uh you know immediately after the super bowl it's not always an easy task to get players from the
game to appear on uh shows like this most of the players of course are either still in california
or in no condition to appear on television so to comment on sunday's game and to talk
about football in general please welcome one of the stars of the
baltimore colts between the years 1950 1962 mr art donovan ladies and gentlemen
tell me uh what position did you play for the colts i was a defensive left tackle uh-huh
and uh were you pretty good ball player uh i don't know some of the people i played against thought
i was lousy and others thought i was good and the newspaper people they said you were good and
bad so i think the only way you can really judge how good you were how bad you were by your peers
if you meet fellows and they say well you're a good one then you say okay thank you very much
yeah they say lousy i said you don't know what you're talking about
uh how long were you in the nfl was this 13 years yeah and all with the colts yes yeah uh now you uh
saw the game yesterday yes i did and i guess the winning team they each got 36 000 a piece is that
right yeah now how does that compare with the kind of money you were making uh after 13 years
the best my best salary was 22 thousand dollars i started off in 194 1950 as a rookie and i was
making forty five hundred dollars but there was a fella from muhlenberg college that played with me
and he played both ways in 50 and he made 4 000. so i thought i was doing very well yeah um boy now
do you do you have any kind of feeling that maybe the football that you were playing then or the
football players you were playing with and against uh were tougher than the guys playing today uh
it was a different kind of a game when i started the you're a [ __ ] if you wore a
face mask yeah and then after because of my face you didn't have to worry about it
so uh you got a good looking face yourself well thank you
thank you david you i don't know i think you better get your eyes
excited well anyhow uh i got kicked in the face
and i got 56 stitches down here and then i got under here and i lost a few teeth and
so i put the mask on i said the hell with them if they think i'm a [ __ ] i'm a [ __ ]
yeah so then everybody's got a mask on now and now you can't even get your fingers in there anymore
which we would never do in those days what uh now you played both the offense and then no no just
the first thing now uh did you ever do anything dirty or untoward uh absolutely yeah all right uh
and what kind of stuff what would what was your skill or or strength my skill was i
guess trying to get to the guy's eyes you know do a lot of little things like we had a felony
bill pennington was a linebacker and a guy was blocking on his name bob sinclair from the 49ers
and we knocked him down and and pennington says to me okay kick him now kick him you got your chance
so i started kicking him he said what are you doing i'm just trying to make a living like you
are yeah so things like that went on all the time yeah uh but you were you were played in the the uh
pro bowl several yeah i played i played five years in the pro bowl game i played on two championship
teams a 58 and 59 cold football team which i guess some of the packers would say that they
were a better football team but i believe that the 57 89 baltimore colt team maybe was the greatest
football team ever assembled uh people sure thank you somebody's from baltimore here you uh you
knew bobby lane you played with bobby lane very well i played with him and i drank with him yeah
now they uh uh he has that reputation as a guy who enjoyed uh drinking i don't know if he was like
before the games or just for recreation i would i would swear to the almighty that a couple of times
on the way out of the stadium passing them for the second half i figured maybe he had a few shots at
halftime oh really i said bobby you're a little lisa's well i got to sort of straighten up yeah
now did you did you ever drink during a game art on no not no no heavens no after yes after yeah
but now you would never go in the locker in halftime and maybe just get the courage up uh
i don't know uh right before the the game started the coach would give you the you know the old pet
talk yeah and he'd say okay if you're not afraid let's go yeah so they'd push you out the door
that's we had a coach uh we've eubanks and he said we had to win this game and he went off for about
10 minutes telling what we had to do we had to punch and scrape and scratch and bite and kick
and they said let's go he said but for god's sake be careful
how many championship games did you play just two just two and this is
what the art looked like when he was suited up this is a pretty here you go
yep that man means business what uh you mentioned i mentioned uh bobby lane
uh and you also did your room with don schuler yeah schuler and i
and a fellow bill pelington and marketing we had a we bought a home before we got
married uh not us together you know we did get married to girls and um
in 1955 schuler's a defensive back force now he always seems like a pretty straight even keel
normal kind of guy but he isn't no none of us really uh i can't tell a lot of stories
on him because he'll he'd sue me he that's the type of guy really oh yeah sure you know
schulich down in miami he walks on water but yesterday he missed the rock somewhere
well anyhow we're playing the rams in baltimore in 1955 and he was covering tom fears who was a
great enders in the hot pro football hall of fame he was holding fears and fears told him schuler
don't hold me about two plays later schuler held him again then fizz didn't hit him in a shot with
an elbow and br he broke don's joy so now his shoe is out for the rest of the year and the first day
he gets back from the hospital a pelican and i marched we said well we'll stay in and babysit him
for the night and we'll we'll cook him his dinner all we could do is fry eggs real loose you know
it couldn't eat anything so so we got him a straw and a glass you know and everything in
there there's a guy's 250 270 pounds we're cooking dinner for him the eggs and we go to give him the
