Greg's deeply flawed hero

 Greg's deeply flawed hero



     Greg was a true sports fan but never made his identity as part of a team. He loved the Rams, Bruins and Dodgers but you never saw the guy decked out in team gear at the stadium or  Coliseum. He may have had a UCLA hat but they probably gave it to him for being sucker enough to pay for season seats to that ride on the Titanic. Forget the pretty boys of sport, the Garveys, the Namaths, the Tom Bradys. For Greg, his real hero was a forgotten figure from the early 1950's named Bobby Layne. Just remove all social correctness from a man and you would have the tough bastard QB who dragged the Detroit Lions to three NFL championships while never acceptng excuses or softness in any teammate. Greg loved a story where Layne slugged a lineman in the huddle because he missed a block and got Bobby sacked. I happily tickled my buddy-boy's fancy with anecdotes from Layne's booze-soaked, colorful and unbelievable 86 years of roaring through life with the pedal down past the metal. "When I was a rookie, I went with Layne to get a tube of toothpaste, and didn't get back for three days."-Harley Sewell. While Greg was about two years old when Layne was in his prime he just dug the man's style and absorbed any story he could about this old-school carouser. Greg liked a story from Layne's college days at Texas where he cut his foot on a broken glass before a big baseball game against rival Texas A&M. He had the team manager sneak him beers every inning so he could bear the pain. "Layne pitched a no-hitter, and at the conclusion gave the Ags a "gig 'em" with his middle finger." Like a couple of BC's East coast pals he liked his Cutty Sark and only needed a couple of hours of sleep a night while staying completely soused.  Another story came from those early 50's battles with our Rams where Layne showed ujp at a joint at closing time already bombed.  Calling for a few more libations to be screened in coffee mugs, he sat till street lights began to dim, giving an illustrated lecture on the shortcomings of the Los Angeles Rams as a football team, their problem, as I recall it, being that they were much more suited to careers as interior decorators than interior linemen. When pampered NFL prima donnas would whine and sit out due to a stubbed toe Greg always was quick to bring up Bobby who never missed a game out of 175 as he played for the Lions and later the not very good Steelers. The guy was so popular in Detroit after guiding the Lions to three championships the cops allowed him to park his car on the sidewalk outside any bar in the city. Appropriately he died of liver disease but at 86!


                                                   28,000 yards when offense was the run



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