By Lee Davis
Darwin Holt’s compact size, bright smile and friendly demeanor make it easy to forget that at one time he was perhaps the finest linebacker in college football.
Holt was a member of the 1961 University of Alabama Crimson Tide, perhaps the most near-perfect team in the school’s illustrious football history. Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was in the fourth year of an extensive rebuilding program when everything came together to produce a juggernaut. The Crimson Tide was never seriously challenged that season, rolling through 10 games, yielding a mere 22 points. The perfect season was capped with a 10-3 win over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl, as Alabama claimed its first of six national titles under Bryant.
Even many pre-teens steeped in the Crimson Tide tradition can name members of that team; the legacies of quarterback Pat Trammell, tackle Billy Neighbors and end Bill Battle endure to this day. But the lesser-celebrated Holt may have been the best player on the country’s top defensive unit.
“I’ve got no regrets,” said Holt, when visited at his home in Vestavia Hills last week. “I’ve had a great life. I’ve got a lot for which to be thankful.”
Holt grew up as an athletic prodigy in Gainesville, Texas. He qualified for the ninth-grade varsity football team as a sixth-grader, with his toughness and tenacity making up for his lack of size. As a baseball player, Holt pitched a one hitter, striking out 26 batters in a 1-0 loss that lasted 13 innings. His older brother, Jack, was an outstanding athlete as well and went on to play for Coach Bud Wilkinson at the University of Oklahoma.
By the time Holt was a senior, he had earned All-State and All-American honors. He was a top college prospect and committed to Texas A&M, which was coached by Bryant.
Things changed, however, when Bryant left for Alabama following Holt’s freshman season.
Jim Myers, the new Aggie coach, wanted Holt–who weighed less than 175 pounds- to gain weight, so the determined young linebacker decided to make a change.
“I was recruited by Oklahoma, Texas Tech and a lot of other places,” Holt said. “If SMU had called, I would have gone there, because at the time I wanted to be a minister.”
SMU didn’t call, but Paul Bryant did. Bryant wasn’t concerned about Holt’s size because the coach knew about Holt’s strength and toughness. So after sitting out the 1958 season, Holt headed to Tuscaloosa in 1959.
Upon reaching the Capstone, Holt quickly learned that the Bryant who coached at Alabama wasn’t much different than the Bryant who had developed a hard-nosed reputation at Texas A&M.
“When I was at A&M, we always heard the Junction Boys (members of Bryant’s first team at Texas A&M) talk about how tough it was,” Holt recalled, chuckling. “Well, Coach Bryant may have changed locales, but he didn’t change his techniques when he got to Alabama. That first year, so many guys left that I had three different roommates.”
Nobody could argue with Bryant’s results. The Crimson Tide, which had won only four games in the three years before Bryant arrived, went 5-4-1 in his first season. Alabama was picked to be even better in 1959. Holt was expected to a big part of the success, but a knee injury forced him to miss the season.
“I had to wear a large knee cast for weeks,” Holt said. “But I went to all the games. I got to fly on the school plane with Dr. (Frank) Rose (the University president) to the away games.”
Despite the loss of Holt, Alabama posted a 7-1-2 record before losing to Penn State in the Liberty Bowl.
By 1960, the Crimson Tide had re-entered the national discussion as one of the finest programs in college football. And Holt was ready to be a part of it–although he was still hardly a giant at 5’7” and 167 pounds.
“Coach Bryant always said he didn’t care how big I was,” Holt said. “He cared about quickness and toughness, and that was the kind of football I loved to play.”
The practices were as tough as ever, but Holt remembers some fun times as well.
“The old practice field was behind a large girls’ dorm, and if you were facing the dorm you could–let’s just say get a good view of the girls,” Holt said, laughing. “We rotated which day our coaches faced the dorm and which day the players did. Coach (Pat) James, our position coach, always wanted to face the dorm, but we’d have to tell him when it wasn’t his turn.”
Holt quickly moved into a starting post at linebacker in the single platoon system. He became the signal-caller for the defense, calling the formations for nearly every play, on the way to becoming–quite literally–a coach on the field.
