Billy Truax to be Inducted into Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame

by Ken Berthelot

Allstate Sugar Bowl to Host Annual Awards Banquet on Saturday, August 10, in the Superdome

NEW ORLEANS – If you’re looking to confirm the high level of success achieved at every step of Billy Truax’s football career, consider this: He was all-prep, all-state and All-America at Holy Cross, and in 1959, the Times-Picayune four-sport Athlete of the Year at Holy Cross; a 1963 first team All-America and All-Southeastern Conference tight end at LSU, and a second-round NFL draft choice who went on to a 10-year pro career winning a Super Bowl championship with the Dallas Cowboys (Super Bowl VI).

For his outstanding career at all levels, Truax will be one of four inductees into the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, August 10 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. “I am so pleased and honored to be included in this exclusive group of those that have come before me, all real sports icons in the city of New Orleans,” said Truax. “This honor galvanizes my 64-year history and bond with the city of New Orleans.”

Each year’s Hall of Fame class is selected by the Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, a group of current and former media members who annually recognize a variety of award-winners, including the Hall of Fame, the Corbett Awards and the Eddie Robinson Award. The group also selects the Greater New Orleans Amateur Athlete of the Month each month.

A total of 26 individuals, including this year’s Hall of Fame class, and two teams will be honored at this year’s banquet.

Truax, who now lives in Nebraska, acknowledges that his pass-receiving totals would appear downright skimpy in comparison to today’s tight ends, who figure far more prominently in today’s modern offenses. But the numbers do not tell the whole story.

“Oh, I loved to catch the football,” said Truax, a 6-5, 240-pounder who was a physical prototype for today’s tight ends. “[But when I played], many coaches thought if you threw the football, three things could happen and two of them were bad.”

The tremendous success for Truax at Holy Cross was based on a simple formula from coach John Kalbacher. “It was mostly safe pass plays for a big tight end,” Billy chuckled. “He told our quarterback, ‘Just throw the ball up high and Truax will go get it.’”

When he played at LSU, the Tigers’ conservatism was no exception to the rule of college football offense at that time. Still, from 1961 through ’63, Truax caught just 18 passes for 324 yards and two touchdowns, and he was voted first-team All-SEC as a senior, when he also played some defense, intercepting two passes and recovering three fumbles.

Though Truax was used primarily as a blocker, he still showed enough with the Tigers to be a second-round pick of the Cleveland Browns. After missing his first season due to injury, he was traded to the Rams. When George Allen was named head coach of the Rams, he made Truax a full-time tight end where his size as a blocker and hands as a receiver saw his career flourish with 37 receptions, tied for second on the team, and his 487 yards receiving were tied for third in 1967. He had four touchdowns.

Playing with a broken bone in his left wrist in 1968, he led the Rams in receiving with 35 catches for 417 yards, fourth on the team, and three touchdowns. For the next two years, Billy ranked in the top four on the team for receptions and receiving yards, and he scored eight touchdowns.

In May 1971, Truax was traded to the Cowboys. Despite being hampered by injuries for much of the year, he had 15 receptions for 232 yards and one touchdown; and he was a part of the Cowboys’ Super Bowl VI championship team.
“Super Bowl VI meant even more to me because it was in Tulane Stadium in New Orleans in front of friends and family. I had played every game that season with the injury and I wasn’t going to miss the Super Bowl in my New Orleans,” Billy smiled.

Further injuries forced him into retirement in 1973 after a seven-year career in which he caught 199 passes for 2,458 yards and 17 touchdowns.

Maybe the numbers do tell the real story of William Frederick “Billy” Truax after all. He was, more than anything, a winner, his teams going 18-8-2 in four seasons at Holy Cross, 26-6-1 at LSU (with victories over Texas in the Cotton Bowl and Colorado in the Orange Bowl) and 89-45-6 in the NFL, with five playoff appearances and that Super Bowl title.

The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee began in 1957 when James Collins spearheaded a group of sports journalists to form a sports awards committee to immortalize local sports history. For 13 years, the committee honored local athletes each month. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, honoring 10 legends from the Crescent City in its first induction class. While adding the responsibility of selecting Hall of Famers, the committee has continued to recognize the top amateur athlete in the Greater New Orleans area each month – the honors enter their 63rd year in 2019. To be eligible, an athlete must be a native of the greater New Orleans area or must compete for a team in the metropolitan region.

The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 28 national champions, 93 Hall of Fame players, 50 Hall of Fame coaches and 18 Heisman Trophy winners in its 85-year history. The 86th Allstate Sugar Bowl Football Classic, featuring top teams from the Big 12 and the SEC, will be played on January 1, 2020. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1.6 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors over 100,000 student-athletes each year, while injecting over $2.5 billion into the local economy in the last decade. For more information, visit www.AllstateSugarBowl.org.