Fullback
No. 29
North Carolina State
ALEX WEBSTER
CASE STUDY OF A PRO FOOTBALL COMEBACK
"The New York Giants were playing the Dallas Cowboys in an August 1960, exhibition game. Legs churning, head low, Alex Webster sprang from the Giant backfield, headed for a hole off-tackle. But the hole closed quickly. A Dallas lineman grabbed Webster's left ankle, another hit him head-on. Alex kept struggling for those extra inches that sometimes mean the difference between a first down and a fourth, then, with the suddenness of a linebacker's smash, the squirming ended. Webster fell sideways but his left leg didn't, not right away. It remained anchored by the lineman. The ligaments in Alex's left knee drew taut, stretched and ripped.
Alex was hospitalized, his left leg in a cast for two weeks. When the cast came off, he stood up shakily, looking at his legs. The left one was shriveled and inches smaller than the right- atrophy had taken its toll. Alex missed the first four league games and never did get back in shape in 1960. When he returned he'd lost that crucial first step and he couldn't pivot off his left knee. He gained 48 yards in 23 attempts all year; in previous seasons that would have been a poor single-game performance for him.
Webster, who had been one of New York's top runners since 1955, the powerful, dependable first-down and goal-line man, appeared out of business. As practice began for the 1961 season his chances for success seemed slim. He was 30, last of the old-guard running backs. Frank Gifford had retired and Mel Triplett had gone to the Vikings. The Giants' new head coach, Allie Sherman, was installing a permanent flanker system that stressed a consistently long game and speed to make it go. Webster had never been fast, and the Giants had some speedy rookie backs whose skills seemed ideally suited for the new offense. Reportedly, Webster wasn't even on New York's three-deep charts. That was the pre-season situation.
In the first ten games of the season, Alex Webster carried the Giants' running attack. He gained 672 yards, seven behind the National League's third-leading rusher, Nick Pietrosante, and his average (5.1 yards per carry) was second only to Jim Taylor's (5.3) among the top seven ground gainers. Alex also had the longest gain from scrimmage (59 yards) of all the leading runners. He was well ahead of his best previous NFL pace (694 yards in 1956). He had made his comeback, but it hasn't been easy.
Big Red, as his teammates call the large (6-3, 215) reddish-haired back, had been well aware of the things he faced when he arrived at the Giants' Fairfield University training camp last July. He'd had all winter to think about them. His leg was strong again because he'd done a lot of stair-walking and bowling ('Sliding on it four nights a week helped'). His age worried him most, though; pro teams are built on young men.
'But I made up my mind I was going to make it,' Alex said one afternoon during the season. 'I knew I didn't have a job sewed up as I had in previous years. It was just like starting all over again as a rookie. I had to win my job.'
He even started with the rookies, reporting to camp a week before the rest of the veterans. 'I went up there with the attitude that I had to get in real good shape,' Webster said. 'I had to lose weight and get my legs under me. If you're in shape physically, you're in shape mentally. I figured if I could get through the exhibition season without getting hurt, I had a real good chance of making it. The last couple of years I got hurt in exhibition games and I never got back in shape afterwards.'
Alex worked. And worked. The temperature hung around 90 degrees through most of July and August in Fairfield, Connecticut. Yet Webster ran in a sweatshirt and rubber jacket, steaming the weight off. Sherman told him he could stop when he tired that first week because he didn't have to be up there. And, not wanting to overdo it, Alex did rest, but not often and not for long. His 30-year-old muscles no longer shook off the battering and bashing as they had in the Fifties.
Quarterback Charlie Conerly, 40, who was in camp early, too, kept saying, 'Big Red, no matter how much running you do, you're never gonna get in shape.' Charlie would smile, so would Alex, sweat pouring down his face.
A guy who saw him driving himself had to wonder: What makes a veteran star who has seen many men cut and was himself cut in '53, want to play football so badly he would subject himself to this kind of punishment? Everything seemed to indicate it might all be futile.
'Money,' Alex said. 'It takes a good number of years to really get some money put away. And the thought of going into the business world scares me. When you've always excelled at football and know you'll eventually go into the business world with fellows who never knew what a football looks like, it scares you. Especially when you've got a couple of mouths to feed.'
