Run to Daylight (1964)

[Laughter] [Applause] these are the sights and the sounds of professional football [Laughter] [Applause] but there are other sites and other sounds in the places where professional football begins good afternoon sisters good afternoon it's great to see you back thank you so much it's nice to be back again here at uh saint noah it's a beautiful day too by the way it's a perfect day for coming back to saint norbert oh fine sister nice to see you around good don't you understand and move now spread out [Music] touch the legs [Music] for this they strive 832 football players 22 teams in two leagues and in each league it comes down to one final afternoon one final game for the championship in each league it comes down to two men two coaches last year in the national football league it came down to george hales of the chicago bears [Music] [Applause] [Music] and ali sherman of the new york giants [Applause] who sees his last chance lost and then there was one george hallas the victor who had left behind him all of the others [Music] including this man beaten last year after two years of winning it all [Applause] [Music] who now in wester pair wisconsin one of the places where pro football begins starts all over again waiting for the rookies to come in [Applause] here's the roster coach oh thanks right now baker john defensive end six four two forty dean dwayne half back six foot two oh five bogusky ronald linebacker six three two hundred and thirty pounds bowman ken senna six three two thirty i think i'll recognize him all right you must memorize the names because now you must start putting the names with the faces dwayne good to see you you know coach lombardi wayne b coach dwayne nice to see you yeah nice to see you thank you happy to have you with us hey jack helen nice to see you thanks larry hunter hey larry nice to see you this little guy is jack peters hi jack nice to see you yeah i see you jack good what do you weigh jack around 290 right today i feel good come on up here go fine all right nice to see you real happy to have you with us jack crosston jack tom brown hey tom how are you took a long time to get you tom john celeste john how are you jack nice to meet you yeah i remember you this is larry seguin larry nice to have you with us that's right steve nice to see you with us currently todd charlie this is gene hi steve nice to see you all right right in here to the office boys now get your room keys a good looking group of boys [Music] each year you wait for this moment from december to july 15th you have drafted 20 college seniors and i'll bring four or five free agents into camp with them and they represent the work of 65 paid scouts and of your coaching staff and the expenditure of many thousands of dollars [Music] in their colleges most of them were campus celebrities but here they must begin again and they are insecure and nervous and in the dining hall they eat almost in silence and cast only shy fruit of glances at the veterans who are in camp early and then you sweat out their physical exams [Music] six doctors and what will they find will they pass them all or will they tell you that one of them has high blood pressure or what and you see your veterans and one of them paul horning mr whole season was out of competition all last year you're a rookie quarterback and the arm he'll have to travel on will he be another bart star the knee every year there's a knee for in football there is no other joint in the body as exposed to injury as the knee okay all right and then you see forrest greg the picture ball player and you remember tom moore going 74 yards against the detroit lions and you're like a kid on christmas morning [Music] first i'd like to welcome you all of course and tell you how proud we are to have you a part of the packers just as you should be proud to be to be here to be a part of this team now one thing about the packers it's a team with a great tradition a great and a wonderful tradition and that tradition or that whatever you want to call it that glory that is the package has been developed to one thing only and that's pride everybody has ability but pride and performance is what makes the difference uh how do you develop pride pride is developed by a winning tradition that's how it's developed by a winning tradition actually the only difference between anyone in this league any one person in this league any player in the league any team in the league is an energy this is a tough and it's a cruel business we have to produce i'm only here red's only here we're only here because we win period and when we lose we're gone therefore we have to win therefore you have to win and we only want winners now one other thing please fatigue makes cowards of us all you can't play fatigued therefore it's up to you to be in prime physical condition i can't put you in physical condition i can start you you've got to keep yourself in prime physical condition because a fatigue player is a coward he can't go 100 percent and the key words you want them to walk out with energy fatigue i think this is the biggest bunch we've ever had coming to training camp before i uh looked all right during the physicals tonight i thought so yeah i understand the scale is a little heavy over here we're all about five pounds yeah leroy said he was six pounds heavy whether that one fell away two ninety six lifting you know got good legs well that's all for tonight fellas and we'll see you in a morning your rookies are big boys but they look so young and when you think of a fullback you think of a jimmy taylor with that fighter's face when you think of a