I was browsing the books at Goodwill yesterday, thumbing through a coffee table pictorial sports history of the U of M, thinking for $3 Norm might like it, but Mal said he hasn't seen him reading much in awhile. Still on his feet, but the parts naturally start to wear out in the early 90s, I suppose.

Anyway, there was a nice small photo of Patty Berg either carrying the ball or handing off atop a pile of leather-helmet clad youths. I can't seem to find it online now; for $3, probably I should've bought it for myself, but it was a heavy one, and after a few moves, I've learned to limit myself on that reason alone.

If you've got time, here's a nice story* by Patty from Sports Illustrated -- November 08, 1954:

I Taught Bud Wilkinson To Play Football
One of America's greatest golfers recalls her childhood days in Minneapolis when she was quarterback of the 50th-Street Tigers and Bud Wilkinson, now the coach of the University of Oklahoma Sooners, was the right tackle. Patty takes no credit for Wilkinson's success at Oklahoma, but she does feel that plays she ran over him may have contributed to his education.

It sounds cocky in these days when we're wise to be skeptical of some of the physical equality claims of optimistic feminists, but you should have seen that picture!


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* The Tigers were my team when we were kids. I played quarterback, Bud Wilkinson was right tackle, his older brother Bill was left tackle, and that's where my intelligent quarterbacking came in. Bud was the best team-player we had until he and Bill started to argue. They were the best, or maybe the worst, arguers I ever saw because every time they started in, words led to knuckles. And when Bill and Bud had a fist fight, everybody stopped everything to watch. They had nothing but classic battles. The Tigers lost a few crucial ones that way: games called on account of the Wilkinson brothers. Therefore, as quarterback, I kept Bud and Bill separated by three big boys in the line, which cut down a lot on games lost.

Funny stuff. Go back and read the whole thing?

The "50th-Street Tigers" competed in everything from kick the can to bobsledding all year long. In hockey, I was a forward, Bud was goalie. In baseball, I was an outfielder, Bud pitched (and argued with his catcher, one William Wilkinson). In football, I called the plays, and that's where Bud really learned the game. The huddle conversation would sound something like this:

Berg: "Roger and Stanley go out for a long pass. John, you take out that big guy with the green sweater. Okay, now, Boots, you hike the ball back to Marty when I say '22.' Marty fakes a long pass, see, and heaves me a lateral instead and I'll go through right tackle. We need the yards. Remember, you guys. '22.' "

Wilkinson: "Are you coming through me again?"

Berg: "That's what I said."

Wilkinson: "What's the big idea? You been carrying the ball off right tackle all afternoon. Aren't you bright enough to go someplace else for once?"

Berg: "Now look, Bud. You just shove your man out of the way and lemme through."

Wilkinson: (nothing for Berg but a nasty look).

But time after time, he would open those wide holes. He blocked hard and consistently gave me the safest running room on the field. I ran where it was padded the softest and that was always the path behind Bud. A couple of years ago, I visited him at Norman and he drove me out to watch the Sooners practice at Owen Field. He gathered them around and said:

"This is the kind old lady who taught me how to play football. She did it merely by running right-tackle slants so often I had to learn to block opponents to keep her from trampling me."

One more excerpt:

A COMPETITIVE STREET

Most of the Tigers, 14 of us, lived on one block of Colfax Avenue South, between 50th and 51st streets, in Minneapolis. I was the only girl and I knocked the stuffings out of any kid who said I couldn't play. (I was the one who lived at the corner of 50th, which is why we weren't called the "Colfax Tigers.") This must sound as though we were being raised in the midst of an unshaven, slouch-cap, slum area. Colfax South actually was pretty fashionable.

We all came from a well-to-do environment and a heavy majority of the Tigers now are prosperous business and professional men. Bud never had to worry. There was a substantial real-estate business, his just for the growing up and inheriting, no matter how he played. But, I don't know, every once in a while there seems to be a neighborhood street somewhere which houses a fiercely eager bunch of youngsters, much more highly competitive than youngsters on other streets around them because of a lot of sociological reasons, I guess. Our one block was like that. The Tigers grew up together, well-mannered and smart, extremely robust and full of rivalry. And Bud Wilkinson was always right in the midst of it. He was fast, strong, an excellent student and almost passionately determined to win at anything.

"Try, try, try," he would say, when another team was giving us a tremendous struggle. It was the kind of determination you would write off as pure Horatio Armstrong Merriwellism if you didn't know Bud. And he used to say it time and again to keep us going. "Try, try, try." Slow, deliberate words. His face would be so serious. I won't ever forget that about him.

Charles P. Wilkinson, a widower during those years, did a fine job of raising his two boys in the spirit of our fierce eagerness, but there was one time I clearly remember him wondering just how far all that spirit could possibly go. It was a Saturday in 1930. I was 12. Bud was 14. I had grabbed a baseball bat and walked from my house at 5001 Colfax to the Wilkinson house at 5015 Colfax and had knocked there. Mr. Wilkinson answered.

"Can Billy and Bud come out and play?" I asked.

"Play?" Mr. Wilkinson stammered. He has always had a lot of charm and poise. This seemed to shock him. "Young lady, don't you know what time it is?"

"Yes sir," I said. "A little after nine."

"At night!" he said.

"Yes, sir."

"It's pitch-black dark outside."

"Yes, sir."

"Aren't you aware of the fact that you have been playing baseball with my sons for some ten hours already today and now it is night?"

"Yes, sir."

"Go away."

Mr. Wilkinson still kids me about that. I guess the good old "50th-Street Tigers" never did know when to quit.