When Grant Teaff was contacted earlier this year about being honored on the silver anniversary of his last regular-season game at Baylor, his first thought was, "OK, but why that one?"

"And then I remembered, 'Oh, that was the Texas game, and we're doing it at the Texas game. I get it,''' said Teaff, now 83.

It seemed almost poetic that Teaff would wrap up his 21st and final season at Baylor with a 21-20 win over the Texas Longhorns on Nov. 21, 1992. That's a script straight out of Hollywood. You can't dream an ending any better than that.

As Donell Teaff, his wife, put it that day: "This was perfect. I couldn't have scripted it any better."

Twenty-five years later, Grant admits that it was "a good way to go out . . . kind of symbolic, honestly." But, that's all he will give it. This was a man that came to Baylor "without one ounce of fear of the University of Texas."

He cringes when people talk about jinxes or say something like, "We can't beat Texas."

Sitting in a staff meeting room in his first year as the tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator at Texas Tech, he heard a longtime assistant coach "offer words that chilled me to the bone. He said, 'We can't beat Texas.'''

When then-Tech head coach J.T. King gave the young assistant coach the assignment of scouting the Longhorns, Teaff brought back his report and said, "We will definitely beat these guys. I really believe that." He even repeated those words at a Red Raider booster club meeting that week.

"Everyone in the room looked around at each other, thinking, 'What's this guy talking about?''' Teaff said. You see, Tech had won just once in 16 previous meetings with the Longhorns. Obviously, there was a jinx.

But true to Teaff's bold words, the Red Raiders won 19-13 that year in Austin and beat the Longhorns, 31-22, the next year in Lubbock.

"When I got to Baylor, they hadn't beaten Texas in something like 19 years," said Teaff, who was hired in December 1971 out of Angelo State. "By the time our third year rolled around, we had the so-called 'Miracle on the Brazos.' I always kind of stiffened up at that connotation. I never thought it was a miracle. We intended to do that, so it's not a miracle if you intend to do it."

Same thing on Nov. 21, 1992.

Teaff, and all the players, had no intentions of losing that game.

"The thing that stands out to me is that everybody - from J.J. (Joe) to Melvin Bonner, David Mims, Michael McFarland, Curtis Hafford - none of us wanted Coach Teaff to walk off that field with a loss. There was no way that was going to happen," said Trooper Taylor, a fifth-year defensive back on that team and a longtime college assistant coach now in his fourth year at Arkansas State.

"All week long, whether it was the dining hall, the study hall or in the training room with Mike Sims, everybody was locked-in to make sure we did everything humanly possible. I can tell you this, there is nothing losing about Coach Teaff. The reason that most of us are winners in life is because of that guy."

Taylor, who returned from a devastating knee injury that year, broke off a 40-yard kickoff return in that game to break the school career record with 1,063 yards. But, it was a play in the fourth quarter that turned out to be arguably the biggest of his career.

Joe engineered the offensive attack for the Bears, tossing an 11-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mike McKenzie and scoring on TD runs of eight and one yard to give Baylor a 21-10 fourth-quarter lead.

"That was kind of an uneven year for us," said Joe, who serves as analyst for Baylor's radio broadcasts. "It started out rough, and then we kind of found our groove. . . . That week, we were all just focused on, 'Let's just win it.' We knew how much Coach wanted to get that one. And plus, we knew that if we won that game, we were probably going to a bowl game."

The Longhorns made it a one-point game with a 19-yard TD run by quarterback Peter Gardere and a 25-yard field goal by Scott Szeredy and had two shots in the final minutes to pull off the win and stay in the race for the Southwest Conference championship.

But, not this day. Not against Grant Teaff.

"(Coach Teaff) wasn't playing, but I could have sworn I saw him out there in black and white (referee's uniform) a couple times," Gardere said after the game, referring to a couple questionable calls. "We had some things going for us, and we were on a roll, but the referees sometimes took us out of it."

None bigger than the mark on running back Phil Brown's run on fourth-and-4 from the Bears' 41-yard line. Taylor and defensive tackle Joseph Asbell teamed to stop him on a draw play that had worked all day long.