middle linebacker you think of ray nishki and his battle scars and when you think of a defensive tackle you think of henry jordan with his furrowed brow your rookies have their problems but there are veterans with problems too i think the the comeback of paul horning or how well he comes back will contribute a great deal as to how how well the packers do physically poor horning will be will be fine he's run the steps and he's exercised and so forth the most difficult thing to do is to be able to accept the the contact the knocks the the blows that he that he must receive if they're being away for you but the other thing too and i think and this is most important is how he will accept mentally the jibes and the calls from the stands this is the thing that paul horning will have to learn to accept and if he does this and i really believe he can because he's an unusual type of young man i believe he can accept this if he does it's going to make him a great man you know there's 60 steps in this football stadium but i'm sure many times that you yourself have walked in to watch football game and didn't mind walking up 55 or 60 steps to your seat but it's a little bit different here running up 60 steps we feel that running up steps especially in my case since i need to get in real good shape it's strengthens your legs uh this running up steps also helps your wind the coach has always been a firm believer in people being in great shape and that's exactly what i need he said many times well if you can run up 600 steps you'll be able to if you ever get to see daylight run to it what's your name with all the freckles here huh mike all right we sent yours first reporter how are you mike good how old are you good again [Music] little brian little tiger in here for veteran or rookie all rules are the same all players must wrap will have their ankles taped or wrapped by the trainers each for each and every practice now if you're caught and you get an ankle injury it'll cost you 250 dollars but why do i do that we've got a lot of money invested in each and every one of you just to go out there and sprain your ankle just because you're too lazy or don't want to have your ankles taped it's kind of silly your first year men suit up in a semi-silence usually reserved for a locker room before a game they are awed by your record your reputation your tradition it is their first venture out of college into the competitive world and what it will be like a few days hence is written right up there in your veterans names jimmy taylor max mcgee boyd dalla frank messnick fred thurston and jerry kramer i think we all have our feelings of anxiety as a rookie and nervousness there's no question about this but once we make the ball club this all seems to fade away and we have a feeling of security and we're one of the fellas now this goes on for maybe four or five or six years you have a period where you're very confident everything is rolling along fine and in this time i myself know i'm always giving hints to the rookies coming in and teach them how to pull how to block helping them with their assignments things of this sort and then along about the sixth or seventh year uh these uh little doubts start to creep into your mind again and you begin to wonder if uh maybe you're not losing just a half a step or you get a little sore spot in your knee or something and wonder about an old injury that might crop up or something of this sort and about that time you quit handing out these little handy hints to the rookies you quit telling them how to pull you quit telling them their assignments and occasionally you might even tell them a wrong assignment if they look real good you uh you look them over pretty closely and pretty carefully this is a kind of a frightening thing for a rookie to have to go through naturally he worries about the number one problem whether or not he's good enough to make the national football league number two another big problem is whether or not the veterans will accept you as a ballplayer and as a man i myself came from notre dame with a lot of publicity i was very fortunate to win a few awards and make a few all-american teams and i came to green bay with a lot of publicity and we weren't too successful in our first few years here at green bay and it's very easy for a rookie just like i was to be discouraged with this because i wanted to make the national football league in a big way and as it turned out i didn't i was almost a flop and actually there was times when i thought that maybe i should go into business and give up professional football but number five did make it and big i have heard and read that paul horning is not a great runner or a great passer or a great field goal kicker although everyone agrees he is a great blocker he led the league in scoring though for three seasons and he was twice voted the league's outstanding player what it comes down to actually is that in the middle of the field he may be only slightly better than an average ball player but inside that 20-yard line he's one of the greatest i have ever seen he smells the goal line and i'll tell you something else when horning is in there you can feel the confidence of that ball club i have a lot of problems to face this year of course naturally one of which will be whether or not i will be able to stand the pressure of contact from week to week that is so fierce in the national football league i have a lot of problems with my legs whether or not they will be in top shape but i think the big problem that i'll have to face is naturally since i was suspended myself and carrots given a chance to play again we'll