The news today of the death of Gale Sayers brought to mind this little-known fact: He scored the first touchdown of his pro football career in Buffalo.
He was playing in the Coaches’ All-America Game, which was held at War Memorial Stadium five times – from its inaugural event, in 1961, through the game in which Sayers played, in 1965. After that, the game moved to Atlanta and then to Lubbock, Texas, before ending its run in 1976.
The players, whose college classes had graduated, were paid only a few hundred dollars. This technically made them professionals, even if such nominal amounts might be thought of more as semi-pro pay today.
Some of the greatest names of the era made their pro debuts in Buffalo. We’ll get to a roll call of those in a bit. But first let us recall the greatness of Sayers, one of the most exciting running backs in football history, who died at the age of 77 after living with dementia. Dick Butkus, his Chicago Bears teammate, last year called him the greatest halfback he’d ever seen – “and that was counting O.J.”
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Sayers’ first pro score wasn’t one of those cut-on-a-dime, open-field runs for which he was famous. It came on a 1-yard touchdown run for the West in the second quarter in Buffalo on June 26, 1965. Butkus played for the East, which won 34-14. You could win some bar bets in Chicago by telling disbelieving patrons that Sayers and Butkus played against one another as pros.
But for all that, the 1965 game is best remembered, when remembered at all, as the place where Gale Sayers met Brian Piccolo. That meeting is recounted in the opening scene of “Brian’s Song,” the 1971 made-for-TV movie that tells their story.
The telefilm begins at training camp for the Chicago Bears. Sayers, played by Billy Dee Williams, is getting out of a cab, suitcase in hand, when a voice calls out: “Heads up!” Sayers looks up and slaps away a football that’s headed right at him. Then he picks up the ball and tosses it to the man who’d called out the warning. It’s Piccolo, of course, played by James Caan.
“Here you go,” Sayers says.
“Thanks. You’re Gale Sayers.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Brian Piccolo. We met at the All-America Game, last June, in Buffalo.”
Turns out Sayers doesn’t remember. Awkward moments follow. That’s what’s known, in the movie biz, as a meet-cute. (Even if, in this case, they’d actually already met at the Old Rockpile.) That standoffish start blossoms into a beautiful friendship between the first interracial roommates in Bears’ history. Piccolo helps Sayers recover from a knee injury. And Sayers is by Piccolo’s bedside when he is stricken with cancer.
The movie is based on the true story. Piccolo died, in 1970, at the age of 26 – and the movie came out a year later.
Piccolo’s early death calls to mind Ernie Davis, the Heisman Trophy winner from Syracuse University who played in only one pro game – the 1962 All-America Game in Buffalo. The East won, 13-8. Not long after, before Davis could join the Cleveland Browns in training camp, he began showing symptoms of the leukemia that would take his life less than a year later.
The inaugural All-America Game, in 1961, was actually called the Graduation Bowl, a name that didn’t stick. It was highlighted by scoring plays from future Buffalo Bills, as Art Baker caught a pass from Fran Tarkenton, and Ron McDole recorded a safety by tackling Tarkenton in the end zone. The West beat the East, 30-20, in a game that featured Mike Ditka, Billy Kilmer and Norm Snead.
The 1963 edition featured more scoring plays from future Bills. George Saimes, who would play safety in Buffalo, was a running back in this game and scored on a two-yard TD. Daryle Lamonica threw a 28-yard touchdown pass. The West beat the East, 22-21. Then, in 1964, East beat West, 18-15, in the pro debut of Paul Warfield.
Coaches who appeared in the games held in Buffalo included Notre Dame’s Ara Parseghian, Ohio State’s Woody Hayes, Southern Cal’s John McKay, Nebraska’s Bob Devaney and Arkansas’s Frank Broyles.
Roger Staubach and Craig Morton, who would be teammates with the Dallas Cowboys, were the opposing quarterbacks in the 1965 game – the last one in Buffalo, and the one where Sayers scored.
One of the remarkable things about his death today is how often reactions included references to “Brian’s Song.” That meant even the Hollywood Reporter ran an obit of Sayers, which noted that the 49-year-old buddy movie “made it OK for grown men to weep.”
The telefilm’s first words, even before we see Sayers and Piccolo, come from an unseen narrator:
“This is the story of two men, one named Gale Sayers, the other Brian Piccolo. They came from different parts of the country. They competed for the same job. One was white; the other black. One liked to talk; the other was as shy as a three-year-old. Our story’s about how they came to know each other, fight each other, and help each other.”
The voiceover pauses for a beat. And then:
“Ernest Hemingway said that every true story ends in death. Well, this is a true story.”
And one that didn’t really end until today.