The story of Benjamin Capp, fan of the 2024 Detroit Lions, has gone viral. Capp has been a Detroit Lions season ticket holder for 66 years, enduring decades of futility like no other fan. Capp says he became a fan after watching the dramatic 1957 Western Conference final between Detroit and the San Francisco 49ers. One week later, he attended the NFL Championship Game in Detroit. The Lions won that NFL crown; they have yet to win a title since.
The 66-year drought is often referred to as the “Curse of Bobby Layne.” The Lions were the 1950s “Team of the Decade” as Texans Doak Walker (whose father Ewell Walker was a Roo) and Bobby Layne (an extended family member of Roos Wes & Layne Tarbox, and the namesake of the latter) brought NFL Championships to Detroit. But events leading to the last Detroit title in 1957 would lead to the end of Layne’s days as a Lion and the beginning of the Detroit curse. And Austin College may be to blame.
Chapter 1: Gene Babb and the Detroit Lions
Gene Babb was Mr. Everything at Austin College from 1953 to 1956; the AC award for outstanding football player bears his name. According to “100 Years, 100 Yards: The Story of Austin College Football,” Gene Babb was almost drafted by the Detroit Lions:
“Scouts from the…Detroit Lions were in Sherman when the Kangaroos pulverized [Rhodes] 52-20 [in 1956]. Babb ran 44 yards to the Lynx 23 on the first play of the game and scored from the 14. [An] interception was followed by a Babb 12-yard score.”
But Babb instead left Sherman for San Francisco. In the 1957 NFL Draft, Gene Babb was selected by the 49ers. “’I sat there in the corner of Hughey Gym,’ Babb said in 1994, ‘and signed a [49ers] contract for $6,000 for my first season. All the money in the world.”
Babb’s 1957 rookie season in San Francisco was special. He was a contributor to an outstanding San Francisco team led by QB legend Y.A. Tittle. Babb finished that year with nearly 500 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns. That first touchdown came in a regular season game in San Francisco against Bobby Layne and the Detroit Lions. On November 3, 1957, Babb rumbled for 55 yards and a score as the 49ers beat the Lions 35-31.
While San Francisco was cruising to the NFL’s Western Conference crown in 1957, the Lions were struggling. After falling to a mediocre 5-4, QB Bobby Layne was lost to injury for the rest of the season. Detroit’s season seemed finished. But the Lions had an ace in the hole: A backup QB from Texas named Tobin Rote, who had been molded into a champion by Austin College Coach Cecil Grigg.
Chapter 2: Cecil Grigg and Detroit’s Tobin Rote
Cecil Grigg was Mr. Everything at Austin College from 1911 to 1913; the AC award for outstanding baseball player bears his name. After playing in the NFL with the Canton Bulldogs and Jim Thorpe, Grigg returned to Sherman to Coach AC football. He left in 1934 for Rice, where he would remain for over 30 years. Grigg was Head Coach Jess Neely’s offensive coordinator during the Rice Owl glory years. In 1946, Grigg successfully recruited QB Tobin Rote to Rice.
Rote started for the Owls in 1949 and led Rice to a Southwest Conference (SWC) championship. That season included two comeback wins, against the Texas Longhorns and SMU Mustangs. Rote led those comebacks on the road, after being down 15 in Austin and down 14 in Dallas. When asked about Tobin Rote and his equally talented cousin Kyle (who played for SMU), Grigg said the following:
“Cecil Grigg, Rice coach who [played] a quarter of a century ago, was asked how Tobin Rote, his Rice quarterback, stacked up with SMU’s Kyle Rote [Tobin’s cousin]. ‘Right now, Tobin is the better,’ grinned the grey eagle from Houston. ‘He outshone Kyle last Saturday night as we beat SMU.’” Weeks later, Rote, Grigg, and the Owls were victorious in the Cotton Bowl.
Tobin Rote was Bobby Layne’s backup quarterback (QB) in 1957. After the loss to Babb & the 49ers was followed by Layne’s injury, most Detroit fans assumed the season was lost. But Rote took over the reins, ended the season on a winning streak, and forced a one-game playoff with the 49ers to determine the Western Conference crown. That playoff game in December of 1957 took the Lions back to San Francisco.
