RetroSimba

When Roman Gabriel was with the Los Angeles Rams, a strong performance versus the St. Louis Cardinals helped him emerge as a No. 1 quarterback. Later, when Gabriel went to the Philadelphia Eagles, he led them to a stirring comeback against the Cardinals for his first win, then never beat them again.

In 12 games, including 10 starts, versus the Cardinals, Gabriel won four, lost eight. Seven of those defeats came when he was with the Eagles.

Gabriel won a NFL Most Valuable Player Award in 1969 but never played for a NFL champion in 16 seasons. He was 83 when he died April 20, 2024.

Potent passer

Roman Gabriel’s father came to the United States from the Philippines and settled in Wilmington, N.C., working in a dining car for a railroad.

As a youth, Gabriel had a severe case of asthma. “I remember having to stop to sit on a curb so I could catch my breath on my way to school,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Gabriel attended New Hanover High School, alma mater of NFL quarterback Sonny Jurgensen, and was one of the best prep basketball centers in the state. He joined the football team his senior year. With a strong arm, size and athleticism, he was a natural. “He can throw the pigskin a country mile,” the Greensboro (N.C.) News and Record observed.

Playing college football at North Carolina State, Gabriel became the first Atlantic Coast Conference quarterback to throw for 1,000 yards in a season. At 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, the Post-Dispatch noted, “He can peer over the tops of defensive linemen. He can stand resolute in the midst of a ferocious rush. He once demonstrated for onlookers that he could toss a football 85 yards in the air.”

Pro scouts were dazzled. The Oakland Raiders made Gabriel the No. 1 overall pick in the 1962 AFL draft. The Rams, with the second and third choices in the first round of the 1962 NFL draft, chose Gabriel and Utah State defensive tackle Merlin Olsen, and signed both.

Tinsel Town

A football player named Roman Gabriel seemed ideal for a team that played its games at the Coliseum in the City of Angels.

The strapping quarterback also had a look tailored for Hollywood. “This is quite a chunk of manhood,” New Yok Times columnist Arthur Daley wrote. “Gabriel is a bronzed giant with high cheek bones.”

Temptations were abundant. Reflecting on his early years with the Rams, Gabriel said to the New York Times, “I came from a small city in North Carolina, Wilmington, and Los Angeles was a lot for me to swallow. For a few years, I was pretty wild, out every night and waking up in a different place every morning. I finally realized that kind of life wasn’t getting me anywhere.”

Gabriel initially did more playing off the field than he did on it. Zeke Bratkowski was the Rams’ quarterback in 1962 and 1963, with Gabriel being given starts in the back ends of those losing seasons. Injured at the beginning of the 1964 season, Gabriel watched as rookie Bill Munson started at quarterback.

The Rams, though, remained intrigued by Gabriel’s potential.

“Gabriel is a cinch to be the next superstar at quarterback,” Rams head coach Harland Svare told the New York Times in 1964. “He’ll be making headlines long after Y.A. Tittle and Johnny Unitas have departed. No quarterback in the history of the league is as strong as Gabriel. One day, Gino Marchetti, the toughest defensive end in the business, had him apparently pinned against the sidelines. Gabriel merely reached out and pushed Marchetti’s face into the dirt. Then he made the throw.”

Nonetheless, when the 1965 season opened, Gabriel was the backup to Munson. As Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray noted, “Gabriel has been a Ram for four years. Most of that time he has been just another spectator.”

Job won

On Nov. 21, 1965, Munson tore up his right knee in a game against the San Francisco 49ers and the Rams’ season record fell to 1-9. Gabriel took over and led them to consecutive victories against the Green Bay Packers (their last loss in a NFL title season), St. Louis Cardinals and Cleveland Browns. 

In the Rams’ 27-3 victory over the Cardinals, Gabriel threw two touchdown passes, completed 55 percent of his throws and wasn’t intercepted. One of the scoring passes, 59 yards to tight end Billy Truax, came on third down-and-17 as the Cardinals blitzed two linebackers and a safety.

“Gabriel, unlike any other quarterback, is as strong as the men who were coming at him,” The Sporting News noted. “He strode around in the heavy traffic as Truax ran his pattern. Then, as the Cardinals hacked at him like small boys with a toy hatchet, the tallest quarterback threw a straight dart for the touchdown.”

The Los Angeles Times concluded, “The Rams again benefited from inspired leadership as Gabriel kept the team on the move at all times.” Game stats

The next week, Gabriel threw five touchdown passes against the reigning NFL champion Browns. Game stats

Those performances got the attention of George Allen, who became Rams head coach in 1966. He named Gabriel the starter. “I was determined not to have this Bill Munson-Roman Gabriel wish-wash,” Allen told the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer. “I wanted one quarterback. Gabriel was the man.”

Missing link

Before Allen arrived, the Rams hadn’t had a winning season since 1958. With Gabriel as his quarterback, Allen led the Rams to winning records in each of his five seasons with them. In 1967, the Rams were the NFL’s highest-scoring team. Two years later, Gabriel led the league in touchdown tosses (24). “For sheer arm, he is the Sandy Koufax of the NFL,” Jim Murray wrote.

Rams receiver Jack Snow told the Raleigh News and Observer in 1969, “(Gabriel) is the best in the league. I don’t think anyone else could lead the Los Angeles Rams. He is smart, respected and there never has been any questions about his ability. When he steps in the huddle, he’s the boss. The whole team has complete confidence in his ability.”

The hurdle Gabriel couldn’t overcome was the postseason. He got the Rams into two playoff games and lost both. The biggest letdown was in 1969, when the Rams were 11-0, then lost four in a row, including a playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings. “I was crushed, beyond consolation, and I cried,” Gabriel told the Post-Dispatch. “I’d done some good things, but I hadn’t done enough, so I’d let the team down. I felt an awful emptiness.”

Lights, cameras

During timeouts from football, Gabriel tried acting in TV shows and movies. His TV appearances included episodes of “Perry Mason,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “Ironside” and “Wonder Woman.” He showed up in the role of a prison guard in a 1968 movie comedy, “Skidoo,” directed by Otto Preminger and starring Jackie Gleason and Carol Channing.

Gabriel’s biggest movie role was in the 1969 western, “The Undefeated,” starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson. Gabriel’s Rams teammate, Merlin Olsen, also had a part. Gabriel was cast as Blue Boy, an adopted Cherokee Indian son of Wayne’s character. As critic Roger Ebert noted, “Gabriel looks about as Indian as one of the Beach Boys.”

