The Frog Prince: Grandson of Roger Staubach Wears TCU Purple

There are any number of things a writer will try to pick up through a binocular scan of the sideline during a football game.

Player interactions, reactions, and emotions can provide context for what is happening out there. Same with the coach. Uh-oh, the trainer is attending to someone. 

Those are merely a few of the things to look for.

However, one inspection last season caused a binocular double take after an initial survey failed to notice anything unusual going on with TCU’s sideline.

The name on the back of No. 43 would catch anybody’s eye. It stood out like a cat at the dog park, or, perhaps, SMU red and blue at the Brown-Lupton University Union.

“Staubach.”

You do not have to be a 50-something sports enthusiast who watched the Dallas Cowboys erect its castles, drawbridges, and stone walls as America’s Team to know the name Staubach. 

Roger Staubach was the original, seemingly immortal mythical figure of the empire that is the Dallas Cowboys. “Captain America” was involved in most of the Cowboys’ earlier epic conquests and the faithful servant who orchestrated one of the most iconic plays — the “Hail Mary” — in NFL history while leading the franchise to four NFL championship game appearances, including victories in Super Bowls VI and XII.

His cultural significance, at least in this part of the country, is tantamount to Elvis, if you’ve ever heard of him, without — as far as I know — the peanut butter, sliced bananas, and crisp bacon sandwiches.

That is not the way Joe Staubach, a graduate of Dallas Jesuit High School, looks at it. Roger Staubach is “granddad,” first and foremost. Yes, of course, he knows all about the history, legend, and heritage, but he is living his own life as a redshirt freshman walk-on wide receiver at TCU. 

When he arrived in Fort Worth a year ago, Joe remembers, the cashier at whatever convenience store he had stopped in immediately recognized the name. When he introduced himself to coaches, they, of course, got it. 

Otherwise, he says, the recognition is “kind of random.”

There was a time, of course, he didn’t even know. 

“I do vividly remember if you’re talking in terms of like, recognition, realizing what [Roger] did,” Joe says. “I was in kindergarten or first grade at Christ the King [elementary school], and a coach asked me about it and kind of explained it to me.”

Joe went to his parents for more details, and that was when “I started to understand that my name, you know, came with recognition and people kind of noticed it.”

The holiday family football games almost certainly began to take on more meaning. Who else among us had Roger Staubach throwing passes to us on Thanksgiving?  

Joe found his way to Fort Worth, above all else, because he wanted to study at the school’s Neeley School of Business. He plans to study finance and real estate. Real estate is the industry of his father and grandfather. Trying out for the football team wasn’t really on his radar until his father, Jeff, counseled him, suggesting he should give it a try, if he wanted. 

With his last name has never come any family pressure or expectation to be the next Roger Staubach on the football field.

“My parents were really great about that,” he says. “I mean, they put me in sports when I was little, which I’m very thankful for, but they never forced me to play.”

It was always about the experience itself, and, “you know, get your energy out and all that stuff.”

“I tried everything, soccer, basketball, baseball, football … whatever it was. And they said, ‘Just go have fun.’ They were never like, ‘You gotta be a quarterback.’ They said, ‘If you’re gonna do it, you’re gonna work hard,’ which is the right way to do it obviously. I was talking to my mom yesterday; she’s like, ‘If you end up not loving it eventually, that’s fine. Do what makes you happy and do it to the best of your ability.’”

Being a “walk-on” in college athletics refers to a student-athlete who joins a university sports team without receiving an athletic scholarship or any form of financial aid specifically for their athletic abilities. Walk-ons are typically responsible for covering their own tuition and other expenses. They earn a spot on the team through tryouts or by simply showing up and expressing an interest in participating.

Walk-ons generally are practice players who help the scholarship athletes prepare for games. Some are or evolve into game-day contributors. Some might even, in time, earn a scholarship. 

