I'd completely forgotten about this. Until a few months ago, when I heard on the news that Dick Butkus had died. Which reminded me of the NFL players I met when I was over there. Butkus wasn't one of them, because he was on the 1970 USO tour. The group I saw was in 1971. As I remember it, there were four players and one minder along with a couple of USO officials. They came through our battalion headquarters and I only remembered the name of one of the men, and that was Larry Csonka of the Miami Dolphins. I'm not a football head, so most of the names didn't mean anything to me.
Lately, I looked this up on the internet. According to that information, in addition to Csonka, on this tour there were:
Clint Jones, Minn. Vikings
Jon Morris, Boston Patriots
Greg Landry, Detroit Lions
Joe Scabelli, LA Rams
and Bill Granholm, who was exec. assistant to NFL Commish Pete Rozelle. He was probably the minder who was shepherding them along.
As I said, I only remember seeing four players so maybe one of the guys listed above wasn't present that day when they came through our place. I've looked at pictures of these players online, and I think Clint Jones may have been the missing player, because I seem to recall that all of them were white and Jones is black. I think I recognize the faces of Joe Scabelli and Greg Landry because of the hair. I've got a pretty good memory for faces but it has been a long time.
The USO people were passing out a little printed informational folder with their pictures, etc., on it, but after I got home, I gave it to a former employer who collected that kind of stuff. His store had ticket stubs from every college and big-time football game he'd ever attended, back to 1936.
Lately, I looked this up on the internet. According to that information, in addition to Csonka, on this tour there were:
Clint Jones, Minn. Vikings
Jon Morris, Boston Patriots
Greg Landry, Detroit Lions
Joe Scabelli, LA Rams
and Bill Granholm, who was exec. assistant to NFL Commish Pete Rozelle. He was probably the minder who was shepherding them along.
As I said, I only remember seeing four players so maybe one of the guys listed above wasn't present that day when they came through our place. I've looked at pictures of these players online, and I think Clint Jones may have been the missing player, because I seem to recall that all of them were white and Jones is black. I think I recognize the faces of Joe Scabelli and Greg Landry because of the hair. I've got a pretty good memory for faces but it has been a long time.
The USO people were passing out a little printed informational folder with their pictures, etc., on it, but after I got home, I gave it to a former employer who collected that kind of stuff. His store had ticket stubs from every college and big-time football game he'd ever attended, back to 1936.
