Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States when Bill Priatko saw his football career flash before his eyes.
More than six decades later, he still remembers it—and feels for so many players who are hoping they don’t get a phone call right now.
Late August is particularly brutal around the NFL. And it has nothing to do with hits that knock even the most alpha of males into last week. Every team must trim its roster from 90 (or 91) players to 53 by 4 PM/EST on Tuesday.
Some, like the Steelers, have already started doing so.
The math is cruel, and it’s more than just numbers. Hundreds of players pursuing their dreams and their livelihoods will be told neither will happen with the team for which they put themselves on the line—physically and emotionally.
“Every time cut season comes, I empathize with guys,” said Priatko, who played for the Steelers in the late 1950s and turns 94 in October. “It’s not an easy thing for one of the guys who are the last cuts. That’s why every time this time of the year comes, I think of that.”
“That” is what happened after legendary Browns coach Paul Brown took to the intercom while Cleveland was flying back from the West Coast following its fourth preseason game in 1960.
Four players were to report to team headquarters in the morning, he said. Priatko’s name was the first one Brown called.
He picked up an envelope the next day, sure it contained a letter that the Browns had waived him and some money to get home. As Priatko was walking away, the secretary who had given the letter to him asked if he was going to open it.
He did, and it said to report to League Park at 10 AM for practice.
“Then it dawned on me,” Priatko said. “There were three guys that had to be cut, but [Brown] named four guys over the intercom.”
He had stopped listening after he heard his name. But Priatko sure heard what Brown told him that morning in the locker room before practice.
“He said, ‘You have to be made of the firmer stuff,’ and he walked away,” Priatko recalled with a laugh.
That was one of Brown’s signature sayings, and Priatko still had to prove it. Back then, there were six preseason games. He had to survive a few more cuts after two more games to make the Browns’ 35-man roster.
Yes, 35. In a 12-team league. Talk about math being harsher than calculus.
Priatko made the Browns, and his story had a happy ending—just not in the way he envisioned. Priatko tore a thigh muscle during practice early in the season, which ultimately ended his playing career.
Two decades later, Priatko applied for an assistant athletics director job at Robert Morris University in suburban Pittsburgh. Brown, unbeknownst to Priatko, called RMU’s president on his behalf. He got the job and spent more than a decade there.
He was inducted into the RMU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015.
Proving his old coach right again that he was indeed made of firmer stuff.
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