Bobby Layne

Bobby Layne
No. 22
Position: Quarterback / Placekicker
Personal information
Date of birth: December 19, 1926
Place of birth: Santa Anna, Texas
Date of death: December 1, 1986 (aged 59)
Place of death: Lubbock, Texas
Career information
High school: Dallas (TX) Highland Park
College: Texas
NFL draft: 1948 / Round: 1 / Pick: 3
Career history
Career highlights and awards
Career NFL statistics as of 1962
TD–INT: 196–243
Yards: 26,768
QB Rating: 63.4
Stats at NFL.com

Robert Lawrence "Bobby" Layne, Sr. (December 19, 1926 – December 1, 1986) was an American football quarterback who played for 15 seasons in the National Football League. He played for the Chicago Bears in 1948, the New York Bulldogs in 1949, the Detroit Lions from 1950–1958, and the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1958–1962. He was drafted by the Bears in the first round of the 1948 NFL Draft. He played college football at the University of Texas.

He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967 and inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1968. His number, 22, has been retired by the University of Texas Longhorns and Detroit Lions.

Early years

Layne was born in Santa Anna, Texas and when he was very young, the family moved to Fort Worth where he attended elementary and junior high school. His mother died when he was only eight years old, and Layne moved in with his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Wade Hampton. He attended Highland Park High School in Dallas, where he was a teammate of fellow future Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Ewell Doak Walker, Jr. In his senior year Layne was named to the All-State football team, played in the Oil Bowl All-Star game and led Highland Park to the state playoffs.[1]

College football

One of the most successful quarterbacks ever to play for Texas, Layne was selected to four straight All-Southwest Conference teams from 1944–1947 and was a consensus All-American in his senior year.

Because of World War II there was a shortage of players, and rules were changed to allow freshman to play on the varsity, thereby allowing Layne a four year career.[2] Freshman play was sporadically allowed by various conferences during wartime, but would not be allowed universally until the rules were permanently changed in 1972. In his freshman season, Layne became a very rare player (in that era) to start his very first game. He missed his second game due to an injury and was replaced by future North Texas transfer Zeke Martin,[3] but Layne played the rest of the season and led the Longhorns to within 1-point of the Southwest Conference Championship when they lost to TCU 7-6 on a missed extra point.

Prior to and during his sophomore year, he spent eight months in the Merchant Marines, serving with his friend Doak Walker. He missed the first six games of the season, and was replaced by Jack Halfpenny. The last game he missed was the team's only loss, to Rice, by 1 point. Texas went 10-1, won the Southwest Conference and, despite playing only half a season, Layne again made the all-conference team.[1]

In the 1946 Cotton Bowl Classic following that season Texas beat Missouri 40-27, and Layne played perhaps the best game of his career. He set several NCAA and Cotton Bowl records that have lasted into the 21st century. In that game, he completed eleven of twelve passes and accounted for every one of the team's 40 points; scoring four touchdowns, kicking four extra points and throwing for two other scores and was thus named one of the game's outstanding players.[4]

In 1946, the Longhorns started the season ranked #1 in the country, the only time the Longhorns have ever been #1 in the preseason ranking, but after beating #20 Arkansas, they were upset by #16 Rice and later by unranked TCU. They went 8-2, finished thirrd in the Conference, ranked #15 nationally and missed out on any bowl games. Layne led the Southwest Conference in total offense (1420 yards), total passing (1115 yards) and punting average(42 yards).[5] Despite the unexpected finish, Bobby Layne was named All-Conference again and finished eighth in Heisman Trophy balloting to Glenn Davis of Army.[6]

1946 Heisman Trophy Finalist Voting
Finalist Total points
Glenn Davis 792
Charley Trippi 435
John Lujack 379
Doc Blanchard 267
Arnold Tucker 257
Herman Wedemeyer 101
Burr Baldwin 49
Bobby Layne 45
Source:[6]

