Boom_70 said:
tapintoamerica said:
Team leadership and coaching vacuum in this outfit. Incognito has the sign on his locker reading, "Two things I hate: taxes and rookies." How can anybody permit one player to decree openly his disdain for several teammates? Is "hate" an exaggeration? Perhaps. But this ain't 1973. Somebody should have taken the damn sign down long before they booted its author.
What I don't get is that Martin was not a rookie. He paid his dues last year.
Back in the olden ages of football, one of the Olympian figures of hazing rookies, Bobby Layne, said that 'rookie' status in terms of hazing suitability extended until the end of training camp of year 2, by which time it was usually apparent if the guy was going to make the team on a 'permanent' basis. After the regular season started in a guy's second season, he was considered a 'veteran.'
From most accounts, Layne's hazing repetoire consisted of forcing rookies to get up in the cafeteria and sing their college fight songs, telling them to run back to the cafeteria during training camp and fetch snacks and cookies, sending them on beer runs, abundant on-field chewing out for screwing up plays, and bag-carrying to team buses.
Selected rookies, mainly Alex Karras, became Layne's personal valet/chauffeur, driving him on his nighttime runs to half the nightspots in Detroit, drinking up all the booze Layne would buy for him, then driving him back to training camp no matter how drunk they both were (involving 10-mph cruises down freeways).
Another great story about Karras' rookie travails involved him being summoned to a hotel room full of Layne and a dozen or so his drunken card-playing buddies, drinking beer at 3 a.m. in Norman, Oklahoma on a steamy 90-degree night before an exhibition game.
Layne says, "Tippy (his nickname for Karras), we want cheeeseburgers."
Karras: "Yes, sir, you can get them from room service. They cost twenty-three cents each."
"The hotel kitchen is closed down, you'll have to go out and get them."
"Sir, do you know where in Norman, Oklahoma in 1957 I can find cheeseburgers at 3 a.m.?"
"No, god damn it, go out and find someplace." SLAM.
So Karras is sent out the door with a fistful of money and orders to come back with 25 custom-ordered cheeseburgers.
Karras goes downstairs and out the front door of the hotel. It's locust season in Norman and they're swarming all over him.
Karras begins walking down the darkened street (again, remember, it's 1957). After a few minutes he decides he'd better jog, or run, because Layne and his buddies are sitting back in the hot hotel room waiting for cheeseburgers. He runs along for maybe 20 minutes, covering a few miles, until he sees a flickering neon sign in the distance: "EAT."
He opens the door of EAT and walks in, a huge guy, buzz cut, coke-bottle glasses, sweating like heck, clothes soaked head to toe. The one guy in the joint, the counter cook, stares in horror.
Karras gasps out, "I want this," and tosses his list of 25 cheeseburgers on the counter.
Without a word counter cook guy cooks up the burgers. As he is nearly finished, he says, "is that to go?"
Karras ponders a second. Chewing through 25 cheeseburgers at 3:30 a.m.? Nah. "Yeah, make it to go."
Counter cook guy packs the burgers into a huge bag. Karras pulls out a wad of cash. Counter cook guy, with terror in his eyes, waves him away. "Forget the money, just take it," he mutters several times. Burger grease is soaking through the bottom of the bag.
Karras bursts out the door of EAT and begins running back to the hotel. Now it's 4 a.m. and getting later. He's hotter and sweatier now and all the locust-bugs, who drive Karras insane, are crawling through his shirt and jacket. He strips to the waist, enters the hotel, and runs up the 5 flights of stairs to Layne's room.
Karras discreetly knocks a couple times on the door as is his usual habit. No answer. He knocks a few more times; still no answer. He knocks a few more times and finally Harley Sewell, a veteran guard and pal of Layne's who utterly detested Karras, answers the door.
"What the heck do you want?"
"I've got all these burgers."
"We all went to bed. God damn it." SLAM.
Karras returned to his own room, tossed the bag of burgers on top of the dresser, and collapsed into bed for 2-3 hours sleep.
He speculated the housekeeping staff found them the next day after the Lions checked out.
According to Karras, when he was serving as Layne's personal flunky, "I never paid for a thing; Layne paid for everything." Apparently Layne felt as a highly-paid veteran star QB, it was his duty to pay the freight for his lower-paid rookie teammates.
Mitch Albom Memorial Self-Plagiarism Self-Disclosure Notice: I knew I had posted this story, more or less verbatim, before, and sure enough, I did, following Harley Sewell's death in Dec. 2011.
