Steve Thurlow was ready to call it a career.
He had played five years in the NFL, with fair to middling success. Three years with a dying Football Giant dynasty (as part of the ill-fated “Baby Bull Backfield”), then two more with indifferent Redskins teams…but he was done playing. He was working part-time as a stockbroker, and was ready to move on.
Then he got word–Vince Lombardi was going to be the Redskins’ coach in 1969. Maybe Wall Street can wait one more season.
“He’s the only reason I came back for my sixth season,” Thurlow said. “I wanted to see what it was like and what everyone was talking about when they said playing for him was very different than playing for anyone else.”
He sure wasn’t playing for Allie Sherman anymore.
“He was so tough and demanding,” Thurlow said. “But you had great respect for him because, frankly, he wasn’t like any other coach. He had the ability to watch all eleven guys and knew what each player did in a particular play. His vision was encompassing.”
Sadly, Vince saw something in Steve that didn’t bring him a sixth season–but Thurlow got a chance to experience Lombardi–and as he would die a year later, he could claim to be part of an elite fraternity of players.
“He had an aura about him like no one I have ever seen,” he said. “He supersedes the coaching ranks because he was more than just a coach, he was a leader.”
Thurlow went back to Wall Street, and onto a successful investment career–and became a nice footnote to a NFL legacy.
Here’s a YouTube highlight video of Steve Thurlow. To watch click on: The Link
