You don't know anybody is in the stands when you are out there on the field playing. You don't know what the number is or who, what, or whatever. You are playing and trying to give your best. When you are in the game you got so much going on in your head and your so attentive in listening to the quarterback call whatever shots he's going to call. Your mind is concentrated on your responsibility and what you have to do on every given play. You don't know anything else is around, but your responsibility.
I hadn't really thought about going to college. Nobody in my family went away to school. The other piece of that was I didn't see anybody else in my hometown going to college to give me some kind of influence or something like that you might want to think about. I didn't see any of that. Therefore I thought it was never there. What happened was that my high school coach intervened. Had he not intervened to the measure he intervened, I probably wouldn't have gone.
I never thought we would rise to the height where the salaries are today. The rules have changed an awful lot. That benefits the public. Let's put it this way. It makes the game a little more exciting is what I think players were trying to work for because there would be more scoring in the games.
When Johnny came to Baltimore the same time I came we were rookies. He did have some pro experience. He did go with the Pittsburgh Steelers and they cut him. I had no pro experience. My thing was that hey I got to make this team. Johnny Unitas wasn't Johnny Unitas.He was just like every other quarterback. You couldn't see the things we know that evolved out of that years later. As the years went on I could really start to see him settle in that position. Fortunately for Johnny U., Weeb Ewbank was there and he worked with his quarterbacks. He had them knowing every aspect of the game.
We felt that as blacks there was a quota. We used to talk with other blacks on other clubs. There was a way they use to do it called stacking. If you had five halfbacks instead of one being a left halfback and one being a right halfback then you would stack them all at left and let them cut each other. It kept the numbers down. A lot of them went to Canada. We would talk with guys on the other clubs including Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco and whoever. The numbers remained relatively about the same in the 1950's. They weren't carrying more then six.
I never got in a conflict. I didn't want Don Shula to say a word to me at all. My play emphasized that. He couldn't get me for anything or whatever. After that we were ok. I just didn't like the way they used me at the end of the 1963 season going in 1964. I felt that they played games with me.
Going against Jim Brown wasn't any different than going against Jim Taylor and any of the other guys. He's just an obstacle that we have to overcome. We just couldn't put anything together.
That was very appreciative because all the players vote for that. That's the highest award anyone can get in the NFL. Every team in the NFL votes for the most valuable player. I was injured. I had appendicitis the first part of the season, but I came back after ten days. Nobody came back that early. No player wants to sit on the bench. No player wants to be inactive. Everybody wants to play.I came back in ten days. I had the uniform on and played. I played those next games until I got kicked in the head.
