The '63 Steelers (33 page)

The Packers had beaten the Steelers by 19. The Bears beat the Packers by 19. “Does that make Chicago 38 points over Pittsburgh on Sunday?”
Post-Gazette
sportswriter Jack Sell asked. “Go right ahead and think so if you want,” Ballman answered. “I don't know how they figure games by points.”
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Halas wasn't buying into the math either. His euphoria after “one of the greatest triumphs in Bear history” quickly turned to worry as Chicago prepared for a visit to Forbes Field.
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“Never mind the Packers game. The Steelers should have beaten them,” said the coach, who had spent forty-four of his sixty-eight years in professional football.
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“I'd rather be playing any team in the league than the Steelers. They are tough and punishing.”
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In the Steelers, Halas could no doubt see a mirror image of his own club. Pittsburgh was the one team whose survival-of-the-fittest mentality could rival the reputation of the “Monsters of the Midway.” And a letdown by the Bears seemed only human after the Packers' visit received the buildup of a championship game. “No team can play perfect football two weeks in a row, and it seems too much to expect them to be as supercharged as they were last Sunday,” Tex Maule said after the Bears' win.
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Halas didn't shrink from the growing attention. In fact, he took the opposite approach of Buddy Parker and welcomed the tension. “No, I'm not afraid of a letdown after the Green Bay game,” he said. “The pressure is building up this week. That's the way I like it … lots of pressure. Being completely relaxed is no good.”
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Halas had his Bears playing as if it was still the 1940s, “demonstrating that games can still be won in the old-fashioned way.”
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Bill Wade was an efficient quarterback who led the league in pass attempts and completions in '62 and finished third in passing yardage. Ten games into the '63 season, he ranked second in the league to Y. A. Tittle among passers, relying on Ditka, No. 8 among leaders in receptions, as his prime target.

The Bears finished twelfth out of fourteen teams in rushing in '62 and through the first ten games of '63 ranked eleventh in total offense, with none of their backs among the top ten rushers. After eight games, every team in the league with a winning record had scored 200 points—except Chicago. The Bears would go on to finish tenth in the league in points scored.

Young George Allen had taken over from Clark Shaughnessy as defensive coordinator. His crew was “performing virtual miracles,” and it would wind up the season allowing a league-low 144 points, 62 less than the second-best unit, and would rank first in differential between takeaways and giveaways (plus 29).
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It was the defense, ranked first in the NFL, that had allowed the Bears to win by scores of 10–3 (twice), 17–7, 16–7, and 6–0. It was the only defense in the NFL that had held opponents to an aggregate rushing total under 1,000 yards (892) after ten games. Aptly enough, it was Roger Leclerc of the Bears who was named AP's player of the week after kicking four field goals in the 26–7 victory over the Packers. Pittsburgh's defense, as tough as its personnel was, ranked only tenth in the league and had given up an average of nearly 138 yards more per game than Chicago's unit.

Doug Atkins, a future Hall of Famer, anchored one end spot, and Ed O'Bradovich the other. Bill George, Larry Morris, and Joe Fortunato formed a rugged trio of linebackers. Parker said that the Bears had the best defensive
backfield in the league. One safety, Roosevelt Taylor, was leading the league in interceptions, with seven; the other, Richie Petitbon, would go on to a career as coach, rising to defensive coordinator and, briefly, head coach.

The Bears weren't doing anything flashy. They were winning with sheer physical play. “They beat the hell out of us,” Vince Lombardi said after his team's 26–7 loss.
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Jim Taylor, who had rushed for 141 yards against the Steelers, gained only 23 against the Bears, and the Packers had a total of only 71 on the ground.

