Admired by those he played with and revered by those who coached him, Hoppy Langley left an unforgettable mark locally and beyond as a natural-born athlete and leader.
Langley, who starred on Aiken High's football team before becoming the all-time leading scorer at Ole Miss, died Nov. 28 in Oxford, Mississippi at the age of 62. No official cause of death was given in the obituary provided by Waller Funeral Home in Oxford.
His athletic feats were numerous – he was always the best player on his teams, and that wasn't just limited to the football field.
Sure, there were all of those multi-touchdown games while leading the New Ellenton Midgets to victories that eventually led to starring roles in junior high, high school and college. But then there were big performances on the pitching mound – an 11-strikeout night for the Coca-Cola Dixie Youth team against Village Pharmacy, or a near-no-hitter against the City of New Ellenton.
Don't forget the basketball court, where he was a double-digit scorer as the point guard for New Ellenton Junior High and Aiken High. And even the golf course, where in 1971 he won the first flight of New Ellenton Country Club's first junior golf championship.
"You name it, he was good at it. But he worked hard at it," recalled former teammate and best friend David Hill. "... There was nobody that worked harder than him."
Football was ultimately where Langley made his name in athletics, from his pee wee days in New Ellenton all the way until he was given a shot to kick in the National Football League.
Langley quarterbacked New Ellenton Junior High's Wolverines to their first undefeated season in school history in 1972, then got the call-up to play for the Hornets as a sophomore – a rarity in the days when Aiken High had the only team in town.
He handed the Hornets' place-kicking duties, then took over as the starting quarterback as a senior when Eddie Buck arrived as Aiken's new head football coach.
It didn't take long for Buck to realize he had a special talent on his roster. Buck remembers Langley as a fine quarterback who took command of the huddle, but at 6 feet tall and 172 pounds he just wasn't big enough to play the position at a major college – as a straight-on kicker, though, he would find his way.
"I mean, he could nail that sucker. He was unbelievable," Buck said. "... When we kicked off it was like an offensive weapon, because he'd put it in the end zone and there wouldn't be a run back."
His immense natural ability didn't mean Langley simply stepped onto the field and booted the ball – he worked tirelessly and, like in everything else, made his own good breaks.
"I can remember back in the day, Hoppy would come after practice and take a car inner tube and cut it like a rubber band," Buck said. "That was back before we could give him a square toe (cleat). He would take that front cleat and put that big, old piece of rubber over his heel to pull that toe up to lock his ankle where he could get under the ball, and he kicked over and over and over. I've never seen anybody so passionate about kicking."
Hill saw that passion first-hand when both received kicking tees one year as Christmas presents. Hill played with his, while Langley turned his into a tool. He rounded up bags of footballs and kicked and kicked and kicked, whether Hill was there to shag balls for him or not.
"He was an extremely hard worker at everything he set his mind – he achieved everything that he wanted. He was that type of person," Hill said. "He never had a thought that he couldn't achieve it. He was one of those people that, 'I want to do this,' and he did. He was absolutely one of the best athletes I've ever known. Not only that, just person-wise – he was a great leader."
The Hornets' team MVP and a first-team All-County performer in 1975, Langley still wasn't attracting the college attention he desired. Clemson only offered him as a walk-on, and the lifelong Gamecock fan's heart was broken when South Carolina did the same.
So he took matters into his own hands.
"I took my mother's middle name, which was Louise, and her maiden name, which was Collins, and I wrote a whole bunch of letters to schools saying I was an alumnus," he said, as quoted in the Oct. 19, 1979 issue of the Aiken Standard. "I told them that there was a kicker in Aiken that they should take a look at."
Enter Ole Miss head coach Ken Cooper, who just happened to stop by Aiken High on a February night when the stadium lights just happened to be on and Langley just happened to be working on the kind of drills college coaches need to see to evaluate a kicker.
He did more than enough in that dead-period audition to earn an invitation to visit Ole Miss, and a scholarship offer soon followed. On Feb. 22, 1976, he signed to kick for the Rebels.
The hard work was only just beginning.
Langley spent his offseason lifting weights, running and kicking 100 or more field goals per day from the time he signed until the day he arrived in Oxford. Once he got there, he out-kicked a senior, a junior and a sophomore to win the starting kicking job as a freshman.
