The Class of Football

by Adam Schefter

  CHAPTER 4

  MEMORIES

  DURING THE 2007 SEASON, THE FLORIDA TIMES-UNION published an interview with Jacksonville Pro Bowl cornerback Rashean Mathis in which he was asked the best advice he had received from a teammate. Mathis recalled his second year in the league, 2004, when teammate James Trapp—who went on to become the team chaplain for the Atlanta Falcons—approached him with a question.

  “He asked, ‘Are your ribs showing?’” Mathis recalled. “I know I’m a skinny dude, so I was like, ‘What do you mean? Are you trying to say I’m skinny?’ And he was like, ‘No, are your ribs still showing?’ I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “But basically, he just told me, ‘Regardless of how good you get, stay hungry. Stay hungry and keep your ribs showing.’”

  This was one lesson. There have been plenty of others, along with the mounds of advice that has been dispensed and absorbed.

  Hall of Famers heard it, lived it, and, eventually, shared it. These are their memories.

  Marv Levy

  Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills Coach

  Class of 2001

  Levy led the Bills to an unprecedented four consecutive Super Bowls. He compiled a 154–120 coaching record.

  Presented by Bills, Panthers, and Colts General Manager Bill Polian

  It is said that leadership is that unique quality which enables special people to stand up and pull the rest of us over the horizon. By that, or any other definition, Marv Levy is one of the greatest leaders this game has ever known.

  His incredible vision for what his teams and players could become—and there are many seated in front of us here today who I think will be up on this podium before long—his magnificent ability to articulate that vision, his boundless kindness and empathy for his players and associates, and his unconquerable will to persevere no matter what the obstacle or odds left an indelible mark on those of us privileged to be led by him.

  His famous Marvisms, reflected in a few short sentences from a person, a philosophy, a role model, not only for us, but because of his genius as a teacher, through us for generations to come. Here are just a few:

  “Everyone wants to win. The special person has the will to prepare to win.”

  “What you do should speak so loudly that no one can hear what you say.”

  “Adversity is an opportunity for heroism.”

  “Expect rejection but expect more to overcome it.”

  Words not only for winning, but for living. And words that remind us not only of the lessons learned and battles fought but of the profound respect and affection we have for their teacher.

  Cicero wrote that friends multiply joy and divide sorrow. There wasn’t very much sorrow in our days together, and Marv, your friends are here today to thank you and multiply your joy as you take your rightful place amongst the game’s immortals.

  Perhaps the most famous Marvism of all is the most appropriate today: “Where would you rather be than right here, right now.”

  Marv, there’s no place in the world we would rather be than right here, right now.

  Marv Levy

  When I first walked out onto the practice field as a high school assistant football coach exactly a half-century ago next month, men like Jim Thorpe, Bronko Nagurski, Sid Luckman, and Marion Motley were mythical gods. They still are, and I tread this ground with great reverence for them and for all who reside here. Never did I dream that someday I might be invited to share these same lodgings with them.

  How could it happen? Well, it’s because of some wondrous people, without whose love, abilities, and counsel I’d not be standing here today.

  My father, Sam, by his lifelong example, displayed for me the virtues of an honest day’s work and of great personal courage. You as avid football fans undoubtedly have witnessed many exciting runs from scrimmage. But the greatest run I ever knew of was by my father, who during World War I, along with his comrades from the storied Fourth Marine Brigade, raced several hundred yards into withering machine-gun fire, across the wheat fields at Belleau Wood in France. Their valor on that June day, in 1918, succeeded in halting the German army advance just twenty-five miles from Paris.

  He was my hero even before I was born. One day, many years later, I telephoned my father to tell him I was leaving Harvard Law School and that I wanted to be a football coach. Thirty seconds of painful silence followed, and then the old marine said simply, “Be a good one!” I hope I haven’t disappointed him.

  I will never forget that first time I walked into the Buffalo Bills’ team meeting room in early November of 1986 upon being appointed in midseason to take over as head coach. Sitting in that room were a young Jim Kelly, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith, Kent Hull, and Darryl Talley, great leaders. So were Jim Ritcher, Pete Metzelaars, Will Wolford, Dwight Drane, Fred Smerlas, Mark Kelso, and Mark Pike. Soon to join them: Steve Tasker, Shane Conlan, Cornelius Bennett, Howard Ballard, Thurman Thomas, John Butler, Kenny Davis, Henry Jones, Phil Hansen, and speedy receivers like Don Beebe and James Lofton.

  What an odyssey I lived with those men, with their teammates and coaches, with all the wonderful people in the Bills’ organization, and with those incomparable Buffalo Bills fans. For six consecutive years they led the NFL in attendance. Who cared if it was bitter cold or if an angry snowstorm was raging? Their spirits were as tough as linebackers; their hearts were as warm as the thermal underwear I wore during those January playoff games in Orchard Park.

  And what about those great players and coaches against whom we competed so fiercely? I’m so proud to have walked the opposite sideline from Hall-of-Fame coaches: Don Shula, Tom Landry, Bill Walsh, Bud Grant, Chuck Noll, Joe Gibbs. And to have walked the same sideline as an assistant to a coach from whom I learned so much and to whom I owe so much, the inimitable George Allen.

