As the Southwest Conference football beat writer for the Houston Post from 1985-90, John Klein got to pick the best SWC game to cover every week. That meant he spent a lot of Saturdays on-site for Texas A&M games or Texas games, some Arkansas games, and some Baylor games.
What he really looked forward to was covering Texas Tech football games, especially the ones in Lubbock.
He was likely to see an entertaining game. He was sure to have a good time.
"I looked forward to road trips to Lubbock like nobody's business," said Klein, now retired in Tulsa, Oklahoma. "I was like, 'Oh, good. Tech may be good enough to get me to that Tech-A&M game next week.' I'd always check my schedule: 'Who's Tech playing this week? Can I get out there?' "
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Lubbock was full of attractions for Southwest Conference sportswriters: Scrumptious steaks at the 50 Yard Line restaurant. Funny quotes from Spike Dykes. Revelry in Room 214 at the Lubbock Inn, a hospitality hangout for visiting media. An encounter, possibly, with Robert Walker, better known as "Daddy Warbucks," the cigar-chewing, whiskey-drinking character who counted among his best friends a legion of sportswriters.
Trying to ride herd over it all was Joe Hornaday, the longtime Texas Tech sports information director.
"I think one of the main reasons around-the-state media would even think about coming to cover Texas Tech back in those days was because of the relationship they had with our office and Joe in particular," said Kelly Robinson, Hornaday's assistant sports information director. "They knew if they came out here that he was going to treat 'em right and they could get their job done. I think he was kind of legendary in that regard with some of the sportswriters around, especially the state."
Hornaday, who served Tech from 1978 through 2008, died on Sept. 9, two weeks after suffering a fall at home that caused a head injury. He was 79.
Tech plans to observe a moment of silence for Hornaday before the Red Raiders' Friday, Sept. 18, home game against Houston. A celebration of his life is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 10 in the north end zone club at Galaxy Stadium.
Hornaday served Tech as an assistant sports information director in 1978 and 1979 before leading the SID department from 1980 through 1996. Then he was assistant athletics director for public relations until his retirement in 2008.
"Joe was really a PR guy's PR guy," said Bo Carter, who was media relations director from 1986-96 for the Southwest Conference and from 1996-2006 for the Big 12.
Klein, before and after his five years in Houston, spent his 42-year sports-writing career at the Tulsa World near his hometown of Perry, Oklahoma. He says the only time he's ever made a financial donation to a university athletics department, it was to Texas Tech. When he left the Post and the SWC beat, he somewhat jokingly sent a $100 check with a note, the essence of which was: Be sure and keep Joe Hornaday employed for a while. Maybe this will help.
"Joe made covering college football absolutely fun," Klein said. "It was everything you hoped it would be when you were in college and you thought about being a sportswriter, and it made coming to those games so enjoyable. And luckily, the games usually turned out to be interesting and really well played. So it was a double win for me, but I just enjoyed him so much."
Former Avalanche-Journal executive sports editor Norval Pollard called Hornaday "one of the last ... old-school SIDs."
"You've got to remember: Texas Tech is not a place where … Sportswriters, good sportswriters in Texas — some of them legendary — they weren't coming to Tech on Saturday afternoons," Pollard said. "They were going to A&M and Texas and Arkansas, but Joe, when he became SID, he took such care of the media, from a hospitality standpoint, but also whatever they needed — information, access to players, access to coaches."
Pollard took over as the A-J sports editor in 1979. When Hornaday started working in the Tech sports information office in 1978, the Red Raiders weren't far removed from 11- and 10-win seasons.
Those days didn't last. From 1979 through 1985, the Red Raiders wallowed through seven consecutive losing seasons.
"And Joe was so loyal to Tech and loyal to those coaches and programs," Pollard said, "that he never, ever was negative. He always found something good, even in a loss. That's a tough thing to do when you're bombarded with losses and the negativity that comes with it. Joe was one of a kind and, on top of that, Joe was a great person."
"You know how it is when you're losing," Hornaday's wife Sally said. "When you're 1-9-1, it's not a good job. I remember those days, and I sometimes fussed at him and said, 'You've got to look for another job.'
"On the other hand, there were so many wonderful times, too. And of course, people would be jealous of him, you know, thinking his job was just so cool, getting to be part of sports and stuff."
Hornaday was a golfer all his life, right up to the end. Even after surgery in 2000 to remove a benign brain tumor, one that compromised his sight in one eye and hearing in one ear, he returned to the course. He wound up shooting his age more than 100 times, his wife said, mostly from the red tees.
Born and raised in Austin, he grew up a contemporary of two junior golfers a few years younger, Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw. He was longtime friends with Crenshaw, a fellow Austin High graduate. He took lessons from World Golf Hall of Fame instructor Harvey Penick. In fact, Hornaday introduced Penick at the latter's introduction to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, Sally Hornaday said.
All that time spent on the links was good preparation for a career of hobnobbing with sportswriters.
In those days, the Tech SID arranged for a media dinner on Friday nights before Saturday games and for the hospitality room at the Lubbock Inn. "It was something Joe inherited," Pollard said, "but I would say that Joe embellished it to the point where it became part of the legend." A lively place Room 214 was with quirky, fun-loving characters such as Bob Walker, known to most as Daddy Warbucks.
In the mid-1960s, Walker's Lubbock-based company had pioneered instant replay equipment that coaches could use on the sideline to make immediate adjustments. The NCAA banned it after two years, reasoning that it was a disadvantage for schools that couldn't afford it. In the 1970s, in conjunction with the Coaches All-America Game at Jones Stadium, Walker invited all his media friends to Lubbock Country Club for the Daddy Warbucks Invitational — the DWI. And on game weekends in the 1980s, he was still holding court in Room 214 at the Lubbock Inn.
"Joe would remind him, 'Hey, Bucks, remember that time ... 'Oh, yeah, Joe, I remember,' " Carter said. "He would kind of prompt him on it. It was like a great comedy show for about three or four hours. ... We'd go to the 50 Yard Line on a Friday night before a game. You sort of miss those days. Those were great times."
Klein's favorite story comes from somewhere in those years. This is a writer who, in his stomping grounds, has covered Oklahoma games, when the Sooners played for championships and won and played for championships and lost.
One weekend in Lubbock, though, he needed a ride from the airport. Pollard was too tied up to do it, but said he'd call Hornaday. Hornaday couldn't swing free, but said he'd send a guy.
How will I know who to look for, Klein wondered. Don't worry, Hornaday said. This guy will know you. Cut to the airport.
"I see this guy waving at me," Klein said. "He goes, 'Hey, come on! Let's go.' It was Spike Dykes. It's the coach — the coach, who has a game the next day.
"We go to some taco stand to get some tacos, and then he dumps me off at Lubbock Country Club, because I'm playing golf with Warbucks."
That set the stage for what Klein considers, for that era, the quintessential Texas Tech football trip.
"Forty years, that was the greatest quick weekend to cover a football game I've ever spent," Klein said. "Picked up by the head coach. Taken to eat tacos. Played golf with the legendary Daddy Warbucks, where he broke every rule known to man. And then ate steaks at the 50 Yard Line, followed by the Lubbock Inn.
"Excuse me, that's like the perfect Texas Tech weekend. Warbucks, Spike Dykes, Joe Hornaday and Norval."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Remembering Joe Hornaday, Texas Tech football SID from a throwback era