His first game gave Rebels fans a glimpse of what would become a prolific career. He made field goals of 45, 45 and 27 yards and also made his first collegiate extra point in the season opener against Memphis State, then became an Ole Miss legend the following week.
Sixth-ranked Alabama hadn't lost a conference game since the 1972 Iron Bowl and carried a 20-game SEC winning streak to Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson to face an Ole Miss team coming off an uninspiring loss.
The Rebels ended that streak, as Langley booted a 34-yard fourth-quarter field goal that stood as the game-winner in a 10-7 victory over the Crimson Tide.
Legendary Alabama head coach Bear Bryant had been one of the recipients of Langley's recruiting letters the previous fall, but as the story goes he already had four kickers on scholarship .
The postgame photo remained a favorite of Langley's, the Bear's big arm wrapped around the freshman's shoulders.
"He told the Bear he had loved him for years, that he was his idol and he wanted desperately to go to Alabama," Langley's father Carl wrote in the Oct. 5, 2009 issue of the Aiken Standard.
"Coach Bear said to me, 'I wish now I had given you that scholarship,'" Langley remembered.
More big kicks followed. Langley made two of them a month later in a 21-17 win over then-undefeated No. 4 Georgia, and the following season he made two field goals and two extra points in a 20-13 upset of eventual national champion Notre Dame.
Langley became the Rebels' all-time leading scorer during his senior season with 178 points, and he was invited to the East-West Shrine Game in San Francisco.
He went undrafted but was eventually offered a two-year contract by the Atlanta Falcons, then was waived that same summer.
In 2002 he received a Bill Wade Unsung Heroes Award, which honors those who made significant contributions to college football without significant fanfare.
A professional career in pharmaceuticals took him to Tuscaloosa, Alabama – after a stop in Memphis, Tennessee, where he met future wife Stephanie. The newlyweds stayed in Tuscaloosa for four years before relocating to St. Louis, where daughter Leigh and son Collins were born.
The Langleys returned to Memphis in 1993 and remained there until 2019 – following a brief retirement – when Langley's dream was realized as he returned to his beloved Oxford.
His death was a jolt to those who loved him, coached him, followed his lead and looked up to him.
"Hoppy Langley, until the day he died, was as loyal to me as anybody I met in my entire life," Buck said. "... I don't know nothing else to say except it's just still hard to believe."
Hill remembers a game of pick-up basketball with the older boys back when he and Langley were in their early teens. There was an odd number of players and Hill, admittedly not a great basketball player, was left out to have even sides.
"Hoppy, he stood up to these older boys and he said, 'Well, if he doesn't play, I don't play, and I'm taking home my basketball,'" Hill said. "And that's one thing I never forget. He was one of those that was gonna make sure nobody gets left out. I never forgot that. I'm 63 now, and I never forgot that, what he did that day. He was special."
"Anybody that he played with never forgot him," said longtime friend and teammate Billy West. "... He was a friend to everybody that knew him. He was somebody to look up to when I was coming up, and a lot of kids did."
Langley and his father Carl, a longtime local journalist, were among the first people Buck met upon arriving in Aiken, and Buck said that Hoppy – a nickname he said came from the way he, as a small boy, pronounced a character's name on the Red Skelton Show – was one of the greatest personalities he had ever met.
"He's just a great guy," Buck said. "Never had a bad thing to say about anybody. Always called me. Never forgot his old ball coach. Always talked about the good times and the bad times. That's the way I remember Hoppy – just as a friend. I loved his family, loved him."
"He's one of these, I mean," Hill said, his voice beginning to trail off. "You never forget him."
Carl "Hoppy" Edward Langley, III, was born Jan. 30, 1958, in Aiken. His funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Dec. 12 at Waller Funeral Home in Oxford, Mississippi. For additional information or to leave condolences online, call (662) 234-7971 or visit www.wallerfuneralhome.com.
The Link LonkDecember 06, 2020 at 06:09AM
https://www.postandcourier.com/aikenstandard/sports/you-never-forget-him-hoppy-langley-leaves-legacy-of-hard-work-leadership/article_a049d336-35ad-11eb-9f61-bf76142a9ae1.html
'You never forget him': Hoppy Langley leaves legacy of hard work, leadership - Charleston Post Courier
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