During a fire drill on Friday I saw a good friend of mine from work and he spoke with one of the senior leaders about great NFL tailbacks. Both lamented how many have never seen the greats because they are retired now, meaning they are sadly forgotten or unknown. I decided to go looking for a book I had about some of these players, and found it since I was motivated to do so. It was published in 1973 and found at a secondhand store. I like reading older books to see what they emphasized then, especially history books.
It is true, some of the players in it are largely forgotten. I had never heard of Leroy Kelly (Browns) and Larry Brown (Redskins) before reading the book. There were 14 players profiled, starting with Jim Thorpe and ending with OJ Simpson. I had heard of Floyd Little (Broncos) as I once worked with somebody in college who had lived in Colorado for 30 years. He said the Denver Broncos offense was simple for a while, hand off to Floyd Little for 3 downs and punt if they didn't get a first down.
I had to remind myself how space reasons likely meant why some players weren't in it, like Ernie Nevers. His team was the inspiration for the movie "Leatherheads" starring George Clooney, about the early days of the league. I liked reading about the Steelers glory years in other books, winning 4 Super Bowls in the 1970s. Franco Harris was their main tailback, but he isn't in this book. He was still a young player then and his team hadn't won any Super Bowls just yet.
When this colleague heard I had found the book he said he hopes that more people remember today's players better- due to archival footage- but he doubts this will happen. Since players come and go fairly often. Put another way, out of sight often means out of mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment