RetroSimba

One measure of a winner is the ability to come through under pressure. Fullback Ben Wilson passed the test multiple times.

He did it in college for the University of Southern California (USC), helping the Trojans win a national championship with big performances against UCLA and Notre Dame, and then in the Rose Bowl versus Wisconsin.

He did it in the pros, too, winning a job with the Green Bay Packers after being pushed aside by the Los Angeles Rams, helping Vince Lombardi’s team win a third consecutive NFL title.

Wilson also contributed to wins for the Rams and Packers against the St. Louis Cardinals in ways that went beyond the game statistics.

Known as Big Ben long before Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger got the nickname, Wilson valued education and understood the importance of preparing for a life outside of sports.

Big bruiser

Leaving his hometown of Houston, Wilson became a pre-med student at USC and played three years of varsity football as a fullback for head coach John McKay. Years later, reflecting on his senior season, Wilson told the Los Angeles Times, “Do you know I weighed 250 pounds in 1962? I was bigger than most college linemen and I overpowered them.”

UCLA linebacker Ronnie Hull told the newspaper, “He’s big as a house and as fleet as a deer.”

Wilson got off to a cautious start his senior season. He had undergone surgery in May 1962 to remove a bone chip in his right knee, an operation identical to one he had two years earlier on the other knee, according to the Los Angeles Times. He got better as the season progressed.

On Nov. 24, 1962, USC ran its record to 9-0 with a 14-3 triumph versus UCLA. Wilson scored the Trojans’ first touchdown and he set up the second, rumbling eight yards to UCLA’s 1-yard line before quarterback Pete Beathard carried for the score. Wilson, who averaged 4.6 yards on 10 carries, was awarded the game ball.

The next week, USC faced Notre Dame in the regular-season finale. In Wilson’s sophomore and junior seasons, Notre Dame had held USC scoreless and won handily both times.

It was a different story on Dec. 1, 1962. Playing before 81,676 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, USC prevailed, 25-0, and finished its regular-season schedule at 10-0. Wilson averaged 4.5 yards on 16 carries, rushed for two touchdowns and received a standing ovation.

Notre Dame’s Frank Budka fractured his right leg trying to bring down Wilson on one of his runs.

“We’ve faced some good fullbacks, but he’s the best by far,” Notre Dame quarterback Daryle Lamonica told the Los Angeles Times.

Wilson said to the newspaper, “This was my best game as a Trojan.”

For the second consecutive week, Wilson was awarded the game ball, but he gave it to tackle and co-captain Marv Marinovich. “I didn’t want to be selfish,” Wilson said to the Los Angeles Times.

On Jan. 1, 1963, with his father, mother, three sisters and a cousin from Houston in attendance, Wilson carried 17 times and scored a touchdown in USC’s 42-37 triumph against Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl at Pasadena, Calif. The Associated Press declared the 11-0 Trojans the national college football champions.

Different drill

Asked his plans for pro football after being drafted by the Rams, Wilson told the Los Angeles Times, “It all depends on whether the deal is enough. I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, but then I got interested in dentistry. The more I think about it, the more I like it. If I am accepted in dental school, and the pro deal isn’t good enough for me to set something aside, it would be useless to play.”

The Rams signed him to a two-year, no-cut contract at $20,000 a year and a $20,000 bonus spread over two years, the Los Angeles Times reported. “This gives me a chance to go to dental school,” Wilson told the newspaper.

As a rookie, Wilson was the Rams’ second-leading rusher in 1963, but after the season he told them he was leaving football and would enroll in the USC school of dentistry in the fall of 1964.

“I couldn’t find any school program where I could play football and continue my dental studies the rest of the year,” Wilson said to the Los Angeles Times. “I eventually want a position where I’m economically secure and at the same time getting personal satisfaction out of doing something for my fellow man. I’ve been accepted at USC and _ who knows? _ if I waited a few more years I might not be able to get in.”

The Rams tried to convince Wilson to stick with them, but when training camp opened he hadn’t changed his mind. “This idea of being a dentist is one I have nurtured for years,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “More than that, I feel like I want to do more for humanity than just entertain it.”

In August 1964, Wilson and Rams owner Dan Reeves found a solution. The University of Tennessee agreed to allow Wilson to play pro football and go to its dentistry school the rest of the year. Dean of admissions Eugene Tragesser told United Press International that Wilson had been accepted as the first black student at the University of Tennessee dental school and was expected to enroll in January 1965.

