Strange but true: The Houston Oiler and ‘The Great Imposter’

HOUSTON — It's a trick play which, more than 50 years later, has one man still guessing.

His name? Jerry LeVias. Best known for being the first Black football player in the old Southwest Conference and, after that, a star wide receiver for the Houston Oilers.

“If you could meet him, what would you ask him?” wondered KHOU 11’s Jason Bristol during an interview with LeVias in June of 2023.

“I would want to ask him, ‘How did you pull that off?’” said Levias. “And ‘Why did you choose me?’”

In 1971, LeVias decided he was “fed up with football” and headed to Florida to play baseball for the Detroit Tigers. He called first, though. Talked his way into a tryout.

After he arrives, the Tigers present him with a jersey.

Meeting with reporters in Lakeland, home of the Tigers’ spring training fac