Charles Kenneth Hall (born December 13, 1935) nicknamed "Sugar Land Express", is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player. Playing for the Sugar Land High School Gators (

Sugar Land, Texas Sugar Land is the largest city in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, located in the southwestern part of the metropolitan area. Located about southwest of downtown Houston, Sugar Land is a populous suburban municipality centered around ...

) from 1950 to 1953, Hall established 17 national football records, several of which still stand.

High school

Hall's career prep rushing record of 11,232 yards (1950: 569 yd; 1951: 3,160 yd; 1952: 3,458 yd; 1953: 4,045 yd) stood until November 16, 2012, when it was broken by

Derrick Henry Derrick Lamar Henry Jr. (born January 4, 1994) is an American football running back for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League (NFL). His imposing rushing game and larger stature than the average running back earned him the nickna ...

. His 32.9 points per game (1953/12) remains a national record. His record of 38 one hundred-yard games was tied by

Steve Worster Stephen Clark Worster (July 8, 1949 – August 13, 2022) was an American professional football player who was a fullback for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Following his prep career in Texas, he played college f ...

in 1966, but was not broken until the mid-1980s by Emmitt Smith, whose record was recently broken by Rushel Shell of Hopewell High School in Pennsylvania. Hall also finished his career with 14,558 yards of total offense (11,232 rushing/3,326 passing), a record that would last until being broken by Nitro (West Virginia) High School's future

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

player J. R. House in 1998. At Sugar Land, Hall played in the

single-wing formation In American and Canadian football, a single-wing formation was a precursor to the modern spread or shotgun formation. The term usually connotes formations in which the snap is tossed rather than handed—formations with one wingback and a h ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

, standing and weighing in at . According to the ''National High School Sports Record Book'', Hall still holds multiple single-season records, including average points per game (32.9), touchdowns per game (4.8) and rushing yards per game (337.1). In a single contest against Houston Lutheran High School in 1953, Hall averaged 47.3 yards on 11 carries for 520 yards (the state record for nearly 25 years, currently 4th), returned a punt 82 yards, a kickoff run of 64 yards and snatched a 21-yard interception for a combined 687 total yards.

College

Hall was recruited by several schools, and chose to attend

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

under college coach

Paul "Bear" Bryant Paul William "Bear" Bryant (September 11, 1913 – January 26, 1983) was an American college football player and coach. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and best known as the head coach of t ...

. He quit before his college's team went to the Junction, Texas, training camp and got married.

Professional career

Hall played in the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

and for various

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

teams between 1957 and 1961. On October 23, 1960, Hall averaged 65.33 yards per kickoff return for the

Houston Oilers The Houston Oilers were a professional American football team that played in Houston from its founding in 1960 to 1996 before relocating to Memphis, and later Nashville, Tennessee becoming the Tennessee Titans. The Oilers began play in 1960 a ...

against the New York Titans, 3rd highest on the all time individual NFL record books for highest average kickoff return yardage, game (minimum of at least three returns). He played in 34 total games, serving as a half back and occasional punter. He rushed for 212 total career yards on 51 carries, with 8 receptions for 118 yards and 2 touchdowns. He returned 11 punt returns for 164 yards and a touchdown and he returned 31 kicks for 833 yards for one touchdown. He punted 14 times for 448 yards.

Legacy and honors

In 1983, Hall was placed in the National High School Hall of Fame. Hall also belongs to the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame and the

Texas Sports Hall of Fame The Texas Sports Hall of Fame recognizes athletes, coaches, and administrators who have made "lasting fame and honor to Texas sports". It was established in 1951 by the Texas Sports Writers Association. Once it made its first induction (baseball ...

. Hall was honored, by All American Games, in 1999 with the creation of the

Hall Trophy The All-American Bowl Player of the Year Award (formerly known as the Hall Trophy and U.S. Army Player of the Year Award) has been awarded annually since 2000 to the most outstanding high school football player in the United States, comparable to t ...

. The Hall Trophy (molded in Hall's likeness) is presented annually to an outstanding football player on a nationwide level. Some past winners include Chris Leak,

Adrian Peterson Adrian Lewis Peterson (born March 21, 1985) is an American football running back who is a free agent. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest running backs in football history. He played college football at Oklahoma, where he set the ...

Mitch Mustain Mitchell Stewart Mustain (born February 27, 1988) is a former professional football player. He played high school football and baseball at Springdale High School in Springdale, Arkansas. Mustain played his first year of college football at the U ...

, and

Terrelle Pryor Terrelle Pryor Sr. (born June 20, 1989) is a former American football wide receiver and quarterback. Considered the most recruited high school football-basketball athlete in southwestern Pennsylvania since Tom Clements, Pryor was widely rega ...

. During the 1980s, Hall was sales manager for Sweetner Products Company, a large wholesale sugar distributor in Southern California. He lives in

Fredericksburg, Texas Fredericksburg (german: Friedrichsberg) is the seat of Gillespie County, in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 Census, this city had a population of 10,530. Fredericksburg was founded in 1846 and named after Prince Frederick of Prussia. ...

Records

Fifty-five years later, Hall still holds the following Texas state records: *Single-season rushing yards (4,045/1953; this was accomplished in 12 games, and Hall remains the only Texas running back to rush for over 4,000 yards in one year) *Rushing per game (337.1 yards/1953/12) *Points per game (32.9/1953/12) *Career rushing (11,232 yards/1950–53)Texas High School Football Rushing Career Yardage Leaders
Lone Star Gridiron

References

External links

Ken Hall Stadium
1935 births Living people People from Fredericksburg, Texas People from Madisonville, Texas Players of American football from Texas American football running backs Texas A&M Aggies football players Baltimore Colts players Chicago Cardinals players Houston Oilers players St. Louis Cardinals (football) players American Football League players American players of Canadian football Canadian football running backs Edmonton Elks players {{Runningback-1930s-stub