When pressed for another reason for sticking his neck under the cutting knife, Webster muttered another word: 'Pride. I wanted to prove to myself and a lot of other people that I could still do it. I wanted to finish up on the good side of everything.' Even if he were independently wealthy, he said, 'I still would have come back.'
Alex's 1960 weight had been 230-235 pounds. He conditioned down to 215-220 in 1961. 'I feel faster and that lack of weight helped,' he said at mid-season. 'It also helped my cutting, which is quicker. Another thing is that I'm not flanking this year. As a set back you don't have to run out 20 or 30 yards to the flank every play so you don't get as tired.'
Alex was taking off his practice uniform as he spoke. It was a Thursday in early November, three days before New York's biggest game (to then) of the season. Sunday they would play the Philadephia Eagles, leaders of the Eastern Division. A victory would put the Giants in a tie for first place; a loss would drop them two games behind. It was a 'must' game for New York, one that might mean a championship- and the cash that goes with it. 'Even the younger players can smell the money,' Alex said. 'I know I can.'
On Friday, the final full-practice day before the game, Yankee Stadium looked like a large and deserted cemetery for spectators as the scoreboard clock flashed 10:51. The only human in sight was a wizened little man sweeping the dugout. Then, at 10:57, the Giants ran on the field. Backfield coach Don Heinrich led them in calisthenics, then they went through play drills. Webster ran hard, back bent parallel to the ground, head up, mouth open, grinning. On every play, carrying the ball and running back, the smile. ('The day you stop enjoying it,' he said,'it's time to quit.')
'Tha'sa boy, Alex,' Sherman yelled, 'Tha'sa way to hit it, that's good.' On screen passes, heavily emphasized: ''That'sa way Alex, tha's where to be.'
When the passing drill was ending, Webster, who had thrown as a college tailback, stepped back behind the center and said: 'All right, Shofner, show me what you got.' He hit Del with a 30-yard wobble and smiled.
After practice Sherman undressed in his office and talked about Webster: 'He's a very strong runner with very fine balance and the ability to cut at the right time. He uses his blockers very well and looks like he's got more speed this year' Sherman lit a cigarette, then said, 'He's a wonderful man to have- great temperament, desire, pride. And he's got the facility to execute under pressure. He recognizes how to take advantage of small changes, variations in defense. He's also a very good receiver. He's got good hands and he knows how to work on a defender.'
As Sherman put his sweatshirt on a chair, he was asked if it were true that Webster hadn't been on the Giants' three-deep chart before training camp. 'I don't know,' Allie said, finding a new way, it seemed, to say 'no comment.'
Saturday afternoon's practice lasted 30 minutes. It was devoted to offensive and defensive short-yardage situations and to 'special'-team workouts. Afterward Phil King and Webster, who used to be a punter ('I was pretty good in high school and college,' Alex says, 'and I kicked a couple of times up in Canada, but all of a sudden it just left me.'), starting punting from the end zone. A half-dozen kicks later, Phil said, 'I'll punt you for a dollar, Alex.'
'Okay, King,' Webster said, examining the football. 'This a bad ball, too.'
'Wait a minute,' Phil said, 'we need a judge. Al,' he called to Sherman heading for the dugout, 'you judge this. We're punting for a buck.'
Webster's foot hit the ball on the side and it winged left, no more than 30 yards. 'There goes a buck,' he hollered jubilantly. 'You got the olive.' Phil hit a high spiral that landed near mid-field.
'Another one,' Alex said. 'I've got a good ball this time.' He boomed a towering drive.
'Why didn't you tell me,' Sherman said.
King's next one was almost as bad as Alex's first.
At 2:05 p.m. on Sunday, THE game began. On the Giants' first running play Webster slanted off left tackle for 20 yards. Then he went inside right tackle for two before Y.A. Tittle threw Shofner a touchdown pass.
On the next series of downs Alex ran over tackle for eight and up the middle for three. With the ball on the Eagle 38, Tittle faked Webster into the line. Alex threw a block on a charging lineman as Y.A. faded back, back, looking. Then Webster got up and ran behind four linemen. Just as Tittle was about to be floored he lobbed the screen pass to Alex, who gained 29 yards to the nine. Then Tittle hit Kyle Rote for a touchdown.