In 1947, Blair Cherry replaced Dana X. Bible as head coach at Texas and he decided to install the T-formation offense. Cherry, Layne and their wives spent several weeks in Wisconsin studying the new offense at the training camps of the Chicago Bears and Chicago Cardinals of the National Football League. The change was a success, as Layne led the Southwest Conference in passing yards, made the All-Conference and All-American teams and finished 6th in Heisman Trophy voting to John Lujack of Notre Dame. The Longhorns, after beating #19 North Carolina, started the season ranked #3. They then beat #15 Oklahoma but, as happened in 1945, Texas was again denied an undefeated season by a missed extra point. After coming back once against Walker's #8 SMU, Texas again found itself behind late in the game. Layne engineered a 4th quarter touchdown drive that would have tied the game, however kicker Frank Guess pushed the extra point wide and the Longhorns lost 14-13.[7] They fell to 8th, and finished behind SMU in the Southwest Conference but gained an invitation to the 1948 Sugar Bowl where Layne and the Longhorns beat #6 Alabama. As a result of his 10-24, 183 yard performance, Layne won the inaugural Miller-Digby award presented to the game's MVP.[8] The Longhorns finished ranked #5, the best finish in Layne's career.

Layne finished his Texas career with a school record 3,145 passing yards on 210 completions and 400 attempts and 28 wins.

1947 Heisman Trophy Finalist Voting
Finalist Total points
Johnny Lujack 742
Bob Chappuis 555
Doak Walker 196
Charlie Conerly 196
Harry Gilmer 115
Bobby Layne 74
Chuck Bednarik 64
Source:[9]

Lane was one of the first inductees into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame and made the Cotton Bowl's All-Decade team (1937–1949) for the 40's.

Later, both of Layne's sons, Rob and Alan, would go on to play college football. Robert L. Layne, Jr. was a kicker for Texas, playing on the 1969 National Championship team and Alan played tight end for Texas Christian in 1973.

Records

Bold means active; as the Southwest Conference became defunct in 1996, its records are now essentially permanent

College baseball

Layne was one of the best pitchers to ever play at Texas. He made the All-Southwest Conference team all four years he played, and played on teams that won all three Conference Championships available to them (none was named in 1944 due to World War II). He won his first career start, in 1944 when he was managed by his future football coach Blair Cherry, versus Southwestern, 14-1, in a complete game 15 strikeout performance.[10] Similar to football, he missed the 1945 season because he was in the Merchant Marines, but returned to play three more seasons. In 1946, he threw the school's first and second no-hitters and posted a 12-4 record. In 1947, he went 12-1 and led Texas to a 3rd place finish in the first NCAA baseball Tournament. In 1948, he went 9-0 and again helped Texas win the Southwest Conference but, though they qualified for it, Texas decided not to attend the 1948 NCAA tournament because the players felt they had too many obligations with family and jobs.[11] Texas went 60-10 overall, and 41-2 in the SWC during Layne’s final three years in Austin. When his career was over, Layne had a perfect 28-0 conference record and set several school and conference records during his time on the team, including a few that still stand today.

Between baseball and football, he was All-Conference an astounding eight times and won four conference championships.

In 1948, after getting his degree in physical education, Layne played a season of minor league ball for the Lubbock Hubbers baseball team of the Class C West Texas-New Mexico League.[1] He went 6-5 with a 7.29 ERA, and had bids from the New York Giants, the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals to join their staffs, but he preferred to go to the NFL where he could play immediately rather than grind out several years in the minor league system.[12]

Records

Bold means "active" record; as the Southwest Conference became defunct in 1996, these records have essentially become permanent

Professional football

Drafted into the National Football League by the Pittsburgh Steelers, Layne was the 3rd overall selection in the 1948 NFL Draft and was the 2nd overall selection in the 1948 AAFC Draft by the Baltimore Colts. Layne didn't want to play for the Steelers, the last team in the NFL to use the single wing formation, and so his rights were quickly traded to the Chicago Bears.[13] Layne was offered $77,000 to play for the Colts, but George Halas "sweet talked" him into signing with the Bears. He promised a slow rise to fame in the "big leagues" with a no-trade understanding.

After one season with the Bears, during which Layne was the third-string quarterback behind both Sid Luckman and Johnny Lujack, Layne refused to return and tried to engineer his own trade to the Green Bay Packers. Halas, preoccupied with fending off a challenge from the AAFC, traded Layne to the New York Bulldogs for their first round pick in the 1950 draft and $50,000 cash. The cash was to be paid in four installments.