The Rams offered to pay the $7,500 annual tuition fee, the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News reported.

Wilson rejoined the Rams at training camp in late August 1964. “I’ve never seen a more intense worker,” Rams head coach Harland Svare said to the Los Angeles Times. “He’s got great desire, and he’s a great team man.”

(According to the Los Angeles newspaper, Wilson eventually had second thoughts about dentistry and chose to seek a master’s degree in business at USC.)

No longer wanted

Wilson was the Rams’ leading rusher in 1964. A year later, they went with a backfield by committee. In a 27-3 rout of the Cardinals on Dec. 5, 1965, the Rams used Dick Bass and Willie Brown “to soften up the Cardinals and then polished them off with the bull backs, Ben Wilson and Les Josephson,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

After George Allen replaced Harland Svare as head coach in 1966, Wilson reported to training camp about 15 pounds lighter at 219.

“I carried too much weight to move like an NFL back should,” Wilson said to the Los Angeles Times. “I was like a runaway locomotive once I got up a full head of steam. I was just too heavy to cut effectively. So I just moved in a straight line.”

In an August 1966 exhibition versus the Dallas Cowboys, Wilson rushed for 88 yards on 20 carries, but just before the regular season began he was placed on waivers. “It was quite a shock,” he told The Sporting News.

When Wilson went unclaimed, the Rams put him on their reserve list, or taxi squad, and he spent the entire 1966 season there without appearing in a game.

Wilson told the Green Bay Press-Gazette, “To be put on waivers is a humiliating thing at best _ very humiliating. When you are unable to make a connection with any club, it’s not the most ego-building thing that could happen to you.”

Playing to win

In July 1967, Wilson, 28, got a chance to extend his playing career when the Packers acquired him from the Rams for a draft choice. Jim Taylor, the fullback who led the Packers in rushing for seven consecutive seasons (1960-67), was sent to the New Orleans Saints. A second-year pro, Jim Grabowski, replaced him and the Packers wanted Wilson to be his backup.

Asked at training camp by the Green Bay Press-Gazette what it was like being coached by Vince Lombardi, Wilson replied, “He’s very tough, but he’s fair, and he’s dedicated to winning. I don’t think I’d want it any other way.”

Seeking their third straight NFL championship, the Packers entered the 1967 season with Grabowski and halfback Elijah Pitts as the starters, and Wilson and Donny Anderson as the reserves.

On Oct. 1, in the Packers’ romp over the Atlanta Falcons, Wilson got to play more than usual and did well, rushing for 82 yards and a touchdown.

Mostly, though, he served as a blocker on kickoff returns. In the seventh game of the season, Lombardi inserted rookie Travis Williams as the kick returner and he ran back three for 151 yards, including a touchdown, against the Cardinals. Game stats

Williams went on to return four kickoffs for touchdowns with the 1967 Packers. “They were wedge returns,” Lombardi told The Sporting News.

The blockers forming the wedge for Williams were, from left to right, linebacker Tommy Crutcher, guard Gale Gillingham, tackle Forrest Gregg and Wilson.

Job well done

In the Packers’ eighth game of the 1967 season, against the Baltimore Colts, both Jim Grabowski (knee) and Elijah Pitts (Achilles tendon) were injured. Wilson and Donny Anderson replaced them as the starting running backs.

The next week, facing the Cleveland Browns, Wilson had his first 100-yard rushing game as a pro. He followed that with 110 total yards (80 rushing and 30 receiving) versus the San Francisco 49ers and scored two touchdowns against the Minnesota Vikings.

Soon after, Wilson suffered foot and rib injuries. With Grabowski still sidelined, the Packers turned to a third-string fullback, Chuck Mercein.

Mercein was the fullback in the Packers’ playoff wins against the Rams and Cowboys (in the game dubbed the Ice Bowl).

Next up for the Packers was Super Bowl II in Miami against the Oakland Raiders. (The Raiders quarterback was the same Daryle Lamonica who started for Notre Dame in the game Wilson carried USC to victory.)

About 10 minutes before kickoff at the Super Bowl, Wilson was surprised to learn that he, not Mercein, would be the starting fullback.

He told the Green Bay Press-Gazette, “Coach Lombardi came over and said, ‘How do you feel?’ I said, ‘I feel fine.’ He looked at me kind of funny and walked away. A few minutes later, he came back and again asked me, ‘How do you feel?’ “

When Wilson assured the coach he felt fine, Lombardi said, “If you feel good, then we’ll start you.”