After New York got seven, they moved to their 35. Webster, who doesn't often try the ends, turned the left one and would have gone for the touchdown if Joe Walton, blocking near the ten, hadn't gotten in his way. Alex's arm stiffened on Joe's back and he pushed him several yards, but the slowdown gave a defensive back time to catch him at the six. That's the way Webster went that day. He gained 100 yards on 16 carries and caught two passes for 30 yards. The Giants won, 38-21.
Webster would have done even better if he hadn't gotten hurt. Carrying into the line in the third period, he ran into about ten Eagles. Bent low, head down, his legs kept moving and he didn't. Jess Richardson suddenly popped out of the mass of flesh, charged laterally to Webster and dropped his 265-pound body on top of the fullback's right-angled back. Alex went down like an express elevator. He landed hard, on his head, and lay crumpled like a dead man.
They woke up Alex a few minutes later and half-carried him to the bench. Team Doctor Francis Sweeny and trainer Johnny Johnson worked over him with wet towels, ice packs and smelling salts for some ten minutes. When the clock showed 4:35 left in the game, Webster got up and Johnson helped him toward the clubhouse. Alex stopped down the bench, smiled and talked to Charlie Conerly. He didn't know it, though. He didn't know anything that was going on until he reached the Yankee Stadium dugout- 25 minutes after he had been hit.
'I don't even remember carrying the ball,' Alex said later at his cubicle, speaking slowly, feeling for the words. Still slightly dazed (perhaps from medication as much as the injury), he sat in grey Giant shorts and a T-shirt on his wooden stool. He rubbed the back of his neck where his helmet had canted and cracked him when he smashed into the ground. Partially deaf in his left ear since a mastoid operation, the head blow seemed to have completely disengaged the ear. He kept cocking his right ear toward the teammates who came over to ask how he was and congratulate him on his fine game (he and Tittle, who completed 18 of 24 passes for three touchdowns, tied for the offensive-player-of-the-day award).
Tittle was one of the last to stop by. 'Where were you hurt?' he said as Alex stood and shook his hand.
'In the head.'
'Nothing else?' Tittle asked, tapping Webster's chest and stomach.
'No, nothing.'
'You all right now?'
'Yeah, fine. They can't hurt this head,' Alex said grinning. Then he went in to shower and see Doc Sweeny for a final check.
Trainer Johnson came over to a friend waiting to drive Alex home. 'You watch him,' Johnson said. 'He may talk kind of funny in the car. He should be all right tomorrow.'
He was. 'I'm a little stiff,' Webster said on Monday from his East Brunswick, New Jersey, home, 'but I haven't even got a headache.'
Webster had had a headache three weeks earlier after the Los Angeles game. He had tried to ram his helmet through Les Richter's. They had helped Alex off the field then- in the third period- and in the fourth, he was arguing with Sherman to get back in the game, which Webster and most men with head injuries make a habit of doing. Although he didn't get back in, he had a good day, anyway- 98 yards on 13 carries, including a 46-yard touchdown run on a screen pass.
In his early football years Alex didn't know much about injuries. A painful shoulder separation in high school kept him out of only one game. At North Carolina State University, he wasn't seriously hurt until his senior year. A Georgia linebacker crunched his neck, and he missed a couple of games. He took a pounding for a season and a half in Canada without missing a game. His first Giant year, 1955, he suffered two concussions; in the second, he had a deep chest bruise, yet played every game. His mastoid operation cost him a game in '57. Then it got rough. Torn knee ligaments sidelined him for three games in '58. Torn rib cartilage in a '59 exhibition kept him out of the opening game and a bruised spine against Cleveland cost him a game. His '60 injury almost cost him his career.
In recent years the exhibition games ruined him. As a player gets older it's harder to come back once the season's started. Still, Webster has no chronic injuries and he is not a brittle man. But running into large men enlarged by padded suits is his game. And he gets hurt.
'He runs hard and he hits hard,' said Doc Sweeny after the Eagle game. 'He sticks his head in there,' he said. 'In trying to get extra yardage his head fills a hole and he gets hit there. You saw in the Ram game when he went head-and-head with Richter.'
Middle-linebacker Sam Huff, who has hurt a few men in his six NFL years, thinks Webster's lack of speed has been a factor in his injuries. 'He was never fast,' Sam said as he pulled on thermo longjohns and sweats before practice one day. 'Because he's slow more guys can get to him at once and he gets hit harder. Also, he doesn't go down easy. He's a big boy, as big as some of the linebackers in this league.' He grinned. 'You can't arm-tackle him. You've got to hit him hard.'
