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Just in case that meanness ever begins to mellow, pro players have coaches such as the Chicago Cardinals' "Jumbo" Joe Stydahar. A mild-mannered, nervous wreck in his spare time, Joe used to be one of the nastiest customers ever to play professional ball. Once, playing tackle for the Chicago Bears, Stydahar walloped an opponent so hard that the man's arm was ripped open. Astonished officials insisted Joe must have bitten his man; they even examined his mouth. It was a waste of time. Joe couldn't have bitten if he wanted to. He had lost his teeth long ago, in forgotten scrimmages. Years later, when he was coaching the Rams and his team had absorbed a 49-14 shellacking from Greasy Neale's Eagles, Joe raged through the dressing room. "No wonder you guys get kicked around," he roared. "Every guy on this team has still got all his teeth!"
Today's players get a little help hanging onto their molars; their big helmets often have plastic faceguards to give them some measure of protection. Still, the scars of battle are inevitable. When the Forty-Niners' Fullback Hardy Brown was carried out of his first game with the Lions this year, his groin ripped open by a set of slashing cleats, a reporter in the press box had the last word: "Pro football is getting like atomic war. There are no winners, only survivors."
The Making of a Quarterback. "This is a man's game," says Bobby Layne, one of the outstanding survivors. "You have to grow into a man to play it right. A quarterback takes about three years before he knows halfway what's going on. You never really learn this damn thing."
Other players would argue that Bobby has learned more than enough. He has been a football hero ever since his school days. Born in the "little bitty ol' town" of Santa Anna, Texas (pop. 1,600), Bobby was only six years old when his father died and he was sent to Fort Worth to live with an aunt and uncle. By the time he was ready for junior high, his adopted parents moved to Dallas, where he teamed up with a boy named Doak Walker on the football field of Highland Park High School.
Bobby began his career as a guard, but before long he was calling signals from the tailback slot in Highland Park's single wing. Day after day, when the rest of the squad had finished practice, the two boys would work at place-kicking—Bobby holding, Doak booting—until it was too dark to see the goal posts. After the football season, Bobby played basketball; one spring he pitched the local American Legion baseball team to the state championship. By the time he entered the University of Texas in 1944, he was good enough for a baseball scholarship. In four years at Texas he never lost a conference baseball game.
But Bobby was a football player at heart. As a freshman he was still playing tailback in Coach Dana X. Bible's conservative single wing. He was just getting the hang of college football when the draft started to worry him. He and Doak joined the merchant marine, but the war was over before they ever got to sea. Bobby went back to Austin while Doak went to S.M.U. On the first Saturday after they got back, they were opponents on the football field. Walker ran 50 yds. for one touchdown; Layne pitched passes for two. (Final score: Texas 12, S.M.U. 7.)