Eagles' 1960 championship team tells its own story

CAN IT be?

Can it possibly be 50 years?

They ask themselves: Where did the years go? All of them are in their 70s and 80s now, yet the boy in them remains anchored in 1960, the year they did something that no Eagles team has done since: They won the National Football League championship.

Fifty years ago: JFK had just been elected president. That was how long ago it was.

Linebacker Maxie Baughan was a rookie on that 1960 squad and expected it to happen again. But it never did, which he says just goes to show you how hard it is to even win one. The Eagles came close under Dick Vermeil in 1980. And they came close again with Donovan McNabb in 2004. But it was the 1960 Eagles that, on a December day at Franklin Field, edged Green Bay, 17-13, and gave legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi his only playoff loss.

"Fifty years is a long time," says Chuck Bednarik, 85, the "60 Minute Man" who played both sides of the ball, center and linebacker. "You would think that somewhere in there, once or twice, they would have won a championship. Goodness gracious. But I tell you what: When I die and go to heaven, I will make sure they win one."

Gone are head coach Buck Shaw, all of his assistants, and some of the stalwarts of that team, among them: Norm Van Brocklin, Clarence Peaks, Don Burroughs, Bobby Walston and, in January, Tom Brookshier. But those who remain will return to Philadelphia this weekend as part of the 50th anniversary celebration the Eagles will hold. Says wide receiver Tommy McDonald: "To think that this was 50 years ago is staggering!"

But for wide receiver/tight end Pete Retzlaff, it seems in a way as if it were yesterday. "Because whenever we get together, or get on the phone with some of our teammates, the memories just come flowing back."

And they remember how it was:

Speaking about Shaw

Billy Ray Barnes (running back): "Buck Shaw should have been president of a bank or a big corporation somewhere. Ran a very good ship. Very gentlemanly, but if he said something, you listened. He was a very good coach.

Chuck Bednarik (center-linebacker): "Good coach. Good guy."

Eddie Khayat (defensive tackle): "Way ahead of the game. Light years ahead of it. Once preseason was over with, we never wore pads or helmets in practice. Buck knew the value of having fresh legs. And his practices were short and crisp, and well-organized. Our work day was 3 hours long, and that included watching the film. But we were always well-prepared."

Pete Retzlaff (wide receiver): "Quiet, very refined. But Buck was very clear in his philosophy of what it took to win: You never let up. What I remember is that Buck had this beautiful head of gray hair. And he did not like to get it wet.''

Sonny Jurgensen (quarterback): "Buck kind of turned it over to Van Brocklin. 'What did Norm want to do?' We would be in practice and a storm would come up, or there would be a cloud in the sky, and he would say, 'What do you think, Norm?' He would ask him whether or not he should call practice.''

Retzlaff: "Invariably, Buck would turn to Van Brocklin and say, 'Is that OK with you, Dutch?' Van Brocklin had veto power over any of the new players Buck had come up with. And, by the way, Van Brocklin had the authority to send you off the field if you were not getting the job done.''

Jurgensen: "Van Brocklin was a perfectionist. We roomed together, and I know I learned a great deal from him. I had a God-given talent to throw the football, but had had no passing offense in college. So when he came over from the Rams in 1958, I would watch him in practice and in scrimmages, and he would say: 'Put the kid in, Buck.' He was my mentor."

Bill Lapham (center): "He was super intelligent. But he would take an offensive lineman to the sidelines and tell Shaw, 'Get somebody in here who can block.' I got along with him real well. As a matter of fact, he invited me to go pheasant hunting with him a few times. He had a friend who lived north of Philadelphia that had a farm.''

Retzlaff: "Kids loved him. I remember he would invite us out to his home in Valley Forge. He had a pool. When we would get there, as caustic as he could be if you were not doing the job, the children would just flock to him. They would no sooner get out of the car than they would run to him.''

Jurgensen: "I remember that swimming pool because I sold it to him. I had an offseason job working for a pool company. But he was Jekyll-Hyde, I think anybody would tell you that.''

Retzlaff: "I remember one of our players stuttered. It was an offensive lineman who missed his block and Van Brocklin got creamed. So we get back in the huddle and he says to this guy, this ballplayer: 'What happened?' And the player begins to stutter: 'I think . . . I think . . . I think.' Van Brocklin told him, 'Don't think. When you think, you just weaken the ballclub.' ''

Barnes: "Great quarterback, and a great individual. And he got very personal. He would let you know something. But if he screwed up, you could get on his ass, too.''

