How good was Phil Robertson at football?
"In the 1960s, Robertson, now 66, was the starting quarterback at Louisiana Tech for two seasons ahead of Terry Bradshaw. His teammates and a coach recall him as a talented, outdoors-obsessed character who walked away from his final year of eligibility to spend more time hunting and fishing, but had the talent to play in the NFL:
Brunet: The last game of my senior year was Philās junior year. He and I and Bradshaw were standing on the field before our last game, and we used to call Terry āBomber.ā He (Robertson) looks at Terry, says ,āBomber, Iām not coming back next year.ā He said, āYouāre not? What are you gonna do?ā He said, āIām going for the ducks, you can go for the bucks.ā
Phil Robertson: I loved the game and throwing touchdown passes was fun, but at that time, in other words 44 years ago all the way to now, what gave me more of an adrenaline rush, my man, was big bunches of mallard ducks raining down through the trees. It just did it for me and that is pretty much why the ducks took precedence over football. Itās just that simple.
Phil Robertson: When Brunet went with the Washington Redskins (a few seasons), he came down here. He said, āRobertson why donāt you come up here and just walk on?ā I said, āWell what are they paying?ā He said $60,000 a year if you make the team. Thatās what the money was like. ⦠Well, 60 grand didnāt seem like that much to give up duck hunting. He said, āLook, Sonny Jurgensen, youāre not gonna beat him out. But we got this hot dog you wonāt have any problem with, you can beat him out hands down. I said whatās his name? He said Joe Theismann. ⦠I said, āBrunet, let me ask you something: When all them ducks start heading south and Iām stuck up there in Washington somewhere, do you think Iāll stay?" And he kinda looked at the ground and he says, āNaaah.ā I said, āNo, I donāt want to fool with it.ā