{"id":1067,"date":"2014-01-13T05:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=1067"},"modified":"2015-01-09T15:45:52","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T20:45:52","slug":"shocking-reaction-to-the-wrath-of-ernie-stautner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/01\/13\/shocking-reaction-to-the-wrath-of-ernie-stautner\/","title":{"rendered":"Shocking reaction to the wrath of Ernie Stautner"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stautner <\/a>
Stautner circa 1960. (Laughead Photographers) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"With <\/a>
With help from his family, Stautner recovered from knee surgery in 1960. (UPI photo) <\/div> <\/div>
\"Steelers <\/a>
Steelers vice president Dan Rooney holds the retired jersey of Stautner, right, during a ceremony in 1964. (Post-Gazette photo) <\/div> <\/div>
\"After <\/a>
After leaving Pittsburgh, Stautner worked in Dallas as an assistant coach and then defensive coordinator. (Photo credit unknown) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Stautner <\/a>
Stautner watches from the sideline during a game at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1961. At right is head coach Buddy Parker. (Photo credit unknown) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

One chilly November day in 1961, Ernie Stautner and Bobby Layne and a few other Steelers were knocking back beers at a Brentwood watering hole called Dante\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Practice had finished and most players were relaxing, but Stautner was miffed. A few days earlier, fans at Forbes Field had booed his pal Layne during a 30-27 victory over St. Louis. How could the fans jeer Layne? Stautner wondered. By golly, Layne was the league\u2019s toughest quarterback.<\/p>\n

Stautner\u2019s audience was a sportswriter named Pat Livingston. Livingston was familiar with football players and not easily intimidated, but you have to wonder how he felt once Stautner began to unload. Stautner was a solid, square-jawed man with a bashed-in nose. His smile was a bit crooked. In pictures, he looks like a pleasant-enough guy who, if crossed, could rip your arms off. A lot of guys who began their playing days before facemasks had that look.<\/p>\n

Stautner exploded. \u201cThis is a lousy sports town,\u201d he roared. \u201cAnd if Art Rooney had any sense, he\u2019d get out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heck, he said, he\u2019d gone to a Pirates game and the fans booed Elroy Face. Elroy Face! Of all people! \u201cThe guy gives you great baseball for six years, wins a pennant for this town and they boo him. What\u2019s wrong with these people? Do they have an inferiority complex or something?\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps most shocking was this: \u201cI\u2019m not happy playing in Pittsburgh. I never have been happy here and I wouldn\u2019t have been here in the first place if I had any choice about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Print that, Stautner demanded of Livingston, if you have the guts.<\/p>\n

Livingston wasn\u2019t sure he should quote the angry musings of a player who\u2019d had a few beers.<\/p>\n

Sitting nearby was Layne. Layne drank so much he sweated Cutty Sark. Players hated going into huddles with him because of the deadly fumes from his breath. But on this day he offered sober advice.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t do it, he warned Stautner. \u201cThey\u2019ll kill you in this town.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Stautner was adamant. \u201cI said it, you write it,\u201d he told Livingston.<\/p>\n

So Livingston wrote it.<\/p>\n

After more than a decade with the Steelers, Stautner had become one of the city\u2019s most admired athletes, ranking with Billy Conn, the Waner brothers and maybe even Honus Wagner.\u00a0And so, to a number of fans, his comments seemed a betrayal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill someone please tell Ernie Stautner \u2026 that us \u2018lousy\u2019 sports fans pay him upwards of $12,000 for a position lasting a little over four months,\u201d one fan wrote in a letter to The Pittsburgh Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cErnie owes this city an apology,\u201d wrote another.<\/p>\n

Layne, apparently recovered from his sobriety, figured the next Sunday at Forbes Field would present an excellent opportunity for a monumental practical joke. He was not about to let it pass. On the sly, he told his teammates to hang back while Stautner, as team captain, led the charge onto the field before kickoff. Surely his friend, trotting alone across the gridiron, would catch hell from the fans.<\/p>\n

Years later, Livingston recalled the scene in his Press column:<\/p>\n

\u201cI can still see Stautner, in that rigid-hipped stride of his, in calf-hugging shoes, waddling through the mud behind first base. And then it started, a whisper along the third base line, almost inaudible at first, but reverberating into a deafening roar.<\/p>\n

“As the solitary figure in the black jersey crossed the field to the Steeler bench, the crowd had risen in a standing ovation to the outspoken star.”<\/p>\n

Stautner retired in 1963 and began an extensive coaching career. In Dallas he developed some of the game\u2019s best defensive linemen, including Ed \u201cToo Tall\u201d Jones and Randy White. Stautner died of complications from Alzheimer\u2019s in 2006. He was 80.<\/p>\n

He remains the only Steelers player to have his number retired.<\/p>\n

See Bob Dvorchak\u2019s take on Ernie Stautner in the PG\u2019s weekly sports video feature\u00a0“Sports \u2018n \u2018at.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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