lessons learned

The Eyes Lead the Body

In a profession not known for smarts, Blanton Collier broke the mold.

jack runninger, o.d.

“Nobody in football should be called a genius,” said Joe Theismann, former NFL quarterback. “A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”

“I’ve been big ever since I was little,” said William “Refrigerator” Perry, also a former pro.

“Terry Bradshaw (former NFL quarterback) couldn’t spell ‘cat’ if you spotted him the ‘c’ and the ‘t,’” said a former teammate.

Football players and coaches are usually not noted for their intellect.

Blanton Collier, head coach at the University of Kentucky (1954-1961) and the Cleveland Browns (1963-1970), was different. He was one of the sharpest people I ever knew, and I learned many lessons from him about the role of vision in sports performance, and also about life in general.

In contrast to many famous coaches, he was modest and gentlemanly. But also tough. He told pass receivers who tended to lose concentration when they heard the defensive back coming: “They’re going to knock hell out of you whether you catch the ball or not, so you might as well get credit for catching it.”

“The smartest coach”

Many years ago I had read in the Sporting News a quote from then New Orleans Saints head coach John North, “Blanton Collier is the smartest coach I’ve ever known. He can talk to his coaches for an hour just on the proper use of the eyes.”

I was intrigued, so I phoned him. “My hearing is terrible so it’s difficult to discuss over the phone,” he told me. “But I’m going to be in Atlanta in a few weeks, and I would love to get together with you.” Which we did. And got so captivated on the subject we talked for six hours, skipping lunch. “I don’t live to eat, I eat to live,” he told me. (A pretty good lesson in itself.)

Look first, move second

He told me he first realized the importance of the eyes in football from observing many hundreds of hours of tapes, frame by frame, to try to find what the great pulling guards did differently. “What I discovered was that the outstanding pulling guards looked to where they were going a fraction of a second before they moved. It dawned on me that this was the secret.

“Prior to that we had trained guards on foot movements. But from then on, we taught them to look first at their target, and automatically the body moved in the quickest and most efficient way.”

This led to the concept he preached to his coaches and players, “the eyes lead the body.” There were many other ramifications of this he discussed, but space limitations do not permit telling.

Lesson in living

But the lesson from him I most remember was his attitude about not being ruled by one’s pride.

“It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit,” is a tenet for which he is still often quoted. And:

“My friend Weeb Eubanks (coach of the New York Jets) also has a hearing problem,” he told me. “But he has too much pride to wear a hearing aid, and let people know he has that weakness. I think that’s stupid. I told him I’d wear a hearing aid in every orifice in my body if it would help me hear better.” OM

JACK RUNNINGER, OUR CONSULTING EDITOR, LIVES IN ROME, GA. HE’S ALSO A PAST EDITOR OF OM. CONTACT HIM AT RUNNINGERJ@COMCAST.NET.