Though he sat out part of the fourth quarter after losing a contact lens, Wilson was the Packers’ leading rusher in the game, with 62 yards on 17 carries, and the Packers prevailed, 33-14.

Moving on

The Super Bowl turned out to be Wilson’s final game.

In March 1968, he had an operation to remove cartilage from his left knee, but there were complications and the knee did not respond.

Wilson reported to training camp (Phil Bengtson had replaced Lombardi as head coach) but told the Green Bay newspaper the knee had undergone “a fantastic amount of atrophy.”

The Packers took him off the roster before the start of the 1968 season.

Wilson went on to own five McDonald’s restaurants in Houston. According to his obituary, he enjoyed singing, fishing, crossword puzzles, card games, was extremely outgoing and never met a stranger.

Whether as a player or as a coach, Maxie Baughan was good at sizing up situations and calling the shots.

An outside linebacker who played in the NFL primarily from 1960 to 1970 with the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams, Baughan was the captain of the defense and chose the alignment for each play during a game.

Described by the New York Times as “one of the most fearsome linebackers of the 1960s,” Baughan was named to the Pro Bowl in nine of his first 10 seasons in the NFL. He knocked heads with the St. Louis Cardinals multiple times.

Baughan went on to have a long coaching career as an assistant in the NFL and as head coach in college at Cornell.

Ramblin’ Wreck

Baughan attended high school in Bessemer, Ala., a major steelmaking center. Recalling his boyhood days, Baughan told Gannett News Service, “I was going into the mills since as long as I can remember. I knew the first time I went in I didn’t want to work in there the rest of my life.”

(According to The Birmingham News, Baughan’s father, an electrician, died when he fell from a ladder at a coal mine near Birmingham in June 1961. He was 52. Baughan Sr. suffered a heart attack, fell onto high-voltage wires and was electrocuted, the Binghamton [N.Y.] Press and Sun-Bulletin reported.)

Maxie Baughan played football at Georgia Tech and excelled as a linebacker and center. “He’s one of the most consistently great football players I have coached,” head coach Bobby Dodd told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

(Baughan was quite a baseball fan, too. While at Georgia Tech, “I used to go all the time to old Ponce de Leon Park in Atlanta to see the [minor-league] Crackers and I loved it,” he said to The Montogmery [Ala.] Advertiser.)

Baughan graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in industrial engineering.

As a youth, Baughan earned the Boy Scouts of America’s highest rank, the Eagle Scout Award. As a professional football player, Baughan became a Philadelphia Eagle. The team selected him in the second round of the 1960 NFL draft.

The Natural

The 1960 Eagles were a tough, talented group featuring Chuck Bednarik, Tom Brookshier, Tommy McDonald, Pete Retzlaff, Joe Robb and Norm Van Brocklin. Though a rookie, Baughan fit right in.

A brawl broke out on the field in a 1960 exhibition game between the Eagles and San Francisco 49ers. Hugh McElhenny, the 49ers running back who was nicknamed “The King” and who was destined for election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, “was dropkicking the back of the head” of Eagles defensive tackle Ed Khayat, the Philadelphia Daily News reported.

According to the newspaper, Baughan came to Khayat’s rescue, “driving McElhenny clear across the field, pumping the heels of his hands into the veteran’s chest and finally lifting his helmet to deliver the fist de grace.”

Baughan said to the Daily News, “When I saw him kick Ed in the head, I just had to go after him.”

The rookie’s action earned him the respect of his teammates. His play as a linebacker earned him a spot as a starter. “He’s quick as a cat,” Eagles assistant coach Nick Skorich told the Daily News. “He uses his hands beautifully. He has good play sense, and he’s a hard, sharp tackler.”

Baughan looked the part, too. The Sporting News described him as “pug-nosed, weather-beaten.” Sandy Grady of the Philadelphia Bulletin put it this way: “A face that was forged in a furnace … pugnacity, intelligence and violence written on it.”

The first time he faced the St. Louis Cardinals, on Oct. 9, 1960, Baughan made 10 tackles, including seven unassisted, and broke up a pass, United Press International reported. Game stats

“He’s one of the hardest tacklers on the team, a quick thinker, fast, alert and as gung-ho as they come,” The Sporting News noted. “He took over on the starting unit as if the position had been made for him.”

