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Dicky Maegle was gracious when Missouri's Tony Temple broke his Cotton Bowl rushing record, which is not how you'd describe his feelings for the man bent on keeping him from it 54 years ago.

Alabama's Tommy Lewis crept off the bench and blindsided Rice's Maegle in the '54 Cotton Bowl, entwining the pair ever since in the legend of college football's most famous play.

"Whenever I talk about the record," Maegle said, "the first question is always, 'What did you think when Tommy Lewis came off the bench?' "

Maegle's reaction now, at 73, is the same as it was when it happened.

Had he not seen Lewis at the last instant and made a slight defensive move to his left, Maegle believes he might have been severely injured, even paralyzed.

Officials on the field felt enough sympathy to grant him the 95-yard touchdown he'd seemed destined for.

And Lewis? After sheepishly running off the field, the 6-0, 190-pound fullback tracked Maegle down at the half and apologized.

"I don't know what got into me," Lewis told him. "I hope they don't string me up on these goalposts."

Actually, Lewis became a folk hero of sorts. On the Ed Sullivan show a couple of nights later, the host asked why he did it. Lewis replied, "Mr. Sullivan, I was just so full of Alabama."

And then Sullivan turned to his audience and requested a round of applause for such a fine young man.

Time magazine followed up the patriotic theme in its sports roundup that week under a headline reading "Alabama's Twelfth Man":

... under his crimson jersey there burns an impulsive pride of state and university.

Maybe so. But Lewis later admitted Sullivan had actually fed him the "full of Alabama" line before the show.

Maegle didn't get any lines. Sullivan never gave him a chance to talk, though Maegle had plenty to say off-camera.

Example: After learning he'd have to share a hotel room, Maegle told Sullivan he was afraid his Alabama roommate might get up in the night and throw him out the window.

Sullivan tried to rectify his oversight by inviting the players back the next week. But neither could come, leaving Lewis with the last word.

"I'm reminded of the play frequently," Lewis told the San Antonio Express-News in 2006. "But anyone who knows me, and all my old teammates, would never bring it up. They know that play devastated me, and I have to live with it.

"I can't take it away."

Neither can Maegle. Even though it made him famous, the play overshadowed his record performance of 265 yards. And on just 11 carries, at that.

Maegle was drafted by the 49ers and played seven NFL seasons, the last with the Cowboys. After football, he went into the hotel business in Houston.

Now retired in Katy, recovered from prostate cancer, he has watched the Cotton Bowl every year just to see if his record holds up.

As Temple finished it off with a touchdown of his own, Maegle said it never occurred to him how fitting it might be if an Arkansas player pulled a Tommy Lewis to stop him.

"I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy," Maegle said, and one guess whom that might be.

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