My father, Sammy McCall Jr., passed away yesterday…. His best friend and football team-mate at Cottonwood High School (Alabama), Rex Granger, passed away a while back. In 1955 they won the Peanut Bowl against Ozark. According to Rex, those ol’ country boys from Cottonwood showed them “City Boys” from Ozark they could give as good as they got. I’m sure the two of them are tossing touchdowns in heaven as we speak. That championship game came down to the 4th quarter with a desperate last minute pass from Sammy to Rex for a touchdown. I will never forget hearing them talk about it over the next 56 years. Rex saying, “It was a horribly wobbly pass and it was only my great athletic ability that enabled the ball to be caught” and Sammy saying, “It was a perfect pass because I knew it had to perfect for someone as sorry as you (Rex) to be able to catch the darn thing.” Who was right, we’ll never know… unless you were there to see it.
Other members of that 1955 Championship team were B.J. McCardle, James Mercer, Robert Love, Earl Johnson, Rex Granger, Dorman Whitehead, Jimmy Hardy, La Don Hall, Harold Burnham, Bobby Harrison, David Baxley, Jimmy Goff, Eulon Holland, Willie McCall, Robert Robinson, Carl Guy, John Goff, Emmett Wiggins, Rex Womack, Mickey Battles, Billy Cameron, Jimmy Hammett, Hardy Whitehead, Billy Goff, R.Q. Taylor, and Hilton Walker. Their coach was Coach Maddox.
To the surviving members of that 1955 Championship team, dad talked about you all the time. And I know this, he loved you all. The stories he told of ya’ll reached mythical proportions as the years passed.
Obituary
Sammy McCall Jr., passed away yesterday at home after a short illness. He was born June 16, 1938 in Cottonwood, Alabama to Samuel Mason McCall and Eula Rich McCall. He was a 1956 graduate of Cottonwood High School.
Mr. McCall worked in retail for many years and from 1974 until 1991 he was a partner/owner of Saben Appliance which grew into a 10 store chain of appliance/electronic stores. In later years he was in real estate.
He was preceded in death by his parents, and brothers, Theodore, Edward, and Earl Gene.
He is survived by his wife of over 50 years, Eleanor “Mullins” McCall, and his two sons Michael and Samuel, along with his sisters, Patty Sue Fowler, Sarah Pitts, and Lonnell Clark.