BAYLOR RECEIVING GREAT ELKINS EMBODIES BEST OF TEXAS FOLK
By Bob Vickrey
   
Waco Tribune-Herald, August 29, 2012

There was something distinctly familiar and authentic about the voice and accent I heard on a recent telephone voicemail message.

I replayed the message again as I heard that conspicuous Central Texas nasal twang and inflection of the caller’s voice which I quickly recognized as a Baylor University iconic football figure. It was legendary College Hall of Fame receiver Lawrence Elkins who was responding to a letter I had sent him earlier in the week.

By the time I arrived at Baylor in 1964, Elkins’ legacy had already cast an indelible footprint on that campus. His athletic accomplishments had created near celebrity status as he walked across Burleson Quadrangle or through the Student Union Building back then. Even though he exhibited a warm and accessible style, most of us simply looked on from a distance with a self-conscious sense of youthful awe.

When we connected by phone, Lawrence immediately put me at ease with his genuine unpretentious style and welcoming personality. I knew at once he was a natural storyteller and soon realized that he needed very little coaxing from me to begin spinning his colorful tales of a lifetime.

There was something eerily reminiscent in that initial voicemail message which reflected the simple, rural quality and genuine charm that I had remembered in Robert Duvall’s haunting portrayals of Texans during the actor’s long career.

Duvall had affected that same quality in his Oscar-winning performance in the 1983 movie Tender Mercies, and a few years later successfully nailed his role as the philosophical and verbose former Texas Ranger, ‘Captain Augustus McCrea,’ in the 1989 television mini-series Lonesome Dove.

As many of us learned years later, Lawrence Clayton Elkins, the two-time consensus All-America Baylor pass receiver in 1963 and 1964 from Brownwood, had had a direct hand in each of those performances by Duvall. Lawrence had served as Duvall’s ‘coach’ in matters concerning “all things Texan.”

He received a call from an old friend from Houston in the early 1980s and was asked if he would personally assist the actor with speech patterns and mannerisms for his part of down-and-out country singer ‘Mac Sledge’ in director Bruce Beresford’s ‘Mercies.’ When Duvall won the Oscar for best actor the following year, he brought Elkins along to the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles as his special guest that evening.

When Duvall later landed the part of ‘Augustus McCrae’ in Lonesome Dove, he challenged Lawrence to help him find the right voice for the character. They drove to the small West Texas town of Rotan to meet NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Sammy Baugh, and after Duvall spent time studying this bona-fide Texas cowboy, he was more easily able to inhabit the personae of the eccentric and animated Texas Ranger.

As a result of their time spent together, Elkins and Duvall have become lifelong friends and Lawrence and his son Clayton spent a week in May this year visiting the Duvall family ranch in Virginia.

As I listened to the rich experiences of his travels and adventures long after his playing days had ended, that storied football career of his began to fade for me as I became more enamored with the later chapters of Elkin’s life. I could only imagine that his distinct brand of charisma must have traveled well as he brought his Texas warmth and authenticity to the four corners of the globe.

After a short professional football career which was derailed due to injury, he became an international traveler in his job with Brown and Root, where he worked in various fields of contracting all over Europe. He later worked in off-shore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and in Africa.

Elkins spent fourteen years in Saudi Arabia as Consultant to the Minister of Water and Power. His office managed pipelines, pumping stations, and desalination plants along the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. (I tried my best to imagine Lawrence in his cowboy hat surrounded by Saudi government officials dressed in their finest traditional ‘thobes.’)

As Lawrence told me the stories of his globe-trotting life, I was almost transported to a scene around a prairie campfire in Lonesome Dove when ‘Captain McCrae’ finished one of his long eloquent ramblings and philosophically proclaimed to anyone within earshot: “Here’s to the sunny slopes of long ago.”

Several years ago Elkins returned to his Texas hometown and now lives in a spacious bungalow overlooking Lake Brownwood. I’ve imagined that listening to his tales from the back porch surrounded by that expansive country backdrop would only take on an even more textured and embellished detail, so who knows? Perhaps I’ll get that chance one day in the future.

As a prodigal son who had wandered off to Southern California several decades ago, I got a gentle reminder last week of the big-hearted virtues and fundamental goodness of the people from my home state of Texas during my calls with the gracious gentleman from Brownwood.

So Lawrence, here’s to you, for helping me rekindle memories of the contented days of a happy Texas boyhood and also helping me recapture old Gus McCrae’s cherished “sunny slopes of long ago.”

Bob Vickrey is a freelance writer whose columns have appeared in several Southwestern newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. He is a member of the Board of Contributors for the Waco Tribune-Herald and a regular contributor to the Boryana Books website. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California.