  My family, all girls, is here. Someone once lamented that given my enthrallment with this game, it’s a shame I never had a son. Well, he was wrong. Don’t tell me I never had a son. I’ve had thousands of them, of every size, shape, color, faith, and temperament, and I loved them, every one. And because of them, I still hear the echoes from those sounds which glorify this game. I hear the cheers of the crowd as Thurman or Andre goes hurtling into the end zone or as Bruce…Bruce…Bruce sacks yet another quarterback.

  I hear the grunts and collisions out on the field of play. I hear Jim Kelly calling cadence at the line of scrimmage. I hear Kent Hull’s confident Southern drawl as he relays our line blocking schemes to his teammates up front. I hear the thundering footsteps of young men as they streak down the field to cover a kickoff. No one ever did it better than two men here today, Steve Tasker and Mark Pike.

  And finally, I hear words spoken to me more than fifty years ago by a man whose memory I cherish. He was my basketball coach and my track coach at Coe College. His name was Harris Lamb. And I will conclude my remarks today by repeating for you what he said to me so many years ago: “To know the game is great. To play the game is greater. But to love the game is the greatest of them all.”

  Harris, my dear friend, I have truly loved this game, and I love everyone who has shared this passion with me.

  Steve Owen

  New York Giants Coach

  Class of 1966

  Owen coached the Giants to a 155–108-17 record, with eight divisional titles and two NFL championships.

  Accepting on Behalf of Steve Owen, Giants Coach Jim Lee Howell

  There’s just one little human incident that I want to bring to your attention. We were playing the Browns in one of the crucial games, and his team had been very stingy in giving up touchdowns to the Browns. And here on this particular day, just before we went in for the half, one of the boys that is now one of the leading coaches in the country let the kickoff roll down to the goal line, where it was recovered by the Browns. They scored and we went in at the half. In came this huge three-hundred-pound man and we thought here that he would tear this young fella apart. He walked up to him, looked him in his ey
e, and then bent over him and put his arms around him and said, “Jimmy, we’ll get that one back for you.”

  That is a great coach.

  Gino Marchetti

  Dallas Texans and Baltimore Colts Defensive End

  Class of 1972

  After being voted to eleven consecutive Pro Bowls and All-NFL nine times, Marchetti was named the top defensive end of the NFL’s first fifty years.

  Presented by Colts and Rams Owner Carroll Rosenbloom

  Ernest and Maria Marchetti always had a somewhat normal parental fear that their son, Gino, would be hurt playing football and they advised him to stay out of it and to keep out of other boys’ way so they won’t hurt you. Every quarterback who played in the National Football League in the 1950s and early ’60s wished that Gino had followed his parents’ advice.

  Gino Marchetti—six-foot-four, 240 pounds of extreme talent—did not listen to his father’s advice and Gino wound up instead as the greatest defensive end in the history of pro football.

  When I retired Gino’s number, I said to him and to the people in Memorial Stadium that he was a legend in his own time. To say to you that Gino Marchetti was a great football player doesn’t begin to describe this man. It is like saying that the Taj Mahal is a nice place to visit or that Abraham Lincoln was an outstanding president of the United States.

  Through most of my adult life, and particularly during my ownership of the Baltimore Colts, I have witnessed closely the swings in our society, the changes in our young people—some moving up, some sliding down. Inevitably, the question arose, “What sets one person apart from another? Why does one prosper and another fail?” I think that I have found that answer in Gino.

  In the National Football League, he was an all-time defensive end at six-four, 240. This was not really big compared to the current rosters. And yet, more than any single man, Gino is credited with creating the crashing style of the modern defensive end play.

  Marchetti played in every pro football game but for one from 1955 through 1965. The one he missed was because of a broken leg in the 1958 championship game, the first break of sudden death ever in pro football. Right on the sideline he refused to leave until he saw his team tie it up in the final seconds of regulation time. Of course, he had saved that game with the never-to-be-forgotten tackle on Frank Gifford in a critical third-down play. Not because God had given him a body better than others, but because he took what God gave him and got more from himself than he ever thought he would be able to give.

  The greatness that is within him will be with him for the rest of his life. He had an outstanding and unending commitment to excellence, a willingness to submerge himself individually within a group effort, courage, an acceptance of pain, and a love for what he is doing and a notation of achievement, respect for worthy adversaries, and, perhaps most important, the realization that not all in life can be success and victorious.

  Gino Marchetti

  I was fortunate enough to be associated with an organization like Baltimore and Carroll Rosenbloom, fortunate enough that they didn’t believe in the old theory that a lot of people have today that an athlete should be lean and hungry to play the game of football.

  Lucky enough for me that Carroll grabbed me one time in San Francisco—that is exactly the way he approached me. We were voting championship shares that day and I had gotten the call that the big man wanted to see me. So being nervous, when the owner wants to see you, you say to yourself, “Now what did I do wrong?”