With Layne at quarterback, the Bulldogs won only one game and lost 11, but Layne played well and developed quickly.[1] Layne compared one season with the soon-to-be-defunct New York Bulldogs as worth five seasons in the NFL.

It was in Detroit, not Chicago or New York, that Layne would build his Hall of Fame career. In 1950, he was traded to the Detroit Lions for wide receiver Bob Mann and the Lions agreed to make the final three payments to Halas (Halas would remark later that the Lions should have continued the yearly payments indefinitely to him in view of Layne's performance). For the next five years, Layne was re-united with his great friend and Highland Park High School teammate Doak Walker and together they helped make Detroit into a champion. In 1952, Layne led the Detroit Lions to their first NFL Championship in 17 years and then did so again in 1953 for back to back NFL Championships. They fell short of a three-peat the next year when they lost to the Cleveland Browns in the 1954 NFL Championship Game, a loss which Layne explained by saying "I slept too much last night."[14] In 1955 the team finished last in their conference and Walker surprisingly retired at the top of his game. As Walker had been the team's kicker, Layne took over the kicking duties in 1956 and 1957, and in 1956 led the league in field goal accuracy. In 1956, the Lions finished second in the Conference, missing the championship game by only one point. In 1957, the season of the last Lions last NFL Championship, Layne broke his leg in three places in a pileup during the seventh game of the year. His replacement, Tobin Rote, finished the season and led the Lions to victory in the 1957 NFL Championship Game. In 1957, Pittsburgh coach Buddy Parker, Layne's coach in Detroit, arranged a trade that brought Layne to the Steelers, thus ending his career with the Lions. During his time in Detroit he won three NFL Championships, played in four Pro Bowls, made first team All-Pro twice and at various times led the league in over a dozen single-season statistical categories.

In 1958, Layne began the first of five seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Though he made the pro-bowl two more times, he never made it back to the playoffs, with the team's best finish being 2nd place in the Conference in 1962.[13] During his last year in the NFL, he published his autobiography Always on Sunday. Later he stated that the biggest disappointment in his football career was having never won a championship for the Pittsburgh Steelers and specifically, Art Rooney.[13]

By the time Layne retired before the 1963 season, he owned the NFL records for passing attempts (3,700), completions (1,814), touchdowns (196), yards (26,768), and interceptions (243).[1] He left the game as one of the last players to play without a facemask and was credited with creating the two-minute drill.[15][16] Doak Walker said of him, "Layne never lost a game...time just ran out on him."[17]

Following his retirement as a player, Layne served as the quarterback coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1963–65 and the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965. He was a scout for the Dallas Cowboys from 1966–67.[18] He later unsuccessfully sought the head coaching job at Texas Tech, his last professional involvement with the sport.[13]

After football

For his on-the-field exploits, Layne was inducted into a vast assortment of halls of fame. These included the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1960, the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967, the state halls of fame in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and the Texas High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1973.[1][16][17] In 2006, he was a finalist on the initial ballot for pre-1947 inductees to the College Baseball Hall of Fame.[10] He was a finalist again the following year.[19]

In a special issue in 1995, Sports Illustrated called Layne "The Toughest Quarterback Who Ever Lived." In 1999, he was ranked number 52 on the Sporting News' list of Football's 100 Greatest Players.[20]

After retirement, Layne spent 24 years as a businessman in Lubbock, Texas working with his old college coach, Blair Cherry.[1] His business ventures included farms, bowling alleys, real estate, oil, and the stock market.[13]

In his younger days, he, often accompanied by Alex Karras, was well known for his late-night bar-hopping and heavy drinking and it was said of him, "He would drink six days a week and play football on Sunday"; but his heavy drinking may have contributed to his death. Layne is reported to have stated: "If I'd known I was gonna live this long, I'd have taken a lot better care of myself." That line was later used by baseball legend Mickey Mantle, a Dallas neighbor and friend of Layne's, who also died in part due to decades of alcohol abuse. Layne also suffered from cancer during his last years, which may have also been a factor in his death. In November 1986 Layne traveled to Michigan to present the Hall of Fame ring and plaque to his old friend and teammate Doak Walker, but was hospitalized with intestinal bleeding in Pontiac after a reunion dinner with his former Detroit teammates. He returned to Lubbock on November 12, but three days later was hospitalized again. He died from cardiac arrest on December 1 in Lubbock and was buried there.[18] Doak Walker and three other members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame were among the pallbearers.[1]