be faced around the league with a lot of cat calls and maybe a lot of mental problems which will arise and it is a big problem i think the number one problem which we will have to just bear up under and it's going to take a long year and i'll be just very very happy if i'm on my feet at the end of the season because as i said before i'm just thrilled to death that i'll be able to play football again and so paul horning is back that sound you haven't heard since last december the hailstone sound of those cleats [Applause] and now you can't wait to see them on the field we are continually hurrying from mid-july into december starting now and throughout the season for every hour of every game you play you put in 14 on this field and another 14 in meetings that's a ratio of 28 to 1 and does not include the countless hours of year-round work by the coaching staff that's the way just beat up high good you're just your third one that's the way yeah you got it that's the way it goes don't be in too big a hurry that's real good real good [Applause] oh [Applause] you try to see everything and there's never enough time if you get your tail way down in here in order for you to move you got to get when you come off i shouldn't be able to there is one of them who catches your eye even before he does anything there is something about him just something about the way he moves one of the things you try to avoid and with your first year people is to for your new people is to compare them with veterans i think the tendency is to try to compare their ability rather than the potential in other words i think the best way to do it is to try to evaluate what that new person or what that first year man will look like in two or three years 2 59. don't wait on it oh that's what much better much better much better than it was before don't wait on that ball there comes then that other moment you wait for each year zeke bratkowski throws bart star throws and then your rookie quarterback gets ready to throw and all over the field they are sneaking looks as your center positions and your rookie takes that snap and throws he throws a good ball not too heavy but he's a little awkward on his release but will he be another bart star will he develop all the skills that quarterback needs will he have the mind to retain all a quarterback must carry in that head if he's going to carry your ball club when i first met bart starr my first impression was that he was probably just a little bit too polite maybe just a little bit too self-effacing to be the real bold tough quarterback that a quarterback must be in the national football league at that time the opinion around here and in fact the opinion in the league was that star would never make it they said he couldn't throw well enough and he wasn't tough enough and that he had no confidence in himself and that no one actually had any confidence in him he's highly intelligent though and a great student of the game and i found out that he's tough enough and he does have the ability and that his arm and the ball handling techniques that he possesses are as good as any quarterback in this league what he needed was confidence because when you combine intelligence with sensitivity and sincerity the individual tends to be tense contrary to the opinion of many he does have a an arm capable to throw the long touchdown pass but actually he's a great one at picking the defenses apart and actually he gets more joy out of throwing the singles and doubles and picking those defenses apart he still tends to be conservative because that's his nature but with success i've seen his confidence grow i think any of the quarterbacks in the national football league would agree with me that there is a certain mental burden about playing the position of quarterback but let's go back to starting a training camp each year coach lombardi approaches training camp with the thought that from year to year regardless of how long you've been in this league you tend to forget things that you've learned the year before and i certainly concur in this feeling and so we will start let's say for example in the passing game we'll go back and start right from the basics each year and build up to where we can develop a good fine passing game the same thing with our planning of strategy with our running game how the two can complement one another and so forth so we go right back to the basics each year and work up to them now as this progression takes place i think the the burden uh the mental load sort of builds up too because as we start to approach ball games all these things start to get on your shoulders start to get on your mind and you try to you hope work them into the pattern that the coach is seeking and of course this is one reason we have pre-season games and so forth you hope to by the time your season starts to work some of these problems out regardless of the burdens i wouldn't swap it for any position on a ball club staccato that time let's go everything we do is on the sound right [Applause] here in the time you have you test them in every way you know to try to find the man inside your head if you don't come up with it beautiful really you really come off there real well bacon you know what i mean okay you're doing something [Applause] sometimes those first year men really give you nightmares in 1959 we drafted boydala as a receiver because he was not only a fine football player at colorado but he could also run the 100 yard dash in 99 and i hurdles in 14-2 when he went to the all-star camp however the word came out that he would not catch in a crowd or to his inside in other words that