The RoundHouse | 2/9/2021 3:12:00 PM

By Paul Suellentrop
 
If one highlight, one lingering memory of a fall afternoon, stands out from the final chapters of Wichita State football, it surely involves quarterback Prince McJunkins.
 
His speed. His elusiveness. His daring and clever decisions running football's option play.
 
"He wanted to show the world he could ball," said teammate Reuben Eckels, a receiver at Wichita State. "Once he got it in his hands, we knew something was going to always happen."
 
McJunkins, 60, passed away on Tuesday in a Tulsa hospital after contracting COVID. According to friends, McJunkins was taken off life support on Tuesday morning. He had returned to his home recently to care for his mother, Verna (McJunkins) Palmer, who died on Feb. 2 from COVID.
 
"It's a double tragedy," Eckels said. "He was a wonderful gentleman and an ambassador for Wichita State University. I was truly inspired by him."
 
McJunkins, in a 1981 interview, credited his faith.
 
"God," he told The Wichita Eagle. "He's my inspiration. Without him, I couldn't do the things I do."
 
At his home in South Carolina, former Wichita State coach Willie Jeffries took phone calls as news of McJunkins' death ran through the football family. He remembers McJunkins as a defining recruit in his first season, a quarterback brought in to run the option who became much more.
 
He remembered McJunkins' humor, warm personality and his fondness for pancakes. Teammates remember him as a soft-spoken leader, one who loved to sing R&B, Rick James and gospel songs.
 
"He called quite a bit," Jeffries said. "He considered himself a member of our family."
 


McJunkins directed the program's last memorable season before the university dropped the sport in 1986. In 1982, the Shockers went 8-3 with McJunkins earning Missouri Valley Conference Offensive Player of the Year honors for a second season.
 
"He was tough and he had the quick feet," Jeffries said.  "I've told people over and over that tall quarterbacks can't run the option. We needed a guy who could do the short, choppy steps and was very agile. He had all of that, and he could pass."
 
McJunkins ran the option offense with style, pitching to running backs or slicing through the defense on his own. 

"He was such a threat to run himself, because of his speed," said teammate Jay Hull, who played guard. "He had really good vision to cut back. When you're so worried about all that, then he would stop and pass. It was such a triple threat."
 
In 1982, McJunkins ran for 10 touchdowns and threw for 11 while totaling 1,220 yards of offense.
 
That season, he threw perhaps Wichita State's most treasured touchdown pass, a 50-yard catch-and-run by receiver Don Dreher with 3:08 to play at Kansas. Dreher's leap into the end zone gave the Shockers a 13-10 victory over the Jayhawks in Lawrence.
 
Jeffries called it play 169, an option fake for McJunkins to throw. The play started with him bluffing a run.
 
"Then he stopped, dropped back a couple steps and threw it," said Mike Kennedy, the radio play-by-play voice for Shocker football. "By that time, the defense was frozen."
 
McJunkins, from Muskogee, Okla., played for the Shockers from 1979-82 and became the first NCAA player to rush for over 2,000 yards and pass for over 4,000 yards in a career. His No. 1 jersey is retired.
 
He finished with career records for total yards (6,591), passing yards (4,544), touchdown passes (27) and plays (1,226). 
 
Eckels said McJunkins played with a mission to prove that Oklahoma and Oklahoma State missed out when they declined to recruit him. His size (6-foot-1, 170 pounds) caused doubts. Tulsa wanted him to play defensive back. Quarterback, however, was the only position he played.

"I'm proof that heart and desire matter," he told The Eagle in 2000. "I loved playing quarterback."
  
Jeffries arrived at Wichita State and decided he needed to run the option to make the best use of his small offensive line. He patterned that approach after offenses at Army and Navy. His assistants found McJunkins, who made it work.
 
"He did it as well as anybody you'd see," Kennedy said. "He was just spectacular."
 
McJunkins was named to the MVC's All-Centennial team for the 1980's. He was named MVC Newcomer of the Year in 1979 and honorable mention All-America by the Associated Press in 1981 after throwing for 1,725 yards and rushing for 765.
 
He played two seasons for the Ottawa Rough Riders in the Canadian Football League. Later in life, he worked as a probation and corrections officer and a recreational supervisor for the Department of Defense in Afghanistan, friends said.

In 1979, the Shockers played at Alabama, the eventual AP national champion. Alabama won 38-0, but Hull remembers McJunkins forcing Bear Bryant to work for the shutout by guiding the Shockers close to the end zone.

"He put his first-teamers back in," Hull said. "Twice, Prince fell into the end zone and they didn't call a touchdown. Coach Jeffries said he would watch the referees look at Bear and Bear Bryant would shake his head."

 While fans will remember the drama against Kansas, his performance in a 24-21 loss at Tennessee in 1981 may stand as his masterpiece. He accumulated 268 yards of offense and had the game tied 21-21 in the final minutes.
 
"He's the quickest quarterback we have ever played against," said Reggie White, former Tennessee defensive end and NFL great, in The Wichita Eagle. "Their quarterback could run right through you, and if you didn't watch him closely, he would be gone in a second."

Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.