First, can you talk a bit about what you’ve been doing with yourself lately?
Well, I retired in 2014 and am recovering from a stroke now. I’m doing ok – it’s a slow process though. I’m weak on my left side – I’m trying to get that straight.
I live in Green Bay and overlook Lake Michigan.
Looking back, what got you started in scouting?
We had our daughter in ’81, and I started thinking about the abilities I thought I could bring to a career – what skills I wasn’t using like I could. I wanted to be sure I had something to do in the future.
I ended up recording the Super Bowl and, using the terminology I learned when I was on the Dolphin’s taxi squad as a player, I started scouting the teams. I wrote down each play of both teams in the vernacular from when I played and scouted both teams.
I ended up getting a job after that working at BLESTO after realizing this is something I could do and was good at.
Any highlights of your career as a scout?
After Pittsburgh I went to Green Bay as their Pro Personnel Director – I did that for a couple of years before ending up with the Jets.
One of the biggest signings I had in my career was Reggie White – he and Harry Galbreath who was a guard. I worked to entice them to sign with Green Bay from Tennessee.
How did you manage that?
I sold them on the fact we were a small city – the cost of living meant their money would go further. And that we were a player-friendly team. I had to convince them to come to Green Bay to talk with us. They weren’t interested in coming but I convinced them to stop in Green Bay on their way to San Francisco. Of course, we had a horrendous blizzard that day and flights were shut down. I told the GM we needed to go get White today or he’d never come back to Green Bay – he wasn’t interested in coming in the first place. They thought I was crazy.
Well, Ted Thompson – who later became GM for the Packers – he worked as my assistant then and was dating a girl who’s father was the head of a big paper company. He arranged with his girlfriend’s father for us to use their private jet and their company pilot to go get White and Galbreath. I decided it was my job to go pick him up myself, so I went on the jet. I was dressed in jeans – I didn’t look well-dressed – it wasn’t how I wanted to appear for their first meeting with someone from Green Bay, but it happened quickly and I didn’t have a chance to change.
Well, on my way I’m putting the recruitment talk together in my head. I remember sitting there across from them in those little seats on the plane, talking about how we need character guys like them, etc. – just looking at their faces. Their eyes were wide-open – I thought to myself “They’re buying this! Keep talking!”
Amazingly, we had no problems with the flight – we made it to Green Bay without an issue.
What happened after that?
Well they signed of course. Years later, Parcells was the president of the Jets – he was friends with Ron Wolf in Green Bay. Ron would often come to the Jets camp to visit and see how we ran things, and sometimes Bill would go out to Green Bay. Well, they had two kickers and were trading one and Bill had me go out to Green Bay to take a look at them both. They had a kick-off between the two and charted both kickers – I watched that at first, and when I was done I looked over to the corner of the field and the defensive lineman were there working on the stances and hitting the two-gap board. Reggie White stood up when he saw me and said to the group “Hold on – everyone stop! Let me introduce you to the guy that brought me to Green Bay!”
You get small victories in this work. Him remembering me after all of those years was a really nice moment.
It’s funny too – I remember the GM wanted to send Reggie’s wife a bouquet of roses every day until he made a decision. I told him you can’t just send flowers – you have to have a note in them too. So every day I wrote these poems of recruitment, convincing him to come to Green Bay!
What brought you to the Steelers as a scout in ’86?
I worked for BLESTO and every Winter we would go to the Greentree Marriott in Pittsburgh – every scout would bring their families, and the scouts would meet. I met and got to know Dick Haley from there. I guess he thought I knew what I was doing and wanted to hire me for the Steelers. Back then a lot of the BLESTO scouts ended up being hired by teams to become their regular scouts.
What did you learn most from your time as a Steelers scout?
The biggest thing was the precision in the way Dick Haley evaluated the athletic ability of players. He concentrated a lot on their flexibility. Their hips, knees, and ankles. Hank Bullough was a Green Bay coach at the time and he told me that Green Bay called the shuttle drill at the combine “The Steelers” because it was such a big part of the evaluation Dick used.
Any memories stand out to you from your scouting days in Pittsburgh?
I remember going to Grambling – I was going to meet Dick Haley there to look at five or six guys. When I got there Dick had gone on to another school, and Grambling’s assistant coach came up with 30 players. This was the first time I was going to run a workout – all the players were looking at me like I was an expert. It was too many for me to handle.
Well, the assistant coach came up to me in between drills – he was frustrated and asked how I could evaluate so many guys at once. I told him I watched film ahead of time but there were so many guys I had no idea what I was looking at! He backed off a bit after that – he could tell he had offended me. The head coach came over and smoothed things over.
Any players you liked a lot that you remember scouting?
There was a guy – Walter Johnson – he was another small school guy.
When we all met about players in Pittsburgh, we’d show film of their combine workouts so everyone could get a sense of their athletic ability. Johnson was a really fast player I liked. When I showed his film, he had this really odd start to the 40. He would jump start – he had both feet together, evenly-spaced, and he leapt out straight from the starting line.
When everyone watched that, they started chuckling. I was pushing for him – I liked him – even Chuck Noll had a funny comment. I said that I really liked him – I told Chuck that “He wasn’t without fault though.” That became the phrase that everyone had fun with for a while. To his credit, Chuck said that was alright – he was happy I said something.
Did you end up drafting him?
No – we signed him as a free agent, but he didn’t make the team.
Any other guys that stand out to you?
Years later I started to be in charge of scouting the offensive linemen. Tunch Ilkin was one guy I remember really liking. He was athletic and tough. He had real good instincts too. I thought he would be a good player.
Rumor has it that in New York, you also pushed for the Jets to draft Tom Brady?
I pushed for Tom yes. The Jets had already drafted Chad Pennington though in the first round. It was a moot point after that – there was no sense adding another quarterback.
The thing with Tom was, he didn’t even start at Michigan his senior year. No one had even evaluated him – they poo-poo’d him. Michigan started Drew Henson in their first game versus Syracuse. I saw Brady’s film mostly because my daughter was visiting potential colleges and I traveled with her. While she was at the school I’d watch film of the players at the schools.
Looking at scouting today in the NFL, what do you think is the most important element a scout can bring to their work?
I still think the athletic evaluation is the most important thing a scout can focus on. I learned that from Dick Haley.
I also thought about this. Chuck Noll was always accused of liking the small guys on the offensive line. I’d go to schools and coaches would run up to me telling me they had the perfect lineman for us – the perfect Steeler player. They’d be 5’11” or something. I had to explain to them that we didn’t try for guys like that – we just happened to have more success with shorter linemen.
Noll never believed that taller guys – ones bigger than 6’1″ or so – that they could do the athletic things we asked of our linemen. He didn’t think they’d be agile enough and fast enough to trap or pull.
He’d tell us that good offensive linemen when they pass-blocked, that they put their wight on the inside of their feet. There was one time we were looking at film of a linebacker from Arkansas State who also played some tight end. I was getting ready to throw him out of contention to be drafted when Noll told me to stop. “Look at where his weight is on the inside of his feet! That’s why he moves so well – he has good weight control!”
That was Chuck. He always noticed those little things.
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