Jack "Hacksaw" Reynolds
Jack "Hacksaw" Reynolds Middle Linebacker HT: 6-1 WT: 227 College: Tennessee With the Rams 1970 - 1980 Played 13 postseasons games
Honors:
Pro Bowl Seasons 2 All NFC Seasons 4 First Draft Pick in 1970
Tackles Stats and TD:
897 career combined tackles (Second in the Rams History) 6 seasons leading the team in tackles top 1 tied with David "Deacon" Jones 1 career TD in 1979 (no playoffs) Most combined tackles by a linebacker in the Rams History
1979 Rams at Denver on Sept. 6 Thursday on Prime Time:
The Rams won their first game of the season, when middle linebacker Jack Reynolds crawled into the the end zone on a QB Craig Morton fumble to beat Denver 13 - 9.
This was his first and only TD of Reynolds career with the Rams on Prime Time, national television. This is the same season the Rams made their first Super Bowl appearance in 1980.
According to football legend, Hacksaw Reynolds acquired his nickname because he got so angry following a loss to Mississippi while playing college football at Tennessee in 1969 that he sawed a jeep in half.
Reynolds set the record straight when he said: “That’s not true. I never sawed a jeep in half – I love jeeps and owned six of them at one time. It was a 1953 Chevy that I sawed in half.
Throughout a 14-year NFL career with the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers, Hacksaw earned a reputation as a tough-tackling middle linebacker who could chop opposing ball-carriers in half on any given Sunday.
His saw story in his own words...
In 1969, when I was a senior at the University of Tennessee, we had already clinched the Southeastern Conference title but still had to play Ole Miss. If Tennessee won the game, we would have gone to the Sugar Bowl. The previous year Tennessee had beaten Ole Miss 31-0. Things went badly that day and Ole Miss beat the Vols 38-0.
I played a good game and was really upset at the outcome, so I went back to school. We had an old car, a ’53 Chevrolet with no motor, on top of a bluff above the school. We used to push it around with a guy’s jeep and practice driving into things…like demolition derby.
When I got back to school I decided that I would cut that old car in half to make a trailer for a new jeep I had just purchased. It was a good outlet for my frustrations. I went to K-Mart and bought the cheapest hacksaw they had…along with 13 replacement blades. I cut through the entire frame and drive shaft, all the way through the car. I started on Sunday and finished Monday afternoon.
It took me eight hours total time. I broke all 13 blades. When I finished I went and got one guy from the dorm, Ray Nettles, to witness it. The next day we took the rest of our friends from the dorm up the hill to it, but when we got there both halves of the car were gone…with just the 13 broken blades lying on the ground.
To this day, I don’t know what happened to the car.