According to Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rock Hudson said in a 1980 interview he thought the movie was “crap” but he had fond memories of the filming because he became a close friend of John Wayne and Roman Gabriel. Movie trailer

Gabriel said to the Raleigh News and Observer in 1969, “I like acting, and there’s nothing like starting with a winner like John Wayne. I hope some of his winning style rubbed off on me.”

Bad ending

Injuries hampered Gabriel’s playing days with the Rams in 1971 (knee and elbow surgeries) and 1972 (a collapsed lung and tendinitis in his throwing arm). With Tommy Prothro as head coach, the 1972 Rams had a losing season. Disenchanted, Gabriel lashed out, implying the Rams were a selfish group.

“He made some statements that were detrimental to the team,” Rams center Ken Iman said to The Sporting News.

Receiver Jack Snow told columnist Bob Oates that Gabriel didn’t speak to teammates the last two weeks of the season. “Several members of the team, including myself, tolerated him the last half of the season,” Snow said. “I didn’t look up to him. I didn’t respect him.”

In January 1973, after the Rams acquired quarterback John Hadl from the San Diego Chargers, Gabriel demanded a trade. The Rams obliged, sending him to the Eagles in June 1973 for receiver Harold Jackson, running back Tony Baker and three draft choices.

Eagles win

Winless in his first four games with the Eagles, Gabriel faced the Cardinals at St. Louis on Oct. 14, 1973. The Cardinals led, 24-13, in the fourth quarter, but Gabriel threw two touchdown passes in the final two minutes, giving the Eagles a 27-24 victory. The winning touchdown came on a 24-yard pass to receiver Don Zimmerman as time expired.

In the huddle, Gabriel had asked Zimmerman, a rookie making his first NFL start, “Can you get open?” Zimmerman replied, “I think so.” 

“OK,” said Gabriel. “I’m coming to you.”

Gabriel called the play: 93 double arrow. “The pattern called for both wide receivers (Harold Carmichael and Zimmerman) to run deep posts,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. “As Gabriel dropped back, he looked toward Carmichael, freezing safety Clarence Duren. Zimmerman loped down the left sideline, then cut sharply toward the goal post.”

Zimmerman caught a strike from Gabriel and was hit by both Duren and safety Jim Tolbert. Then cornerback Roger Wehrli hit Zimmerman from behind, but Zimmerman continued into the end zone. Game stats   Video at 7:46

Gabriel went on to have a spectacular first season with the Eagles, leading the NFL in completions (270), passing yards (3,219) and touchdown throws (23).

Stupid gesture

In 1974, NFL players went on strike, refusing to report to training camps. The NFL ordered teams to keep the camps open, planning to operate with rookies and free agents. Gabriel, 34, decided to defy the union and cross the Eagles’ picket line.

As a busload of rookies, free agents and Gabriel arrived at camp, “Gabriel was jeered by the same players who had held him in reverence the previous season,” the Philadelphia Daily News reported. “Impulsively, Gabriel reacted by closing his hand at the bus window and extending his middle finger.”

Among the players outside Gabriel’s window were the entire Eagles offensive line.

“I believe Roman Gabriel lost the team when he crossed the picket line,” Eagles running back Po James told the Philadelphia Daily News.

In a 13-3 loss to the 1974 Cardinals, Gabriel was sacked nine times. Game stats

“No one ever suggested that the offensive linemen quit on Gabriel in 1974, but the gung-ho streak that used to sustain their blocking against physically superior defenses was no longer in evidence,” Jack McKinney noted in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Two years later, when Dick Vermeil became head coach of the 1976 Eagles, Mike Boryla replaced Gabriel as the starter. Gabriel spent his final season, 1977, as a backup to Ron Jaworski.

After his playing career, Gabriel worked in several jobs, including three years as head football coach at Cal Poly Pomona (8-24 record), a 1980s stint as president of the Charlotte Knights minor-league baseball team, and a stretch as radio broadcaster for the NFL Carolina Panthers (1995-2001).

Gabriel remains the Rams franchise leader in career touchdown passes (154) and most games played at quarterback (130).

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In high school at suburban St. Louis and in college at the University of Missouri, Andy Russell helped make every football team he played for a winner and was at his best in the most important games.

A hometown standout would seem a natural choice for the St. Louis Cardinals. Instead, Russell played his entire NFL career as an outside linebacker with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He was named to the Pro Bowl seven times in 12 seasons and was captain of the Steel Curtain defense that transformed the franchise into Super Bowl champions.

In his rookie season in 1963, Russell stung the Cardinals, intercepting a pass in a Steelers victory. He was 82 when he died March 1, 2024.

Executive’s son

Charles Andrew “Andy” Russell was born in Detroit and lived in Chicago and New York before his family moved to the St. Louis suburb of Ladue. His father’s job as an executive with Monsanto, the chemical company, required the relocations.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Andy Russell said his father William “was an immigrant who came to the United States from Scotland in 1922 at age 11. He was proud of making his way in this new world. It’s a million miles from the tenements of Glasgow to the top ranks of Monsanto.”

Andy Russell became an accomplished fullback on the Ladue Horton Watkins High School football team. Nicknamed “The Horse” because of his power and ability to stiff-arm tacklers, Russell led the team to an 8-0 record his senior season in 1958.

He chose Missouri from among 25 college scholarship offers because, in part, “I was impressed particularly with the members of the faculty whom I met,” Russell told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

As Russell entered college, his father got promoted to lead Monsanto’s overseas division. Andy’s parents moved to Brussels, Belgium (and later Geneva, Switzerland), and Monsanto provided Andy with roundtrip airfare each summer during his college years to join them in Europe, according to the Post-Dispatch.

Missouri Tiger

In Russell’s three varsity seasons (1960-62) as a fullback and linebacker for head coach Dan Devine, Missouri was 25-4-3, including victories against Navy in the Orange Bowl and Georgia Tech in the Bluebonnet Bowl.

As a junior in 1961, Russell was Missouri’s leading rusher, but defense was where he excelled the most. At linebacker, he played “aggressively and with intuition, diagnosing running plays and wheeling back to knock down and intercept passes,” columnist Bob Broeg noted in the Post-Dispatch.

Playing before 71,218 spectators, including President-elect John F. Kennedy, in the Orange Bowl, Russell intercepted two passes from Navy quarterback Hal Spooner.