Afterward Charlie Conerly, who has handed Webster just about every football he's been hurt carrying, said Alex's injuries stemmed from the way he runs. 'He never quits,' Charlie said. 'He keeps driving all the time. He doesn't always try to go around a man, either, if he thinks he can get more going over him.'
Conerly was asked how he had used Webster in previous years.
'Gifford was the wide man,' Charlie said. 'Alex stayed inside. We seldom ran him wide. In a third-down situation when you needed a man to get a yard or two, Alex was the man.'
'He got the call over Triplett?'
'Yes, he got the call. Alex was always one of the better pass-receivers, too. He's a good clutch man. If you needed yardage you could depend on him to catch a pass.'
'Rote helped me on moves and fakes those first two years,' Alex says. 'And you get smarter as you go along. You learn how to use your speed, which is something I never had. You learn how to set up a defensive back, get him running with you, then cutting away from him to catch the ball. I was always on a combination pattern, making my moves off an end. I worked with Schnelker (Bob) a lot.'
With three excellent receivers in Rote, Shofner and Joe Walton, the Giants cut their throws to Webster this season. Still, in the first ten games he caught 14 passes for 157 yards and three touchdowns. Not bad for a guy supposedly out of business. Alex was not surprised that he'd come back; he'd determined to. 'But I never expected anything his big,' he says.
Webster has been bumping odds for a lot of years. He was born on April 19, 1931, in Kearney, New Jersey, a typical East Coast port industrial town. When Alex was nine his father died and Alex had a few jobs, starting with a newspaper route. He delivered ice off a truck in summers and milk off a truck in winters. He gave his money to his mother, Rena, who worked in a defense factory till the war ended, then other places up to 1956 when she retired to live with her older son in New Brunswick. There was another boy, too, Jimmy, five years younger than Alex who tried out but was cut by the Giants in 1959. (Webster also has a son named Jimmy, eight, and a daughter, Debbie, five.)
From 1945 through '48 Alex was a triple-threat star for Kearney High School. As a single-wing tailback his senior year, he was named to the All-State and All-Metropolitan teams. The University of Miami tried to recruit him; so did V.P.I. and North Carolina State. He visited each and liked the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, best. 'State wasn't really big-time then,' Webster says. 'I didn't think I was good enough to big-time ball. Lots of times you get lost in the shuffle.'
Webster didn't at N.C. State. The Associated Press voted him Southern Conference Sophomore of the Week after State beat Maryland, eighth-ranked nationally, 16-13. Alex, playing safety, recovered three fumbles and intercepted two passes. The last one saved the game. With less than two minutes remaining, the Terrapins were driving for the winning score. Alex picked off Joe Scarbath's pass in the end zone to halt that great Maryland team, which included Dick Modzelewski and Dick Nolan.
Alex likes to get on Giant teammates Little Mo' and Nolan about the upset. While suiting for the second Pittsburgh game this year some players were talknig college football. Webster yelled over to Modzelewski, 'Hey, Mo, remember when little North Carolina State came up to College Park with 13 players and knocked off Maryland?'
'What happened the next year?' Mo said, grinning.
'Yeah, let's talk about that,' Nolan hollered. 'Fifty-two to nothing!'
Laughing, Webster said, 'I came close to leading the country in kickoff returns that day- I returned seven- for not many more yards.'
Webster's top season at State was his junior year. He rushed for 634 yards from tailback, passed for 622 yards and had 13 touchdowns to lead the conference in scoring. He also had a 38.5 punting average and a 25.2 punt-return average. He was most of the State football team.
In those days of winter and spring practices, the football season lasted most of the year so Webster stayed busy. On scholarship, he worked for the athletic department and on the outside whenever he could pick up extra money. Alex had time to socialize, though, and he met Louise Eggers on a blind date. In August 1952, he brought her to meet his family and they were married soon afterward.
The following summer, 1953, Webster reported to the Washington Redskins as their 12th draft choice. 'I took a big gamble,' he says. 'We had a baby coming in October and no hospitalization. But I thought I had a pretty good chance. Most of their offensive players had been around a number of years. (Men like Harry Gilmer, Bill Dudley and Charlie 'Choo Choo' Justice.) Webster didn't get a tryout on offense. Coach Curley Lambeau gave him a good shot at the defensive backfield and it looked like he'd made it until the Detroit Lions cut veteran defensive back Don Doll, who was quickly signed by Washington. The Monday before the season opened Lambeau called Webster's hotel and asked him to come to the Redskin office. He didn't have to tell him why.
