Oct. 3, 2016
Phil King (1955-57) was a legend running the football at Vanderbilt. He excelled in the SEC as one of the top conference backs and played in five NFL championship games in six seasons with the New York Giants. The 6-foot-4, 205-pounder that starred in football (All-State), basketball and baseball at Dyersburg (TN) High School arrived on the Vanderbilt campus in September 1954.
King scored the tying touchdown for the East team in the East-West All-American High School game in Memphis. As a Commodore playing for Coach Art Guepe, he missed his entire freshman season due to a back injury, but in 1955 out-gained all other SEC sophomores with 628 rushing yards (6.4 yards per carry). He was named Third Team All-SEC and All-South by International News Service.
The Commodores played in the 1955 Gator Bowl (27-13 win over Auburn), which was their first-ever postseason game. A touchdown by King was wiped out in that game due to a penalty. King also played on defense in the secondary. A Vanderbilt press release said about King, “In the broken field King flashes his quick, elusive speed of the deer, but at the line of scrimmage he uses the crunching power of the buffalo. On defense he cuts down a runner with the sudden slash of a bear, or leaps to snare a pass out of the air with the keenness of the eagle.”
Known to his teammates as “Chief” due to his Cherokee Indian ancestry, King was also described as an “unusually versatile runner with both power and speed; he is a rugged tackler and a dangerous threat on pass defense; he is a capable passer and a great receiver; he is a powerful punter, a tremendous kick-off man, and a cool kicker on vital extra points.”
As a junior, King played his way to All-SEC (First Team) honors as he led the Commodores in rushing (651 yards), total offense (651 yards), punt returns (247 yards), kickoff returns (137 yards) and scoring (47 points). King was 5-of-7 on PAT’s while scoring seven touchdowns. Another Vanderbilt press release dated November 15, 1956 reported on King’s toughness and determination during the 1956 season:
“The Chief” has accomplished this despite a multitude of physical ailments. He was stricken with a ‘strep’ throat just before the opener against Georgia, but he led Vanderbilt to a 14-0 win by gaining 102 yards (rushing, returning and receiving) with a temperature of 102 degrees.
“The next week against Chattanooga he was weak and underweight, but flashed 36 yards for the game’s first TD. Next week against Alabama a head cold had kept him from regaining his strength, but he rammed through the Tide for 2 TD’s. Against Middle Tennessee three weeks later he scored to regain the load for Vandy twice, and made the longest Vanderbilt punt return on record (93 yards), before a charley horse hit him.
“Though still nursing the bruised hip the next week against Virginia, Phil was the defensive hero here in a 6-2 mud fest, and he sustained a bruised kidney. Last week against Kentucky, King gained at a rate of 4.7 yards for his 10 carries, and picked up a bruised knee. Phil has not had a regular day’s practice since Oct. 25.
“The Chief” is a fighter. With that football under his arm he is a wild horse, who defies captivity with every ounce of muscle and spirit. When King is carrying, even the spectators in the upper tier can see the strength of muscles in his long legs, the strain of his neck, the fierceness in his face, as he fights forward for every extra yard.”
The senior co-captain was the only SEC returning player with over 1,000 career-rushing yards and the leading returning scorer with a two-year total of 77 points. King earned Second Team All-SEC in leading the Commodores in rushing for the third straight season with 438 yards (averaging over five yards per carry). He finished his career as Vanderbilt’s second all-time rusher (1, 717 yards). King was also on the Commodores’ track team as a sprinter and javelin thrower.
King was invited to play in the Blue-Gray Classic and the Senior Bowl and named an Academic All-American. Playing in an era of dominating defenses, conservative offenses and fewer games, King’s 1,717 career-rushing yards would rank him as one of the top Commodores’ running backs in history.