In Missouri’s 10-0 victory versus Oklahoma State in 1961, Russell scored the lone touchdown, intercepting a pass and returning it 47 yards for the score. The next year, he picked off two passes to help Missouri beat Nebraska, 16-7.

In his final game for Missouri at the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston, Russell made two interceptions and nine tackles. He also threw the key block to spring Bill Tobin on a 77-yard touchdown run.

As the St. Louis Globe-Democrat noted, Russell “always seems to rise to the occasion in important games.”

Join the club

During a visit to St. Louis, William Russell took Andy to a Cardinals football game and was disheartened by the brutality he witnessed on the field. According to Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, the father said, “Son, promise me one thing: You will never play pro football.” Andy replied, “Don’t worry.”

Andy Russell planned to start a business career in St. Louis after he graduated. He also was facing a stint in the Army because he had completed the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program at Missouri.

“I never even considered pro football,” Russell said to The Pittsburgh Press. “I can honestly say the thought never occurred to me.”

During his senior year, when NFL teams sent Russell questionnaires that included a query on whether he wanted to play pro football, Russell checked the box marked “no.” According to the Associated Press, the only team that didn’t mail him a survey was the Steelers. So they didn’t know he was uninterested.

The Steelers had traded their top seven spots in the 1963 NFL draft and didn’t have a pick until the eighth round. When their turn came in the 16th round, the Steelers selected Russell, then sent scout Will Walls to meet with him. Walls “gave me a real sales talk on the (team’s) shortage of linebackers,” Russell recalled to the Post-Gazette. “That convinced me that I had a chance.”

After graduating from Missouri in June 1963 with a degree in economics, Russell signed with the Steelers. According to the Associated Press, he got a $12,000 contract and $3,000 signing bonus. Russell planned to play one season for the money, then pursue a graduate degree. At the Steelers’ suggestion, he asked the Army for a delay in fulfilling his ROTC commitment and it was granted.

Making the grade

The 1963 Steelers were loaded with characters. “That was a fun team,” Russell recalled to the Post-Gazette. “They used to drink a lot of ‘fluids’ to ward off colds. I had played for Dan Devine at Missouri and things were so disciplined that you couldn’t even cough in a meeting. At my first meeting with the Steelers, you could barely see the blackboard through all the cigarette smoke. Some guys would snore in the back of the room and others would argue with the coaches on whether or not plays would work.”

Russell said to Jim Murray, “We were a wildly reckless team … We were about as disciplined as a litter of puppies.”

The Steelers accepted Russell because of how well he played in training camp. Defensive coordinator Buster Ramsey told United Press International, “You don’t often see a rookie work into a system that quickly. He has speed and lateral movement and should develop into one of the best linebackers in the league.”

Early in the season, when linebackers John Reger and Bob Schmitz got injured, Russell stepped in and impressed. On Sept. 29, 1963, facing the Cardinals at Pittsburgh, Russell intercepted a Charley Johnson pass, helping the Steelers to a 23-10 victory. Game stats

“The Cardinals had little success with rookie Andy Russell, even though they picked on the St. Louis youngster time and again,” The Pittsburgh Press reported. “His best play was an interception of a pass intended for fullback Joe Childress. The Cardinals tried to play it cute. On the preceding play, they tried the same over-the-middle pass to fullback Mal Hammack, but Russell broke it up at the last instant. Figuring the rookie wouldn’t expect the same play immediately, Childress came in with orders to come right back with the same thing, but Russell wasn’t guessing. He played his man and wound up with the ball.”

Russell was the Steelers’ only rookie regular in 1963. He started in 13 of 14 games, according to pro-football-reference.com.

Rags to riches

In January 1964, Russell was ordered to begin a two-year tour of duty as an Army lieutenant. He spent most of that time at a base in Stuttgart, Germany, where he played football for a service team, and missed the 1964 and 1965 NFL seasons.

Discharged in January 1966, Russell enrolled in graduate school at Missouri before going to Steelers training camp in the summer. He picked up where he left off, returning to the Steelers’ starting unit.

On Nov. 13, 1966, in a game against the Cardinals at Pittsburgh, Russell blocked a Jackie Smith punt, recovered the ball and returned it 14 yards for a touchdown, putting the Steelers ahead to stay. Boxscore

“We normally don’t attempt to block a punt,” Russell told the Post-Dispatch, “but we had seen in films that they left an opening in their line. When they set up the same way on a punt just before the one we blocked, we decided to try it. The punt hit me right in the face, then it was bouncing on the ground. I picked it up, got a good block and ran it in.”

In 1967, Russell was named Steelers defensive captain (a title he held for 10 years) and earned a master’s degree in business administration at Missouri.

Russell played for losing teams from 1966 to 1971 before experiencing a turnaround under head coach Chuck Noll. From 1974-76, the Steelers’ linebacking unit of Jack Ham, Jack Lambert and Russell was considered “the best in football,” Baltimore Colts running back Lydell Mitchell told the Post-Gazette.

The Steelers were NFL champions in 1974 and 1975, beating the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowls those seasons.

Russell played in 168 consecutive regular-season games for the Steelers. Video He was 35 when he stopped playing and opened an investment securities firm in Pittsburgh. Russell also did extensive charitable work there.

Adventure seeker

According to the Post-Gazette, Russell became “the ultimate mountain man,” summiting all 54 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado. He also climbed Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.

Russell and former Steelers center Ray Mansfield completed the Hunter’s Island Route, a 145-mile canoe adventure through the Canadian wilderness.

“I had always been curious about the limits of physical endurance,” Russell told Neil Amdur of the New York Times. “After football games, I was so exhausted that I used to get this tremendous feeling of peace, as if I had used every bone in my body. I always wondered whether it was possible to achieve this same feeling somewhere else.”

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Golden Richards was a NFL glamour boy with a glittery name and the look to match. A blonde mane flowed from beneath his helmet when he streaked down the field. As columnist Jim Murray noted, “He’s so golden from his hair on down that he glows in the daylight. He’s perfect for the part of Sir Galahad.”

Richards could play, too. Few were faster than he was. A Dallas Cowboys receiver, Richards had sure hands, the strength to catch in a crowd and the ability to haul in long passes over the shoulder.

He got both his first NFL reception and first touchdown catch against the St. Louis Cardinals. Later, as an established starter, Richards made a game-winning touchdown grab at St. Louis. For his career, the foe he had the most catches against (19) were the Cardinals.