"It was an awesome feeling to be able to feel like at some point that I was able to give back just a little," Taylor said. "I could have made 1,000 tackles, and I never would have been able to repay my debt to that man. . . . I know for a fact that if God had not put that man in my life, I have no idea where I would be, other than in trouble."

The referees marked the Longhorns six inches short of the first down, giving Baylor the ball back with 1:44 left and pretty much guaranteeing that Teaff would walk off the field that day a winner.

"One of the things I loved about it is was an incident in that game where, in my opinion, it was a bad call on Texas," Teaff said. "But, I had gotten so many horrendous, horrendous calls playing the University of Texas . . . it was really good that they got a little of their own medicine."

So, did Brown make the first down, Coach?

"Trust me, they did make the first down. But, for some reason, I didn't tell the officials. 'Look, guys, in all honesty, they made that first down.' No, I kept silent," he said.

After the final seconds ticked off the Floyd Casey Stadium scoreboard, the players lifted Teaff on their shoulders and started to carry him off the field. Something they had done the year before and eight other times in his Baylor career, with Teaff compiling a mark of 10-11 versus the rival Longhorns.

This time, though, was different. After the traditional midfield handshake with UT coach John Mackovic, Teaff walked back to the sidelines, waved to the crowd and motioned for Donell, their three daughters and the rest of the family to join him for one last walk across the field together.

"We were going to do it, win or lose," Teaff said. "We always tried to spend as much time together as we could, but the girls all bought into it and Donell was a tremendous coach's wife. So, I told them, 'When the game's over - win, lose or draw - I want all the family down on the field. We're going to walk off the field together.' And we did."

Taylor remembers Teaff waving to the crowd, "and I remember the tear running down the side of his face."

Joe said it was fitting, because "Grant Teaff was Baylor football."

"What he did getting Baylor to that level, with very mediocre facilities," Joe said. "Things were so bad, I didn't even have a shirt with Baylor football on it forever. It was so meaningful to see Coach carried off the field and then to have a chance to walk off the field with his family for the last time, because he was Baylor football."

With offensive coordinator Chuck Reedy named as his replacement, Teaff and his lame duck coaching staff led the Bears to an even more surprising 20-15 Sun Bowl victory over 22nd-ranked Arizona on New Year's Eve.

"We wanted to win that one so badly," Teaff said.

But, what he specifically remembers about that game is the managers forgetting to pack his shoes for the game.

"It's 20 minutes before we go out there, and I have no shoes," he said. "(Assistant coach) Bill Lane had two pair in his locker, his game and workout shoes. So, I said, 'Bill, give me those workout shoes.' I'm a size 13, and Bill's about a 10 ½. I squeezed my poor toes into those shoes. So, I remember that game for the pain I felt throughout the game. But, I had to keep a chipper smile on my face. Those are the kinds of little things people never know. 'Oops, I got no shoes.'''

Coach Teaff, thanks for all the stories and wonderful memories from your 128 victories at Baylor in a true Hall of Fame career.

(excerpt from Waco Tribune-Herald sports editor Dave Campbell's game story from the 1992 Baylor-Texas game)

By Dave Campbell
Tribune-Herald Sports Editor

Coaching the final regular-season game of his long and illustrious stay at Baylor, Grant Teaff walked off the field a winner against Texas here Saturday, mainly because neither the charged-up Bears nor the football gods on high would permit it to be otherwise.

The final score favored Teaff's scrappy, intrepid troops, 21-20. It was a sweaty-palms affair all through the final moments, Texas trying desperately to break through, Baylor desperately trying to hang on, and the game officials making a few calls that left Longhorn fans livid.

Finally, with less than two minutes remaining the Longhorns triggered a fourth-down play from the Baylor 41.

They needed four yards to get a first down and the chance to advance the few more steps they needed to get within kicker Scott Szeredy's field goal range, four yards to stay in the hunt for a share of the SWC title.

They got three yards and about 30 inches.

The measuring stakes came out and went down, the Longhorns were that much short, and all those nervous Baylor fans in the stands suddenly erupted in jubilation.

Now, they knew it was over.

Now they knew the Bears had the Longhorn windpipe in a flat that was squeezing ever tighter. Now they knew the Bears had nailed down their sixth victory of the season, thus keeping Baylor in the bowl picture for at least a few more days.

No wonder Bruin fans in the crowd of 39,110 savored the moment.