Tommy McDonald (flanker): "We had great leadership. Van Brocklin on offense. And Bednarik on defense.''

Bednarik: "Van Brocklin. Very good. Outstanding. The best. Next to me.''

Barnes: "Concrete Charlie! Chuck played the game with passion. Great defensive player, but played both ways.''

Retzlaff: "Charles . . . the quintessential linebacker. There was never a linebacker that was ever any better. I remember in training camp, he would lead us in calisthenics, and you damn well better do your stretching the way he said or he would challenge you. And you did not want to be challenged by Chuck.''

Bednarik: "When I played football, I wanted to stay on the field, not like these kids today. The game has change drastically. In my generation, if you were a good football player, you stayed on the field as long as you could. You never went to the coach and said, 'I'm tired.' "

Khayat: "That year, I lived in a hotel at 39th and Chestnut. Could walk to practice, walk back. Loved it. One of my neighbors was Sonny Liston, who lived across the street in another hotel. So we would see him now and then. Everybody back then was a regular guy. J.D. Smith and I would take a walk in the evening, stop by and talk to the firemen, go by and talk to the policemen. There was a deli across the street and Sonny would be in there. I remember it as a friendly neighborhood. Everybody knew everybody.''

J.D. Smith (tackle): "Sonny lived across [the street] and we saw him quite often. Big guy, big, strong-looking guy. We went with him to the Blue Horizon in his Cadillac. He turned around in the middle of the street and parked in front of the Blue Horizon. I found him to be friendly, very open.''

Barnes: "We always stuck together as a team, off and on the field. It was just a good team. But we got off to a bad start. Cleveland came into Franklin Field and just beat the heck out of us - 41-24.''

Khayat: "They just came in and blew us out.''

Retzlaff: "The headlines read, 'Here We Go Again.' Do you remember Larry Merchant? Larry was with the Daily News then, and during the preseason we were out in Palo Alto getting ready to play the 49ers. And we had just lost to the Rams down in LA. And Merchant had cut us up pretty good. And some of the guys threw him in the hotel pool. Merchant came up, spit out a mouthful of water out and said, 'I've got 12 games to get even.' And he did after that Cleveland loss.''

Baughan: "It was bad. Of course, they had No. 32, Jim Brown. To me, he was the best football player who ever played. Buck Shaw told us in the locker room, 'Guys, we have to start winning. Or we are going to have three teams around here: One coming, one going and one playing.''

McDonald: "We knew we had to suck it up and play the g-a-m-e.''

Smith: "We would always find a way to win. Everyone had the feeling of being needed on that team, and that they had something to contribute.''

Retzlaff: "We were behind at halftime in every game, I think, except one. But we never gave up. However far we fell behind, we knew we could catch them . . . We got to the point where we began to feel invincible.''

Khayat: "Beating Cleveland out there in Game 5 of the season was the turning point for us. We played very well. 'Dutch' [Van Brocklin] was taking us on the final drive to win the game, and Bobby Franklin intercepted the ball to kill the drive. Except there was a penalty against Cleveland for defensive holding. That gave us a first down. And Dutch got us in position for Bobby Walston to kick a 39-yard field goal to win it for us.''

Baughan: "When we landed back in Philadelphia, there was a big crowd at the airport. Every week we took a road trip, they would be there when we got home. And from that point on, Franklin Field was always full.''

Smith: "I remember walking in downtown Philly and people hollering across the street and calling you by your name. People knew who you were in Philly wherever you went. Someone was always picking up the tab. We loved the city, and the city loved us. We had run off six in a row when went up to play the Giants at Yankee Stadium.''

Lapham: "Do I remember it? The Giants threw a swing pass out to Frank Gifford out on the flat, just a safety-valve deal. Gifford looked back and they dumped the ball off to him. Bednarik is out there waiting for him and put the wood to him. And he fumbled.''

Barnes: "I was on the sideline when it happened. It sounded like a damn .22 going off. You hear the lick. And it was a legal lick.''

McDonald: "When you have been hit by Bednarik, you have been h-i-t. You could hear it. I can still hear it today: Whooomp!''

Jurgensen: "There was a vendor that died that day of a heart attack in the stadium and when the game was over, they were bringing him out on a stretcher, the covers up over his head. And Sam Huff, who played for the Giants, walked in as they were wheeling him out and said, 'See, I told you. They killed him.' He thought he was Gifford.''

Bednarik: "I was from the old school. It was no problem for me to mangle the hell out of guys.''

Smith: "We played New York again a week later at Franklin Field and beat them again. We knew we were on our way at that point. We won the division the following week out in St. Louis.''

