Larry Elkins
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2024) |
| No. 26 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Wide receiver | ||
| Personal information | |||
| Born: | July 28, 1943 Brownwood, Texas, U.S. | ||
| Career information | |||
| High school: | Brownwood | ||
| College: | Baylor | ||
| NFL draft: | 1965 / Round: 1 / Pick: 10 | ||
| AFL draft: | 1965 / Round: 1 / Pick: 2 (by the Houston Oilers)[1] | ||
| Career history | |||
| |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
| |||
| Career NFL statistics | |||
| |||
| Player stats at PFR | |||
Lawrence Clayton Elkins (born July 28, 1943) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for the Houston Oilers of the American Football League (AFL). He was a two-time All-American playing college football as a flanker for the Baylor Bears before playing professionally for the Oilers
Early life
Elkins is the youngest of ten children.[2] One of his mother's ex-husbands was Marshall Ratliff, best known as one of three perpetrators of the infamous Santa Claus Bank Robbery.[2][3]
College career
Elkins was an all-around athletic star at
Elkins was a consensus All-American his last two years (
. He appeared on the Tonight Show Dec. 3, 1964 as part of the Look Magazine All-American Football Team with his contemporaries Fred Biletnikoff, Craig Morton and Gale Sayers. He was chosen by Johnny Carson because of his deep Texas accent to simulate a television commercial.Elkins was inducted into the Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame in 1976 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
Professional career
He was selected in the first round of the
But Elkins' pro career never really got off the ground. After going to the Steelers, he broke his collarbone in a 1969 preseason game after earning a starting job with the Pittsburgh Steelers. "Rather unlucky, I suppose," he told the Baylor Line in 2001.
After football
After leaving football, Elkins became something of a globe-trotter. From 1971 to 1978, he worked for Brown and Root Inc. in the safety, health, and claims department, both in the United States and in Europe.[2] From 1979-82, he worked with off-shore drilling companies in the Gulf of Mexico and in Africa. Elkins described the years of 1982 to 1989 as "various midlife crises endeavors, including stints with the artistic peoples in the entertainment business." He spent ten months renovating parts of Robert Duvall's horse farm in Virginia and took the actor all over Texas to research accents for his 1983 movie Tender Mercies. When Duvall won the Oscar the movie that year, Elkins was there as his special guest.
Duvall also asked him to find him the voice and character of Augustus McRae in Lonesome Dove. Elkins introduced him to the legendary quarterback, Sammy Baugh, who was retired to his ranch in Rotan, Texas. Elkins said he also rubbed shoulders with Gene Hackman, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford during those years.
After that, Elkins spent more than a dozen years in Saudi Arabia, where he was a consultant for the country's Ministry of Water, which managed twenty-six desalination plants and several pipelines and pumping stations along the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.
Elkins retired and moved back to his hometown of Brownwood and lived for ten years overlooking beautiful Lake Brownwood. He now lives at the top of The Hill Country in Clifton, Texas on a dry creek bed.
References
- ^ "1965 AFL Draft". Archived from the original on February 25, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
- ^ Dallas Morning News. 7 February 2010.
- ^ a b "Baylor legend Elkins helped shape future of college football, gets Hall of Fame nod". Waco Tribune-Herald. November 14, 2009.