

"It was one of those things like the defensive back was a deer in the headlight," Johnny Agan, a senior running back on the 1965 team, said Tuesday. "I think Donny said he actually saw the eyes of that defensive back, like 'Uh-oh, I made a mistake coming up.' "

Agan corroborated Shipley's recollection that the Red Raiders continued practicing the hook-and-lateral in the weeks after and usually botched it.

"It was a play that was worked on prior to the game and never did work," Agan said. "It seemed like we couldn't get the speed down and all that. Against A&M, it just worked perfectly that night. It was quite a play. It worked perfect that night, and it was a big game for Texas Tech to beat A&M."

Shipley, listed at 6-foot and 182 pounds during his senior year, finished fourth in the SWC that season in catches (47) and receiving yards (563). Twenty years after his last game, those single-season numbers still ranked third and fifth, respectively, in Tech history.

Tech suffered through seven straight losing seasons from 1956 through 1962 and went 5-5 in 1963. The Red Raiders broke through with a 6-4-1 season and Sun Bowl trip in 1964 and an 8-3 season and Gator Bowl bid in 1965. The '65 team was 13th in the nation in points per game, and Wilson was the country's third-leading passer. Six of the Red Raiders' eight victories were in come-from-behind fashion, and they won three in the last two minutes.

Shipley finished the 1965 Tech-A&M game with seven catches for 120 yards. Those numbers and the ones from his 1965 games against Baylor (10-100) and Arkansas (9-90) were among the top six single-game pass-catching performances in Tech history 10 years later.

Shipley's son, Kurt Shipley, was a Tech baseball letterman from 1987-90 as a lefthanded pitcher.

A memorial service is scheduled for 3 p.m. May 12 at First Methodist Mansfield.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Jerry Shipley, key figure in Texas Tech's 1965 game-winning play against Texas A&M, dies