Sport: Testing the Velvet Hammer

Bud Wilkinson returns to football—and trouble

Senior Editor James D. Atwater first met Bud Wilkinson when he was still coaching at Oklahoma, completing his legendary record of 145 victories against just 29 defeats and four ties. The two men wrote a book on physical fitness, and later Wilkinson, then a prominent Republican, made Democrat Atwater his deputy on the staff of the Nixon White House. Like most people who know Wilkinson well, Atwater was not surprised when his friend decided, after 15 years, to return to coaching with the St. Louis Cardinals. Last week Atwater took a close look at the onetime college wonder to see how he was standing up to the harshest kind of introduction to the pros: a losing streak that began on opening day.

In a way, the scene in the locker room before the Dallas game summed up Wilkinson's approach to football. He did not raise his voice—he seldom does, or needs to—but he held the attention of the Cardinals. Wilkinson was not talking about pass patterns or defensive alignments; he was describing, with unabashed and unaffected emotion, a time 25 years in the future when the players would be remembering this game. You are going to wish you were back here, he told them, and you had a chance to put it all on the line in an afternoon—to test yourself against the best. "That's the kind of emotional impact football will have on your life," said Wilkinson.

The Cards played as well as they could against the Super Bowl champions, and they had an afternoon they should remember with pride a quarter of a century from now. They outgained and outmuscled Dallas, but they were hounded by the kinds of mistakes and bad luck that have plagued them all season. Eventually the Cards lost in overtime 24-21 and stretched their losing streak to seven.

During the game, Wilkinson looked far younger than his 62 years, erect and athletic. As he took off his coat and coached in his shirtsleeves (collar but toned, tie neatly in place), the decades slipped away, and I suddenly remembered sports-page pictures of a generation ago, when he was cheering on Oklahoma to that remarkable record.

But Wilkinson looked his age when he let in the press after praising his men for the game they had played. His face was drawn, his eyes were red, and his voice was very soft and tightly controlled — always a danger sign with him. Then Dallas Defensive Line Coach Ernie Stautner dropped by. "You guys deserve a lot more than you've been getting," he said, and Wilkinson's face brightened briefly.

He had had no idea, of course, that it would be as bad as this, but Wilkinson knew he would have his troubles when he took the job. He inherited a team that had won 42 and lost 27 in the previous five years, a winner but a peculiarly brittle one with a tendency to snap around play-off time. Many of the regulars were also feuding with Owner Bill Bidwill, whom they accused of penny pinching. Terry Metcalf, the team's star running back and its sole threat to the outside, had played out his option and gone off to the Toronto Argonauts.