But the walk-ons demonstrate a unique level of dedication and commitment because they are essentially donating their time to their team. In addition to no scholarships, there are also none of these newfangled NIL deals. That is, college athletes can now profit off their “name, image, and likeness” — NIL. Some — probably, really, only a relative few nationwide — have deals that pay millions. Typically, though, it’s far less than that, but substantially more than a federal Pell Grant and more than enough to take a date to dinner and a movie every Friday night — out of season, of course. 

Earning a spot as a walk-on also often requires something tantamount to an appointment to a military academy. OK, that’s somewhat of an embellishment, but it can require some politics. Joe Staubach had an ally in Max Knake, the former TCU quarterback, who gave him a recommendation of sorts.

“I wasn’t really ready to hang up the pads,” Joe says. “I wish I had gotten more out of it in high school. I was praying about it, and [his dad] was like, ‘You should give it a shot.’ I thought, all right, we’ll give it a shot.”

TCU might be the only school in the nation — I don’t know — who has two Pro Football Hall of Fame grandsons on its roster. Luke Pardee, a quarterback from Klein Cain High School, is the grandson of Jack Pardee. The native Texan and A&M graduate was a Hall of Fame coach. 

That first year in 2022 was one they’ll both remember very fondly. A magical run — we use that term, “magical” all the time, but is there really any other way to describe it — to the national championship and all the moments along the way is not something either will forget, naturally. 

Joe actually has two grandparents who are former NFL quarterbacks. His maternal grandfather is Jim Ward, who played for the Baltimore Colts and Philadelphia Eagles. Jim Ward was a backup to Johnny Unitas for a spell. His short-lived career was ended by a knee injury delivered at the hands of known quarterback killer Dick Butkus. Ward is one of the few, perhaps only, players drafted in the NFL from tiny Gettysburg College. 

In the fall of 2022, Gettysburg’s enrollment was 2,378, a fraction of the upwards of 51,000 casualties in the better-known Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s worst prediction: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.”

The reader is literally witnessing a popcorn trail in print. Back to the Staubachs.

Joe’s parents, Jeff and Jenny, met through a mutual friend of the Staubachs and Wards. Jenny — and don’t tell anybody — went to SMU. Joe is the oldest of three. His sister, Caroline, plays soccer at Baylor. 

Jeff is one of five children born to Roger and Marianne Staubach, whose family tree includes 17 grandchildren. 

The family is “girl dominant,” Joe notes. 

Joe says his grandfather always told him to “do whatever you want to do. I just love watching it.”

“He’d give advice all the time in football, but the stuff that really stood out to me is the off-the-field advice, like being loyal to others and committing to something, and you don’t quit. And then just my faith life.

That the family is “girl dominant” might seem ironic to some considering Roger’s association with Our Lady. Roger and Marianne’s commitment and devotion to their Catholic faith is well known. 

One of the most famous plays in NFL history is the “Hail Mary,” Roger’s last-second 50-yard desperation pass to Drew Pearson in a playoff game against Minnesota in 1975. 

The pass was completed for a touchdown, and the Cowboys won 17-14. In the locker room afterward, Roger told the media that he merely hoisted the ball and said the “Hail Mary,” a traditional Catholic prayer and devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.

Roger joked while talking to students in Dallas years ago that, “I could have said the ‘Our Father’ or ‘Glory Be.’ It could be the ‘Glory Be Pass.’ It became a term the NFL recognized. The Blessed Virgin is very proud of me. We have a great relationship because of that.”

The Staubachs are noted for living life by the most important tenets. You are to love your neighbor and treat everyone how you want to be treated, regardless of position or title, one’s place in society, or their socioeconomic condition. One is to live a life of service. 

“My senior year of high school I really dove into my faith a lot more,” Joe says. “I hadn’t taken it seriously just because it was kind of like, ‘all right, it’s a class’ in a Catholic high school. But I dove into it and began to really take it seriously. I became consistent of my prayers.”

That stood out to his family.

“My grandparents talked to me about how they were proud of me for doing that. And [his grandfather] told me the off-the-field stuff is twice as important as anything else, the way you treat others. That’s the advice that stands out the most for me.”