This Week in Texas History
by BARTEE HAILE

The train carrying the dean from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on his fact-finding mission to the Texas Panhandle rolled into Amarillo on Nov. 6, 1935.

A lot was riding on the outcome of the unusual inquiry. If Robert. F. “Ted” Key proved to be an impostor, the star player would be kicked off the football team and UCLA could forget about the Rose Bowl.

How things had changed in two short weeks!  Key was king of the sun-baked campus after scoring the tying touchdown and kicking the decisive extra point in the Bruins’ 7-6 win over Stanford. The stunning upset of the defending champion made UCLA a legitimate contender in the Pacific Coast Conference for the first time in 19 years.

A day or two later, a West Texas schoolteacher happened to see a publicity photo of Ted Key in her local paper. She recognized the pigskin hero as Clois Francis “Shorty” Key, a student of hers at Vernon High School in the late 1920’s. Without a moment’s hesitation, the educator picked up the phone and dialed the dean of men at UCLA.

The revelation did not come as a complete surprise to Earl J. Miller. Like everybody else at UCLA, he too had heard the rumor that Ted Key had exhausted his four years of athletic eligibility back in Texas and may even be playing under an assumed name. Key’s appearance was enough to arouse suspicion. How many college boys had forehead furrows, crow’s-feet and bags under their eyes?

For Dean Miller his original strategy of looking the other way was no longer an option. The cat was bound to get out of the bag, and his job was to spare the university as much embarrassment as possible.

Five minutes before the kickoff of the UCLA-California game, Miller walked into the Bruin locker room and announced the suspension of Ted Key pending a full investigation. His disheartened teammates trudged onto the field like condemned men to a mass execution and lost by a dozen points.

Attracted by the scent of scandal, a pack of newshounds tracked the fugitive fullback to a swanky section of Los Angeles, where he lived with his father in a cottage on the grounds of a palatial estate. His offspring was unavailable for comment, but James D. Key answered the vile accusation by declaring, “I ought to know my own son.”

With coaches, players and alumni clamoring for Key’s reinstatement before the Saturday showdown with SMU, Dean Miller decided to hop the next train for the Texas Panhandle. The two Keys promised to accompany him but missed the Nov. 5 departure.

In Amarillo Dean interviewed Earl “Ox” Key, a standout at Southern Methodist in the 1920s, who swore up and down UCLA’s Ted was his younger brother. But R.E. Vaughn, school superintendent at Panhandle, positively identified the mystery man as Shorty Key who had played for him at Vernon in 1928. The ex-coach angrily added that letter bearing his signature and vouching for Key’s alias was a forgery.

Pressured into a public update, Dean Miller stated at a Nov. 4 press conference, “I believe as I did last Saturday that our Ted Key is not eligible for football.”  However, he refused to speculate on who the fake fullback might really be.

That issue was resolved when the real Robert F. “Ted” Key finally came forward and spilled the beans. The pride of UCLA with the same name was his cousin Shorty. He sheepishly admitted loaning Shorty his high-school transcript from Panhandle so he could gain admission to the West Coast college and keep on playing football.

Shorty Key at last broke his silence and set the record straight. After graduating high school at Vernon, he played two years for Weatherford Junior College and two more at the Texas School of Mines in El Paso. Refusing to abide by the four-year rule, he masqueraded as “Tex Maness” for a fifth season at Urban Military Academy in suburban Los Angeles before enrolling at UCLA with his kinsman’s credentials.

“Sure, a lot of folks are going to laugh,” Shorty conceded. “But if they knew the hours I’ve spent worrying about the day when I would be exposed, they would understand the hell I’ve gone through.”

The UCLA coach professed astonishment and insisted he never had a clue. “The way Ted and his father stuck together, I’d have sworn he was okay. As it turns out, it looks as if I’m not much of a coach or else I would have had a smart fellow like Ted in there calling the signals.”

SMU, the eventual national champion, blanked Key-less UCLA 21-0. The Bruins rallied to win their final four games and finished in a three-way tie for first place in the PCC, but Stanford went to the Rose Bowl.

Aided by Shorty’s solemn assertion that he kept his dirty little secret to himself, UCLA did not receive so much as a rap on the knuckles for the gross violation of the eligibility rule. Just another “honest” mistake in the scandal-ridden history of college football!

Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at haile@pdq.net or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.