Dr.Ken

HELMET HUT NEWS/REFLECTIONS February 2010:

The 1962 NFL Championship Game

By Dr. Ken

There was quite a bit of response to last month’s HELMET NEWS/REFLECTIONS column about my memories of snow covered days where men braved the elements for the privilege of playing professional football. Every reader at HELMET HUT understands and no doubt regrets the many changes that the pro game has undergone on its continuing march to a highly sophisticated yet sanitized version of what used to be. Even in the current internet-fueled, media saturated exchange of the most minor amounts of football related information, it still may come as a surprise noting one example of how soft the game has become, that players are paid to work out. Until the mid-1970’s, it still was quite unacceptable to most coaches to see their players doing any form of weight training. As the emcee and keynote speaker at a number of annual university sponsored football strength clinics I get to congregate with the best in the field. Some of us who are considered to be pioneers in this activity of strength training specifically for football, certainly laud the current status of the activity, as part-and-parcel of the game’s preparation at all levels yet frown upon the fact that in the professional game, the players must be paid to actually show up and train.

Those who did not play football or did not receive the opportunity to go past the high school level or perhaps played briefly in college, to a man would have given anything to have had the slimmest of chances to play at the highest level. Knowing that the highest levels of strength and conditioning would be mandatory to maximize that chance, anyone it seems, would have taken an acceptable preparation program and worked as hard as possible, as often as it dictated. Today, the union contract requires that the players of the NFL be paid for individual workouts with a pay scale based on the total number of off-season workouts that are completed. Pay to train? With all of the possible benefits that come with playing in the NFL, why wouldn’t a player train as often and as hard as possible to insure his share of those rewards? Welcome to the modern NFL.

Today’s players are also protected from the climate in most venues. “The elements” may have been a concern to some old timers but it came with the territory and opportunity to play. Buffalo Bills’ games were typically broadcast in a flurry of snow as were the hard-hitting affairs on sheets of concrete hard ice from Green Bay, Minnesota, Chicago, Boston, and Denver. It made for great viewing, even when the skill position players were limited by the conditions.

Bills’ fans brave the snow at “The Rockpile”

My January HELMET NEWS/REFLECTIONS column made mention of the 1962 NFL Championship Game. Unlike perhaps 500,000 fans that claim presence at that momentous game, I actually was one of the 64,892 who attended. I was fortunate to be more or less given to my own devices at a young age. This required after school, evening, and/or weekend work if it did not interfere with high school football or track practice or games. Because I worked various jobs, I was usually in contact with or hanging out with older individuals. I often worked with an uncle who was a respected chef and this work was for some time, done at a well-known local night club. At times, another of my jobs was valet parking at the club facility. Driving, like welding, was a skill my father believed I should have and practice at a young age and he taught me to drive at the age of ten. Typical for the era, I learned on a four-speed manual transmission truck and a three-speed manual transmission automobile. At twelve I was driving regularly though the local police, whom always received huge plates of excellent fare when they stopped into the nightclub kitchen, had no problem with my illegal activity although I was admonished to drive only within certain boundaries of town.

The fellow that ran the parking concession was in his late-twenties, a former football player at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and he had his brother and buddies working for him. These guys were all “football nuts” and this stood out in an era when baseball truly was king. They knew every player, every statistic, and I was well-suited and well-versed to hang with their crowd despite a significant age difference. The coolest thing was that this group of fellows had season tickets to the New York Giants football games at Yankee Stadium. To me, this was the ultimate. As an aspiring high school football player, what could be better than talking football with guys who had actually been to the game just days before? When one of the group members received his draft notification from Uncle Sam, I was asked if I wanted to purchase his season ticket for the following two years. Wow, what an opportunity though I would have to work a bit of overtime to pay the tab. Would those now paying seat licensing fees to the Jets and Giants that total $20,000.00 or more just for the “right” to buy a season ticket believe that the cost of going to seven Giants games in 1961 cost me $35.00? That is NOT $35.00 per ticket or per game. My season ticket cost me a total of $35.00! Our seats were on the thirty-three yard line, on the Giants’ side of the field, and elevated enough to view the entire field clearly over the players that at times seemed to be no more than an arm’s reach from me. These were the Yankee Stadium baseball bleacher seats which meant that one sat between two white lines that were painted onto a wooden slat. There were no seat backs, no cover from the climatic factors, and a stigma that came with sitting in “the cheap seats.” For me, this was Heaven on Earth!