A Southeastern alumnus with a love for football and a dream to make it in the big leagues takes an unforgettable journey from Strawberry Stadium to helping win the first NFL Monday Night Football game.

BY CALMER DIGHTON

On September 21, 1970, the Cleveland Browns played against the New York Jets, the champions of the previous year’s Super Bowl, in the first-ever televised Monday Night Football game. In the fourth quarter, the Browns led the game with a score of 24 to 21. With less than a minute on the clock Joe Namath threw a pass that was intercepted by Browns’ number 52 Billy Andrews, a Southeastern alumnus. Billy returned the interception for a touchdown, securing the Browns lead and earning them the first televised Monday Night Football win.

Born and raised in Clinton, Louisiana, Billy Andrews knew from a young age that he wanted to play football. “When I was eight years old, our school hired a coach, Coach Russo, and he started a peewee football program. The minute I stepped on that field I fell in love with football. Maybe a bit too much.”

Billy was not particularly built to play football, but that didn’t dissuade him from his dream. “I was the skinny kid. Very slow, very small. I set my sights on playing in the NFL when I was probably nine years old.”

Billy would dedicate much of his young adult life to accomplishing this goal. At age 12, he began weight training. “My daddy drove me when I was 12 years old to Baton Rouge three times a week to train with Alvin Roy. He was one of the great athletic weight trainers in the NFL and the college ranks.”

He also credits this move as the impetus for his spiritual growth, which is today an important part of his life. “I see [Alvin Roy] being in Baton Rouge as providence of God to get me to the NFL, which ultimately is where I found the Lord.”

When it came time to decide on a school to attend for college, Billy’s high school coach from Silliman Institute, Coach H. L. Polk Jr., encouraged him to attend Southeastern. “Coach Polk was a Southeastern Hall of Famer,” Billy explained. “He helped the head coach Stanley Galloway recruit me.”

Billy attended Southeastern from 1963 through 1967. During his time in Hammond, he worked towards graduating with a bachelor of science degree focused on veterinary medicine, acquiring knowledge which he would later apply when working for his family’s dairy farm. But playing football at Southeastern is what prepared him for the first steps in his future and that legendary televised win in 1970.

“Playing football at Southeastern prepared me very well to go to the NFL because of the quality of football there,” Billy said. “Coach Galloway had a great impact on me and he was tough on us, but that’s what we needed. I came to Southeastern weighing 162 pounds and grew from the training to 215. The entire coaching staff at that time helped me get to where I needed to be.”

His time at Southeastern and the relationships he built with his fellow players and students as a whole have stayed with him through his life. “I still talk to a good many of the people I played with back when I was at Southeastern. It was a close-knit group of players, and we all still stay in contact.”

Billy was first drafted into the NFL by the Cleveland Browns in 1967, the same year he graduated from Southeastern. The goal he had set for himself when he was only nine years old was now accomplished. He continued to play for the Browns for eight seasons, becoming their Defensive Player of the Year in 1971, the year after he had scored that game-winning touchdown. After his time with the Browns, Billy played for the San Diego Chargers for a season and then the Kansas City Chiefs for his last two seasons as a professional football player. Throughout his professional career, he played in almost 150 games.

Even with all of those accomplishments, the thing that had the biggest impact on his life while playing in the NFL
was something else. “I worked hard and played myself into becoming a great player, and when I intercepted the ball in the Monday Night Football game it was like, this is it, but in my heart I was empty. I was an empty man though I had accomplished the high dream. But then I realized what God had done; he had worked in my heart.”

After he retired from playing football in the NFL, he returned to Clinton, Louisiana, to work his family’s dairy farm—an entirely new challenge for which he found himself unprepared but quickly adapted.

After everything he has done and accomplished, Billy’s love for Southeastern, football, and his God stick with him. To this day, Billy still occasionally helps coach football at his old high school and continues to stay active with Southeastern Football.