Both the Steelers and Bears had a key injury. While Halas had to deal with a season-ending ankle injury to fullback Rick Casares, Parker was facing a second straight game without Brady Keys, who had sat out the Redskins game with bruised ribs. Now Keys was hemorrhaging in the chest cavity.
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Before practice at Wrigley Field on Wednesday before the game, Halas made it sound as if the Steelers were more fearsome than the defending champion Packers. “My gosh they have a fine team,” he said. “That John Henry Johnson is some runner, and now they've come up with this fast young fellow named Ballman.”
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The player who was perhaps most eager to face the Bears was the man who knew them best: Ed Brown, who was with Chicago for eight years through 1961. “Beat the Bears?” Brown said right around the time Halas was raving about Pittsburgh. “I want to beat them in the worst way.”
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Brown still harbored a grudge for having to split playing time with Wade and Zeke Bratkowski after Chicago was routed by the Giants in the 1956 title game, 47–7. “After the 1961 season I was fed up, and asked to be traded,” Brown said.
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In '59 he completed 125 of 247 passes for 1,881 yards and thirteen touchdowns, all personal highs for his pro career in Chicago. His playing time dropped off over the next two years, and in '61 he threw only ninety-eight passes. Then Parker rescued him.

“Certainly this game means more than most,” Brown said. “Everybody is a little bitter after being traded, even if you ask for it, and this is one way to get back. Besides, I've got a lot of friends on the Bears, guys I came into the pros with, and I'd like to beat them.” Brown spoke evenly, but his coach knew that his feelings ran deep. “He's the type of guy who doesn't say much but I know he wants nothing better than to beat the Bears,” Parker said.
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Brown's old teammates still respected him, and they knew how dangerous he could be with a football. “Ed Brown was our man, and we loved him,” Casares said of the quarterback.
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The morning of Friday, November 22, 1963, brought cloudy but mild weather, with temperatures expected to hit the 60s, while out West the first
major winter storm of the season was gaining strength. The lead story in the
Post-Gazette
warned that the city was facing a December 8 strike by 1,300 trolley and bus operators. Robert F. Stroud, “the Birdman of Alcatraz,” had died at age seventy-three. Joey Bishop, Joan Crawford, and Jack E. Leonard were scheduled to appear at a benefit Sunday night at the Penn Sheraton Ballroom. And a page 1 story described President Kennedy's dedication of the Aerospace Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, the day before. “The conquest of space must and will go on,” the president stated. In the spirit of the time, he said, “doing and daring are required of all who are willing to explore the unknown and test the uncertain in every phase of human endeavor.”
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As a security precaution, the Steelers held a “secret practice” on Thursday at Forbes Field rather than at South Park. There was no indication that Parker had anyone monitor the surroundings with binoculars, although ten years earlier a bit of paranoia surfaced while he was conducting a Detroit Lions practice. As a railroad switch engine passed on a track by the practice field, the coach noticed the engineer and fireman watching the workout, so Parker stopped practice. “For all I know, George Halas could be sitting in the cab of that locomotive,” Parker said.
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Art Rooney Jr. remembered being in the Steeler offices Friday afternoon. “Joe Carr was our ticket man. He came running in and he said, ‘Some nut just shot President Kennedy. It looks like he's dying.'”
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Late in the day, Dan Rooney, who had been listed in the '62 press guide as the team's program director but was running the day-to-day operations, got a phone call from commissioner Pete Rozelle, asking what Rooney thought about playing the Sunday schedule. Dan Rooney told the commissioner it would be a mistake to play the games.
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Employees in the Steeler headquarters listened to the news on the radio. Before heading home, Art Rooney Jr. said, “I went down to Saint Mary's Church … and you couldn't get in the church. It overflowed. Next day I came in, I tried to go to mass and it was the same thing—just packed.”
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Kennedy had visited western Pennsylvania at least six times in eight years, dating back to his time as a senator. In mid-October of '62, while campaigning for a gubernatorial candidate, he made stops in Monessen, where he shook hands with steelworkers and railroad workers; in Aliquippa, hometown of the Bears' Mike Ditka; in Emsworth, where he accepted a bouquet of roses for the First Lady from Holy Family Orphanage; and at the George Washington Hotel in Little Washington, as it was known locally, an hour south of downtown Pittsburgh, where he watched Army play Penn
State on TV. Estimates of the turnout in western Pennsylvania ranged from 300,000 to half a million, all of them eager to get a handshake or just a glimpse of the president.
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News was slow to spread in downtown Pittsburgh. For nearly an hour after the first bulletin of the assassination in Dallas, it looked like a normal Friday. Then, gradually, shoppers and workers began to gather by radios in cigar stores, restaurants, and newsstands. Steeler defensive lineman Lou Cordileone learned of the shooting when he looked in the show window of a store selling TV sets. A table of diners at the Hilton heard the news from a waiter. Mayor Joseph A. Barr was having lunch in the Pittsburgher Hotel when he was informed of the assassination, and then he returned to his office and listened to the news on his radio. Later, as delivery trucks dropped off newspapers on street corners, people eagerly snatched them up. The news spread swiftly. “The word traveled on those invisible lines of communication that make individuals listening posts and transmitters,” the
Pittsburgh Press
reported.
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The newspaper offices and the courthouse received a deluge of phone calls seeking more information after “the first flash”—the news bulletin with top priority transmitted on paper scrolls to the newspaper offices—reported that the president had been shot. For people along Smithfield Street in mid-afternoon, the dread of a nation was confirmed by one simple act: the lowering of the post office flag to half-staff by two office workers.
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When NFL players got news of Kennedy's assassination, they knew that whatever followed over the next two days was out of their control. All they could do was wait for directions on where to go, and when.

