'63 Steelers

Rudy Dicks

Description

How a team of vagabonds made a charge at football historyThe year 1963 percolated with dreams-big dreams. Martin Luther King Jr. had one, and he articulated it to an audience of a quarter of a million people assembled in a commitment to civil rights. President John F. Kennedy had his own dreams, one of which involved sending a man to the moon. Prosperity and new technology fostered the belief that in the USA anything was possible. In western Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Steelers, their fans, and the Irish American family that owned the team also had a dream: to end 30 years of futility on the field and bring the city its first NFL championship.Author Rudy Dicks recreates the Steelers' 1963 season game by game and profiles the ragtag squad of rejects, misfits, and scalawags that coach Buddy Parker jury-rigged into a contender. He shows how a group of unsung players banded together to overcome tough breaks, injuries, and a losing tradition, challenging the more glamorous Cleveland Browns and New York Giants for a conference title and a berth in the NFL Championship Game.Dicks details the travails of the team as they staged weekly dramatic comebacks and rebounded from painful losses, complementing his tale with reminiscences and insights from former Steelers. He traces the individual stories of players like Buddy Dial, who became a star receiver after being cut by the Giants; kicker and defensive end Lou Michaels, who escaped a life in the coal mines; and Andy Russell, who disdained a career in pro football but turned into a perennial Pro Bowl linebacker and a Super Bowl champion.The year 1963 became one of the most tumultuous years in American history. Children died in an Alabama church bombing, the conflict in Vietnam worsened, and the country would be forever scarred by an assassination in Dallas. Dicks places the 1963 Steelers' quest in the context of a nation admiring a young boxer named Cassius Clay, a music phenomenon in England called The Beatles, and the switch from black-and-white to color TV sets. Game photos and training camp shots round out the text.

Sujets

• USA
• Fútbol americano
• American football
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 31 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612777252
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

THE ’63 STEELERS

WRITING SPORTS SERIES Richard “Pete” Peterson, Editor

The Cleveland Indians  Franklin Lewis

The Cincinnati Reds  Lee Allen

The Chicago White Sox  Warren Brown

Dreaming Baseball  James T. Farrell

My Greatest Day in Football  Murray Goodman and Leonard Lewin

The Detroit Tigers  Frederick G. Lieb

The Philadelphia Phillies  Frederick G. Lieb

The Washington Senators  Shirley Povich

The ’63 Steelers: A Renegade Team’s Chase for Glory  Rudy Dicks

THE’63 STEELERS

A RenegAde TeAm’s ChAse foR gloRy

RUDY DICKS

The KenT sTATe UniveRsiT y PRess Kent, Ohio

©202 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242 All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 20203505 ISBN 978--60635-43-7 Manufactured in the United States of America

Every eort has been made to obtain permission from those persons interviewed by the author who are quoted in the book.

â ô çôÉŝŝ çââô--ûçâô ââ Dicks, Rudy.  The ’63 Steelers : a renegade team’s chase for glory / Rudy Dicks.  p. cm. — (Writing sports series)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-1-60635-143-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) ∞ 1. Pittsburgh Steelers (Football team)—History. I. Title. II. Title: 1963 Steelers. III. Title: Nineteen sixty three Steelers.  GV956.P57D5 2012  796.332'640974886—dc23 2012013505

6 5 4 3 2

5 4 3 2 

For the 963 Pittsburgh Steelers . . .

. . . and for Sheldon J. Dicks, who set an example for how to be as tough as Red Mack, as compassionate as Art Rooney, and as conîdent as Bobby Layne . . .

. . . and for Lillian W. Dicks, for nurturing in her sons a love for reading and writing

You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat. Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of saddest thought, and who, if he is a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leaving it. —Roger Kahn,The Boys of Summer

The noblest battles of all are those fought in vain. —Edmond Rostand,Cyrano de Bergerac

CONTENTS

Preface Acknowledgments Author’s Note Preseason: An Introduction Game  Versus Philadelphia Eagles  At Franklin Field  September 15 Game  Versus New York Giants  At Pitt Stadium  September 22 Game 3  Versus St. Louis Cardinals At Forbes Field  September 29 Game 4 Versus Cleveland Browns  At Cleveland Municipal Stadium  October 5 Game 5 Versus St. Louis Cardinals  At Busch Stadium  October 13 Game 6 Versus Washington Redskins  At Pitt Stadium  October 20

ix xvii xix  



4

5

6

8

8

0

3

8

2

viii

Contents

Game 7 Versus Dallas Cowboys  At Forbes Field  October 27 Game 8 Versus Green Bay Packers  At Milwaukee County Stadium  November 3 Game 9 Versus Cleveland Browns  At Pitt Stadium  November 10 Game 0 Versus Washington Redskins  At D.C. Stadium  November 17 Game  Versus Chicago Bears  At Forbes Field  November 24 Game 2 Versus Philadelphia Eagles  At Forbes Field  December 1 Game 3 Versus Dallas Cowboys  At the Cotton Bowl  December 8 Game 4 Versus New York Giants  At Yankee Stadium  December 15 Epilogue Afterword Notes Index

9

5

09

29

49

65

9

208

222

247 254 257 292

PREFACE

I grew up in the late îfties and early sixties in a ranch-style house at the corner of Rosewae Drive and Skywae Drive in a city that theSaturday Evening Postlabeled “Crime Town USA” and that also came to be known as “Murder Town.”1  Some days my mother would hide the front section of our hometown paper, theYoungstown Vindicator,so that my brothers and I would not be exposed to the gory headlines and stories about guys with funny nicknames getting blown up in cars and their body parts being scattered across the neighbor’s yard. I didn’t înd out about her protectiveness until years later, but I wouldn’t have minded anyway, as long as she didn’t take away the sports section. The only bombs I cared about as a kid were the ones quarter- backs threw.  That ’63Poststory said that there had been seventy-îve bombings in Youngstown over a decade’s time, which, if accurate, means that the only person busier than the wise guys in town was my mother stashing away sections of the afternoon paper. But the world of Cadillac Charlie, the Crab, Tar Baby, and the “bug” (the numbers game) was far from ours in northeast Ohio. My view from the crest of the hill on Rosewae was îlled with more innocence than Lake Wobegon: dads mowing the lawn, moms working in the garden, kids riding bikes, and the îreworks in the distance from Idora Park, where my dad would take my mom on Sunday nights in the summer to listen and dance to Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, and Woody Herman. You could phone us by dialing SWeetbriar 23065 or send us a

ix