In his first five seasons with Dallas, Richards took part in nine playoff games, including two Super Bowls. The glory came at a terrible price. Richards suffered injuries, became addicted to prescription painkillers and struggled with alcohol abuse. He was 73 when he died on Feb. 23, 2024.

Burnishing bright

John Golden Richards was born on Dec. 31, 1950, in Salt Lake City. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, his parents gave him the distinctive middle name because they thought a baby born on New Year’s Eve must be extra special. Everyone called him Golden.

Richards’ specialness came through in athletics. He participated in five sports _ baseball, basketball, football, tennis and track _ at Granite High School in Salt Lake City. As a senior in 1969, Richards ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds and cleared 24 feet in the long jump at the Golden West Invitational in Sacramento.

Colleges recruited him for track, but Richards preferred football. The only football offers he got were from Air Force, Brigham Young University (BYU), Utah, Utah State and Westminster College, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Richards, a Mormon, planned to bypass BYU and go with Utah because of the football program’s strong passing game. “Next thing, I was called into my bishop’s office, and he told me he wanted me to go to BYU, or else he would call me on (a Latter-day Saints) mission,” Richards said to the Tribune.

Richards did what he was told and found he was right about BYU’s quarterback situation. None could get the ball to him consistently. In his two varsity seasons (1970-71), Richards caught a total of two touchdown passes.

He made up for it with punt and kickoff returns. As a junior in 1971, he was the NCAA’s top punt returner, with 624 yards and four touchdowns.

Richards didn’t put the same kind of effort into his studies. He was declared academically ineligible for his senior season at BYU. “It was my fault,” he told the Deseret News. “The situation arose simply because of my own laziness.”

He transferred to the University of Hawaii for the 1972 season and snared five touchdown passes in five games before he tore ligaments in his right knee.

Seeing stars

Before the injury, Cowboys scout Bob Griffin twice tested Richards in the 40-yard dash and both times he clocked 4.4 seconds. Impressed, the Cowboys took Richards in the second round of the 1973 NFL draft. “We haven’t had anybody this quick on our team since we picked up (two-time Olympic gold medalist) Bobby Hayes,” Cowboys head coach Tom Landry said to the Honolulu Advertiser.

As a teen, the Cowboys were the team Richards dreamed of playing for someday. When he walked into their locker room for the first time at training camp in 1973, “I was standing there next to Bob Lilly, Jethro Pugh and Roger Staubach,” Richards said to the Salt Lake Tribune. “I wanted to get everybody’s autograph.”

(Before a 1975 game against the New York Jets at Shea Stadium, Richards “stuck a pen and paper in his uniform pants and ran over to Joe Namath, begging for his signature right at the 50-yard line. Namath told Richards it was an honor and sent him a signed glossy photo the following the week,” the Tribune reported.)

On Sept. 30, 1973, the Cowboys were routing the Cardinals at Texas Stadium. In the fourth quarter, Landry began putting in his reserves, including the rookie Richards and quarterback Craig Morton. Soon after, Richards caught his first NFL pass, a five-yard toss from Morton. “I just broke out smiling and was just about laughing all the way to the huddle,” Richards said to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Two plays later, Morton called for Richards to go deep. “I thought it might be a touchdown pass when it (the play) was called,” Richards told the Star-Telegram. “That’s what the play was designed for _ six points.”

Sure enough, Richards broke free and Morton connected with him on a 53-yard scoring pass. Game stats

Big playmaker

More good times followed. Richards returned a punt 63 yards for a score in a 1973 playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings and caught touchdown passes in playoff wins against the Los Angeles Rams (1976) and Vikings (1978).

Richards averaged 17.5 yards a catch in the NFL. Of his 17 regular-season touchdown receptions, 11 were of 40 yards or more.

On Oct. 9, 1977, Richards made the play that beat the Cardinals.

With 6:53 remaining and St. Louis ahead, 24-23, the Cowboys were at the Cardinals’ 17-yard line. Quarterback Roger Staubach called an audible but Richards couldn’t hear him above the din at Busch Memorial Stadium.

“I was able to read Roger’s lips and pick it up, though,” Richards told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

As Richards dashed to the goal line down the right side, covered by cornerback Lee Nelson, Staubach floated a pass. “It was a little bit underthrown,” Richards said to the Fort Worth newspaper. “So I just kept going like it was coming. Then, at the last second, I stopped and tipped it back to me with one hand. Then I got a hold of it and just went sliding in to score.”

Nelson, filling in for injured Perry Smith, told the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, “The guy made a hell of a catch. He caught it with one hand, one arm. I batted one of his arms away.”

The Cowboys won, 30-24. Game stats They would lose only twice all season (to the Cardinals at Dallas and to the Steelers at Pittsburgh) and rolled to the Super Bowl for a matchup against the Denver Broncos.

Richards was one of the game’s stars, catching a 29-yard touchdown pass from fullback Robert Newhouse to highlight a 27-10 Cowboys victory. Game stats and video

Troubled times

Richards was popular. His first wife, Barbara, said at his peak he got 1,000 pieces of fan mail a week. At the Super Bowl in Miami in 1976, Richards was “chased up and down the streets by the females, some handing him their telephone numbers, others just wanting to touch him,” the Associated Press reported. 

Richards told the wire service, “It’s kind of overwhelming. I mean, they walk right up with my wife standing next to me.”

He hobnobbed with celebrities such as Olivia Newton-John and model Jerry Hall. “It was glamorous,” Richards told the Salt Lake Tribune.

The glamour masked a dark side. Richards was hurting. He took a pounding in the games. A hit from the Steelers’ Mel Blount broke five of Richards’ ribs. His back ached all the time and so did his teeth from getting belted under the face mask.

Seven times, dentists did root canals to repair damage from hits to Richards’ face, the Dallas Morning News reported. He was prescribed Percodan. Codeine was another. Richards became addicted and “depended on painkillers to play,” according to the Dallas newspaper.

“I never took drugs to get high,” he told reporter Barry Horn. “I took drugs because I couldn’t stand the pain.”

His craving for painkillers spun out of control. “In the bleakest moments,” Gordon Monson of the Salt Lake Tribune reported, “he fished through his own vomit in a toilet for unabsorbed painkillers so he could taken them again.”

