HARRY WISMER
Owner
A FUNNY FOOTBALL TEAM OWNER
"Harry Wismer, owner of the New York Titans, American Football League, has got to be one of the world's funniest club proprietors. He's what you would have to call a compulsive talker. All the time. And when he talks he says funny things.
Last season Wismer charged that a New York columnist was anti-Titan and pro-Giant, the reason being that the newspaperman's son was the ball boy and mascot for the rival league's team. The funny thing was that the columnist and his wife were childless.
Harry was talking to a man from Los Angeles in New York's Waldorf Astoria bar last October. 'I can't bet,' Wismer said, 'but I know a man who'll bet you the Chargers would beat the Rams. And bad, too. They could play for the championship of lower California.
'Say,' Harry said later, 'why don't you people in Los Angeles run some special trains down to San Diego. We play there in three weeks. Come on down, if you can get tickets.' As he left, Wismer hollered to a man from Washington: 'Say hello to J. Edgar Hoover when you see him.'
Also in October, Harry said: 'Well it's all set. Sammy Baugh will be the new coach of the Redskins.'
By season's end Wismer, who had been critical of Baugh's handling of the Titans right along, said he planned to drop Sammy to assistant backfield coach. Baugh said the demotion 'would be just wonderful. I'd like to be an assistant at these prices.' (Sammy, who was demoted later, still has a year to go on a reported $25,000-a-year contract.)
Earlier, when AFL commissioner Joe Foss had canceled a secret draft by club owners, Wismer had some things to say: 'I want the players I drafted real bad so I can give the people of New York a team to be proud of. Now if Foss wants to do something about it let him try and stop me ... People don't come out to see the commissioner play football; they come out to see football players.'
Wismer didn't get his secret draft choices and there were reports there some other owners hoped to vote him out of the league. Baugh said: 'I wish I had a vote.'
Harry had trouble getting people out to watch his team all season. And sportswriters who covered Titan games qualified every attendance figure by saying 'it was announced as ... ' Some even said Wismer seemed to be counting his gate by twos.
Even at the Polo Grounds, though, Harry usually had something to say over the public address system. In the closing minutes of the final home game the Titans were losing while the Giants had already won their game in Philadelphia to clinch the NFL's Eastern Division championship, the public address announcer said: 'Harry Wismer congratulates Allie Sherman and the Giant coaching staff for the superb job of conditioning this season. (Wismer was never too pleased with his Titan conditioning.)
Still, no matter how much Harry Wismer talked or how funny he got, his team lost an estimated $380,000 last season after losing between $450,000 and $500,000 in 1960. Which isn't funny, even to a funny owner."
-Sport Magazine, March 1962
Head Coach
"Bulldog is rated one of the all-time great pivot men in the history of professional football. He was a member of four NFL world championship elevens and an all-league center seven years.
Bulldog gained Little All-American honors in college. He played in the East-West and College All-Star contests.
He possesses a keen knowledge of the game."
-1948 Bowman No. 36
"One of football's all-time greats. Bulldog is playing his eighth season and seven times has been an all-league center. A member of four Bear championship teams, he joined the team in 1940 and won a starting post at the age of 20.
Bulldog is rated the best pass defender in football. Last fall he raced 96 yards for a touchdown with an intercepted pass against Washington."
-1948 Leaf No. 3
"Turner is one of the greatest pivot men of all time. He was selected all-league center last year for the eighth time in nine years as a professional player. He's considered the best pass defender in the game today.
Fast and agile, Turner starred in the Bears' 73-0 rout of Washington in the 1940 playoff. He has been a member of four world championship Bear clubs."
-1949 Leaf No. 150
"Clyde has chalked up nine years in pro ball. A regular since the first day he joined the Bears, he can play any position on the team. He was an all-league center eight times and was on four world championship outfits.
He was named the All-Time All-American center in a national poll in 1946. He played halfback, end and center at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas.
Clyde is a rancher in the off-season."
-1950 Bowman No. 28
"Bulldog has spent ten years in pro football. He started his professional career on the right foot by making the All-League honor team in his first year, and then keeping up the good work.
Named the All-Time All-American center in a national poll in 1946, Bulldog played halfback, end and center at Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas. He played in the East-West and College All-Star Games.
A rancher in the off-season, he served with the Second Air Force."
-1951 Bowman No. 13 (Bowman Gum, Inc.)
He takes over his first head coaching assignment and will vigorously work on juicing up the offense, particularly the interior line."
-Don Schiffer, 1962 Pro Football Handbook
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