Former Chiefs WR Elmo Wright still dancing after touchdowns. Hey, Stram was OK with it

Elmo Wright led the nation in yards per reception at a whopping 27.9 yards per catch as a sophomore at the University of Houston in 1968. Overall, he was third nationally in receiving yards with 1,198.

But when the All-America teams were announced, his name was nowhere to be found.

The next season, he increased his number of receptions from 43 to 63, eighth most in the NCAA. He remained third in receiving yards, improving to 1,275 yards. With 20 more catches, his yards per catch were down (20.2), but still was 11th best.

Again, when the All-America teams were announced … crickets.

In his junior year, he came up with a gimmick — an end zone dance — that eventually drew a lot of attention. The result? He was selected first-team All-America as a senior, despite the fact that his receptions were down, his yards were down and even his yards per catch were down.

Ironically, the dance was an accident.

“It started in a game against the University of Florida,” Wright said recently about the origins of the dance. “They had an all-American DB named Steve Tannen. He said I wasn’t going to catch any passes against him. I said, ‘Catches? I score touchdowns.’

“I caught a pass against him and got out of his grasp and headed up the field to the end zone. As I did, I started high-stepping and the Florida fans started booing and throwing stuff. I said to myself, ‘They love me.’

“I decided to do it again. My focus was on trying to catch the ball, but when I scored a couple more touchdowns, I did a couple more dances. That’s how the dance started. The next thing I knew, I was catching touchdowns and I was dancing. It felt good; it was a rush of endorphins.”

Wright, now 71, finished his collegiate career with a 21.9 yards per catch average, including 3,347 yards and 34 touchdowns in three seasons, and he was the No. 1 pick by the Kansas City Chiefs (16th overall) in the subsequent draft. He will be inducted in the College Football Hall of Fame later in 2021.

He played four seasons with the Chiefs, where he got to use his end zone dance in front of a much bigger audience. But his biggest joy was being in the huddle and on the same team as so many future Pro Football Hall of Famers.

“If Hank Stram had told me to stop dancing, I would have stopped,” he said. “But Hank said, ‘Just get in the end zone.’ I thought, ‘This guy understands the entertainment aspect of football.’

“I was on a team that had just won the Super Bowl a year before. You had Len Dawson, Willie Lanier and Buck Buchanan. I was with them when they were developing their Hall of Fame careers. I had the best seat in the house. I got to listen to the plays in the huddle and see Otis Taylor lining up on the other end of the line.”

Wright’s was not a typical story for a kid from Texas. He didn’t start playing football until his junior year of high school, again by accident. He was a saxophonist in the band, something he said contributed to his “entertainment mindset.” But someone in the band threw a football when he wasn’t looking. It hit him in the mouth, “sending blood and teeth everywhere.”

He went out for the football team — probably because it was less physical — and helped his team to two state championships while earning all-state both seasons.

Wright always understood the entertainment value of what he was doing. An opponent once told him that he would break his neck if he scored a touchdown, but the academic all-American with a major in electrical engineering decided to “do the brain thing,” he said.

“I told him, ‘If I get in the end zone they put me on television. If you stop me before I get into the end zone, neither one of us is going to be on television. If you follow me into the end zone, you’re going to get some TV time.’”

For Wright, it was all about setting goals in such a way that, if you achieved them, you’d want to dance. It’s not just setting goals, it’s designing reachable goals that make you dance.

“After college, when I earned my MBA, I felt like dancing,” he said. “I didn’t have to be in front of a crowd to celebrate. It’s not just an end zone dance. The weirdest one was when I was walking out of the funeral home after my mother’s wake. I thought, ‘With all that she had to go through, she’s now in Heaven.’ That’s the biggest end zone there is.

“The same thing with my dad. All his life, his goal was to get to Heaven, and I knew there was going to be some dancing in Heaven when he got there.”

David Smale is a freelance writer and author of 22 books on sports history. One of his recent books, The Keys to the Kingdom, is on the entire history of the Chiefs franchise. It is available at www.davidsmalebooks.com. He also is the host of “Sports Connections,” available wherever podcasts are found.