Richards told Monson, “There were times when I lived through the darkest dark you can imagine. With the painkillers, you fight and struggle to get up to ground zero, but then you discover you’re still 150 miles below the surface of the earth.”

In April 1978, three months after he scored his Super Bowl touchdown, Richards was rushed to a hospital when it was feared he had overdosed. Five months later, the Cowboys traded him to the Chicago Bears for two draft picks.

Richards spent two seasons with Chicago, got released and was done as a player at 29. His third wife, Amy, told the Salt Lake Tribune, “He got hooked on the narcotics in the NFL. When the NFL was taken away, he no longer had football but he still had the narcotics.”

His problems expanded. Richards turned to booze. “I was living in an alcohol fog,” he said to the Tribune.

He was in and out of treatment centers multiple times.

In December 1992, Richards was arrested on charges he forged his father’s signature on nearly $700 in checks to pay for painkillers. He pleaded guilty.

“This has been a horrible, horrible way of life,” Richards told the Dallas Morning News in January 1993. “Like any addict, I have been deceitful, manipulative and cunning. People who suffer from my kind of addiction can lose everything that means everything to you. I know. I have.”

Richards was sober for the last decade of his life, his brother, Doug, told the Deseret News.

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Quarterback Norm Snead lost a lot more often than he won in the NFL. Some of it was his fault. Some of it had to do with his supporting casts.

A classic drop-back passer, Snead was 6-foot-4, smart and had a strong arm. Teams traded quarterbacks Sonny Jurgensen and Fran Tarkenton to acquire him.

He played for Washington Redskins (1961-63), Philadelphia Eagles (1964-70), Minnesota Vikings (1971), New York Giants (1972-74 and 1976) and San Francisco 49ers (1974-75). Most of those were bad teams.

Snead’s clubs had losing records in 13 of his 16 NFL seasons. The exceptions: 1966 Eagles (9-5), 1971 Vikings (11-3) and 1972 Giants (8-6).

In 178 games played (159 as a starter), Snead was 57-114-7 (52-100-7 as a starter). He was 3-12 versus the Cleveland Browns; 3-14-2 against the Redskins.

The St. Louis Cardinals, with their relentless blitzing, also were a tormentor. Snead was 7-12-1 against them. The Cardinals sacked him more times (53) than any other foe, but he also totaled his most passing yards (3,832) against them.

(Cardinals receiver Sonny Randle was a friend, but more on that later.)

Snead threw 196 career touchdown passes _ more than luminaries such as Ken Stabler (194), Bob Griese (192), Sammy Baugh (187), Otto Graham (174), Joe Namath (173), Norm Van Brocklin (165) and Troy Aikman (165).

Snead was 84 when he died on Jan. 14, 2024.

Sink or swim

In high school at Newport News, Va., Snead excelled in baseball (he struck out 16 in a game) and basketball (he averaged 21 points a game as a senior) as well as football. He went on to play college football at Wake Forest and set multiple Atlantic Coast Conference passing records.

The Washington Redskins, with the second overall pick in the first round of the 1961 NFL draft, chose Snead ahead of quarterbacks Fran Tarkenton of Georgia and Billy Kilmer of UCLA. Then they traded their starter, Ralph Guglielmi, to the Cardinals and gave the job to Snead.

With no running game (the 1961 Redskins ranked last in the NFL in rushing), Snead was put in a tough spot. Opponents, knowing he was going to pass most of the time, teed off on him.

When Snead faced Guglielmi and the Cardinals on Oct. 22, 1961, at Washington, he was sacked seven times, intercepted once and booed by the home crowd before being replaced in the second half. “I felt sorry for him,” Guglielmi told the Associated Press. “I sure was glad it wasn’t me.”

Led by blitzing linebackers Bill Koman, Dale Meinert and Ted Bates, the Cardinals won, 24-0 _ the franchise’s first shutout win since the Chicago Cardinals beat the Detroit Lions, 7-0, in 1942. Game stats

Snead started all 14 games his rookie season but didn’t get a win until the finale against the Dallas Cowboys. Years later, he told the Philadelphia Daily News, “I should have sat on the bench when I first came up instead of starting right away … I’d just go in and throw. I developed some bad habits, like throwing in a crowd, things like that.”

Helping hand

In 1962, Washington became the last NFL team to integrate. Among the black players acquired was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Bobby Mitchell. He and Snead made an immediate connection. Snead threw 22 touchdown passes in 1962. Eleven of those went to Mitchell.

After the season, Snead volunteered with the Peace Corps as a consultant in recruiting college students.

“I had thought about joining the Peace Corps while I was still at Wake Forest,” he said to the Associated Press. “I think all of us have some sort of idealism or patriotism in us that we want to express. This is a fine chance to do it.”

He also told United Press International, “It’s one way to contribute to a fine cause. I believe in what the Peace Corps is doing throughout the world.”

Snead became the first pro football player to work for the Peace Corps, according to the Associated Press. 

“I don’t think football builds character,” Snead told Joe Donnelly of the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post Service, “but it is the greatest thing I’ve ever participated or come in contact with at revealing character.”

Not so Sonny

Snead’s fortitude got put to the test during his third season with Washington in 1963. He took a step backwards, getting intercepted 27 times, and became “the victim of unmerciful booing and criticism by Washington fans,” the Associated Press reported.

After the season, Snead and defensive back Claude Crabb were traded to the Eagles for quarterback Sonny Jurgensen and defensive back Jimmy Carr. The deal was unpopular in Philadelphia. As Jack McKinney of the Philadelphia Daily News noted, “Jurgensen, gifted with the best arm in pro football, is an established star. Snead, who has a pretty good pump of his own, is still merely promising.”

Then there was the matter of style. Sonny had swagger; Norm didn’t. Jurgensen “is an irrepressible, flamboyant man who moves through the football world laughing and enjoying himself,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Snead “is a soft-spoken and reserved man who has little to say except in the huddle.”

Or, as the Philadelphia Daily News put it, Jurgensen’s antics off the field were “something less than that of a Boy Scout leader.” Snead was “a non-drinking, non-swearing all-American boy type.”

To be sure, there were successes for Snead with the Eagles. Like the time in 1965 that he picked apart a depleted Cardinals secondary (safeties Jerry Stovall and Larry Wilson were sidelined because of injuries) and threw three touchdown passes to his road roommate, Pete Retzlaff, in a win at St. Louis. Game stats

Or, the 1967 season, when Snead in 14 games had 29 touchdown passes (including two to tight end Mike Ditka).