he may lack some courage or that he may hear footsteps but boy dolla stuck his nose in there every time then we threw to him across the middle and when he got belted he got right up in his first game he dropped the touchdown pass and he dropped three in two games before he caught one but that year he caught 32 passes as a first-year man to lead our receivers and he was voted the league's rookie of the year and it's so easy to make a mistake that can haunt you the rest of your life ron kramer is today one of the two best tight ends in the league and yet in august of 1961 i came close to giving up on him his legs were bad and his attitude was worse it scares me because your closed ends like ron kamer are hard to find before kramer our closed end used to double team with our tackle and blocking runner's so big and so strong and so vicious a block of though that he can wipe out a man by himself and because of this he frees another blocker it's almost like owning a permit to put 12 men on the field that's why it still scares me well actually there are many psychological aspects to football one example is like when i get up on sunday mornings and i feel pretty good in the morning and i want to go out and shake hands with people i'm sort of worried about the kind of game i'm going to have but on the other hand if i get up and i feel a little grouchy and everything i want to go out there and hit people uh it's not a friendly game and uh it never will be a friendly game you can't go out there and have parties you know it's a it's a real hard rough enough rough tough football game and i think everybody should feel his way in the game at five foot ten and 185 pounds willie wood is the shortest man on the squad uh scout said he was much too small and actually he didn't have enough speed no one drafted willie but he wrote letters to all the clubs we invited him to come to camp as a free agent but what they didn't know is that he can jump like a gazelle he has great timing too the first time we ever used wooly wood was against the colts in baltimore in this league when you put in a first year man especially at defensive back they love to go to work on them i think the worst ball game i've ever had was uh my first year in 1960 against the baltimore coats uh jess whitson got hurt and they put me in the corner to take his place and uh of course i had to cover ray barry who at the time we considered one of the better ends in the leg and immediately john united stood through about four or five quick passes right over me i think two of them for touchdowns and uh those two tds i think beat us in that game we lost by by by eight points i think it was and of course uh being my first game i really want to do well and and i kind of felt lousy afterwards because i sort of felt i let the guys down i think that's one of the worst ball game job i had and it's one of the worst feelings i ever had uh since i've been playing football all defensive backs must learn by experience and willie is a smart one and he also has which is most important that sixth sense for being in the right place at the right time he is the most natural defensive back we have and the way we locked into him is enough to make you wonder it cost us well over 75 000 a year to scout the colleges and we got willie through a letter he wrote and mailed with a four cent stands these are your sunday soldiers [Music] on the field they look like gladiators [Applause] but beneath that armor is a surprising gentleness [Music] they are as different from one another as are all men everywhere and they come from many places and each in his own way [Music] one hog hannah every year all the way from arkansas [Music] in his pickup truck dave hannah's real name is joel but his nickname is dave and they call him hogg he was born and he grew up in arkansas as a farm boy and actually he still keeps farm hours breakfast in camp is at 7 30 but dave is up at 6 30 and you know he'll always be in bed by 10. he is in and out of that dining room before anyone else because he watches his diet and on the practice field wearing that baseball cap to protect his fair head and forehead from the davis 34 now that will be a sad day when the years get him when he is out on that field though in that gold helmet and pack a jersey and the gold pants he looks just like the rest of him and he is just as sophisticated as max and as worldly wise as paul about this game and he is just as good at the position he plays ray nisky has the perfect temperament for a middle linebacker he's a big rough belligerent fun-loving guy with the heart as big as all outdoors but he has been a bit of a problem to coach when you chew him out he's just like a child on defense he could use his hands before other people can get to him or could get to him and nitki said he has enjoyed tangling with other people and using his hands ever since he was a kid my parents died when i was very young and i think i took it out on the neighborhood kids and i was always fighting and getting in the entanglements with the other kids were in the neighborhood this is probably the reason why i like defensive football so well in that you can use your hands and i can let go and let all this physical energy out and i really enjoy playing defense and it's been real nice to me henry jordan has been an all-pro defensive tackle now for four years strong tough quick and a great play analyst he has a tendency though to be satisfied which is why i really don't flatter him much i make him a target but i'll call hank jordan because we both know his ability and we both understand that i'm on him to bring out the best in him