Jack Pardee

John Perry “Jack” Pardee was born April 19, 1936 in Iowa to Earl Charles Pardee and LaMeda A. McNary Pardee. The father’s profession is listed as farmer. When he was still a boy, Jack’s family moved to Christoval, Texas in sparsely populated Tom Green County. Christoval high school played six man football and Jack was a standout player on the team in his high school years.

Six man football in Texas has almost a ninety year history. In the late 1930s, schools that were too small to field eleven man teams adapted six man football from other states. According to a recent article in the Lockhart Post-Register, the first official season of six man football in Texas was in 1938. Six man football is characterized by sometimes high scoring games. This is likely because with the lack of players on defense, there is at least one less level of defense where offensive players can be stopped. Numerous players, including Pardee, have gone on to play football in college. Only a handful of players have played at a professional level. Pardee’s complete high school statistics are unknown but it is stated in several accounts that he scored fifty-seven touchdowns in his senior year which caught the eye of college coaches and recruiters.

Jack was recruited by Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant to come to Texas A&M. His recruiting class also included Gene “Babe” Stallings, a wide receiver from Paris, Texas who would go on to be a three sport player for the Aggies. After his college career ended, Stallings also was a coach at various levels at Texas A&M, University of Alabama, the Dallas Cowboys and the St Louis/Phoenix Cardinals.

Pardee became a standout player for the Aggies. His three year football career, 1954, 1955 and 1956, he played linebacker and also was a fullback. His defensive statistics are unknown, but he rushed for 1,007 yards on 220 carries and scored eight rushing touchdowns. Bryant praised Jack for his skills at linebacker. The Aggies went 1-9 in 1954, 7-2-1 in 1955 and 9-0-1 in 1956, winning the Southwest Conference. Coach Bryant stayed at Texas A&M one more year before moving on to coach at Alabama, where he remained from the 1958 season to his final season in 1982.

Pardee is noted from time to time in newspaper accounts of his college games. One particular game was a September 24, 1955 game against rival LSU of the Southeastern Conferenc, then ranked Number 16 in the nation. LSU was fresh off an upset of the Kentucky Wildcats the week before. The Tigers and the Aggies met at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas attended by what was called a slim crowd of 17,000, when the maximum capacity was maybe over 70,000. The game was promoted as a tossup but the Aggies took control from the kickoff. They scored one touchdown in each quarter while holding the Tigers scoreless. The final score was a shocking 28 – 0. Pardee scored the first and second touchdowns and his teammate John David Crow scored the final two touchdowns. LSU’s Kentucky win may have been more of an upset than it first appeared, but for whatever reasons, the season took a downturn for LSU after the Texas S&M loss. LSU tied its next game, lost the next four before picking up two consecutive wins and another tie, finishing the season at 3-5-2.

Pardee played his final college season in 1956 and graduated with a degree in business administration from Texas A&M. His college honors included being named All-America at fullback. He was then drafted (first pick of the second round and fourteenth overall) by the Los Angeles Rams in 1957.

Jack played linebacker for thirteen years, 169 games, for the Rams and his final two years, 27 games, with the Washington Redskins. He sat out during the 1965 season as he recovered from surgery to remove a melanoma on his arm. He was named to the Pro Bowl and named an All Pro for his play with the Rams in 1963. His final year to play was 1972 and he ended his season with the Redskins by once again being named an All Pro and finishing 9th in the voting for defensive player of the year.

He went on to a long career in coaching which begin with one season (1974) as head coach of a team in the World Football League in the inaugural year of the league. The next three seasons, Pardee served as head coach of the Chicago Bears for three seasons in which the Bears went 4-10, 7-7 and 9-5, followed by three seasons with his former team, the Washington Redskins finishing 8-8, 10-6 and 6-10. While with the Bears, the team reached the playoffs for the first time in over ten years and was named NFC coach of the year in 1976. Similarly with the Redskins, the team reached the playoffs in 1979 and he was named AP coach of the year. In 1981, he served as defensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers.

His career took an abrupt turn in early 1982 when he left football completely for a short time. The February 19, 1982 issue of the Carlsbad Argus out of Carlsbad, New Mexico, announced that Pardee had accepted an executive marketing job with the Runnels Mud Company. Runnels was an oilfield drilling mud supplier headquartered in Lovington, New Mexico. Pardee was take his position and serve out of Midland, Texas for the firm. It was not stated how Pardee made a connection with the firm, but its owner, Harold L. Runnels had served as a United States Representative from 1971 until his death in 1980. Jack held this position for one or two years.

Jack returned to football in 1984 taking a head coaching position with the Houston Gamblers of the United States Football League. This team merged with the New Jersey Generals and generated a lot of offense behind Jim Kelley as quarterback, but the league went out of business in 1986.

In 1987, Pardee accepted a position as head coach of the Houston Cougars of the NCAA. He remained in that position for three seasons. His teams were characterized by the wide open “run and shoot” offense. His first year, the team went 4-6-1 with one of the wins being an upset 20 point victory over the Texas Longhorns. In 1988, the team went 9-3 and its quarterback, Andre Ware, out of Dickinson High School in Texas. That year, the team was hit with sanctions from the NCAA for rules violations under a prior head coach. The team was allowed to compete in 1989, again with Ware at quarterback, finishing at 9-2. The sanctions included prevented them from appearing on television, limiting scholarships, not being able to play in a bowl game. Despite all these setbacks, the team had an excellent season and Ware won the Heisman Trophy.

In 1990, Pardee was hired as head coach of the Houston Oilers of the NFL, where his teams accumulated a record of 43-31, including a dismal 1-9 record in 1994 after the owner traded longtime quarterback Warren Moon to the Minnesota Vikings and the loss of Buddy Ryan as defensive coordinator.

Pardee coached one more year, this time for an expansion team in the Canadian Football League. His team was the Birmingham Barracudas. The team folded after its 1995 season. This was Pardee’s final stint as a head coach, although in late 2007 he was once again a candidate for a college coaching positing with the Houston Cougars.

Pardee died in the spring of 2013 in Colorado after a bout with cancer. He is buried in Memorial Cemetery in College Station. His many honors include being inducted into the Texas A&M Athletic Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

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