The bad times, though, literally were torture. In a 1966 loss to the Cardinals, Snead was sacked nine times and had five passes intercepted. Two of the picks were returned for touchdowns by Stovall and Wilson. “Snead was being slung around like a string of hot dogs by a pack of mad bulldogs,” the Philadelphia Daily News reported. The Philadelphia Inquirer called it “his darkest hour as a professional quarterback” and noted that the Cardinals “did everything but separate Snead from his right arm.” Game stats

Though the Eagles had many weaknesses, Snead often shouldered the blame. “The criticism has been harsh and steady,” wrote columnist Sandy Padwe.

After the 1970 season, the Eagles traded Snead to the Vikings for offensive tackle Steve Smith and three draft picks.

“The Philadelphia fans never forgave him for the fact the Eagles traded Sonny Jurgensen for him,” United Press International concluded.

Hot and cold

Vikings coach Bud Grant rotated three quarterbacks during the 1971 season. Gary Cuozzo made eight starts and Bob Lee started four times. Snead’s two starts resulted in wins _ one against the Buffalo Bills and the other versus the Eagles at Philadelphia. He also replaced Cuozzo in the fourth quarter of a game against the Giants and threw a game-winning touchdown pass to Bob Grim. Game stats

After the season, the Vikings sent Snead, Grim, running back Vince Clements and two draft choices to the Giants for Fran Tarkenton.

Snead, 33, had a rebirth with the 1972 Giants. He started 13 games (the Giants won eight of those) and led the NFL in completion percentage (60.3). He was the starter in both of the Giants’ wins against the Eagles that season. Eagles owner Leonard Tose, who had guaranteed his team would beat Snead and the Giants at Philadelphia, said to United Press International, “I can’t believe Snead beat this team. I’m sick. I just can’t believe we’re this bad.”

One more highlight: The last time Snead faced the Cardinals was Nov. 18, 1973. He came off the bench near the end of the first quarter to replace Randy Johnson, who suffered a concussion, and completed 14 of 20 passes, leading the Giants to a 24-13 victory. Some of those completions were to Johnny Roland, the former St. Louis running back, who told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “It gave me a lot of personal satisfaction to show the Cardinals I can still play football.” Game stats

The Virginians

Like Snead, Sonny Randle, a wide receiver for the 1960s Cardinals, was born and raised in Virginia and played college football in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He and Snead became friends.

When Randle was head football coach at East Carolina and then at his alma mater, the University of Virginia, Snead aided him in developing offenses for those college teams. He also assisted every year at Randle’s summer football camps for youths in Fork Union, Va. “There’s no better offensive man in football,” Randle told the Newport News Daily Press.

After his playing days, Snead became director of admissions and head football coach at Newport News Shipbuilding Apprentice School. Randle became head football coach at Massanutten Military Academy. 

On Nov. 5, 1977, Randle’s team beat Snead’s team, 25-6.

Randle went on to become head football coach at Marshall. Snead stayed with Apprentice School and was credited with “having restored the school’s football program to respectability,” the Newport News Daily Press reported. NFL Films video

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Frank Ryan, a quarterback who excelled at advanced mathematics and physics, sought the formula for beating the St. Louis Cardinals defense.

In his 13 seasons (1958-70) in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams, Cleveland Browns and Washington Redskins, Ryan had more ups than downs versus the Cardinals but it wasn’t easy. He started 12 games against them and was intercepted 14 times. No other team picked off more of his passes.

In 1965, the year after he led the Browns to a NFL championship, Ryan was intercepted seven times in two starts versus the Cardinals. The next year, he made the right calculations and had one of the most productive passing games of his career against them.

During a time when the NFL featured Bart Starr, Fran Tarkenton and Johnny Unitas, Ryan twice led the league in touchdown passes _ 25 in 14 games in 1964 and 29 in 14 games in 1966. He was 87 when he died on Jan. 1, 2024.

Rocket man

As a youngster in Fort Worth, Texas, Ryan took an interest in math and science. By age 6, “he spent a lot of his time drawing sideview cutaway sketches of rockets and figuring out how fast a space missile would have to go to break out of the earth’s gravitational pull,” according to Sports Illustrated.

After high school, he enrolled at Rice, majoring in physics and playing quarterback. As a junior in 1956, Ryan split time with another quality quarterback, King Hill.

Ryan started Rice’s season opener his senior year but got injured. Hill replaced him and remained the starter, breaking the school record for total offense and guiding Rice to a berth in the Cotton Bowl.

In the 1958 NFL draft, the Chicago Cardinals, with the first two picks in the first round, took Hill and Texas A&M running back John David Crow. Ryan was chosen in the fifth round by the Rams. Upon earning his bachelor’s degree in physics, Ryan planned to pursue a master’s in advanced mathematics at Rice. He agreed to sign with the Rams after it was arranged for him to take classes at UCLA during the football season.

Asked about drafting a quarterback who was the backup to King Hill, Rams head coach Sid Gillman replied to the Chicago Tribune, “Ryan is the better bet. He would have been drafted sooner, only no one believes he’ll try pro football.”

California dreaming

While serving as backup to Rams starting quarterback Bill Wade, Ryan took two courses in math logic at UCLA.

Asked whether trying to master the Rams’ playbook was as difficult as graduate studies, Ryan said to the Los Angeles Times, “Both are largely a matter of memory, but with math, you can apply what you’ve memorized to attacking a problem with original thinking. Whereas I doubt if Coach Gillman would appreciate too much original thinking on my part where ‘Split Right, Take 18, Waggle Left, Pass X Comeback” is concerned.

“Let’s put it this way: The difference is that in football, you think quicker, but not as deeply. Science allows you more leisure to think, but you have to think deeper.”

When the Rams went on road trips, Ryan’s wife, Joan, sat in for him at class and took notes. “Give her a week, and she’ll understand it as well as I do,” Ryan told the Times.

(Joan Ryan graduated from Rice with a degree in English literature. When her husband joined the Browns, she became a sports columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She later was a sports columnist for the Washington Star and Washington Post. She was one of two sports columnists named Joan Ryan. The other worked for San Francisco newspapers and was no relation.)

Ryan backed up Bill Wade in 1958 and 1959, and was in the same role in 1960 when Bob Waterfield replaced Gillman as Rams head coach.