and because he performs best when he's just a little upset you know we take quite a bit but being grown men we realize that's the only way he can get the best out of us and being coach lombardi he may yell at you one minute pat you on the back to next we don't call it abuse we call it constructive criticism so it's paid off so we don't mind and as long as uh he does the same with paul horning and bart starr he sure is welcome to do it with me jim tell us not really big for a fullback and when you bump against them it's just like bumping into a cast iron statue and in fact he rather likes that feeling he doesn't have exceptional speed but he does have great quickness and he does have tremendous underpinning which gives him that great balance and where jimmy brown will give you that leg and then take it away taylor will give it to you and try to ram it through your chest taylor is so shifty that he suddenly gives you your best shot at him this makes him a natural as that running to daylight the strange thing about jimmy is that he really likes people i don't know anybody on the squad who seems to have a greater need and a greater capacity for friendship and understanding than jim taylor [Applause] contact is is a whole basis of football and you've got to love contact to be able to play this game of football and i think lombardi has instilled that on each and every player on the green bay packers team and it's a it's a game of contact and uh i love it and i love to carry the football and i can't think of anything else that i'd rather do than and take the football on the one-yard line and try and get in uh for a touchdown [Applause] different as they are it is what they share together here and in your games over the weeks and months and years that makes them a united stand [Applause] they work together and play together sabotage jerry cramer come on come on don't let him go billy davis [Applause] [Applause] ray michigan and the golden boy [Applause] they live together and eat together so as your rookies invade this unit threaten your veterans jobs it is better that your veterans haze them here rather than to take it out on these kids on that field [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the end and the back shooting at the outside leg of the end and here we have a doodad block the halfback drops back plays it loose tries to intercept the ball and when he does intercept the ball calls bingo heads for the near sideline and we have a touchdown understand any questions unless the two man is out outside of you if the two men is outside of you then you slam the two man and seal for the first inside linebacker v in v out one pass one x switch four pass four x turn in four x switch swing one swing four switch swing six and that's it then your key is the center if he blocks one of our tackles that's your key for a run and you fill in there quickly he shows pass you're back to the weak side hook looking for a turn in by the weak side in is that clear this game is not as complicated as many people think it is and some people try to make it why it's almost as simple as playground tag each team for example has its number one play this is the play it executes better than any other to bring home the vacant play it's pay off the mortgage play the giants have the title screen to webster [Laughter] cleveland has uh two plays the slant that jim brown [Laughter] and the quick screen of jim brown [Laughter] chicago has quick pass over the middle to ditka with los angeles it's the strong side off tackle with vast carrion and perkins or wilkins leading and you have your sweep [Laughter] all right gentlemen i would say that the number one play in our offensive category is the is the power sweep as we call it actual number of that play is 49 and the reciprocal of that is 28 49 28. it's the power sweep actually it's the it's the lead play in our in our offense this is the play we feel that every defense that we face must stop this is the play that we feel that every team that we play uh face must feel that they have to stop and by stopping this it opens up various other offensive plays in our category that we can take advantage of 49 as we're looking at it we ask the offensive end or the tight end in this particular case to take a position open position that open position is some nine feet eight to nine feet from his tackle the defensive end goes to the outside he may break it inside the play has broken way inside the defensive tackle this is what we call running to daylight daylight wherever it shows inside the defensive tackle inside the defensive end inside the defensive linebacker that play could break any one of those three places besides of course the ideal place which is outside the defense of linebacker gentlemen this is the most important play we have is the play we must make go it's the play that we will make of the play that we will run again and again and again 49 28. you put a play together as you put a team together the football practice field is a factory where first you perfect the parts the backs and their roll in the sweep the linemen the guards pulling and turning that corner as fuzzy fishton explains the playing garden national football league is very very difficult as you all know the most difficult part probably is the pull i think for the fans a real important facet of it is the fact that uh you have to do two three moves at the same time in order to get get out in front of those fast half backs i think the important thing to to remember is that the back foot if you're pulling to the right for example the left foot is the key foot in this move uh the left foot has