“I spent hours studying the opponents and their tendencies,” Holt said. “I had to know their offenses as well as their quarterback did. I don’t see how anyone can think football players are dumb, because there is a lot to learn in order to be successful.”
The season’s highlight may have come in Atlanta on Nov. 12, when a 5-1-1 Alabama team rolled into Grant Field to play old rival Georgia Tech.
The first half belonged to the hosts as the Yellow Jackets roared to a 15-0 halftime lead.
“I’ll never forget it,” Holt said. “We all thought Coach Bryant would come in the dressing room and start throwing things. Instead, he clapped his hands and said ‘Okay, we have them right where we want them.’ Some of us wondered what game he was watching.”
Bryant turned out to be right. Thanks to some adjustments Holt called for the defense, Georgia Tech was held scoreless in the second half, and Alabama staged a brilliant rally to win 16-15 on a last-second field goal.
The Crimson Tide went on to finish the season with an 8-1-2 mark.
As Alabama prepared for what looked to be a championship-type season in 1961, Holt suffered another knee injury during spring practice. As a result, he never practiced in pads for the rest of his career at Alabama.
Holt and the Tide rolled through 1961 with a perfect slate, giving up only three touchdowns the entire season. Decades later, a national news organization would rank the 1961 Alabama defense as the greatest in college football history. Holt continued to call defensive signals, just as quarterback Trammell called the offense.
“People tried to say our success on defense was due to teamwork, but it was really the opposite,” Holt said. “Our defense was more about individualism. Everybody wanted to be the one who made the tackle.”
Some of the rival offenses that Holt prepared for had the look of the 21st century.
“We had to prepare for every situation,” he said. “Everybody thinks the spread offense is something new, but Auburn ran the spread against us in 1961, so there’s really nothing new out there.”
Holt and his teammates had no trouble stopping the Tigers’ spread as Alabama romped to a 34-0 victory.
The win over the Tigers also saw a memorable play, when Holt picked off an Auburn pass.
“It was the last play of the first half, and I intercepted the ball,” he said, smiling. “I was running toward the goal as the horn went off ending the half. Coach Bryant and everyone started walking toward the dressing room while I was still running. I gained about 30 yards before an Auburn player finally tackled me. It was like Coach Bryant thought I wasn’t fast enough to score.”
While Alabama’s 1961 season was golden, there was a downside for Holt in the ninth game. He was the target of vicious and unfair accusations of dirty play in a particularly hard-fought 10-0 win over Georgia Tech at Legion Field. Atlanta sportswriters with their own agenda fueled the controversy, but Bryant, the University–and the entire state of Alabama–stood firmly behind Holt.
“Coach Bryant believed in tough, hard-hitting football but wouldn’t put up with a guy who played dirty for two seconds,” Holt said. “I wasn’t the kind of player who got penalties.”
The brouhaha faded into the background weeks later, when Alabama was named national champion by both the Associated Press and United Press International.
Holt, an outstanding student who graduated in less than four years, played for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League and had a brief stint in coaching before entering private business. But he never stopped bleeding crimson and white. Holt still holds with great pride a newspaper clipping from early in the 1962 season where Bryant is asked to assess his team, which was led by All-American linebacker Lee Roy Jordan and quarterback Joe Namath.
“We still don’t have a Darwin Holt,” Bryant is quoted as saying.
Holt has shown his love for his university in more tangible ways. He founded the First and Ten Club, an organization that helps newly-graduated former Alabama players start careers.
“I went to see Coach Bryant about the idea I had about starting the club,” he said. “He said that a lot of people come to him with great ideas and that I should just go and do it and then come back and tell him about it. That’s exactly what I did.”
Now retired, Holt lives quietly with his wife and beams with pride about his two adult daughters, who are the lights of his life. He still keeps up with his former Crimson Tide teammates on a regular basis and loves to talk about those great days nearly six decades ago.
“It’s been a great life,” Holt said. “I’ve been blessed in so many ways.”
And getting to know Darwin Holt is a blessing, too.
