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Tuesday
February 9, 2010 Since 1922 |
Asst. principal was talk of ’85 Aggies
By Dave Rogers
The Baytown Sun Published November 26, 2009 These days he’s hardly a household name, except in his own household. And he’s for sure no Internet sensation.
Yet a careful search of the Internet recalls the time nearly a quarter of a century ago when current Robert E. Lee assistant principal Marshall Land was the talk of the college football world for the Texas A&M Aggies.
Not so much for his playing, but for his size, the Land Mass as it were.
• An archived edition of the The NCAA News from 1985 reported that Texas A&M had signed an offensive lineman named Marshall Land who stood 6 feet, 7 inches tall and weighed 378 pounds. This was noteworthy, because 25 years ago, 300-pound players were almost unheard of.
• Rick Reilly, long before he was named national sports writer of the year several years running, mentioned Land in a column in the 1985 Sports Illustrated college football preview, joking the 378-pounder “used to be 400, but thanks to his regimented dieting, he’s a mere shadow of his former self.”
• Several years later, Land drew mention in another edition of the NCAA News in a quip by a former Aggie equipment manager who reported his toughest task had been finding shoes for Land, who wore size 17 1/2.
“Turns out I wear size 20 shoes,” Land said earlier this week in an interview with the Baytown Sun occasioned by the 116th renewal today of the Texas-Texas A&M football rivalry.
Land says he’s now 6-8 and 347 pounds, down from the 500-plus pounds he weighed before having Lap-Band surgery several years ago.
“I love to eat,” Land said. “But it amazes me now. I can eat half a sandwich and I’m done.
“I love Blue Bell (ice cream), though. It slides right down that tube.”
Land, 46, is a Baytown native who grew up just across the railroad tracks from Robert E. Lee High School, where he played football for coach Ron Kramer and graduated in 1982.
“But I wasn’t much of a player in high school,” he said. “I didn’t learn how to play football until I got to A&M.”
He comes by his size naturally, it turns out. His grandfather, Marshall Land Sr. – he’s Marshall Land III – stood 6-9 and weighed more than 400 pounds, Land said.
Marshall Land Jr., the ex-player’s dad, was only 6-4, Land says, and his mother, astonishingly, was 4 feet, 11 inches tall. He said he has two brothers who are “normal” in stature, each well under 200 pounds.
Land was listed at 6-8, 320 when he signed with Texas Tech out of high school. But he never attended that school, going instead to play for two years at Sacramento City College in California.
Texas A&M assistant coach Paul Register convinced him to sign in 1985 with Texas A&M instead of Arizona State.
That and his family.
“I could have gone anywhere but I wanted to get back this way so my parents could see me play,” Land said. “And I’m glad I did.”
Land was a member of coach Jackie Sherrill’s first two Southwest Conference championship teams at A&M, in 1985 and 1986, teams that played in the Cotton Bowl, winning against Bo Jackson’s Auburn Tigers and losing to Cris Carter’s Ohio State Buckeyes.
Aggie teammates included future NFL stars Roger Vick, Rod Bernstine, Louis Cheek, Johnny Holland, Jerry Fontenot, John Roper and Richmond Webb, along with current Beaumont West Brook head coach Craig Stump.
A bad knee ended Land’s playing career and he took his own spin at coaching, beginning at Baytown’s Highlands Junior School and working up to a spot on the Aldine Nimitz staff.
But his late wife Susan was diagnosed with cancer in 1996, the year their daughter Sidnee was born. Land left coaching so he could spend more time with his family, which also includes son Marshall IV, now 18 and a student at Lee College.
He has worked with at-risk students in the Gang Activity Prevention (GAP) program in Baytown, a forerunner to Community In Schools, at a charter school in Houston and at Milby High. This is his fifth year as an assistant principal at Lee.
With his youngest child about to enter high school and remarried to Kimberly, Land looks down the road and can see himself getting back into coaching.
“I may do it,” he said wistfully.
The Baytown Sun Published November 26, 2009 These days he’s hardly a household name, except in his own household. And he’s for sure no Internet sensation.
Yet a careful search of the Internet recalls the time nearly a quarter of a century ago when current Robert E. Lee assistant principal Marshall Land was the talk of the college football world for the Texas A&M Aggies.
Not so much for his playing, but for his size, the Land Mass as it were.
• An archived edition of the The NCAA News from 1985 reported that Texas A&M had signed an offensive lineman named Marshall Land who stood 6 feet, 7 inches tall and weighed 378 pounds. This was noteworthy, because 25 years ago, 300-pound players were almost unheard of.
• Rick Reilly, long before he was named national sports writer of the year several years running, mentioned Land in a column in the 1985 Sports Illustrated college football preview, joking the 378-pounder “used to be 400, but thanks to his regimented dieting, he’s a mere shadow of his former self.”
• Several years later, Land drew mention in another edition of the NCAA News in a quip by a former Aggie equipment manager who reported his toughest task had been finding shoes for Land, who wore size 17 1/2.
“Turns out I wear size 20 shoes,” Land said earlier this week in an interview with the Baytown Sun occasioned by the 116th renewal today of the Texas-Texas A&M football rivalry.
Land says he’s now 6-8 and 347 pounds, down from the 500-plus pounds he weighed before having Lap-Band surgery several years ago.
“I love to eat,” Land said. “But it amazes me now. I can eat half a sandwich and I’m done.
“I love Blue Bell (ice cream), though. It slides right down that tube.”
Land, 46, is a Baytown native who grew up just across the railroad tracks from Robert E. Lee High School, where he played football for coach Ron Kramer and graduated in 1982.
“But I wasn’t much of a player in high school,” he said. “I didn’t learn how to play football until I got to A&M.”
He comes by his size naturally, it turns out. His grandfather, Marshall Land Sr. – he’s Marshall Land III – stood 6-9 and weighed more than 400 pounds, Land said.
Marshall Land Jr., the ex-player’s dad, was only 6-4, Land says, and his mother, astonishingly, was 4 feet, 11 inches tall. He said he has two brothers who are “normal” in stature, each well under 200 pounds.
Land was listed at 6-8, 320 when he signed with Texas Tech out of high school. But he never attended that school, going instead to play for two years at Sacramento City College in California.
Texas A&M assistant coach Paul Register convinced him to sign in 1985 with Texas A&M instead of Arizona State.
That and his family.
“I could have gone anywhere but I wanted to get back this way so my parents could see me play,” Land said. “And I’m glad I did.”
Land was a member of coach Jackie Sherrill’s first two Southwest Conference championship teams at A&M, in 1985 and 1986, teams that played in the Cotton Bowl, winning against Bo Jackson’s Auburn Tigers and losing to Cris Carter’s Ohio State Buckeyes.
Aggie teammates included future NFL stars Roger Vick, Rod Bernstine, Louis Cheek, Johnny Holland, Jerry Fontenot, John Roper and Richmond Webb, along with current Beaumont West Brook head coach Craig Stump.
A bad knee ended Land’s playing career and he took his own spin at coaching, beginning at Baytown’s Highlands Junior School and working up to a spot on the Aldine Nimitz staff.
But his late wife Susan was diagnosed with cancer in 1996, the year their daughter Sidnee was born. Land left coaching so he could spend more time with his family, which also includes son Marshall IV, now 18 and a student at Lee College.
He has worked with at-risk students in the Gang Activity Prevention (GAP) program in Baytown, a forerunner to Community In Schools, at a charter school in Houston and at Milby High. This is his fifth year as an assistant principal at Lee.
With his youngest child about to enter high school and remarried to Kimberly, Land looks down the road and can see himself getting back into coaching.
“I may do it,” he said wistfully.