  So I went to his room and he came out dressed very casually and sat down and he said, “Hey, you dumb hillbilly! What are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

  At that time, I was playing and I was going home, tending bar, working in a factory, very happy, very content. And he showed me the way to better myself and make a better life for my family. And through him and the organization, I have grown, and I think that any man or any player that was fortunate enough to be within that organization should be very thankful.

  I was at a banquet a few years ago in Baltimore when a guy gave a definition of a successful person. And he said that a successful person is somebody that loves to do something and is smart enough to get somebody to pay him to do it.

  So I sat there and thought, “Man, that takes care of everything.” You know if you want to be a bartender or a janitor or a mechanic, and you’re smart enough to get somebody to pay you, you are successful. And I thought, “Here I am, just a kid smart enough to get Carroll Rosenbloom to pay me to do what I love.”

  Jim Parker

  Baltimore Colts Offensive Lineman

  Class of 1973

  Parker was the first full-time offensive lineman elected to the Hall of Fame. He was All-NFL eight consecutive years and voted to the Pro Bowl eight times.

  I would like to tell you fans here in Canton, Ohio, and all over the country, just how I got started in football.

  If you were at the Mayor’s Breakfast yesterday morning, you saw a picture of me when I weighed 106 pounds, and I wanted to be just like my oldest brother. He was a football star and I looked at him every time he came home and I idolized him.

  So I went to my mother one day and I said, “Ma, I want to play football.” She said, “That’s good, you can be the waterboy.” I said, “I don’t want to be the waterboy, I want to be a star like my brother on the football team.” So she said, “Well, why don’t you give it a try?”

  So I went out for the high school team at fourteen and 106 pounds, and I came home one day so beat up, black and blue all over, and she said we have to fatten you up. She started preparing all of the starchy foods for us because meat was at a ration at the time, and I started working out every day, and she tolerated this all the way through high school. I just worked out and I started gaining weight.

  When I was having trouble at Ohio State University, I called home and I got inspiration from my mother. And when I was having trouble at Baltimore with the Colts making the team, I remember one day I called her. I called home and I was worried about the pass protection and they said, “Don’t worry about it and have a little faith in God and everything will be all right.”

  Raymond [Berry] said I had the team made because I was the first draft choice. But I kept a suitcase packed for the eleven years I was there.

  Larry Wilson

  St. Louis Cardinals Safety

  Class of 1978

  Wilson intercepted fifty-two passes, including a streak of at least one in seven straight games in 1966. Wilson also made the “safety blitz” famous.

  Presented by Utah Coach Jack Curtice

  Larry Wilson had all the grace and the poise and the speed and the agility and whatever it took to be a great defensive football player—in spite of my coaching.

  Because as we would have practice sometimes, one boy would break down the field on a forward pass, which we were using in those days, and he would break behind Larry and I would turn around and say, “Wilson, what in the devil is the matter with you, letting that fellow break behind you?” And Larry would say, “Sorry, coach, but I’ll not let the ball get back there.”

  Well you know, it took almost nearly a year to be smart enough to realize that Larry didn’t need my help. Many a receiver broke behind Larry Wilson, but I have yet to see a quarterback throw one behind him.

  I do want to finish with one thing I think you will always remember. After Larry’s last game with the Big Red, the people of St. Louis as you know them, a fellow named Stan Musial had some little standing in that community. In fact, he had so much standing they built a big bronze statue of him at one end of the stadium. After Larry’s last game, the people of St. Louis met one night and they raised $80,000 to build a bronze statue at the other end of the stadium of Larry Wilson, the greatest in professional football.

  But ladies and gentlemen, Larry Wilson would not let them take the money for a bronze statue, though there had been a precedent set. Larry said, “Add two rooms to the children’s hospital.”

  L
arry Wilson

  Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is very meaningful to all of us and it is a point of time where we can share our joys with different people. All of us look back to our families first of all and say, “Hey, thank you for standing behind us, for fighting, for loving, and for sharing the time that you did with us.” I really think in my lifetime of playing football I gained from them their determination and desires, which is what made me what I was out on the football field. All you had to do was turn around and look at them and they said, “Go get them.”

  Like Ray Nitschke, I liked to hit people. I enjoyed it. I feel that one thing about football today that every youngster who’s competing should know is go out and enjoy yourself. It can be drudgery, but I would just hope and pray that each one of your sons will have the same opportunity that I have had, to compete in football and to have fun.

  And I would say to you that this is a great game, this is the epitome of what every one of us played for—to be standing in front of the shrine and to be honored with a statue and with a picture saying you are the best.

  I’ll say to you, this is a great game. We all can find fault in it. We argue about the salaries that we are paid, we argue about the rules changing. I’ll say to you, be positive. This is number one.

  Doug Atkins

  Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears,

  and New Orleans Saints Defensive End

  Class of 1982

  An eight-time Pro Bowl selection and an All-NFL selection four times, Atkins played seventeen years and 205 games.

  Presented by Bears Executive Ed McCaskey

  I remember one time standing next to Coach Clark Shaughnessy at a practice session at St. Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Indiana, and he said to me, “Now I will show you who the great athletes are.”