"You have to know what Hornung means to this team. I have heard and read that he is not a great runner or a great passer or a great field-goal kicker, but he led the league in scoring for three seasons. In the middle of the field he may be only slightly better than an average ballplayer, but inside the twenty-yard line he is one of the greatest I have ever seen. He smells that goal line."--Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi on his running back, Paul Hornung, quoted in George Sullivan, The Great Running Backs (1972)
A helluva lot of American guys in the 1960s undoubtedly secretly hoped that if they were ever reincarnated, they’d come back as Paul Hornung’s fingertips. It wasn’t only that he was a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback at Notre Dame; that, with Jim Taylor, he formed the “Thunder and Lightning” tandem that powered the Packers to one championship after another; or that Vince Lombardi called him the most versatile man ever to play the game.
(If you want an idea of his style, see this YouTube clip showing his TD run against the Cleveland Browns in the 1965 NFL championship game.)
No, not to put to fine a point of it, but Hornung may have scored more off than on the gridiron. After all, what’s a guy to do when, even in college, he returns to his dorm room to find a young lady, waiting expectantly for him? Even in the accompanying image, fresh after a victory, he looks as if he can't wait to meet someone who's caught his eye.
His reputation as a stud, however, might have been sealed for good when John M. Ross, in America Weekly, described him as a “205-pound Adonis” who “constantly runs the risk of becoming the first player in history to be carried triumphantly from the field on the soft shoulders of a shrieking female horde.”
This, I submit, is akin to the Daily Telegraph drama critic who hailed Nicole Kidman’s appearance in The Blue Room as “pure theatrical Viagra.” It’s the type of publicity you want printed and spread far and wide.
Lombardi, a Victorian at heart when it came to women, had a soft spot in his heart for the hellraiser he continually fined for rules infractions. It even survived the coach’s sense of betrayal when he discovered Hornung had lied to him about betting on Packer games.
When Hornung finally ‘fessed up, the coach agreed to go to bat for him at Commissioner Pete Rozelle's office, then, rather like a surrogate father, told him what it would involve, in language that his star, a fellow Catholic, could understand perfectly: “You stay at the foot of the cross. I don't want to see you go to the racetrack. ... I don't want to hear about you doing anything. Keep your nose clean, and I'll do my best to get you back. But, mister, stay at the foot of the cross."
It’s impossible to believe, but the swift young back who “ran to daylight”--and into the arms of many a young lady--turns 75 today (and--far sadder--that teammates like Max McGee have already passed on). Happy birthday, Golden Boy!
No comments:
Post a Comment