At 62, Hirsch Is in the Running Again as a Ram : Receiver Isn’t Forgotten as Team Celebrates 40th Year in Southern California

Elroy (Crazy Legs) Hirsch did a striptease after what was to have been his last game with the Rams in 1954. He had earlier announced his retirement.

Young fans swarmed around Hirsch after the Rams’ final game at the Coliseum that season and tore away his uniform, piece by piece, until he was stripped down to his shorts.

In his game story on Monday, Dec. 13, 1954, Times sportswriter Frank Finch, now retired, wrote:

“Crazy Legs Hirsch did a striptease in his valedictory performance for the Rams yesterday, but he had to share the spotlight with Dutch Van Brocklin, Bill Wade, Dan Towler and a horde of fiendish defensive linemen.

“In their 19th and final game of ‘54, the Rams twice came from behind to subdue the stubborn Green Bay Packers, 35 to 27, at the Coliseum. Los Angeles finished in fourth place with a 6-5-1 mark, their poorest showing since 1947.

“Loyal to the last, 38,839 fans turned out to pay their final respects to Crazy Legs and Capt. Don Paul, who also is toying with the idea of hanging ‘em up. Each was presented with a pastel-tinted Oldsmobile.

“After the game, Hirsch was practically denuded by a squirming mass of youthful hero worshipers. Despite a protective cordon of harness bulls, the popular veteran had lost all of his equipment except his shorts and ankle bandages by the time he battled his way to the dressing room.

“Another minute in that juvenile maelstrom and Hirsch would have been Wausau’s answer to Sally Rand.”

Hirsch, 62, who had a 20-year career with the Rams as a star end and executive, said of the incident a few years ago in a Pro magazine story: “At first I was on the edge of panic. Then I figured the best thing was to relax and roll with it. Luckily, they decided not to take my toes and fingers.

“People have always said that I was standing there in my jockstrap, but actually it was my girdle hip pads.”

Hirsch later changed his mind and played for three more seasons with the Rams before finally retiring in 1957. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968.

Hirsch was general manager of the Rams from 1960 to 1969. He was hired when Pete Rozelle resigned as the club’s general manager to become commissioner of the National Football League.

Hirsch is now athletic director at the University of Wisconsin, where he was an All-American in 1942. In recent weeks, Hirsch has been the focal point of a newspaper probe of perks for coaches at the school.

Hirsch, sporting the same crew-cut he had in his playing days,looks good for his age. In fact, with 194 pounds on his 6-2 frame, he is still at his playing weight. He said he keeps in shape by playing a lot of tennis and golf during fund-raising events.

The Rams are celebrating their 40th anniversary in Los Angeles this year, and fans have been asked to pick an all-time Ram team. Hirsch is certainly in the running. He was named to the all-time NFL team a few years ago.

Hirsch played on the Rams’ 1951 championship team, setting a league record for most touchdown receptions in a season. He caught 66 passes for 1,495 yards and 17 touchdowns. He averaged more than 50 yards on each of his touchdowns. He also caught at least one touchdown pass in 11 consecutive games in 1950 and 1951, scoring on plays of 91, 81, 79, 76, 72, 70, 53, 51, 47, 41, and 48 yards.

“I think we each made about $5,000 when we beat the Browns (in the NFL championship game),” Hirsch said. “I think our best team was in 1951. We had (Hall of Famers) Bob Waterfield and (Norm) Van Brocklin (at quarterback) and Tom Fears (at the other end).”

After Hirsch had caught a pass on a 91-yard play in a game against the Chicago Bears that season, the late George Halas said of Hirsch: “Only an end like Hirsch could have scored on the Bears all the way from the Rams’ nine-yard line. Come to think of it, I’d say Hirsch is the only end in football who could have done it.”

His football career helped Hirsch, a small-town boy from Wausau, Wis., land several movie roles. But he had a short acting career, starring in three movies. The only place you’re likely to see them now is on late-night TV.

Hirsch played himself in “Crazylegs, All-American” in 1953 and later starred in “Unchained,” a prison movie, and “Zero Hour,” an airplane movie. He also made a couple of TV series.

“I had no acting experience but a director sent me a letter asking if I’d like to make a movie,” Hirsch said. “I threw the letter away, but he kept after me and six months later I was in front of a camera. It was the first football movie with no fake shots. For close-ups, we had the other Rams come out and play themselves. It was fun once I got over being nervous.”

Hirsch never got rich playing football or making movies.

“I got a $500 bonus when I signed my first pro contract (for $7,000 a season) with the Chicago Rockets in 1946,” Hirsch said. “When I jumped to the Rams in 1949 I got a $5,000 raise. I think the most I ever made in one season was $14,000.

“I think my salary as general manager was $20,000 and I thought I was on top of the world. But you’ve got to remember the top ticket price was $6.

“I’m not jealous of what guys are getting paid today. They make more in a quarter of the season than I did in a year. But I do think it’s getting out of hand.”

Hirsch finished his Ram career with 343 receptions. He still holds club receiving records for most yards in a career, 6,289; most yards in a season, 1,495; most touchdowns in a career, 53; most touchdowns in a season, 17, and touchdowns in consecutive games, 11.

“I felt great when I quit,” Hirsch said. “I was only 34, but I had this wonderful job offer from Union Oil in public relations. I never regretted it. But the toughest part after I quit was going to Rams’ games and sitting in the stands.”