"My only request," he once said, "is that I draw my last dollar and my last breath at precisely the same instant."[16]

"Curse of Bobby Layne"

In 1958, the Lions traded Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Layne responded to the trade by supposedly saying that the Lions would "not win for 50 years".[21] This story has been disputed as being a hoax, particularly because the quote was never published at the time.[22]

Still, for the next 50 years after the trade, the Lions accumulated the worst winning percentage of any team in the NFL. They are still one of only two franchises that have been in the NFL since 1970 that have not played in a Super Bowl (the other team is the Cleveland Browns). The Lions, for those 50 years, were 1-10 in eleven postseason appearances; their lone playoff win came against Dallas following the 1991 regular season. In the last year of the supposed curse, 2008, Detroit went 0-16 and thus became the first team to lose every game of a 16-game season.

Coincidentally, in the 2009 NFL Draft, right after the curse supposedly expired, the Detroit Lions drafted University of Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford first overall. Stafford was an alumnus of Layne's former school Highland Park High School and also lived in a house on the same street as Layne's.[23] In the 2011 season, Stafford's first full injury-free season, he led the Lions to their first playoff berth since 1999 but lost to fellow Texan Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Kohou, Martin Donell. "Layne, Robert Lawrence". tshaonline.org. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  2. ↑ Lucksinger, Ross. "The History of Freshman Quarterbacks at Texas". insidetexas.com. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  3. ↑ "Texas-Oklahoma clas sic to be played Saturday in Dallas". Abilene Reporter-News. 10 October 1944. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  4. ↑ "One Man, All 40 Points". goldenrankings.com. Retrieved 7 August 2013.
  5. ↑ "Bobby Layne Chalks Up Three SWC Titles". Lubbock Morning Avalanche. 3 December 1946. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "1946 Heisman Trophy Voting". sports-reference.com. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
  7. ↑ "SMU's Greatest Moments #21". smumustangs.com. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  8. ↑ "14th Annual Sugar Bowl Classic ~ January 1, 1948". allstatesugarbowl.org. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
  9. ↑ "Heisman Votes by Year". manlyweb.com.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "2006 Official College Baseball Foundation Hall of Fame Ballot" (PDF). lsusports.net. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  11. ↑ Madden, W.C.; Stewart, Patrick J. (Jan 1, 2004). The College World Series: A Baseball History, 1947-2003. McFarland. p. 11. ISBN 0786418427.
  12. ↑ Guzzardi, Joe. "Bobby Layne: The NFL Hall of Fame Great Who Could Have Starred in the Major League". Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 Nassar, Taylor. "Layne, Robert Lawrence (Bobby)". http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/''. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  14. ↑ Collier, Gene (23 April 2006). "Making a pitch for Bobby Layne for baseball hall". Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  15. ↑ Cavanaugh, Jack (2008). Giants Among Men. Random House. p. 129. ISBN 978-1-4000-6717-6.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Harvey, Randy (2 December 1986). "Football Legend Layne Dies at 59 of Heart Failure : BOBBY LAYNE : 1926-1986". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Longhorn MVPs/Hall of Famers" (PDF).
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Famed Quarterback Bobby Layne Dies". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 2 December 1986. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
  19. ↑ "COLLEGE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES OFFICIAL 2007 NOMINEE BALLOT" (PDF). Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  20. ↑ "Sporting News' Football's 100 Greatest Players".
  21. ↑ King, Peter (March 2, 2009). "Searching For Bobby Layne". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 2010-11-25.
  22. ↑ Rogers, Justin (March 7, 2009). "Turns out the Curse of Bobby Layne is probably a myth". MLive.com. Retrieved 2010-11-25.
  23. ↑ Seifert, Kevin (July 27, 2009). "Black and Blue all over: Offseason's final week". ESPN.com. Retrieved 2010-11-25.

External links