First, can you let readers know what you did with yourself after the NFL and how hard that adjustment was for you?

Well I got my degree in education so went into teaching and did a little coaching as well. After that I retired.

I wasn’t hard at all for me. I knew what I wanted to do before I became a football player, so I was fine.

As a coach, who influenced your coaching style?

Well, the professional coaches did not have much influence on me. The ones that did were my high school and college coaches, They were fantastic men of character. Guys you liked to be around.  I never heard a high school or college coach swear, and they were always in control. They were men of high morality and character. Very different than Buddy Parker and my other professional coaches.

Stepping back a bit, tell us a bit about getting drafted by Pittsburgh. How did you find out?

I got a call from them. I don’t remember from who. It wasn’t one of the higher-up people. Not a coach. I wasn’t surprised they drafted me. I thought I would be drafted and it didn’t matter who drafted me. I guess if I could have picked it would have been the Giants because I was from Boston and we used to watch the Giants on TV there as they had the TV rights. So I was familiar with them.

Who helped mentor you as a rookie there?

There wasn’t very much of that. They made me a linebacker there. I was an offensive and defensive end in college – we played two ways then, I thought they drafted me to be a tight end – I practiced there for a couple of weeks as a rookie. But I broke a bone in my wrist and it never healed well. In fact I has surgery on it fourteen years later. So I couldn’t catch those short, hard passes. So, they decided to move me to linebacker

There was a definite learning curve there. Dale Dodrill helped me. He was an old veteran – a guy on his way out really. he gave me the most help as far as the position was concerned. There was a big void though between the rookies and veterans. Probably very different than it is today.

In fact I remember my rookie year Bobby Layne was traded to the Steelers. He and the other vets decided they were going to have a party and that all the rookies had to attend and get drunk. I was roommates then with Darrell Dess. He drank but told me no one was going to tell him he had to get drunk. I never had a drink in my life at that point. So neither one of us went.

That night four players got into car accidents. No one was seriously hurt. But if those didn’t happen I imagine we’d have been on the outs with those guys.

Any other good stories of memories from your time there?

Mike Henry was my roommate later on. He was later signed by Warner Brothers to play Tarzan. The funny thing was that he couldn’t even swim – he wasn’t an outdoors guy. But he ended up playing Tarzan in 1966 I think.

Tom Osborne was there too – he was an end from Nebraska and ended up being s member of Congress. He was very nice. A Man of high integrity. He and Bill Kisher too – a  good Christian guy.

Ernie Stautner was the toughest lineman in the league. He had a tremendous desire and work ethic. Everyone looked up to him with respect. He had the best forearm. He could deal a blow to an offensive lineman…

Frank Varrichione – a funny story about him. In one of the games in Pittsburgh he faked an injury to stop the clock. The referee yelled at him though to get up – he told him he knew he wasn’t hurt. So Frank jumped up and went back to the huddle!

Len Dawson. He was a fantastic passer. I can’t believe they cut him. We all saw how good he was and he went on to greatness in the new league. Apparently the coaches din’t think he was as good as we did.

Any dealings with the Chief?

Oh yeah. Part way through rookie camp Art came up to me and told me they were going to trade me to Chicago for two years to learn how to play linebacker, and then I’d come back to Pittsburgh after I learned the position, Chicago was going to trade someone to the Steelers to learn a position there then they would trade us both back.

Well, I flew to Chicago and stayed at a hotel there by myself that night. The Bears where somewhere else for a preseason game. That afternoon Art called me and told me he was in town and asked if I wanted to go out with he and the Halas family to the racetrack. So he picked me up and we went to the racetrack together. Here I was, this rookie, amongst all these people of wealth and prestige in this fancy restaurant overlooking the racetrack, eating steaks and looking down at the races…

The next day, Art Rooney called me and told me the deal fell through. He had me fly back to Pittsburgh.

I played two years with the Steelers. My second year I started six of twelve games then I was traded to the Redskins and played there for two years. They weren’t a good team but I started there for two years then played for the Giants for one year.

One last one for you. In Washington we had a left cornerback by the name of Ben Scotti. I played left linebacker. My folks were watching us play the Giants on TV and evidently the announcer said “That’s the first time I ever saw a Lasse and a Scotti on a football field together!”

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