'I'm sorry,' Curley said when Alex arrived. 'You're a good ballplayer but Doll has more experience. We're going to have to let you go.'
Despondent, Alex went back to the hotel, packed his bag and took the next train home. He and Louise had been living with his mother since returning from State and he was heavily in debt to her. And the baby was only a couple of weeks away. 'I didn't know what to do,' Alex says. 'It was a black day for me.'
He knew he had to get some money fast to pay for the baby, so he filled out an application for a job at the Otis Elevator Company. Any job. Then, on the evening of September 30, he got an idea. Maybe he could play Canadian football. The season had already started, but he knew Douglas 'Peahead' Walker was coaching the Montreal Alouettes. He'd played against Walker's Wake Forest teams and had an 86-yard punt return in one game. Maybe Walker would remember him. He prayed.
Alex penciled a night letter to Walker: 'I have been just cut by the Redskins. I am in good shape and, if you are looking for a halfback, can give good recommendations from my coaches. Alex Webster.'
Peahead wired back the next morning:
'Come on up today for a tryout.' Webster got there in the afternoon. Most of the Canadian players work days, so practices are at night. And Alex had to make it that night. October 1 was the deadline for the signing of American 'imports.' Webster, the rookie, had to beat out two experienced backs: Nub Smith, who had played for Walker at Wake Forest and was just returning from an ankle injury, and Jimmy Joe Robinson, who had played with the Steelers.
But Walker remembered Webster and after seeing him run in practice he knew he was in shape. That was all he wanted to know. Alex signed his contract at about nine p.m., three hours before the deadline expired. 'I'd probably still be working at Otis Elevator or someplace like that if I hadn't made it,' he says. 'It was very fortunate.'
Alouette fans didn't think they were fortunate. They thought Peahead had a loose head. Montreal newspapers the next morning declared 'WALKER PULL BONER- UNTRIED NEWCOMER OVER TWO VETS.' In obese type.
Webster made Walker a genius several days later. He led the Alouettes to Saturday-Sunday victories over their toughest competition. Sportswriters hailed him as 'the hottest import in years.' He was, scoring six touchdowns in seven games. The following season, his first complete one as a pro, he rushed for 984 yards, caught 373 yards worth of passes and returned kickoffs for 393 yards. He set a Big Four rushing record and tied the all-time scoring record with 80 points (16 five-point touchdowns).
It made the Redskins feel kind of funny and the other NFL clubs feel kind of covetous. The NFL teams went after him. The Lions and Cardinals offered him more money than the Giants, but he chose 'the team I'd always dreamed of playing with' because he wanted to be near his sick mother. He got a good raise over his salary in Montreal.
Webster had a no-cut contract with the Giants, but it didn't guarantee he'd break into the biggest 'name' backfield in football- Gifford, Rote and Eddie Price. Coach Jim Lee Howell said: 'Webster is starting from scratch in our camp. Press clippings mean nothing to me. He has to prove by himself he belongs in the big league and he knows it.'
Alex proved it in the first two exhibition games by scoring three touchdowns. He became the left halfback for the season. Rote, who had bad knees, switched to end. Although knocked unconscious by Pittsburgh and hospitalized for three days, Webster wasn't about to miss the next game. He ran 52 yards for one touchdown and 25 for another on a pass from Conerly. It was his first game against the Redskins. Afterward Howell said, 'That Webster is without question the greatest runner in the business. He doesn't have great speed, but he sure knows what to do behind blockers and in the open field.'
Big Red has always been a fine blocker himself. In 1961, he became an excellent blocker. 'Al (Sherman) taught me how to block,' he says. 'He'd been after me all through training camp to use my head and shoulders, but I couldn't break the habit of throwing my body. Then, in Pittsburgh, I threw a block on Mike Henry (linebacker) and hurt my ribs. My ribs were so darn sore the rest of the game, I had to use my head and shoulders.'
In 1961 Alex took instruction and gave some, too. He worked with the rookie backs in camp, showing them things about running, tipping them off about the Giant system, advising the men who wanted to play his position. 'Alex helped all of us quite a bit,' said rookie back Joel Wells. 'He was working real hard himself but he helped us.'
