A chance encounter with new Pine Bluff High School Coach Harold Tilley led Dennis Swilley onto the football field for his senior season in 1972.
“He stopped me in the hallway or something and told me, ‘You ought to come out for football,'” Swilley said. “I think that probably helped more than anything because a lot of those guys were tired of it. It was kind of new to me.”
The Zebras struggled that campaign, but Swilley — who had hoped to earn varsity letters in another sport — was good enough to earn a scholarship to Texas A&M University and build a decadelong career in the NFL.
“I played tennis in 10th and 11th grades, and I wasn’t very good,” Swilley said. “Instead I played football and that’s what I did.”
The skills from tennis, like hand-eye coordination and speed, paid off on the football field, Swilley said. He played on the defensive end under Tilley.
Swilley’s career from just one season in the Zebra stripes is one of many stories with humble beginnings of those who will be inducted into the Jefferson County Sports Hall of Fame. The inaugural induction banquet is set for 6 p.m. Saturday at the Pine Bluff Convention Center arena.
He was born in Bossier City, La., but moved to Pine Bluff in third grade. His father, who worked for the Federal Aviation Administration, took a job in the city and moved to Little Rock after Swilley finished high school in 1973.
Tilley reached out to his contacts at College Station, Texas, to send the word about a potential recruit in Swilley.
“A&M had a new head coaching staff and we had a whole new freshman team coming up,” Swilley said. “It was a good chance to get in on the ground floor. It wasn’t like you were going to be waiting until your junior or senior year to play. I enjoyed that.”
A&M Coach Emory Bellard, who later coached at Mississippi State, moved Swilley to offensive guard. He made first-team All-Southwest Conference with the Aggies in 1976.
Listed as 6-foot-3, 253 pounds in his playing days, Swilley was drafted in the second round (55th overall) of the 1977 NFL draft by the Minnesota Vikings, who were just coming off a Super Bowl appearance.
“They had a very experienced team, a whole lot of guys over 35 years old,” said Swilley, who played among the likes of Fran Tarkenton, Mick Tingelhoff, Carl Eller and Jim Marshall in their 30s and Chuck Foreman and Ahmad Rashad in their 20s. Swilley succeeded Tingelhoff at center following the latter’s retirement before the 1979 season.
Swilley returned to school while in the NFL and earned an art degree from the University of North Texas in 1984, the year he had first retired.
Bud Grant, the architect of Minnesota’s four Super Bowl teams, retired following the 1983 season and returned to that role after the Vikings endured a disastrous season.
“Bud called me back in ’85; I had just finished school and all that,” Swilley said. “He said, ‘Do you want to come back and play?’ I said, ‘Sure, OK. So I went back and played three more years.'”
Swilley and the Vikings took one more crack at making a Super Bowl, but Swilley sustained a broken ankle in the penultimate game of the regular season. The team now known as the Washington Commanders, with Pine Bluff’s Monte Coleman as a star linebacker, knocked off Minnesota in the NFC championship game in January 1988.
“I went back to training camp, and I just decided, ‘You know what? I’m done,'” Swilley said. “I played 10 years, and I never thought I would. I’m glad I got to leave on my own terms. I think it worked out great.”
A long NFL career unfolded during what Swilley believes is the golden era of the league, a time when championship teams battled for dynasties and the likes of Walter Payton, Joe Montana and Marcus Allen cemented themselves as forever greats.
“It was a transition time,” Swilley said. “We were going from old-school to new-school, plus the influx with television money and new contracts, that really changed the game.”
Swilley went into custom residential architecture for 25 years and worked as a ramp agent and flight attendant for U.S. Airways. He also dabbles in Western folk music as a guitarist, having written his only album “Contrasts” in 2010.
Swilley looks forward to seeing other athletes who made it big after wearing the Zebra stripes. He attended high school with another NFL great going into the local hall — Coleman, who finished two years after him. Coleman didn’t even play high school football, but his brother Sam was Pine Bluff’s quarterback when Swilley played.
Lee Palles also joined the Zebras for the 1972 season, transferring in from Mobile, Ala., as a junior. Palles became an All-America hurdler at Mississippi State University and qualified for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team as a decathlete, but the U.S. boycotted the Olympiad in Moscow.
Maybe something was in the water in Pine Bluff when Swilley and others were Zebras.
“It could have been the paper mill,” Swilley said.
The Jefferson County Sports Hall of Fame is hosting a fan day for kids from noon-2 p.m. Saturday at the arena lobby of the Pine Bluff Convention Center. Youths can receive autographs and photos from sports greats who will be inducted later that evening.