The New York Giants in the first round of the 1958 NFL Draft selected King with the No. 12 pick overall. In the 1958 season, King was selected as the NFL Rookie of the Year while rushing for 316 yards (83 attempts), 134 yards receiving (11 receptions) and one rushing TD. King played as a back-up to Hall of Famer Frank Gifford while the Giants made it to the NFL Championship game with the Baltimore Colts. Considered “The Greatest Game Played” the Colts defeated the Giants 23-17 in sudden death overtime.
King played in other NFL Championship games with the Giants in 1959 (Colts 31 Giants 16), 1961 (Packers 37 Giants 0), 1962 (Packers 16 Giants 7) and 1963 (Bears 14 Giants 10). In 1963, King led the Giants in rushing with 613 yards (161 attempts) for a 3.8 average and three touchdowns. In the 1963 NFL championship game, King played against former Vanderbilt quarterback Bill Wade (1949-51) who scored the Bears only two touchdowns in the Chicago victory.
King finished his NFL career with Pittsburgh (1964) and Minnesota (1965-66). His NFL career totals include103 games, 2,192 yards (569 carries, 3.9 avg.), 16 touchdowns (seven rushing) with his longest run from scrimmage 50 yards. King worked for a company in New Jersey, but living in Nashville at the time of his death at age 36 in January 1973. In Memphis, on business, King accidentally shot himself in a motel room and was buried in Nashville.
Tennessean sports writer John Bibb wrote at the time of King’s death:
“I’ll leave the stories of Phil King’s football accomplishments to the record books and the newspaper files. They are in abundance, detailing a career of successes from high school and college right on through the professional game.
“There is another Phil King story you should know. It has nothing to do with the crowded stadiums in which he played. It has nothing to do with the delightful easy-going way he had of making a friend laugh, even at an old story.
“It has nothing to do with the way he put his words together to mesmerize an audience when he explained the virtues of college athletics, ‘and what my scholarship meant to me.’ It has to do instead with a guy who was never too busy to overlook a chance to help somebody.
“Yesterday Jess Neely [Vandy AD at the time and former Rice head football coach], one of King’s favorites and a man who had tried to recruit Phil for Rice University back in 1953 was talking about the tragedy in Memphis. ‘You know, I can’t help but to remember Phil and the recent Sunday where we were getting all that snow,’ said Coach Neely. ‘Dorothy (Mrs. Neely) had put some food out for the birds in our back yard. She glanced out the window and noticed a big dog coming through the yard.
“‘She was sure the dog was going to get the bird food, so she asked me to chase him away. I went outside, and there was Phil and a couple of youngsters. They had climbed the hill to our home.
“‘Coach,’ he said, ‘I know it’s going to be tough for you and Mrs. Neely to get out of here if the snow keeps falling. We’re walking to the store and stopped to see if you needed anything we might bring back.’”
“For Phil King there was no hill too steep, no block too difficult if it meant helping a friend. Few Vanderbilt athletes have been respected, admired and loved than Phil King. His teammates are coming from all corners of the country to be in Nashville on this sad day. One of them is Joe Stephenson, a senior end on the Gator Bowl team with King.
“‘Looking back, Phil, although just a sophomore, was really one of us from the start,’ said Stephenson. ‘He didn’t gain as much yardage his junior year as he did as a sophomore. All of the Gator Bowl line, except Art Demmas had graduated.
“‘When we would ask him how things were going the next year (1956), Phil would laugh and say, ‘the holes are a little smaller than usual, but The Chief can get through.’”
King was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1976.
Traughber’s Tidbit: I would like to thank Buddy Stack (1952-53, 1955) for inviting me to the Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame Banquet earlier this month. Stack was a member of the 1955 Gator Bowl team and was one of several in nominating their teammate All-American Charley Horton (1952-55) who was inducted. There were six tables filled with Horton’s teammates, guests and friends. At my table I sat between Jim Cunningham (1953-55) and Larry Frank (1952-55) who told me great stories about playing football for Vanderbilt and the interesting lives they have lived. I made some new friends that night. To read an interview with Charley Horton go to Commodore History Corner Archives and locate November 6, 1913.