On Sept. 23, 1960, the Cardinals, who had moved from Chicago to St. Louis, opened the season against the Rams. King Hill was the Cardinals’ starting quarterback. He struggled and was replaced at halftime by John Roach, who threw four touchdown passes and carried the Cardinals to a 43-21 victory. Ryan played in the second half for the Rams and threw a 54-yard touchdown pass to rookie Carroll Dale. Game stats

Midway through the 1960 season, the Rams went with Ryan as the starter. On Oct. 30, he threw three touchdown passes, including one to himself, in a 48-35 triumph over the Detroit Lions, snapping the Rams’ streak of 13 consecutive winless games.

Ryan’s touchdown reception happened this way: He threw a short pass to halfback Jon Arnett, who got blanketed by defenders. Arnett turned, saw Ryan and lateraled the ball to him. “I was the most surprised guy on the field,” Ryan said to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I ran about 25 yards. I barely beat Night Train Lane to the end zone.” The play went into the books as a 37-yard touchdown pass from Ryan to Ryan.

Head coach Bob Waterfield said to the Los Angeles Times, “That was a new one on me. I asked Ryan later: Where did we get that play?” Game stats

The next year, much to Ryan’s chagrin, Zeke Bratkowski became the Rams’ starting quarterback. Ryan had one highlight. On Oct. 1, 1961, substituting for an injured Bratkowski, he connected with Ollie Matson on a 96-yard touchdown pass against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Game stats

After making quarterback Roman Gabriel their top pick in the 1962 draft, the Rams saw no need for Ryan. On July 12, 1962, Ryan’s 26th birthday, he and running back Tom Wilson were traded to the Browns for defensive tackle Larry Stephens and two 1963 draft choices.

Dr. Ryan

Jim Ninowski opened the 1962 season as the Browns’ starting quarterback but broke his collarbone in the eighth game and was replaced by Ryan, who held on to the job.

In 1964, the Browns played the Baltimore Colts for the NFL championship. Johnny Unitas was the Colts’ quarterback, but Ryan “completely stole the show,” The Sporting News noted. He threw three touchdown passes to flanker Gary Collins and the Browns won, 27-0. Game stats

Six months later, Ryan got his doctorate in advanced mathematics from Rice. His doctoral dissertation was titled: “A Characterization of the Set of Asymptotic Values of a Function Holomorphic in the Unit Disc.”

“The world outside has no conception of what higher mathematics is about,” Ryan said to Sports Illustrated. “The heart and soul of modern mathematics is very abstract symbolism. People think mathematicians are concerned with numbers, and they’re not at all. Advanced mathematics is unrelated in a casual way to anything else, including football.”

Ryan became a professor of higher mathematics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland while playing for the Browns. He taught fulltime in the spring semester and twice a week during football season.

Big Red menace

The defending champion Browns began the 1965 season with a win at Washington and then prepared for their Sept. 26 home opener against the Cardinals. Ryan appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated that week.

The Cardinals were unimpressed. Ryan “had what must have been his saddest day in the NFL,” according to the Mansfield News-Journal. He was intercepted four times, injured a foot and “left the game with a broken heart” late in the first half, the Akron Beacon Journal noted. The Cardinals won, 49-13.

“The (foot) injury had a good deal to do with Ryan’s performance,” the Akron newspaper reported. “He was unable to set himself properly and throw _ and the results were passes resembling winged ducks.”

Jim Ninowski, who replaced Ryan in the game, was intercepted twice, giving the Cardinals a total of six. Jimmy Burson and Jerry Stovall each had two. Pat Fischer and Larry Wilson had one apiece. Wilson picked of another but it was nullified by a penalty. Game stats

In the rematch at St. Louis three months later, Wilson intercepted three Ryan passes and returned the first 96 yards for a touchdown. Browns running back Jim Brown (ejected for fighting with Cardinals defensive lineman Joe Robb) and flanker Gary Collins (rib injury) departed in the first half, but Ryan overcame the challenges and led the Browns to a 27-24 triumph. Game stats

The next year, with better pass protection, Ryan improved versus the Cardinals. Intercepted seven times by them in 1965, he was picked off just once in two games against the 1966 Cardinals. In the Dec. 17 season finale, a 38-10 Browns victory, Ryan threw for a career-high 367 yards, including four touchdown passes, and was not intercepted. Game stats

Good, bad and ugly

Bill Nelsen replaced Ryan as the the Browns’ starting quarterback in 1968. Ryan spent his final two NFL seasons _ 1969 (when Vince Lombardi was head coach) and 1970 _ with the Redskins as backup to Sonny Jurgensen.

Afterward, Ryan was director of information and computer systems for the United States House of Representatives from 1971-77. In 1977, Yale named him its athletic director and he spent 10 years in that role. He also taught mathematics at Yale and Rice.

Reflecting on his NFL days, Ryan told the Los Angeles Times in 1980, “The greatest lingering malady that goes with playing pro football is the psychological aftereffects. It puts such a hype on your performance. It builds your status as a special person, so you make an assumption about life after football that is fallacious. It leads to a real dislocation between your aspirations and what you are actually capable of.

“There is a harm that comes to a person who get so absorbed in football that the fundamental values that should govern their existence are set aside. There is nothing more special than a great athlete who doesn’t think he’s special.

“I’d be a much better person if I’d spent more of my time not playing football. It’s an intensely selfish sport. I think I succumbed to a lot of that and I’m not as good a man as I could be because of it.” Video highlights

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In his nine seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, running back Walt Garrison scored three touchdowns in a game just once. He did it against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Though used as the No. 2 running back behind the likes of Calvin Hill, Don Perkins and Duane Thomas during his NFL playing days, Garrison was an important member of the Cowboys’ offense.

As Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray noted, “He wasn’t fast. He wasn’t big. He was just dangerous.”

An effective receiver and rugged runner, Garrison played in two Super Bowls and helped the Cowboys win their first NFL championship. He also competed in rodeos, roping and wrestling steers. 

College cowboy

Garrison was born in Denton, Texas, and went to high school in Lewisville, a town 10 miles north of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. He started playing football in seventh grade and first competed in rodeos a year later, according to United Press International.

Though a standout high school fullback, Garrison got no interest from the Texas schools in the Southwest Conference, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported. “He was considered too slow for offense and too small for defense in the Lone Star State,” Jim Murray wrote.