Hirsch became director of sports promotions for Union Oil, but he returned to the Rams as general manager under former owner Dan Reaves.

Hirsch left the Rams in 1969, a few years before the team was sold, to become athletic director at Wisconsin, his alma mater.

Although his school hasn’t played in the Rose Bowl since 1963, Hirsch returns to California every year for the Rose Bowl, and usually gets a standing ovation at the annual kickoff luncheon on New Year’s Eve.

Although Hirsch played only one season at Wisconsin because he was drafted in World War II, Crazy Legs is still regarded as one of the school’s best athletes.

Hirsch came from a poor background.

He said that his father, Otto, earned $38 a week at the Wausau Iron Works.

The younger Hirsch wasn’t very big and said he often had to run to keep from being beaten up.

“When I was a freshman (in high school) I weighed 118 pounds, and I weighed 125 as a sophomore. I went out for football, but I was too small to make the team. By the time I was a junior, I had grown to 6-0 and I weighed 160 pounds.”

His high school football coach was named Win Brockmeyer. Hirsch named his only son after him. “He had a phenomenal won-loss record and he stayed at one school,” Hirsch said.

Hirsch was recruited by Tulane, Marquette, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Brockmeyer had gone to school at Minnesota and wanted Hirsch to go there, but Hirsch decided to stay in the state.

In those days, freshman weren’t eligible, but Hirsch took Wisconsin to the brink of a national championship during his sophomore year in 1942. Wisconsin finished with an 8-1-1 record, losing to Iowa and tying Notre Dame.

Hirsch picked up his nickname during his sophomore year. “Any name is better than Elroy,” Hirsch quipped.

The late Francis Powers, a sportswriter for the Chicago Daily News, is credited with nicknaming Hirsch after watching Hirsch’s unique running style when he scored on a 61-yard run in a game against the Great Lakes Naval Station. Powers said that Hirsch ran like a demented duck.

Several years ago, Hirsch filed suit to stop a company, a Wisconsin company in fact, from using the name Crazy Legs on a shaving cream for women.

Although the war interrupted Hirsch’s career at Wisconsin, he was able to keep it alive at Michigan, where he was stationed in an officer training program with the Marines.

In fact, Hirsch became Michigan’s only four-sport letterman, competing in football, basketball, baseball and track. The Wolverines won the Big Ten co-championship in football and also won league titles in baseball and track.

They still talk about the day that Hirsch finished third in the long jump at the conference meet with a leap of 22 feet 5 3/4 inches, then drove 150 miles to Bloomington, Ind., where he pitched the second game of a doubleheader against Indiana. Hirsch allowed four hits in a 12-1 victory that helped Michigan win the Big Ten title.

Hirsch once said that the only reason he went out for baseball was because the team made a trip to Wisconsin and he wanted a free trip home to visit his girlfriend.

Hirsch later married that girlfriend, Ruth Katherine Stahmer, his high school sweetheart. They have been married for 39 years and have two children, Win Stephen, 34, a salesman for a Los Angeles company, and Patti, 27, who lives in Madison.

Hirsch was transferred from Michigan to the El Toro Marine base, where he spent two years and played football.

Hirsch said that the greatest thrill of his athletic career was playing against the Rams in the 1946 College All-Star game at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

“During the introductions, they turned out the lights and put a spotlight on each player as he ran out onto the field. They played ‘On Wisconsin’ when I ran out onto the field.”

Hirsch scored on a 68-yard run and caught a 62-yard touchdown pass to lead the college stars to a 16-0 upset of the Rams, who in their final season in Cleveland before moving west, had won the 1945 NFL title.

Hirsch was the first-round draft pick of both the Rams and the Chicago Rockets of the new All-America Football Conference in 1946, but he decided to sign with the Rockets because his Marine Corps coach had been hired to coach the Rockets.

In three years as a running back for the Rockets, who later changed their name to the Hornets, Hirsch suffered a fractured skull, a back injury and a torn ligament in his right knee. The team had a 1-13 record in each of in Hirsch’s final two years.

The AAFC was in deep financial trouble by then and Hirsch jumped to the Rams in 1949. He was paid $12,000 a season, and he switched from running back to end because of his previous knee injury.

Hirsch has been in the news lately because of a bit of a scandal at Wisconsin.

Hirsch talks proudly of all he has accomplished in 17 years as the school’s athletic director. He is primarily a fund-raiser, and the athletic department has flourished during his tenure.

But earlier this summer, newspapers from Milwaukee sent reporters to Madison to look into charges that Hirsch had used $200,000 in donations to the athletic department for perks for himself and other coaches. He has been cleared of any wrongdoing by university officials.

The Milwaukee Sentinel and Madison’s Wisconsin State Journal reported that Hirsch bought 57 sides of beef and beef hindquarters, worth $12,140, and gave the meat to 28 coaches and athletic department employees to reward them for their hard work.

“The other day I went to a meeting and everyone kept coming up to me and asking: ‘Where’s the beef?’ ” Hirsch quipped.

It was also reported that Hirsch had double-billed the school for $3,100 in travel-related expenses. Hirsch said it was an accounting error and has since repaid the money.

Hirsch was recently given a contract extension through 1988 by the school, but there are plans now to place a tighten controls on the spending of donations to the athletic department.