Last Team Standing (20 page)

“Greasy said, ‘I want you here. We have our meetings here. You gotta be here.'”

Not that the players had many other options. Housing in Philadelphia was scarce. The booming war industries attracted tens of thousands of workers to the city, but wartime restrictions on raw materials like lumber made it impossible to build new homes. The newcomers were herded into hastily subdivided row houses or makeshift trailer parks, and often charged exorbitant rents, despite a ban on gouging. Life at the Hotel Philadelphian was practically idyllic by comparison. The rates were subsidized by the team. The players paid about a dollar a day, a considerable break from the hotel's daily rate of three dollars.

Greasy Neale's motives weren't purely altruistic, of course. The residency requirement facilitated nightly “skull sessions” in
the hotel ballroom after practice, at which the players were forced to watch game film for an hour or more while Neale fumbled clumsily with the projector. Ever since he'd learned the T formation by studying the raw newsreel footage of the 1940 championship game, Neale was a firm believer in the benefits of game film. He'd make his players watch the same play over and over, carefully pointing out what everybody had done wrong and only rarely acknowledging what anybody had done right.

The Eagles hired a lone cameraman to film their home games from the Shibe Park press box. The film had to be developed, of course, and it usually wasn't ready until Tuesday or Wednesday. The films of opposing teams were obtained through an underground network of football coaches who traded films like Grateful Dead fans would later trade bootleg recordings of the group's concerts. The league discouraged the practice but it grew so pervasive that it was codified after the war: Teams were required to submit films of their previous three games to their next opponent.

After eight hours in the factory, three hours on the practice field, and another hour or more of skull sessions, there wasn't much time left for the players to carouse. Mostly they just hung out in the hotel's Penguin Lounge or at Smokey Joe's, a popular tavern near the Penn campus. They also played cards, usually bridge, often in Neale's suite. They frequently ate together at a nearby Horn & Hardart Automat, a practice that Neale encouraged vigorously because the food was cheap.

The close quarters practically compelled friendship, recalled Eagles center Ray Graves.

“We made some real close friends with them [the Steelers],” Graves said. “I tell ya—ya had to, riding up and down the elevator with 'em—ya had to get pretty well acquainted.”

Graves said the living arrangements had the added benefit of keeping the players on a short leash.

“The team and the wives and the children lived there. My daughter helped run the elevator! It was a family and it kept the husbands in line…. Johnny Butler went out one night and came
back late, and I'll tell ya, one of the wives saw him comin' in and got on him. I'll tell ya, they kept the husbands pretty straight. I think it was a good thing. We were a family.”

On Friday nights, Neale would host a cocktail party for the team in the Penguin Lounge.

Though he never had any of his own, Neale was quite fond of children. He enjoyed bouncing the players' babies on his knee, babbling to them in baby talk. The older children regarded him as an uncle, and he showered them with treats.

“He was something,” said Ray Graves. “He had a lot of different personalities. He liked the kids … and they loved him. And he could be the toughest, meanest guy you ever played under, too.”

The primary reason for the improving relations among the players—even more than the collegial atmosphere of the Hotel Philadelphian—was the Steagles' record: 2-0. The team was undefeated and in first place. When they played the Bears on October 17, the two teams would meet as equals in the standings. The Steagles were in first place in the Eastern Division, the Bears were tied for first in the West.

“When you're winnin',” said Ray Graves, “everything's a little better.”

But even winning was not enough to thaw the frosty relationship between the teams' two co-head coaches. Walt Kiesling was feeling marginalized. Greasy Neale seemed incapable of ceding any authority to Kiesling, which naturally upset the big man. “Greasy ran the show,” said Vic Sears. “He just took over.”

Kiesling felt slighted. He also felt Neale was slighting the Steelers on the team. At one practice Kiesling got so upset with Neale for calling one of the Steelers a “statue of shit” that he pulled them off the field.

“I think Greasy tried to be as fair [to the Steeler players] as he could,” Sears said. “I don't think anybody could have been happy about the situation. It wasn't a good situation for anybody.” Halfback Jack Hinkle agreed: “The conflict was understandable. Kiesling was just sticking up for his own kids.”

Halfback Ernie Steele remembered a time late in the season when Neale was ill in bed and Kiesling went to visit him. Steele said Kiesling sat in a chair and began reading a newspaper in silence.

“Greasy said, ‘I'm layin' here dyin' and you're reading the goddamn newspaper!?' Kiesling said, ‘If you're gonna die, you're gonna die. I can't do anything about it.' They were something, those two.”

The Steagles starting lineup, photographed September 15, 1943. The front line (left to right): Larry Cabrelli, Frank “Bucko” Kilroy, Eddie Michaels, Ray Graves, Elbie Schultz, Vic Sears, and Bill Hewitt. The backfield (left to right): Jack Hinkle, Roy Zimmerman, Ben Kish, and Ernie Steele. (Hewitt and Hinkle would later switch to different uniform numbers.)
Photo courtesy Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, PA

The Steagles play leapfrog during a break in training camp near St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia, September 10, 1943. At the upper right is backup quarterback Allie Sherman.
Photo courtesy Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, PA

The Steagles practice a running play during training camp as co-head coach Greasy Neale watches intently, September 10, 1943. Neale spent much of training camp teaching the team the intricacies of the T formation.
Photo courtesy Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, PA

When the Steelers and Eagles merged, the Eagles' owner, Lex Thompson, was in the Army. Here Thompson is shown practicing on the antiaircraft-artillery range at Camp Davis in North Carolina.
Photo courtesy Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, PA

Harriet and Ted Doyle, around the time of their marriage in 1938, the same year Ted Doyle signed with the Steelers (then known as the Pirates).
Photo courtesy Jo Hanshaw

Servicemen share a program in the stands at the Steagles-Bears exhibition game at Shibe Park, Philadelphia, September 16, 1943. Throughout the war, many members of the armed forces spoke out in favor of the continuation of professional sports.
Photo courtesy Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, PA

The Steagles vs. the Chicago Bears, Shibe Park, Philadelphia, September 16, 1943. Except for the Green Bay Packers, every team in the NFL played its home games in a major league baseball park at the time.
Photo courtesy Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, PA