Jon Mark Beilue: Terry Funk loved being Terry Funk

Wrestler, showman, big heart: Funk was Texas Panhandle to his core

My youngest son and I were in our rental car, heading south on Highway 41 out of Green Bay, Wisconsin, on a late Sunday afternoon in mid-September 2018. It was the first of two bucket-list sports-trip weekends with each son.

We had just finished watching the Packers and the Vikings on the hallowed ground of Lambeau Field. We got to Oshkosh, and it seemed like a good place to stop to watch the Cowboys that night before getting to Chicago the next day. I looked for a decent motel, and this Red Roof Inn looked like it would do.

The kid at the desk looked bored because there wasn’t much hotel traffic at that hour. Rooms were available, and the price was fine. I filled out the necessary registration. Ryan was his name. He looked at my driver’s license.

“Amarillo, Texas? Man, I love Terry Funk.”

Photo: Terry Funk spent his later years back home in Canyon. (Courtesy Funk family)

Oh-kay. Now this, I did not expect, some 20-year-old in the middle of Wisconsin talking about Terry Funk. The boredom was gone. He went on about him as his favorite wrestler and character, never mind that Terry’s heyday was long past. Ryan sounded like his biographer.

When I told him that I knew Funk, I became a quasi-celebrity. It was as if I told a Beatles fan I used to pick up Paul McCartney’s mail when he was on tour. Finally, I said, “Hold on.”

I stepped away from the desk and called Funk from my contacts. It had been a while since we talked. It was Sunday afternoon. He likely didn’t have his phone with him or knew who this was based off the number and this wasn’t going to work, so –

“Hello?

“Terry?”

I quickly told him who this was, where I was and why I was calling before he thought it a crank call and hung up.

“This sounds crazy…”

Those words have always been too tempting for Funk. The crazier, the better. Sure, he said, let me talk to him.

“Here, Ryan, someone wants to talk to you.”

I gave the phone to Ryan and thought his knees were going to buckle. It looked like he was having a religious experience. It was maybe two minutes, and I’m sure Funk was playing Terry Funk to the hilt. When Ryan gave the phone back, I thought his life would forever be marked as Before the Phone Call and After the Phone Call.

That was Terry Funk, master entertainer. Big man with a bigger heart. In many ways, bigger than life to those who knew him and knew of him. That life, lived on his terms, ended Aug. 23 at age 79. His life—his body—just exhausted from his unique way of living in the fast lane.

Photo: Terry and brother Dory Funk Jr. are seen in this undated ringside photo. (Courtesy Funk family)

He and his brother, Dory Jr., spent much of their youth at Boys Ranch. It was not because of any wayward home life. It was because their father, Dory Sr., took Cal Farley up on his offer to be the Ranch’s disciplinarian and busted a few tails with tough love.

From that beginning, Terry would go on to be an international star in professional wrestling. His father and brother did the same, but Terry took it to several different levels.

Funk was a legend in Japan. He told stories about Japanese tour busses stopping at his ranch home near Canyon where tourists would get out just to take pictures of Funk’s home. Most of the time Funk would look through a window with a bemused grin and shake his head. On occasion, he would jump into character and come outside to give them something to talk about.

Funk may have been known in several continents, but he never forgot where it began. He was Texas Panhandle to his core. This part of the world ran through his veins. Privately and professionally, he didn’t run from that – he embraced it.

As a kid in the 1960s and early 1970s, I remember he was always introduced as being from “Umbarger, Texas.” Even though it was only about 75 miles from where I lived, I’d never been to Umbarger, but it sounded like just the place Funk should call home.

In the years before Marvel Comics characters in theaters, Funk was a superhero to many. He was the good guy taking on the scary Pak Song and his paralyzing stomach claw, The Shiek, and the Infernos managed by the sinister and cheating J.C. Dykes.

The Funks all had their signature move—The Spinning Toe Hold. If Terry got that on a wrestler, the poor guy was begging for mercy. It was over. I mean, it was over. Kids all over the Panhandle jumped up and down at the sight of The Spinning Toe Hold on some deserving villain.

Not really knowing how the pro-wrestling industry worked, it was a shock to my young system to be on vacation one summer out west when my family stopped for gas. Inside was a magazine rack. I went to the pro wrestling magazines and couldn’t believe what I was seeing on the cover: “DASTARDLY Terry Funk! Funk the Punk!”

Where am I? Get me out of this God-forsaken part of the world.

Photo: Terry Funk in uniform for then-West Texas State University. (WT Archives)

Funk played some football for then-West Texas State University and Joe Kerbel back in the 1960s. Records say he “attended” WT, and that charitably fit the description of his academic pursuits as his wrestling career was also getting started.

Funk was inducted into the WT Hall of Champions in 1997, a few years before his brother. Funk’s support for WT grew stronger over the last 20 years.

“Terry always loved WT,” said Jimmy Lackey, former executive director for the WT Alumni Association and currently president and CEO of Kids, Incorporated. “He didn’t always love certain things that went on at the university, but he always loved WT. I credit (former president) Dr. Russell Long for bringing Terry back in the fold.

“They became very good friends and Terry told me on several occasions how much Dr. Long’s friendship meant to him and how it made him feel part of the University again. He was also a big fan of Coach (Don) Carthel. Terry just wanted WT to thrive. I think he would be very pleased with the course the University is on now.”

No doubt, the many friends of Funk are remembering stories now—nearly all funny and nearly all about the giving nature of this showman and outsized personality.

Terry Funk loved being Terry Funk and people loved him for it, be it in an arena in Tokyo, having an adult beverage with his buddies or even on the phone on a Sunday afternoon with a stranger in an Oshkosh motel.

Do you know of a student, faculty member, project, an alumnus or any other story idea for “WT: The Heart and Soul of the Texas Panhandle?” If so, email Jon Mark Beilue at jbeilue@wtamu.edu .