The Eagles won the 1960 NFL championship, in part because of a defense that limited Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers to 13 points in the title game.

L.A. story

In 1965, the Eagles opened the season against the Cardinals. With the score tied 20-20 at halftime, Baughan, captain of the defense, convinced head coach Joe Kuharich to call off the blitzes against quarterback Charley Johnson.

“We couldn’t blitz too much against them,” Baughan said to the Philadelphia Daily News. “Heck, they invented the blitz. They can pick it right up.”

Instead, with Baughan calling the defensive signals, the Eagles faked the blitz, then realigned their formation at the last instance. The jitter-bugging defense “completely confounded” Johnson, according to the Daily News. The Eagles limited the Cardinals to seven points in the second half and won, 34-27. Game stats

As the season progressed, the relationship between Baughan and Kuharich got rocky. “Near the end, the two of them were getting along like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in ‘Virginia Woolf,’ ” the Philadelphia Inquirer noted.

After the season, amid reports Baughan wanted to be traded, Los Angeles Rams head coach George Allen called Kuharich “31 times in as many days,” trying to make a deal for the linebacker, The Sporting News reported.

In April 1966, Kuharich relented. The Eagles dealt Baughan to the Rams for defensive tackle Frank Molden, linebacker Fred Brown and a draft choice. “Maxie Baughan is the best right side linebacker in the game,” Allen told The Sporting News.

The 1966 Rams defense featured the Fearsome Foursome front line of Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, Rosey Grier and Lamar Lundy. Joining Baughan as the linebackers were Bill George (a future Pro Football Hall of Famer) in the middle and Jack Pardee on the left side. Another standout, Eddie Meador, was the safety.

Amid all that talent, Allen chose Baughan to be the defensive captain and entrusted him to call the plays. “As the Rams’ defensive signal caller, Baughan was responsible for some 250 different defenses and 180 audible signals,” The Sporting News reported.

Baughan told the publication, “I would say that I audibilize about 85 percent of the time. A lot of things enter into my decision, like down and distance, the hash marks, field position, the particular formation.”

The Los Angeles Times noted, “His vast knowledge of Allen’s intricate defense and execution of the many audibles from a variety of formations has made the Rams one of pro football’s most effective defensive units. Equally important is the fact Maxie is a leader and serves as an inspiration to the team.”

Baughan thrived playing for Allen. He told the Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal, “I probably learned more about football from George Allen than anyone else.”

The Sporting News called Baughan “the brains of the Rams defense” and dubbed him “The Battering Ram.” 

Eventually, the battering took its toll. Baughan underwent knee surgeries after the 1967, 1968 and 1969 seasons. He suffered a concussion in a 1969 game against the Atlanta Falcons and was unconscious for almost 15 minutes, The Sporting News reported. The cumulative pain became unbearable.

“I’m allergic to some medicine, including pain killers,” Baughan told The Sporting News. “I can’t even take an aspirin. It started back in 1962 when I was with Philadelphia. I took a muscle relaxer and had a violent reaction. The Eagles’ trainer literally saved my life.”

Coaching carousel

The Rams fired Allen after the 1970 season and Baughan retired from playing. When Allen became head coach of the Washington Redskins in 1971, Baughan assisted him. That began a long second career as a coach.

Baughan was defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech for two years (1972-73). In 1974, he left to become defensive coordinator of the New York Giants, but before the season began he quit and rejoined Allen with the Redskins as a player-coach.

After stints as defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Colts (1975-79) and Detroit Lions (1980-82), Baughan became head coach at Cornell. He was recommended for the job by former Colts running back Tom Matte, who became a friend of Baughan when he was with Baltimore. Matte had connections to an influential almnus at Cornell.

Replacing Bob Blackman, who retired, Baughan coached six seasons (1983-88) at Cornell. The Ivy League program had losing records his first three seasons, then finished 8-2, 5-5 and 7-2-1 the last three seasons.

In April 1989, the Ithaca Journal reported a rift between Baughan and assistant coach Peter Noyes stemmed from a romantic relationship between Baughan and Noyes’ wife. Citing “personal tensions” for his decision, Baughan resigned.

He went on to be linebackers coach for the Minnesota Vikings (1990-91), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1992-95) and Baltimore Ravens (1996-98). Among the linebackers he coached were standouts Derrick Brooks of the Buccaneers and Ray Lewis of the Ravens.