Inside Pro Football

I've been reading Inside Pro Football, which, though published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1970, was actually written in 1968. Hal Higdon, who is amazing, did simple interviews with various pro-football stars about how they do the various tasks their positions entail.

For example, in the interview with John Mackey, the great Colts tight end says, "John Unitas stayed out many a night with me teaching me different things about running pass patterns, how to play different defensive halfbacks, even releasing in for the 'pop' pass across the middle. You pop the linebacker, give an outside fake, then cut for the middle. This gives John more time to drop back than if you released immediately. John can't throw backing up. Little things like that pay off in the long run. He and Raymond Berry were a tremendous help to me--and still are." (This appears on Page 47.)

Also, Daryle Lamonica spends a good bit of time praising the guy he replaced as quarterback of the Raiders, Cotton Davidson. Davidson was Lamonica's roommate after the latter arrived in a trade with Buffalo. Davidson had been Oakland's starter for six years but still talked Lamonica through a host of intricacies that Lamonica says helped him eventually excel (and take Davidson's job). Also, Lamonica tells Higdon that the Raiders coach, John Rauch, introduced him to punching a boxer's speed bag as an effective exercise for improving hand-eye coordination.

But one of the most interesting aspects of the book to me is the little comments that Higdon drops into each interview opening about the occasion of his meeting with the player. Here's where each of the interviews took place:

-- Roman Gabriel, in a Los Angeles Coliseum dressing room on the day before the Jan. 21, 1968, NFL Pro Bowl;

-- Unitas, in his hotel room in Los Angeles while Unitas packed to return home from the Pro Bowl;

-- Lamonica, several days after the Oakland-Green Bay Super Bowl, though the initial conversation took place following a press conference at a motel in Boca Raton, Fla., where the Raiders were staying before the Super Bowl;

-- Bernie Casey, over dinner at Casey's home in Los Angeles, where he was traded after refusing a trade from the 49ers to the Falcons because Casey didn't feel Atlanta would be conducive to his art career;

-- Charley Taylor, after practice for the Pro Bowl;

-- Don Maynard, in the coffee shop of the Thunderbird Motel in Jacksonville, Fla., before the AFL All-Star Game;

-- Jackie Smith, "one Saturday morning before practice in the red-carpeted clubhouse of Busch Stadium" (Page 41);

-- Mackey, over lunch before the Pro Bowl;

-- Gale Sayers, in the brokerage offices of Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, Sayers's offseason employer;

-- Jim Grabowski, in the player's Green Bay apartment;

-- Mick Tingelhoff, on a December Saturday in Chicago when the Vikings were in town to play the Bears;

-- Howard Mudd, at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in Washington;

-- Bob Brown, in the player's room on the ninth floor of Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia after a knee surgery;

-- Ron Mix, after an AFL All-Star Game practice;

-- Buck Buchanan, at a restaurant about a mile from the Chiefs' practice field, with Buchanan wearing a dark pin-striped suit and eating pig's knuckles an hour after a Kansas City practice;

-- Bob Lilly, in front of a fire in the fireplace of the family room of the player's house in suburban Dallas, with Lilly's wife cooking dinner and his kids watching TV;

-- Ordell Braase, Maxie Baughan and Willie Davis, in Los Angeles before the Pro Bowl;

-- Andy Russell, in the lobby of Green Bay's Northland Hotel the day before a Steelers-Packers game, with the player wereing gray trousers and striped tie;

-- Nick Buoniconti, one afternoon following a Boston Patriots practice;

-- Tommy Nobis, over breakfast in Los Angeles before the Pro Bowl;

-- Herb Adderley, a Saturday morning after practice in Green Bay before the Packers' last regular-season game in 1967;

-- Mel Renfro, at noon on a Tuesday, riding in Renfro's car from the team's headquarters to its practice field;

-- Larry Wilson, on a rainy day at Wilson's house in suburban St. Louis;

-- Jim Bakken, in the Cardinals' clubhouse after practice one evening, with the kicker wearing a tan jacket and puffing a cigar, and

-- Jan Stenerud, in front of the fireplace in the kicker's apartment, with Stenerud in stocking feet.

Higdon does not indicate where the Joe Namath, Joe Auer, Mike Garrett, Jim Nance, Bob Talamini and Kent McCloughan interviews took place, so I would imagine he did those over the phone or by mail.