Chapter 3: The Curse of Bobby Layne
Most predicted another 49er win at home. And that certainly looked to be the case, as Y.A. Tittle led San Francisco to a nearly insurmountable 27-7 third quarter lead. But the December playoff game differed from the November regular season contest in two respects. Gene Babb, nursing an injury, was effectively out. And so was Bobby Layne, replaced with the now unstoppable Tobin Rote.
Down by 20, Rote directed a comeback like those he had performed under Cecil Grigg at Rice. He finished the game with 214 yards passing and one score, leading the Lions to a 31-27 win in one of the most dramatic playoff comebacks in NFL history. One of Rote’s TD throws was to Lions receiver Steve Junker, whom Detroit had drafted in 1957 instead of Austin College’s Gene Babb.
Rote finished his improbable 1957 season one week later, leading the Lions to the NFL title with a win against the Cleveland Browns at home in Detroit’s Tiger Stadium. The Lions NFL crown in 1957 was earned in a baseball stadium where Austin College Kangaroo Charlie Robertson had tossed a perfect game against the Detroit Tigers decades earlier. Benjamin Capp left Tiger Stadium that day in 1957 a happy fan, sure of more Lions titles to come.
Tobin Rote’s performance was so impressive in 1957, he won the Detroit starting QB job. Bobby Layne was traded, to his bitter disappointment. While there is no evidence that Layne ever uttered a curse against his former team, there’s no dispute that Layne’s contributions to the Detroit titles in the 1950s, anger at the trade, and hearsay from Layne’s circle birthed the story. Subsequent years of Lions futility only added to the legend of the “Curse of Bobby Layne.”
Chapter 4: Benjamin Capp and an AC Absolution
The 1957 Conference Championship game in San Francisco motivated Benjamin Capp to attend the 1957 NFL Title game in Detroit and begin a lifetime journey of Lions futility. But maybe those days are about to end for the 89-year-old. The Lions are now back in another Conference Championship game in San Francisco after 66 years. Amazingly, the last time the Detroit Lions won a playoff game on the road was 66 years ago, when Tobin Rote and the Lions beat Gene Babb and the 49ers in San Francisco.
On his series “Peyton’s Places,” Hall of Fame QB Peyton Manning recently aired an episode about the Curse of Bobby Layne. He gathered at Ford Field with Detroit native Jeff Daniels to exorcise the curse by filling a bathtub with Layne’s preferred drink: whiskey. He talked all things Layne and Lions with Detroit native Keegan-Michael Key (of Key & Peele). Since that episode, the Detroit Lions under Coach Dan Campbell have made a run worthy of ending the Curse of Bobby Layne.
Is the Curse of Bobby Layne the fault of Austin College? The 1957 Lions comeback over San Francisco was so close, any factor could have affected the outcome. A healthy Gene Babb might have allowed the 49ers to eke out a win in December, just as in November. An inexperienced Tobin Rote with no Rice comebacks under Grigg perhaps means the 1957 Lions playoff comeback falls short. If the Lions draft Gene Babb instead of Steve Junker, maybe no playoff game ever takes place. Any one of these events means Layne remains in Detroit, which means there is no Curse of Bobby Layne.
Well, if Austin College is to blame for 66 years of the Curse of Bobby Layne, let this Roo Tale be a test of AC’s absolution. If Detroit somehow repeats 1957 by winning in San Francisco and then earning the NFL crown at the Super Bowl, then credit Marc and his writing for bringing 66 years of long overdue joy to the Motor City, Lions fans, and especially 89-year-old Benjamin Capp.
Yup, Marc’s from Texas. And so is Bobby Layne, Tobin Rote, Cecil Grigg, Gene Babb, Doak Walker, and Dan Campbell. But this season, much of Texas is backing Benjamin Capp and the Lions. Me too. The Scottish band “Texas” (h/t Roo Julie Hempel) says it best for me during this Super Bowl run when they sing “I…come from Detroit City.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlhKEHMYSGM