BILLY GUY ANDERSON
Billy Guy Anderson
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Billy Guy Anderson
BILLY GUY ANDERSON was born February 17, 1941 in Palmer, Texas. He started his record-breaking football career as a Ferris Yellow
Jacket. He was Class President, Captain of both the basketball and football teams, made the All-District Team in football, made the first
All-District boys’ basketball team, elected Most Popular, Who’s Who, and performed in the junior and senior plays.
Upon graduation from Ferris, he began at Navarro Junior College where he was a junior college All-American. He soon transferred and
played football at the University of Tulsa (TU). In the 1960s, Tulsa took the collegiate passing game to a level never seen before.
Anderson averaged nearly 318 yards in 1964, and a year later, increased that average to 346 yards.. Anderson helped revolutionize the
way college football was played.
Anderson started for only one season, in 1965. But in that season Anderson broke most of the records his friend and more celebrated
teammate, Jerry Rhome, set in 1964. He led the nation in passing and total offense while setting school records for most passing yards in
one game (502) against Colorado State, most passing yards in a season (3,464), most completions for a game (42) and most passing
attempts in one game (65). Completing 58 percent of his passes, he had 30 touchdown passes in 1965. Anderson set TU's single-game
records with six touchdown passes against Cincinnati, 42 completions against Southern Illinois, and 502 yards against Colorado State. He
was an All-Missouri Valley Conference performer his senior season. The same year, he led TU to the Bluebonnet Bowl and an 8-3 record
while leading the nation in passing and was named second team All-American. Anderson threw the first touchdown pass in Astrodome
history - to Galena Park's Howard Twilley - when Tulsa defeated University of Houston 14-0 in 1965, the first football game ever played in
the Dome. Anderson led the nation in passing that year. These records were not challenged until 1989 by University of Houston
Quarterback Andre Ware. He also set nine national passing records that year and entered the Guinness Book of World Records.
After a career in the National Football League with the Los Angeles Rams, Houston Oilers and Philadelphia Eagles, Anderson used his
TU contacts to enter the oil pipeline supply business. Living between London and Houston, he settled permanently in Houston and started
his own pipeline business during the oil boom of the late '70s.
In 1986, he was inducted into TU's Athletic Hall of Fame.
Billy Guy Anderson was diagnosed in December of 1994 and was dying of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the same incurable
disease that killed Yankee slugger Lou Gehrig, when he returned to have his University of Tulsa football jersey retired in 1995. His jersey
(No. 14) was the seventh to be retired by TU in a touching ceremony during a reunion of the 1964 and 1965 Bluebonnet Bowl teams.
Anderson passed away from complications due to ALS April 11, 1996. His dedication to the game and to his family is how we will
remember him.
AND HE WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMEBERD HERE AT THE FERRIS ISD AND IN THE COMMUNITY OF FERRIS,TX