Dam It

Last year I drove out to Mansfield Dam on the Colorado river north of Austin, the dam that creates Lake Travis. I parked at one end and walked out along the sidewalk to where I could gaze down at the river below the dam where on a spring day in 1968 one of the more traumatic events of my life played out. I hadn’t been here since that day, and as memories flooded in I wept for a group of young men in an age of innocence long gone.

We were heroes of the gridiron, in our own minds anyway. To be a football jock at The University of Texas playing under the tutelage of Darrell Royal was to be a minor Texas god in those days, invincible…and invisible if one chose it. I doubt it is that way today. How could it be? I was completing my sophomore year, had made the travelling squad the previous season backing up an all SWC guard and playing on special teams. Spring training had ended that very morning and we were feeling pretty spunky, ready to get out, drink us some cold beer and kick up our heels out from under the critical eyes of coaches and trainers.

I remember that spring training for many reasons not the least of which it was my last as a Longhorn. Our head trainer was Frank Medina, a little stubby dark brown latino decked out, always,  in white.  White cotton pants,  long sleeve shirt and floppy brimmed hat and a white towel wrapped around his neck…always. Frank was notorious in athletic circles of the day. He had been the trainer of the U.S. olympic boxing team at some point or such was the legend  If Frank came up and grabbed your belly finding more than a pinch of flab there you were destined to the fat farm and extra work of a torturous nature. After the skinny guys were through with their workout we were put through wind sprints while carrying a blocking dummy on our backs, sprints up and down the stadium seats hugging that same dummy, exercise routines in the steam room followed immediately by a 3 minute round pounding on a heavy body punching bag while Frank stood on a bench in the locker room swaying back and forth like a little white Troll with a stop watch screaming “rip his fucking head off….show me something fat guy,”  were all part of the routine. I was all of 220 lbs playing offensive guard, but considered by Frank as a “fat guy”…geez.  Spring training under Frank Medina was a bitch, and on that warm afternoon in 1968 a group of Texas heroes was set free, free at last. We were gonna have us a good time!

Five of us piled into my ’64 Chevy Bel Air and headed out to go dam sliding.  Somehow we managed to pick up a few cases of beer, popped tops and headed to Mansfield Dam.  By the time we arrived at the river the back floor boards were heavily cluttered with empties.

As I recall there was a parking area by the river there,  under the towering concrete dam, where we left the car and walked to river’s edge with our cooler of brewskies.  Not a lot of current there, but the water is icy cold as it comes through the spillways off the bottom of Lake Travis.  The spillways are tunnels through the dam midway up its face with moss-covered troughs that run down to the river below.  It was a swim of maybe 100 yard from the bank to the edge of the dam.  We floated the cooler and, amidst yelps and hoots over the icy water, made our way in a group to the dam where we climbed up and stretched out to dry in the Texas sunshine on the sloping, warm concrete like lizards.

Dam sliding was extreme sport fo the day.  The technique was to go back up in the tunnels, run out like crazy screaming obscenities, drop onto your backside in the slimy trough and go sliding down the steep side of the dam to slam into the chilly water below.  The slide down was only about 30 yards but it was fast and fun.  About an hour after we arrived a group of four freshman ball players arrived on the far bank.  As they began their swim across the river complaining about the cold water we berated them for being light weights, wimps.  Some came across quickly and as they were just arriving at the slanted wall of Mansfield Dam I noticed that one player had turned around and was swimming back toward the shore.

Joe Nobis was the younger brother of football great Tommy.  He was from my hometown San Antonio and was a darned good athlete in his own right.  Tall and lanky with a quirky but quick smile Joe was a favorite of us all, a good guy all around.  He swam toward the shore for a bit before I realized that Joe was in trouble and beginning to struggle in the cold water.  Unlike the common portrayal of drowning victims, floundering and hollering for help, actual drowning victims rarely make  much noise.  Joe was quiet and almost placid as his forward progress stopped and I caught sight of the panic in his eyes.  I dove in and swam as fast as possible toward him as I heard teammates on the dam laughing and taunting Joe because they thought he was just cold and had turned back because of that.  I somehow knew differently.

I did not save Joe Nobis, he drowned that day.  I got very close to him and our eyes met as he took one last gulp of air before disappearing below the surface of that cold, cold water. One or two more strokes and I would have been able to grab ahold of him.  I was winded and unable to hold my breath to go under water in search of him.  I was wild and frantic but it did us no good, Joe nor I.  My friend Tully was running along the face of the dam screaming, others were shouting at me “go down and get him,” someone was wailing like a banshee and falling down repeatedly, blood streaming from scrapes to face and knees and hands.  I swam on to the shore because it was so much closer.  Joe had almost made it back before the water took him.

I don’t remember much about the aftermath except that someone ran somewhere to a phone. We waited along the shore quietly for some time before police arrived with divers.  It took the divers an hour or so to find Joe, and I was asked to identify him which I did.  I remember one of the coaches called me in my dorm room that night that and asked if I was OK.  I told him yes, and that was the extent of psychological support.  I’m not complaining, but in today’s world I’m sure all of us would have had extensive counseling  of a very professional nature.

And so I wept as I stood looking over the edge of that dam forty-two years later.  That may have been the first time.  The feelings and emotions of the moment swept over me and I experienced a sense of relief, almost of elation as I let it all come back and flow over and through me.  I had managed to push it all down very deep for lo these many  years, but standing on top of that dam I felt the panic, the guilt, the deep sadness come back like a mighty rush of eagles.  I only remember a couple of the others who were there that day.  I wonder sometimes how they have dealt, or not dealt, with their experience on that warm spring day at the bottom of that damn dam.  I don’t know, really,  how it has affected me.  I do know that I somehow lost interest in playing football. That summer I neglected the workout regimen required to stay in tip-top condition, made it through two-a-day workouts in the Austin heat of August then one day during a fall practice walked off the field never to return.  I was no longer invincible.  I wasn’t able to attain invisibility without a mess of drugs or alcohol either.  And so I wept for a group of nine young men in an age of innocence long gone.