to make a definite pivot as you see definite pivot and then stepping out with the right foot now uh it cannot be done you lose too much time and it's impossible to get out if you just push off on that left foot and note uh don't pivot on it by pivoting on the left foot it gives you a quickness and also gives you the power to go in front of the half back because you pivot and push off on that left foot for example i'll run through one here and watching the left foot and you see the right foot lido and you leave nothing to chance your defensive backs and their tip drill all right let's go come on and when they work it in the game it is not the largest of luck [Applause] but the product of perseverance [Music] [Laughter] then you tested this machine your plays and your players in the intra squad game one of the worst parts of training camp for me is our inner squad game this is our first actual game of the season it's not listed as a game but it's much much tougher than any actual football game we play i would actually rather play the bears in the and the uh lions back to back or than go through another squad game in this inner squad game we uh i myself now will face people such as dave hanner hogg hanner our guy that's been around me for years and actually helped me in this league he helped me with a great number of things taught me my past blocking my plays many things now in an inner squad game we'll have to go out and i'll have to block dave i'll have to cut him down i'll have to give him everything i've got and they do just that [Applause] some of them are gone rookies and veterans too after your scrimmages your enter squad game your pre-season games only five or six newcomers will make it these decisions every coach must make this is one of the cruel parts of this business i believe and it has to be cruel there's no other way there's no easy way of doing it that i know some boys of course you have no feelings about whatsoever a boy who may be who you realize has more ability than he's shown you or what we say hasn't put out a hundred percent for you i don't think you have too much feeling about telling that boy that you can't use him or sorry that he can't make the team but a boy who you know has put out a hundred percent for you every minute that he was here and has given every uh given given you every bit of strength that he has in him in order to make your ball club and then at the last minute last week or so you have to tell him that he can't make the ball club this is the cruel part of it and of course we're concerns veterans that's worse a boy who's played for you maybe four or five years some of them more and you have a younger boy who comes in and takes his place for various reasons uh this is the cruel part of the business and with this every coach lives going in for those who stay some have a chance for greatness they are the ones to whom you give everything that's in you and it's like your wife maurice if he finds a boy who he thinks can be a great one he will open his skull if he has to and pour in everything he knows uh like most coaches you look forward to the season with uh most of the time with great anticipation of course in that anticipation you have some fears you have some doubts you have some confidences i think this year as far as i am concerned i i've looked forward to this season maybe a little bit more than i have looked forward to the last two seasons i think one of the reasons was possible is possibly that i did not win it last year and i did the previous two years therefore i am looking forward to this season a little bit more anticipation to winning out of hope and of course the the doubts that you have uh whatever new formations you may be using or new ideas that you may be using you have some doubt at the last minute as to how this is going to perform or how what kind of a reaction this will have upon your team and upon your opponents same thing with from a defensive viewpoint the new boys that you have in the game we have some new boys for the first time uh we'll be playing on defense of new boys on offense how they will react under pressure all of these things i think you think about during the last week and possibly some of the trades that you've made too whether now right before the opening of the season whether these trades were just the right thing for you and the boys that you drafted were they the right boys all of these things are all carried and all all put together into more or less of one big thought and you uh you go to bed with them at night and you wake up with them in the morning and it will be that way all season there will be no end to the trying with every fiber of my body i've got to try to make you the best football player that i can make it and i'll try and i'll try and if i don't succeed the first day i'll try it again and i'll try it again you got to give everything that you have in you in order to stop the play if you're on defense or to make the play go if you're on the offense because this may be the one play in the whole ball game which can cause the winning or the losing of the entire game this is a tough and it's a cruel business we have to produce we're only here because we win period and when we lose we're back therefore we have to win therefore you have to win and we only want winners [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Grey Beard

Views: 1,035

Rating: 4.8709679 out of 5

Keywords: NFL Films, Steve Sabol, Ed Sabol, Howard Cosell, Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers

Id: DeB2FEBbh9E

Length: 50min 59sec (3059 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021