Galveston Island Icon: ‘Tank’ Dillon, 1st black Galvestonian drafted into NFL, shares memoriesHide Details
Galveston County Daily News, The (TX) – September 28, 2014Browse Issues
Author/Byline: JAMES LACOMBESection: SportsReadability: 10-12 grade level (Lexile: 1160)
GALVESTON – On Tuesday, Galveston sports trailblazer Ray Dohn Dillon celebrated his 85th birthday.
While his skills on the football field made him an important figure in Galveston history, it was his continued involvement in the community that made him an island icon.
Dillon was born in Tylertown, Miss. in 1929, and raised by his grandmother there until moving to Galveston at age five with his mother and stepfather.
Moving to the big city of Galveston was quite the contrast from living in the country, where Dillon recalled long walks into town with his grandmother as a boy.
At Central High, Dillon took up football and excelled as a defensive back and running back, helping the Bearcats win a state championship before graduating in 1948.
Dillon’s play at Central earned him athletic scholarship offers from Prairie View A&M College, Southern University and Wiley College. Dillon remembered leaning toward Wiley after his mother eliminated Southern from contention and not being too high on Prairie View.
Dillon said a coaching change at Prairie View swayed him to become a Panther, and it turned out to be a fortuitous move for the man who would become known as “Tank” on the college gridiron, due to his toughness to take down.
“I stayed there, and I fell in love with Prairie View and met a lot of nice guys at Prairie View,” Dillon said. “Going there was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
At Prairie View, Dillon would become an All-American, and he was eventually inducted into the school’s hall of fame for football and track in 1988.
Dillon’s football prowess also earned him attention from professional scouts.
Making history
After his storied career at Central High and Prairie View A&M, Dillon became a part of Galveston Island history as the first black man to be drafted into the NFL. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1952 and played for the franchise for about a year.
Back then, there was no glitzy NFL Draft ceremony. Getting picked in the draft meant a ticket to training camp and not much more.
In intra-squad scrimmages, Dillon was assigned to defend legendary running back Doak Walker. He did such a good job of shadowing Walker, Dillon said coaches told him to “take it easy” on the future Hall of Famer.
Much to Dillon’s surprise, though, he ended up among the final players cut from the Lions roster, along with the four other black players competing for a spot on the team.
“I thought if you could cover a guy in the pros, it would land you a job playing professional football,” Dillon said. “I was the last one they cut. My defensive back coach that was coaching me on the Detroit Lions, he called me ‘Radar.’ He said ‘Radar, you were supposed to make this team, but it’s over my head right now.’”
Dillon’s coach did offer him a consolation, though, with an offer to play professional football in Ontario with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League.
“He said, ‘Go on home, and when you get there, I’ll have you a contract to go to Canada,’” Dillon said.
Dillon played four seasons in Canada, and was a part of the Hamilton team that took the 1953 Grey Cup CFL championship.
While it was a far cry from the multi-million contracts today’s professional football players earn, Dillon made a good wage by 1950s standards and was sure to save his money in preparation for his post-playing career.
“To me, it was good money,” Dillon said. “I think I started out with about $10,000.”
Life after football
In addition to getting his opportunity to play in the CFL in 1953, Dillon also got offered a chance for his true dream job.
“I got an opportunity to teach at my high school. That was always my ambition, to one day come back and teach,” Dillon said. “I always wanted to teach and coach at Central. I wanted to be a Bearcat.”
The teaching and coaching position at Central High was not only Dillon’s dream job, but it also turned out to be the place where he met his dream girl. In 1953, after returning home from a football season and getting started at Central High, he came across a young teacher named Irene Cecelia Walker. By 1954, they were married.
Eventually, Dillon’s family grew, and football just seemed to always be a part of it. Daughter Irene Dillon, named after her mother, was born in January the year of the first Super Bowl in 1966. Every year, the big game was an especially joyous occasion for the family.
“He would tell me that they started the Super Bowl just for me,” Irene Dillon said. “And daddy and I would sit and have hotdog eating contests during the Super Bowl. I would be eight, nine years old trying to eat 10 hotdogs to keep up with daddy. Those were the days when football was about family.”
For Dillon, establishing his young family’s roots on Galveston Island was an easy decision, and one he considered to be vital to coaching success.
“If you’re going to coach in a town, it’s best to be known in that town,” Dillon said.
Dillon was a defensive backs coach at Central High until the school was integrated with Ball High in 1968, and then at Ball High until 1974, when he left coaching to become head of security for Galveston ISD.
The position of chasing down truants came naturally to the man who once made a living chasing down ball-carriers. Dillon quickly became known as a disciplinarian and a hard worker in his role.
Dillon retired from Galveston ISD in 1990, but continued to operate a grocery store he owned after retirement. Even all those years later, he was continually reminded of the impact he had on young lives.
“Even after he finished coaching and still had the store, he had former players come by the store to see him when they were in town,” Irene Dillon said.
Dillon now lives in La Marque with daughter Dealisa Dillon. He said he still visits with his old teammates and takes in Ball High and Prairie View A&M football games regularly.
Record: 36af4991e93fa2d533e6d2fa668c33cc7e2bfb1Copyright: Copyright, 2014, Galveston County Daily News