Tommy Lewis played for the University of Alabama for three seasons from 1951 to 1953. Lewis had an impact in bowl games both in 1953 and 1954. In 1953, Lewis scored two touchdowns in the Crimson' Tide's Orange bowl victory over Syracuse, but that was overshadowed by what hapened in the 1954 Cotton Bowl. In that came, Rice's Dick Maegle was on his way to a 95 yard touhdown run when Lewis came off the bench to tacklehim as Maegle ran by the Alabama bench. The officials awarded Rice a touchdown on the play.

Lewis came to Canada in 1956 and played two seasons for the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1956 and 1957. Playing both ways as was the norm in those days, Lewis put up pretty good numbers on both offence and defence. As arunning back, Lewis hadnearly 1100 yards and 16 tuchdowns in the 24 games he played over two seasons. As a defensive back Lewis had 9 interceptions in those same 24 games.

Tommy Lewis passed away on October 12, 2014.

Tommy Lewis, the man who made Cotton Bowl history dies