UNM Lobos, Dallas Cowboys football legend Don Perkins dies at age 84

Jun. 10—Don Perkins came to Albuquerque from Waterloo, Iowa, in the fall of 1956, among the first African Americans to play football for the University of New Mexico.

He became one of the most decorated Lobos of all time as a fleet, powerful running back, then went on to an eight-year career with the Dallas Cowboys that earned him a spot in the team's Ring of Honor.

Through it all, and ever after, he remained steadfast in the belief that being really good with a football tucked under his arm did not make him special.

Yet, said Perkins biographer Richard Melzer, he was.

Perkins, who returned to Albuquerque after his playing days and made his home here, has died. He was 84.

Melzer, an Albuquerque author, is in the process of writing a biography of Perkins, due out in fall 2023. He describes Perkins as a gentle man without a shred of arrogance or pretense.

In doing research and conducting interviews, Melzer said on Thursday in a phone interview, "I never heard a negative word said about Don.

"I once asked (former UNM basketball great Ira Harge) if he'd ever seen Don speak harshly to anyone. He told me, 'Well, I heard him tell his kids to stop splashing in the pool.'"

Perkins was recruited to New Mexico by the staff of then-UNM head coach Dick Clausen, which was replete with Iowa connections.

Though he'd had a superb athletic career in high school, Perkins told the Journal in 1975, "After high school I was ready to join the Army, then get a job. I came to New Mexico as kind of a lark."

Some lark.

After starring for the Lobo freshman team in '56 — freshmen were ineligible for varsity competition at the time — he stepped into the UNM lineup at right halfback the following fall. In rushing for 744 yards with a 6.6-yard average per carry, he earned first-team All-Skyline Conference honors.

"Believe me," said then-Wyoming coach Bob Devaney, "that Perkins is everything they said he was."

Perkins' numbers actually went down in his junior and senior years as opposing defenses keyed on him — allowing UNM's left-halfback tandems (Tony Gray-Bob Crandall in 1958, Crandall-Billy Brown in 1959) to have spectacular success.

But Perkins' greatest day as a Lobo was saved for his last.

In Denver, Perkins rushed for 126 yards and scored three touchdowns, one on a 64-yard screen pass from quarterback and fellow Iowan Chuck Roberts, as UNM upset Air Force, 28-27, in the 1959 season finale.

"I don't think there could have been a better back in America than Perkins was today," said Lobos coach Marv Levy, who'd taken over for Clausen the previous season.

No one argued. Two days later, Perkins was named the Associated Press national Back of the Week.

Current Lobos coach Danny Gonzales on Thursday called Perkins a "great man" and a "great Lobo." When Gonzales took over UNM football in 2019, he arranged a function with alumni and former players that Perkins attended.

"It meant the world to me," Gonzales said. "He was excited about the vision of Lobo football. He will be dearly, dearly missed. I pray for the hearts to heal of his family. They all know he's in a better place. He lived a wonderful life."

After UNM, the expansion Dallas Cowboys signed Perkins in 1960, but his NFL career was delayed by a broken foot suffered in training camp.

Once healthy, he was an immediate success — rushing for 815 yards and earning Rookie of the Year and Pro Bowl honors in 1961.

"He wasn't very big (180 pounds while at UNM), but they made him a fullback," Melzer said. "He was a great blocker, and he had a great burst off the line of scrimmage."

In his eight seasons in the NFL, Perkins rushed for 6,217 yards with a 4.1-yard average per carry. He made six Pro Bowl squads and was named All-Pro three times.

Not blessed with great size or blazing speed, he compensated with excellent balance, toughness and attention to detail.

In 1966, Dallas drafted running back Walt Garrison out of Oklahoma State. Though Garrison was widely seen as competition for Perkins at fullback, Melzer said, Perkins didn't hesitate to mentor the talented rookie.

"Garrison said he wouldn't have been the player he became without Don's help," Melzer said.

In 1976, Perkins became the second or third former Cowboy — inducted along with quarterback and friend Don Meredith, who later lived in Santa Fe — to enter the team's Ring of Honor.

He was inducted into the Albuquerque (now New Mexico) Sports Hall of Fame in 1975.

After football, Perkins returned to Albuquerque, where he felt most comfortable, and raised a family.

"He always appreciated how open and welcoming Albuquerque had been to him," Melzer said. That hadn't always been the case in Iowa, or in Dallas, because of the color of his skin.

Over the years in his post-football life, Perkins wore many hats.

In August 1970, he was named director of the state's new Youth Opportunity Program. He worked as an NFL color commentator for CBS and as a sportscaster in Albuquerque.

For a time, amid changes in his life, he drove a truck for a living.

Possessed of a sonorous speaking voice, Perkins performed in local theater productions. In the 1990s, he portrayed 19th-century abolitionist icon Frederick Douglass in an hour-long, one-man show.

In 1987, he joined the Albuquerque Police Department as a community relations counselor — later as a crime-prevention specialist.

Through it all, Perkins never wavered in his belief that nothing about having played football, and played it so well, made him special.

In a February 2007 interview with the Journal, the occasion Perkins' upcoming induction into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, it was observed that the walls of Perkins' living room were bare of any memorabilia from his football career.

"I don't need it for myself," he said, "and I've got kids and grandkids that are very important to me. I don't think they need to come over to grandpa's house and see a shrine to the National Football League.

"I don't think an athlete is any better than a reporter, and I never have ... because (someone else) is driving a bus and I'm playing football, does that make me better? No, no, no."

The Journal's Steve Virgen contributed to this report.