Alex went beyond playing tips. During the Ram game, rookie Bob Gaiters fumbled for the second time, killing a touchdown drive inside the ten. All-Pro offensive tackle Rosey Brown was angrily screaming at Bobby seconds later as Gaiters sat, chin on chest at the end of the bench. Webster walked over, rubbed Bobby's head sympathetically and said something to him. 'He told me to just shake if off and forget it,' Bob said later. 'Everyone fumbles,' he said. 'Just get 'em next time.' Alex's really helped me all along. He still helps me with my running, telling me about cutting back and all.'
However, the gentleman football player gets angry on the field when provoked. In the second Pittsburgh game, Alex gained 25 yards on his first three carries. On his fourth, 6-6, 290-pound Big Daddy Lipsomb was one of the tackling gang that swamped him. When everyone else unpiled, Big Daddy was on his knees, straddling Webster and leaning over him as if he were about to do a pushup on Alex's chest. Big Daddy refused to let him up. Alex was yelling into that hard-eyed intimidating face less than a foot from his. This went on, tensely, for several seconds, until the referee finally woke up and stepped in.
'We were talkin',' Lipscomb said later. 'That's all. Jus' talk.'
'I told him to get his fat behind off me,' says Alex. Among other things.
Big Daddy and the rest of the Steelers got rougher after New York broke open the game. Alex was the breaker. Tittle called an 'A shoot' in the huddle. 'Yat,' Alex said, 'I'm going to shoot and go down. I can beat the linebacker.' 'Okay,' Yat said, then hit him with a lead pass on the left sidelines at the ten and Alex outran George Tarasovic to score, 21-7 New York.
In the fourth quarter Webster ran wide toward left end, but seeing he couldn't turn it, he cut back sharply through for two yards. The next time New York had the ball he turned the end and raced 32 yards for a touchdown. Later he was pulling off his extra-long rib guards (he's long-waisted) with LIFE BOAT#29 painted on them.
Later still, Big Daddy, who was carrying a hangered shirt over his back, walked into the clubhouse to see Erich Barnes. Rosey Brown, who had issued some hot warnings to Lipscomb during the game, turned and said disgustedly: 'Hey, Big Daddy! Man, sometimes I don't know about you.'
Webster that day gained his 3,341st rushing yard for New York, only 333 behind all-time Giant ground-gainer Frank Gifford. It was obvious that Allie Sherman, who goes out of his way to avoid superlatives for individual players, realized just how much Alex Webster meant to the Giants in 1961. Though Tittle and Shofner received the major credit for New York's success, they were effective largely because of the balance provided by Webster's running. In short, his comeback meant a championship."
-Berry Stainback, Sport Magazine, March 1962
He first starred in the Canadian loop before joining the Giants in 1955."
-Don Schiffer, 1962 Pro Football Handbook
"In the best year of his career in 1961, Alex was third in the NFL in rushing."
-1962 Topps No. 105
"All but written off in 1960 after injuries had resulted in a second straight sub-par season, Alex Webster (29) had his best all-around year as a Giant in 1961. The big redhead from Brunswick, N.J., hammered rival lines for 928 yards to finish third in the NFL rushing totals.
As in 1955-58, Webster was once again the Giants' bread-and-butter carrier. That goes for this year, too."
-1962 New York Giants Official Program (Yankee Stadium)
"Alex Webster has moved into the No. 1 spot among all-time Giant rushers this season ... The big redhead from New Jersey has gained 232 yards, bringing his career total to 3,829. Frank Gifford, with 3,674 yards, had held the lead going into he 1962 campaign ... The Section 5 Club honors Alex at the Biltmore Hotel on Sunday, October 28."
-from Giant Jottings, 1962 New York Giants Official Program (Yankee Stadium)
PHIL KING
Fullback
No. 24
Vanderbilt
New York's first draft pick in 1958 played every game in the Eastern title seasons of '58 and '59. As a rookie, Phil rushed for 316 yards, his longest run 38 yards, gained 132 yards receiving, his longest reception 35 yards, and returned 13 kicks 279 yards for a 21.5 average, his longest return 31 yards.
As a collegiate star at Vanderbilt, Phil topped the Southeastern Conference with 773 yards from scrimmage in 1956.
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