McDonald: "Boy, did we put it together that year. Green Bay was favored big-time over us. We knew we could win. We knew if we fell behind we could suck it up - suck it up!''

Barnes: "Green Bay used to be the place where they threatened to ship you. Mess up and we'll send you to Green Bay, they used to say. Green Bay was very, very cold. And very bad. But then Vince Lombardi got there.''

Retzlaff: "I had played for Lombardi [then a Giants assistant] in the Pro Bowl. I remember thinking, 'God, if this guy ever becomes a head coach, he is going to be something.' Sure enough, he goes to Green Bay. And all those guys who were goofing around in Green Bay, he put some discipline in them. And they became who they were.''

Jurgensen: "Vince could have been the coach in Philadelphia in 1958. And that would have changed history. Van Brocklin would not have come there. The commissioner then, Bert Bell, tried to broker that deal to get him there. Vince was a hot assistant coach with the Giants, and he had wanted to be a head coach. But I think [Giants owner] Wellington Mara talked Lombardi out of it. The offer was on the table, but he spent the day in church and decided not to do it. So, where did he go the following year? Green Bay. Had he come to Philadelphia, I would have had Lombardi for a lot of years, instead of just 1 I had later on in Washington.''

Retzlaff: "We all knew what we were playing for. None of us had played for that championship before. So perhaps we were tentative going into the game. Obviously, we knew they had players like Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, Bart Starr as the quarterback. Good ballclub.''

Khayat: "I remember they put in extra bleachers [on the track]. So there were 67,000 people there, I think.''

Smith: "I just know it was terribly noisy.''

Baughan: "We had two turnovers and they came away with only three points. And I remember thinking, 'There is no way we are going to lose this game.' ''

Khayat: "If you ever just looked at the play-by-play and not the score, you would think they had beaten us. We turned the ball over the first two times we had it. Once they went for it on fourth down and came up short. And if they had kicked a field goal there, a short field goal, at the end of the game it would have been 17-16 instead of 17-13. And on that last drive, they would have had a chance to win it with a field goal.''

Barnes: "We were down, 13-10. But Ted Dean returned a kickoff back to their 40 and we took it on in from there.''

Jurgensen: "Everything just seemed to break our way at the end.''

Khayat: "Starr dumped the ball off to Taylor as the clock was winding down. Bobby Jackson hit him as he crossed the 10-yard line and was tackling him when Chuck came in. And Chuck pinned him down.''

Baughan: "I remember that I hit [Taylor] earlier and I fell off him. And I was hoping Chuck would be there, because I would have been the dad-gum goat. And then I saw the goal posts fall down. And it was over.''

Bednarik: "I had Jim Taylor down at the 8- or 9-yard line and I would not let him get up. And when I saw the clock go to zero, I said to him, 'You can get up now. This [bleeping] game is over.' "

Khayat: "How can I describe it? Unless someone has done it themselves, how do you explain the feeling we had leaving the field that day? I remember they asked us later if we wanted a ring or a watch. I took a ring, of course. Some of the guys took a watch, but I understand that later they arranged for them to get a ring. I could not walk out of the hotel without someone inviting me to sip a beer or two with them.''

Retzlaff: "We knew that Buck would be leaving at the end of the 1960 season, win or lose. That was what he had indicated when he took the job [before the 1958 season]. And Van Brocklin was going to take over as coach. But that did not happen. He ended up being the head coach at Minnesota.''

Jurgensen: "[Van Brocklin] had wanted to let people go, and they ended up taking it away from him. We were meeting. We were starting to talk about what we were going to do. For me, it was, 'Gosh, I am going to be playing for a guy who played the position.' So, yeah, I was looking forward to it. But Nick Skorich got the job.''

Retzlaff: "We had a very close social relationship with one another. We not only practiced and played together, but we socialized together. That continues until today. Sadly, [14] of our guys are no longer with us.''

McDonald: "Tom Brookshier. Oh, poor Tom Brookshier. Old No. 40.''

Bednarik: "Brookshier was a nice guy. I hope he is in heaven. Only problem is, in heaven there is no beer!''

Barnes: "Time has stood still. When you think of it, 50 years is a long time. It will be good to see them all again at the celebration.''

Baughan: "I will be the youngest person there. And I am 72. So I am looking forward to it.''

Retzlaff: "Whenever we get together, we find out that we were better than we thought we were. And every time we get together, we get better."

McDonald: "I can't wait. It's like Christmas is coming.'' *