eggs and so goes yeah stupid so what's wrong said you didn't scramble them loose enough so
go cook your own meal schuler that's the type of guy yeah he didn't like anything yeah um
the best story about schuler is his one of his assistants his name is karl tassef he's down there
with him now he played with us with the colts and we're out playing green bay in milwaukee and
you know getting on the plane they say who's your roommate you know spinny donovan okay
they say schuler nobody answers no toss here comes a here comes a cab up to the airport schuler jumps
out and he's got a cab his hat on and in the back is carl tassel he's got a package on now
schuler opens the door and toss it paid him the fare then he got on the plane now where they got
the taxi from i don't know oh you mean you mean these guys he stole the cat pulled a taxicab
yeah boy oh boy oh beautiful did you guys uh go to a lot of parties together or
uh oh we that's what made it so good we always we're always partying you know i mean
and and what were those events like art uh um just drinking you know
you know we we had a lot of good clean fun yeah
what like some guy's falling out the window or something like that or yeah
but they didn't really get hurt you know 280 pounds
i think the best start is playing the rams out on the coast and now that must have been excitement
uh for a team from the east coast to go out to the west coast where it was warm or sunny warm
was like 105 degrees on it on the coliseum floor you know it's halfway down in the ground anyhow
and i had a weight problem i had to weigh in 275 every friday so i weighed 278 and we banks who was
our coach find me two thousand dollars so he said but right before the game if you guys if you win
he says i'll talk to you about your money and maybe give you the two thousand dollar bonus back
well in the second half we bust the game wide open they put a new quarterback in the rams i
said well thank god he's gonna run the clock out and everything's gonna be okay this guy gets the
ball he starts running all over the field throwing 80-yard passes and we're trying to catch him and
i'm screaming at him and i couldn't call him if he was on his knees that's how tired i was
so finally i went in the rams huddle and i said to the quarterback look you stupid jerk it can't
win run the clock on he looked at me and said drop dead and i don't know what to say to him
from our side because brazil's our defensive end hollows fatso you're going to run huddle
and we go and we got penalized five yards from me being offsides
like uh it's like poetry fatso you're in the wrong huddle uh
now art tell me about uh why a title you played uh was he always with the
giants you no no he was with the colts when i started he was a quarterback with the colts
then he went out with the 49ers then it came to the giants uh till you know i have some stories in
fact one time he was the only guy making any money on the team at 50 and he and his wife invited us
over for chicken dinner and we said swell but he said you have to bring your own chicken
they told me tittle was tighter than a a clam with lots of that's how he yeah he just
didn't spend any money at all uh van broglin he uh he was a quarterback with the rams and we played
him one time and they have these sophisticated defenses like they tell you about on television
now you know what you're doing somebody how they come out we were strong left then says manske who
was a linebacker he hollered to me move and i moved the scene i said he's wrong i said you're
moving i moved back again so after four moves van barkley he called timeout he says now how the hell
do you expect me to run a play against you guys and you don't even know how to line up yourself so
we really did foul them up pretty good and what about the uh what did i uh was talking about uh
this afternoon you and why a tittle and a shower well there were about five of us we were staying
at the beverly wilshire hotel and we didn't at those days you have a dump isn't it that place
what a place they had a shade brush for 1200 more than we were making yeah so anyhow uh we asked
the guy we could go swimming he says yeah if you have your bait and suit sure you're members of the
of the hotel we didn't have any painting suits so we asked them if they could go in after hours
you know new just go for the swim they said you can't do that but in the room we had a big big
a big bath big shower store it must have been eight feet long about six foot high
so three of them got in the shower stall and we filled the water the tub up with water then
the third guy he went over the top and we're in there we're having a great time swimming
and somebody hit the latch but it goes all the water out it costs us three thousand dollars to
have the place fixed yeah that's why title doesn't speak to me he had to pay the bill uh now quickly
what did you think of the game yesterday good game i uh i want five dollars too like the young
fella did i bet on i've been on washington just because i thought washington had a bigger stronger
offensive line than the than the uh the dolphins defense yeah and uh they really deserve to win
they made a believer out of me they've got a good football team uh before you go uh tell tell us
what you're doing now you're no longer affiliated with football right uh i'm making money uh-huh
i'm finally after 58 years making a little bit of money good for you art how are you doing that uh
my wife and i we own uh we own a country club in baltimore she and i own it and operate it and i i
have a package good store and it's on a fringe neighborhood and i think i'm gonna get out of
that pretty soon because the other day a guy came in and he took out a billiard carrier but he had
a shotgun in yeah and i looked at the barrel of the shotgun and it looked like you were looking
at the lincoln tunnel and i said that's the end of my store career so you own a liquor store and
a country right right you don't look like a country club kind of guy you know you just
well how would you think you would look if you grew up in front of mr goldberg's
candy store in the bronx just like i am well you've done a fine job right nice meeting you
art donovan ladies and gentlemen we'll be right back with corneille you guest