Garrison accepted a scholarship offer to play football for the Oklahoma State Cowboys of the Big Eight Conference and major in veterinary medicine.

A linebacker for the freshman team, Garrison was moved to running back when he joined the varsity as a sophomore in 1963 and had a 48-yard touchdown run against Texas.

Garrison was the Big Eight rushing leader (730 yards) as a junior in 1964, finishing ahead of Oklahoma’s Jim Grisham (725) and Kansas’ Gale Sayers (633).

After Garrison rushed for 121 yards versus Nebraska his senior season, Cornhuskers head coach Bob Devaney called him “the best fullback I’ve ever seen in the Big Eight,” according to the Associated Press.

Garrison finished the 1965 season with 924 yards rushing and was second in the conference to Missouri’s Charlie Brown (937).

Big decisions

In 1966, Garrison was drafted in the fifth round by the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League and in the 17th round by the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League. (The Cardinals bypassed Garrison in the fifth round and took Michigan receiver Jack Clancy, who signed with the AFL Miami Dolphins.)

Regarding the Chiefs, “They made me a real good offer and I gave a lot of thought to signing with them, but figured the NFL was the best place to play,” he told the Denton Record-Chronicle. “Its pension plan and other benefits give it the edge.”

The Cowboys sealed the deal with him when they included a horse trailer as part of his bonus, according to the Denton newspaper.

Garrison spent his first three NFL seasons (1966-68) as a backup to Don Perkins, a six-time Pro Bowl selection in his eight years with Dallas. Don Meredith was the Cowboys’ quarterback. Garrison told the Dallas Morning News, “Don used to say, ‘If you need three yards, give the ball to Walt and he’ll get you three yards. If you need 12 yards, give the ball to Walt and he’ll get you three.’ “

Garrison’s main contribution his first two seasons with Dallas was as a kick returner. As a rookie in 1966, he averaged 22.3 yards on 20 kick returns. He was the Cowboys’ leading kick returner (18.3-yard average) in 1967.

On June 30, 1967, after his rookie season, Garrison signed a two-year contract with the Cowboys in the morning and married Pamela Kay Phillips that night at Lovers Lane Methodist Church in Dallas, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported.

Pamela was the daughter of B.F. Phillips, an independent oilman and “one of the nation’s most prominent quarter horse breeders,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Jim Murray called him “one of Texas’ richest men.”

According to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Walt and Pamela “met at a horse sale at the Phillips Ranch in Frisco, Texas” and started dating in November 1966. “Pam has ridden in barrel races in rodeo,” the newspaper noted.

Put me in, coach

After Don Perkins retired, rookie Calvin Hill of Yale and Garrison became the Cowboys’ top rushers in 1969.

When the Cowboys played the San Francisco 49ers for the 1970 NFC championship, Garrison came out of the game because of a severely sprained ankle. He also had back spasms, a twisted right knee and a chipped collarbone, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Garrison talked head coach Tom Landry into letting him back in and caught a pass from Craig Morton for the winning touchdown. Landry told the Associated Press, “He came up to me and said he was OK, but I knew he was lying. No other player in football would have gone back into the game.” Game stats

Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described Garrison as “tough as a worn saddle.” Jim Murray wrote, “He looks like 190 pounds of trouble just sitting there. He’s coiled.”

Two weeks later, before the Cowboys played in the Super Bowl for the first time, team trainer Larry Gardner told the Associated Press how he got Garrison prepared. “That guy has so much tape on him he’s almost a mummy,” Gardner said. “I wrap him with 36 yards of tape and sometimes I have to get out more during the game.”

With Calvin Hill sidelined because of a knee injury, Garrison was the Cowboys’ leading rusher (65 yards on 12 carries), but the Baltimore Colts prevailed in the Super Bowl, 16-13. Game stats

The next season, Garrison led the 1971 Cowboys in receptions (40), finishing ahead of the likes of Bob Hayes (35), Lance Alworth (34) and Mike Ditka (30). The Cowboys returned to the Super Bowl and won their first NFL title with a 24-3 triumph versus the Dolphins. The rushing leaders were Duane Thomas (95 yards) and Garrison (74). Game stats

Real deal

Garrison competed in professional rodeos after each NFL season. He rode broncos and bulls before the Cowboys asked him to stop, but he continued to rope steer and wrestle steer, United Press International reported.

“Ranching and rodeoing are the great life for me,” Garrison told the Denton Record-Chronicle.

Jim Murray wrote, “He was the genuine spurs-on-the-boots, chaps-on-the-Levis, hammered copper-on-the-belt buckle article, the cowboy on the Dallas Cowboys.”

Asked about his Super Bowl ring, Garrison told John Hall of the Los Angeles Times, “I only wear it when I’m traveling. People want to see it, but I take it off around the rodeo guys. They’re not too impressed.”

Garrison also became a promoter of moist snuff, cut tobacco placed in the mouth. The Los Angeles Times described him as “a tidy chewer. No big lump in the cheek, and he swallows the juice. No spitting.”

Big scorer

On Dec. 3, 1972, the Cowboys faced the Cardinals in a cold drizzle at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

In the second quarter, with Dallas ahead, 3-0, Craig Morton passed to Garrison on the right flat. Garrison got past strong safety Larry Wilson and then free safety Roger Werhli and went into the end zone for an 18-yard touchdown reception. “A great individual effort,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram declared.

Garrison had a three-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. Then, with Dallas on the Cardinals’ 26-yard line and ahead, 17-6, in the fourth quarter, Morton again tossed to Garrison in the right flat. He ran untouched into the end zone for his third touchdown. Larry Wilson “just took a chance, went for the down-and-in and Walt outraced him to the goal,” Tom Landry told the Star-Telegram.

Garrison said to the Associated Press, “They were checking our tight end (Mike Ditka) and that left me open. They weren’t paying attention to me.”

The Cardinals fumbled seven times. Dallas recovered four of those, leading to scores each time, and won, 27-6. Game stats

Time to go

In June 1975, Garrison tore knee ligaments in a steer wrestling exhibition at Bozeman, Mont., and underwent surgery. Two months later, Garrison, 31, told the Cowboys he was done playing football.

“Nine years in the NFL. Just about six too many,” Garrison told John Hall of the Los Angeles Times.

Garrison scored 39 regular-season touchdowns _ 30 rushing and nine receiving _ for the Cowboys. He also had two more receiving touchdowns in playoff games. Video

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