Tim Hatch, image from Overhead Door Company of Lubbock
Tim Hatch got his lip busted open in a Texas Tech football game in the late 1940s.
Busted badly.
“It required stitches. Well, in today’s world, you’d be escorted off the field not to be seen again for that game. But the coach summoned over the team doctor and they stitched him up on the bench with no deadening – and put him back in the game,” said his son Les.
Timothy A. Hatch – the oldest living Texas Tech letterman and later businessman, community leader and football official – passed away Wednesday at the age of 95.
Tim started Overhead Door Company of Lubbock in 1953 and ran it until 1985 when he sold the business to his son, Alan. The company is now in the hands of a third generation in the family.
Tim was chair of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce 1978-1979 and several other boards which we’ll highlight further below.
According to his obituary, “Tim had a football scholarship from 1947-1950. He helped Tech to Border Conference championships in 1947, 1948 and 1949 as a tailback and kicker. He was inducted into the Texas Tech Athletics Hall of Fame in 1987 and recently flipped the coin before kickoff as the oldest living football letterman in 2024.”
There’s a video of the coin toss here.
LubbockLights.com spoke to his sons, Alan and Les. Alan said the coin toss was quite an honor and he was grateful to a company called West Texas Land Guys for helping to make it happen.
“Trey Strong and Robert Wood knew my dad and called me and asked if he might be interested in doing that,” Alan said of the company owners, who are Tech Athletics sponsors.
“We searched it – did a search and found out he was the oldest living letterman. So that’s how he got the honor to do that. …. He flipped the coin and he was really excited to do that,” Alan said.
Football was good to Tim – even after he stopped playing. He was back judge on Southwest Conference officiating crews for 18 years. Besides regular season games, he also worked the Cotton Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl and a few more.
As just one example, he signaled touchdown on Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino’s 12-yard touchdown pass to Benjie Pryor in the 1979 Fiesta Bowl. Tim, along with many players, appeared in a photograph published in the Arizona Republic. (Pittsburgh beat Arizona 16 to 10 in Sun Devil Stadium, if you were wondering.)
Tim and Tommie for 73 years
God and family were the priorities for Tim and his wife of 73 years, Tommie. Tim and Tommie were junior high and high school sweethearts in Wellington. They continued as college sweethearts at Texas Technical College – married in June 1950.
Tommie passed away in 2024. They knew each other long before they got married, so it was more like 83 years together, Les said.
Tim is survived by two sons – businessman Alan and State District Court Judge Les – and their wives.
Tim is also survived by a brother-in-law, nieces, nephews, and a long list of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was preceeded in death by his son Michael Timothy “Mike” Hatch in 2016.
“Tim and Tommie started every day reading their devotionals together,” the obituary read, adding the couple was active in First United Methodist Church in Lubbock from 1951 until their deaths.
“Tim served as chair of the Board and lay leader,” it also said.
Tim as a leader
Les said, “He was active in the church, but he wasn’t going to be the guy that was going to tell you to change your behavior.”
Instead, Tim would lead by example. Les said his dad wrote him and his brothers letters, which his dad probably “fretted” over.
“It’s for the first time that revealed to me just how deep and personal his relationship was with God,” Les said.
Tim got into business for himself in the 1950s because he needed a job, and Overhead Door Corporation needed a representative in West Texas. A friend set him up, and from there, his job was to convince home builders to do business with him.
“Lubbock was probably a little intimidating at first, but he had great success with Texas Tech football and his personality was such that the people liked him,” Les said.
“He was a hard worker, very reliable. And so, he was kind of destined for success with his personality,” Les added.
Tim Hatch on local boards:
- Chair, Lubbock Chamber of Commerce
- Chair, Methodist Hospital Board
- Chair, First United Methodist Church Board
- President, Red Raider Club
- Chair, First National Bank
- Chair Norwest Bank of Lubbock
- Chair Wells Fargo Bank in Lubbock
Tim was also a member of Rotary, Les said.
“There was just so much stuff he was involved with that it’s hard to include it all,” Les said.
As just one example, Congressman George Mahon introduced Tim and Tommie to Henry Kissinger (Secretary of State during the Nixon Administration) during a visit to Lubbock.
Slideshow: Images courtesy of Hatch family
Earned his (black and white) stripes
“He didn’t start out all glamorous in the Southwest Conference. … He was doing high school games,” Les said of his dad’s officiating career.
He got into college officiating through a friend. From there, he had to do a good job. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be picked for bowl games. It wasn’t by luck or chance, according to Les.
And Tim did not abandon high school games even after he moved up to Southwest Conference officiating.
“If he was going to Austin to do a UT game, he would stop off in Abilene on Friday night and do a high school game – and then drive down on Saturday morning to Austin,” Les said.
Les described his dad as coming into football from a humble background in Wellington. He described what a big deal it was for Tim to play in the 1949 Raisin Bowl in Fresno.
“They took a train from Lubbock – the entire team was on a train. And they used the train as their hotel room the entirety of their stay and then came back on the same train. And that was a big deal for him because he grew up pretty modestly, you know, at the end of the Depression being born in 1929,” Les said.
(Tech lost to the San Jose State Spartans, 20-13).
But football could be rough too. Tim started in the days of leather helmets.
“They had just gone to plastic in 1947, but no face mask,” Les said, making it easier for that busted lip.
Tim played for Tech at a time when older players were coming back from World War II. In spite of that, he was able to start as a freshman.
“He tells the story … He got beat on a long pass. He was a defensive back. So, he played defense and offense and kicker. But he got beat on a bomb and I guess the other team scored. And the coach jerked him out, chewed him out, sat him on the bench and put in his substitute. And the very first play for the substitute, they threw a bomb on him and got beat for a touchdown. They put my dad back in,” Les said.
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