Fort Worth Star-Telegram
David O’Brien Jr. is so inundated with TCU sports, he might bleed purple. I mean, being the son of one of college football’s biggest stars has got to come with a bit of a burdensome legacy, right? But after getting off the phone with him, he assured me that this cliché doesn’t come close to how he and his father conversed. In fact, O’Brien verified that his dad never really brought up the gridiron glory days unless a fan would recognize him in public. O’Brien says his dad always told him that TCU did more for him than he did for TCU.
“He was a very modest person, and he loved his team, and he loved his coach and the game of football,” O’Brien says with pride. “He would talk to people about football if they brought it up, but he was never one to brag on himself.”
The glory days he is referring to happened 84 years ago when TCU won the 1938 Sugar Bowl with a 15-7 victory over the Carnegie Tech Tartans, the capstone of a season that also saw the Horned Frogs claim their first, and to date only, national title.
That could all be updated tonight if the No. 3 Frogs upend No. 1 Georgia, the defending champions, in the national championship game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
The quarterback who helped aid the Frogs to the title in 1938 was O’Brien’s father, David O’Brien Sr. — and known colloquially as Davey. With their innovative, high-flying offense, O’Brien Sr. would also receive the Heisman Trophy and the Maxwell Award during that hallowed year. In 1939, the Philadelphia Eagles selected Davey with the fourth overall pick, where he played for two seasons before joining another team — the FBI. Despite his colorful life and subsequent accolades, according to his son, Davey remained best known for his Sugar Bowl win.
“This game was a big deal,” he says. “I still have people come up to me and tell me that their grandparents attended the Sugar Bowl.”
And, like the story book ending of a homecoming queen marrying the star quarterback, Davey went on to wed the 1938 Sugar Bowl Queen. Talk about a family that encapsulates the essence of winning.
But this victory wouldn’t have happened without the tutelage of one of TCU’s other famous quarterbacks — Sammy Baugh. O’Brien recalled that his father really hit it off with Baugh, the starting quarterback during Davey’s first year as a Horned Frog. The two were so close, in fact, that O’Brien says Baugh even named one of his sons Davey O’Brien Baugh in honor of their bond.
“I mean there’s really no higher honor than that,” O’Brien says with a laugh.
But Baugh wasn’t the only teammate who hit it off with O’Brien Sr. As O’Brien Jr. puts it, a lot of his father’s teammates from the championship team continued to stay present in his life for many years.
“A lot of those people that he played with, like Ki Aldrich, I.B. Hale, and Don Looney were just people that I knew growing up. I can’t say that I idolized them, I just knew that they played with my father,” O’Brien says. “But they were close with my dad.”
As for his moniker, O’Brien says his father always signed everything David, not Davey. “I mean I’m a junior, so the last thing I wanted was to be called Davey,” he says. “But if people called him Davey in public he would respond and be gracious, but to him, his name was David.”
O’Brien says his father’s graciousness continued throughout the years in the form of TCU support. According to O’Brien, his father would stop by TCU practices and talk with the coaches and encourage the players. And if TCU asked his father to do anything, he would do it.
One of his father's biggest standout moments as a supporter of the school happened when O’Brien Jr. was attending TCU as a graduate student in the early 70s. He says the Horned Frogs of that era were beaten often.
“I remember one game, it was the beginning of the fourth quarter after a humiliating game for TCU, and my mother said, ‘David, let’s go home.’” he opined. “I’ll never forget what my father said, he said ‘I don’t leave them when they’re winning, and I’m not going to leave them when they’re losing.’”
As for the current Horned Frogs football team, O’Brien says his father would be pleased to see how far they’ve come. I mean if he wouldn’t leave the team when they were losing, I can imagine he would be rooting for the Frogs emphatically, like the rest of us.
“I think out of all of the great TCU quarterbacks over the years, I think my father would’ve appreciated Max Duggan, more than any of them,” O’Brien says. “He’s modest, he’s always giving credit to his teammates, and mainly he just doesn’t quit.”
This marks a full-circle moment for Duggan, who won the Davey O’Brien and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Awards in 2022. Not bad when the son of an award’s namesake speaks so glowingly of its recipient.
As for his prediction for tonight's game, O’Brien says TCU will give Georgia all it can handle.