George Allen, Don Coryell: Football celebrities from Author Ben Bryant
- Posted on 2nd September 2014
- in celebrity books, celebrity stories online, celebrity story, Entertainment, entertainment books, funny celebrity stories
- by Ben
This football celebrities story is from Chapter 4 of Three Stages.
After quitting George Allen’s team (and thereby losing my football grant) I’d stayed out of school for a year to earn some money to pay for the rest of college. That’s when I got into professional Show Biz. That story is in the same chapter. Here’s its whimsical synopsis: In which he is a full-time Grunt, enters the World of professional Make Believe (with Music), becomes an Airman and, at last, a College Graduate.
Author Ben Bryant’s Coach George Allen
I missed playing football terribly and Whittier had a new coach so I just couldn’t resist trying to make the team. There was no chance of getting my grant reinstated. I just wanted to play. Here’s an excerpt.
“That fall [1957] was technically my senior year but now I added Theatre to my group major and would not be able to get sufficient credits in all my courses to graduate in the spring. So I had three semesters to go.
“Even though I was fully involved in theatre and music courses and back in the choir I just had to go out, again, for football. Coach Allen had moved on to become an assistant coach with the LA Rams (as I predicted) and his replacement was another man who would gain fame in the NFL, Don Coryell.
“By now the unlimited substitution rule was back in effect so we had offensive and defensive ‘platoons’ as we named them back then. Coryell was as big a fanatic about offense as Allen was about defense. Later in his career when he coached the San Diego Chargers the term “Air Coryell” was coined about his offensive style. Anyhow in the early weeks of two-a-day practice I was making the team as second-string fullback. Coach liked my “put your head down and drive” running style and the way I trampled would be tacklers.
“Once we were in playing shape and full contact drills began we found out what an offensive fanatic Coach Coryell truly was. He’d give the offense the ball on the five yard line and if we scored (field goals weren’t allowed) the defense had to run a lap. If we didn’t score not only would we have to run a lap but he’d go nuts. One time I remember him banging his own head against the goal post when we didn’t get into the end zone.
“But alas, after three or four weeks the theatre and music departments won out and I hung up my cleats for the last time. The Whittier College Poets went on to win the conference that year as well as the next two that Coryell coached.”
I ended up playing in the band. I did one football game in the incredibly silly uniform which made us bandsmen look like Korean POWs then retired from that ill advised activity.
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