By Tracy Gupton
“On the field, I was a force — fierce, focused and unshakably determined to reach my goal. But off the field, I was something entirely different, a true gentleman. Always willing to lend a hand, guide a teammate, or listen when someone needed to talk; I lived with quiet integrity.” Those might have been the words Hershel Mack Orr uttered at his October 15, 1994, induction ceremony at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, when he entered that college’s Athletic Hall of Fame.
But Hershel was not there. He was represented by his wife Kathryn and their children, Hershel Jr., Dawn and Mary. The Orr children’s Daddy had passed away at the age of 80 on July 7, 1994, at Methodist Hospital in Houston after a long illness. Ironically, only two weeks before his death, Hershel “was informed that he was selected to be inducted into the Southwestern University Athletic Hall of Fame,” wrote Charles E. Ingram, who presented Hershel’s Hall of Fame plaque to his family members, “the school he so dearly loved and frequently visited.”
Ingram, a 1940 graduate of Southwestern University and a teammate of Hershel Orr’s on the Pirates football team, went on to write about his old friend, “Hershel’s children and grandchildren will remember his teaching, not so much in the words he said, but in his actions that they have observed over the years. His kindness and fairness to people, no matter what color or station in life, has made him a worthwhile model. Hershel’s desire to excel in all he did carried over in all aspects of his life, producing a man with a tremendous zeal for life that was contagious to all who know him.”
His daughter, Dawn Orr Free, wrote the words at the beginning of this post, saying that is what Hershel Orr most likely would have said if he had been able to attend his Hall of Fame induction ceremony 31 years ago in Georgetown. “First and foremost, I was an athlete for the West Columbia High School Roughnecks,” Dawn wrote in her memorial for her Daddy. “I excelled in football, track and baseball. Coach Grandstaff played a crucial role in shaping not just my abilities, but my character. ‘Play by the rules,’ Coach would say — and I carried out that princpal with me well beyond the field.”
D.E. Grandstaff, the father of 1950s Hollywood starlet Kathryn Grant (who married Bing Crosby in 1957), had an impact on a young Hershel Orr when he was a coach and teacher at West Columbia High School.
Hershel Orr was the starting quarterback for the Roughnecks when he was in high school, according to his daughter Dawn Free. James A. “Deacon” Creighton, an assistant coach under D.E. Grandstaff, wrote in his book, “The Magic Years: West Columbia High School 1927-1936” (published in 1969) that the Roughnecks were Brazoria County champions in football in both 1931 and 1932. The former Roughnecks coach wrote that the 1931 team lost to Humble 20-0 in the district championship game while the 1932 team was defeated by Hull-Daisetta in the district playoff game. Hershel Orr was among the best players on the West Columbia football teams during his four years in high school.
Hershel often told his children that Coach Grandstaff was his mentor and was responsible for him getting a scholarship to play football for the Southwestern Pirates in college. His Roughneck teammates Doc Mann and Ray Couser also played with Hershel at the Georgetown university. Pirates Head Coach “Lefty” Edens detected the Tennessee native from West Columbia possessed an abundance of talent. Hershel was named All-Texas Conference halfback in 1936 and 1937. In 1938, he was named the Outstanding Track Athlete in the All-Texas Conference. He participated in sprints and the long jump, according to his daughter Dawn.
In his senior year of college in 1938, Hershel met Kathryn Clapp of El Campo on a weekend trip to Austin. She was a student at the University of Texas, “just a few miles down the road” from Georgetown, Hershel would tell his children. “After graduation from Southwestern, I married my Blue Bonnet Belle,” their father’s story would be repeated many times to his kids.
Hershel went to work at Dow Chemical in 1941 in the Freeport-Lake Jackson area where a new petrochemical plant was being built along the coast in Brazoria County. Having earned an Economics degree in college, Hershel was hired by Dow to work in the business office. It didn’t take long for Hershel, who missed participating in sports like in his high school and college days, to join forces with fellow Dow employees to start a fast-pitch softball team — the Gators — that became a local legend!
“We became an all-star powerhouse,” Hershel would brag to his family and friends. “State champions in 1946, going on to compete in the World Tournament for two years. Over a 10-year run, we produced four All-American players and finished as one of the top-ranked teams in the country.”
In 1962 the Gators softball team dissolved. “Not from lack of passion,” Dawn Free said about her father’s softball career. “But because time had finally caught up to them. Age had done what few teams ever could, beat the Gators.”
After ten years as manager of the Gators softball team, Hershel Orr retired from both the team and from Dow. Kathryn and Hershel were eager to enter business for themselves and went into the grocery store business. They purchased a grocery store in the small town of Markham in Matagorda County. It was while living in Markham that Hershel Orr began officiating high school and small junior college football games. Dawn said her Daddy loved being a football referee and at one point had to turn down an opportunity to officiate Southwest Conference football games because his knees were giving him problems and Hershel didn’t feel like he could run up and down the college football fields with the younger referees.
The Orrs eventually moved back to Hershel’s hometown, residing in Columbia Lakes during their golden years where both Hershel and Kathryn loved playing golf routinely. Hershel relished the opportunity to play golf with legendary Dallas Cowboys head coach Tom Landry and was, as anyone would expect from his Hall of Fame college football days and his being a standout in track, baseball and softball as a younger man, very good at golf as well.
Hershel’s daughters, Dawn Free and Mary Leigh Yarbrough, will be representing the Orr family at Saturday’s Meet Your Ancestors event at historic Columbia Cemetery in West Columbia. The public is invited to this free event that is co-sponsored by the Columbia Historical Museum and the Columbia Cemetery Association. Meet Your Ancestors will begin at 5 p.m. Saturday, November 1, 2025, at the front gates of the cemetery across East Jackson Street from the Columbia Methodist Church.
Other former sports standouts being featured, along with Hershel Orr, will be former Canadian Football League Hall of Famer Buddy Tinsley, Texas Pro Rodeo Hall of Famer Ed Cole, Bay City High School Athletics Hall of Famer Mattie Sue Ringgold and Columbia Roughnecks Athletics Hall of Honor member Doug Balkum.
