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18. A New Leading Man
- University of Wisconsin Press
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Rookies Raymond Berry and Alan Ameche were among the first arrivals at the Baltimore Colts training camp at Western Maryland College. Football was literally the only thing they had in common, but they talked. For hours they talked. Ameche’s father was an Italian immigrant factory worker from Kenosha, Wisconsin, while Berry’s father Raymond was a legendary high school football coach from Paris, Texas. Ameche, from the University of Wisconsin, liked his mother’s Italian cooking, and Berry was partial to barbecue; Ameche’s taste in music was Beethoven, while Berry liked Hank Williams. Ameche was married with three children, Berry was single. Ameche was a Heisman Trophy winner, Berry was a converted defensive back, drafted in the twentieth round, trying to learn how to be a wide receiver. It is interesting that two men from the same country, playing the same sport, could be so different. “As rookies we reported to camp a day early and Alan Ameche was the first player on the team I met,” said Berry, one of six s-era Colts to earn his way into the NFL Hall of Fame. “I’d never met an Italian before,” Berry said matter-of-factly. “The first day I met Alan, he said to me, ‘Do you know anything about opera?’ I said, ‘You mean like the Grand Ole Opry?’ “He just looked at me and said, ‘No, that’s not what I’m talking about.’” From that rather shaky beginning, a hearty laugh was had and a great friendship blossomed. Ameche, the gregarious natural, and Berry, who willed himself to be a Hall of Famer with hard work and perseverance, were fast friends from that day forward. A New Leading Man “Alan was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met,” Berry said. “The thing I will always remember about him is how he was always laughing about something. He had that great sense of humor, and he was always joking around with people. “I remember him trying to explain opera to me. He was married and I was single, so we didn’t really socialize that much, but we got along really well.” While Ameche was almost immediately accepted as one of the team’s star performers, it was a struggle for Berry, who was primarily known as a defensive back at Southern Methodist in Dallas. “I was learning a new position, and you could have written a book about what I didn’t know about playing wide receiver,” said Berry, who didn’t even start for his father’s high school team until he was a senior and then caught only passes in his career at SMU. “While the other single guys were out drinking beer, I was up in my room memorizing the play book. Heck, when I got to the Colts, I didn’t know my butt from first base about playing wide receiver.” While Ameche was earning NFL Rookie of the Year honors in , Berry was struggling to stay with the team. He had only receptions his first season for a grand total of yards and no touchdowns. But Berry was soon to be joined in Baltimore by a kindred spirit, a player whose career was also perilously close to crash landing in the NFL scrap heap. Legendary John Unitas was cut loose by Pittsburgh Steelers coach Walt Kiesling in what would prove to be one of the most wrongheaded personnel moves in the history of sports. Unitas would find his way to the Colts and go on to have a Hall of Fame career and be the dominant quarterback of his era. The Unitas legend says that after being cut by the Steelers, he borrowed gas money to get to Baltimore and try out for the Colts. The gamble paid off and he made the team as George Shaw’s backup. Four games into the season, Shaw suffered a broken leg against the Bears at Wrigley Field, and Unitas was thrown into the fray. On his first pass attempt, Unitas threw an interception to Ameche’s old college rival J. C. Caroline that the speedster from Illinois returned for a touchdown, and the Bears won the game, –. The Colts had no choice but to stick with the Pittsburgh native, who had played collegiately at Louisville . Their patience was indeed rewarded. Unitas finished the season with a . percent completion mark, at that time a record for first-year quarterbacks. What happened in was just a prelude...