Ray "Stump" Asbury

At the Magazine Senior Night game this week, a bearded fellow walked up to me before the game and said, "Do you remember me?" After a moment's reflection it came to me. It was Ray Asbury, a classmate of mine whom I had not seen for years. Ray was probably about 5'5" tall, and weighed 190# - built like a block of granite. He was the fullback on our football team in the Wishbone offensive system that we ran, and was ideal for that scheme. He ran hard, and obviously was very low to the ground and very difficult to tackle. We called him "Stump." After we got thrashed in the rain in the first round of the playoffs by Alma, Marvin Daily, their star player who was signed by the Razorbacks, made a special trip to our locker room. "Where's that fullback?" he asked. "He runs hard." And he certainly did. I remember in the Purple and Gold pre-season game I was playing safety, and on one play the line opened up (seemingly almost by design) and Ray came chugging through without anyone laying a hand on him, headed straight for me. Now, Ray Asbury was not going to run around anything, so I got set for the collision. I tackled him, but my ears were ringing for a while after that.