The Packers, trying to recover from their loss in Chicago, had wrapped up a meeting on Friday, and most players were leaving for the day when they began picking up news reports on car radios. Five of the Packers were from Dallas. “I suppose we'll be infamous now,” said Bill Forester, a tenth-year linebacker from SMU.
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Bill McPeak huddled the Redskins in a silent prayer on the practice field before heading to the locker room. After Sunday's game, the team would send the game ball back to the White House.
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Sam Huff was driving across the Triboro Bridge, with teammate Don Chandler in the car, heading home from practice at Yankee Stadium, when he got the news. “Terrible. It was absolutely terrible,” he said.
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Bob St. Clair, a six-foot-nine, 265-pound offensive tackle for the San Francisco 49ers and a pro for eleven seasons, said: “I cried when I heard Mr. Kennedy had been killed.”
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The biggest and baddest in the sports world
wept, and that included Sonny Liston and his wife. “I feel very bad for myself and my race for he was a friend of ours and of the people,” Liston said in a statement.
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It's safe to figure that Big Daddy Lipscomb, too, would have wept unashamedly.

Rozelle conferred with Pierre Salinger, and repeatedly with Dan Rooney, and finally the commissioner and Salinger reached the conclusion that playing the NFL schedule would be beneficial to the country. Rozelle issued a brief statement: “It has been traditional in sports for athletes to perform in times of great personal tragedy. Football was Mr. Kennedy's game. He thrived on competition.”
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Years later, Rozelle conceded that he made a mistake, but under the circumstances it was understandable and forgivable. “When you look back on it, you can question different things, but your life had to go on, even though some things are totally unreal in how they happen,” Dick Haley said. “It was hard for everybody to focus, no question about that. Probably everybody was distracted a little bit in circumstances like that.”
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The University of Pittsburgh, 7–1 and in the hunt for a major bowl bid, postponed its game with Penn State, a sellout at Pitt Stadium, after several hours of discussions and phone calls Friday afternoon. The Penn State players had already checked in at their Pittsburgh hotel.

Other cancellations and postponements came swiftly. Eastern racetracks shut down. The NBA postponed its Friday night schedule. A fight at Madison Square Garden was called off. Dozens of college football games were postponed, but the NCAA left the decision about whether or not to play up to the individual schools. Less than a fourth of about fifty “major” college football games went on as scheduled.
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But life did go on. Detroit Lions stockholders approved the sale of the team to William Clay Ford for $6 million. Montana State fired its football coach. North Carolina State College went ahead with its Friday night game against Wake Forest. The Pittsburgh Hornets of the American Hockey League gave up four goals in the final period and lost to the Hershey Bears, 5–3, Saturday night before a crowd of 6,781 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The Hornets also had a Sunday night game scheduled against the Springfield Indians. In Boston, the forty-eighth dog show of the Eastern Dog Club began Saturday despite criticism of what had become “a trifling event in the face of a national tragedy. There was a pall over all and the realization that what was happening in the rings was of small moment.”
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