Richmond Webb '93
From scholarship opportunity to offensive tackle career: Aggie Football letterman paves the way for family
Olin Buchanan
A rare combination of intelligence, agility and size guaranteed Richmond Webb '93 a place in Texas A&M's starting lineup.
But the starting lineup was not the only start. Webb's scholarship to Texas A&M assured he started more than football games. It started an education. It started a career. It started a proud family tradition of Texas A&M graduates that continued with two younger brothers and now includes his daughter, Madison, who graduated in May 2024.
Those opportunities were realized because of the dreams and sacrifices of Richmond Sr. and Bobbie Webb. After graduating from Pemberton High School in Marshall, they married and moved to Dallas for more employment opportunities.
The couple always emphasized the value of education to the four children they raised. Their first child, daughter Angela, attended Prairie View A&M University.
Two years later, Richmond went to Texas A&M. His two brothers, James and Joseph, would follow him to Aggieland.
“Mom always stressed education,” said Webb, who later found success in real estate and investing. “It was more important than sports. If you did not keep your grades up, you did not play.
“That was what she preached, and I am glad she did. She said you can only play sports for so long, but a degree will last longer than sports. She was right.
“You always want your kids to do better and go further in life. I had amazing parents. They are no longer here, but the stuff they instilled in me and my siblings was priceless.”
Richmond excelled academically as much as he did in athletics at Roosevelt High School in Dallas. He was an honor roll student. He was even the recipient of an engineering scholarship which was presented by Dallas-area engineers, but he could not accept it. In those days, the NCAA would not allow students to accept other scholarships if they were on an athletic scholarship.
There was no doubt Webb would get a football scholarship. He was smart and athletic, and by the time he was 18 years old, he had grown to 6-foot-6 and 245 pounds.
“Mom always stressed the importance of education. It was more important than sports. If you did not keep your grades up, you did not play. That was what she preached, and I am glad she did. She said you can only play sports for so long, but a degree will last longer than sports. She was right.”
“The good thing back then about being able to play sports exceptionally well is it allowed an opportunity for me to go to school,” Webb said. “I probably would have gone to school anyway, but to get a full ride took a tremendous burden off my parents.”
R.C. Slocum, who was A&M's defensive coordinator at the time, vividly remembers recruiting Webb.
“I recruited him for a long time,” Slocum said. “I watched him play football. I watched him play basketball. I remember sitting in his home one Sunday afternoon during an in-home visit. The family was watching a pro football game.
“I said to his mother, 'One of these days you will be sitting here watching Richmond play like that.' She said, 'Coach Slocum, you think my little baby one day will play pro football?'
“I said, 'Yes, ma'am. Your little baby will play pro football for a long time.'”
Following a stellar career at A&M, Webb was the ninth player selected in the 1990 NFL draft. He played 13 seasons at left tackle for the Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Bengals.
Webb was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection, four-time All Pro and was named to the NFL's All-Decade team of the 1990s. His omission from the Pro Football Hall of Fame is a mystery, but many NFL observers think it is inevitable Webb will eventually get the call from Canton, Ohio.
Texas A&M played a major role in that success. Webb likely would have experienced a successful career wherever he chose to play college football.
But at A&M, he shifted from the defensive line to offensive tackle where he earned All-Southwest Conference acclaim.
“He played defense, but we needed an offensive tackle,” Slocum recalled. “We moved him over there, and he turned out to be a great offensive tackle.”
That move may have changed Webb's life. Yet, it was just one of many life-changing events he experienced at Texas A&M.
The greatest, of course, is he met his wife, Chandra Williams '90, who was also a Texas A&M student at the time.
Further, Webb earned a degree in industrial distribution. His mother, seemingly, was prouder of that than anything her son had accomplished on the football field.
“When I got my ring, that was big for me,” Webb recalled. “I had to start playing pro football, so I came back and finished my degree. At the time, I was not going to walk. My mom said, 'No, you have got to walk across the stage.' Thank God I listened to my mom.
“To hear President Mobley call my name and for me to walk across that stage and get a degree from Texas A&M — that was a defining moment for me.”
Another defining moment for Webb was when his daughter received her own Aggie Ring. Indeed, she said her father often has his own way of recruiting for A&M.
“He is going to talk about Texas A&M eventually,” Madison said. “He will tell you how great a school it is and why you should send your kids there.
“Being an Aggie runs deep for my parents. When I was getting my ring, he was telling everybody about it.”
Just like her father, Madison knows the value of an A&M education is priceless.
“Texas A&M has really challenged me academically,” she said. “It has challenged my leadership skills. I learned how to work with people, how to study and how to handle a lot of adversity. It is definitely worth it. I am glad I made the decision.”
Madison's dad shares her pride in choosing to become an Aggie.
“I made the right choice of going to A&M,” Webb said. “The core values are what I stand for. The university, the coaches I had and my teammates influenced my life.”
It all started with parents who stressed the value of an education and an athletic scholarship that opened the door to invaluable opportunities.