Leon Hart Still Stands at One End : Tim Brown Following in His Footsteps at Notre Dame

Leon Hart didn’t have much time to talk.

“I’m on my way to Mecca this afternoon,” he said.

“Say what?” the caller asked.

“You know where Mecca is,” Hart explained, chortling. “South Bend.”

As he often does on an autumn weekend, Hart made the 200-mile pilgrimage southwest from his home in Birmingham, Mich., near Detroit, to the campus of Notre Dame in northern Indiana to watch the Fighting Irish play.

He also had a certain interest in watching Tim Brown, who seems certain to make Hart the other end--no pun--of a trivia question: Who was the last player to win the Heisman Trophy who didn’t play in the backfield?

Answer: Leon Hart, Notre Dame end, in 1949.

And yet Hart and Brown can hardly be compared as players; their physiques are different, and the game has changed.

Hart stood 6 feet 5 inches and weighed 252 pounds, Gargantuan for the era. Newspapers referred to him so often as big Leon Hart that the adjective almost became part of his name. He was “Notre Dame’s giant end,” and his shadow covered the landscape of college football in the late 1940s, even before television--especially before television, perhaps, because for Hart the wordsmiths created an image larger than life.

And there was this: he played both offense and defense.

“I never came off the field,” he said.

Brown is 5-11 and 189. He does a lot. He catches passes, runs with the ball and returns kicks. But he never plays defense, and the nation can see every move he makes.

The winner of the Heisman will be announced Dec. 5 on national TV from New York City, after CBS’ coverage of the Army-Navy game. The glitzy, splashy spectacle will be the climax of season-long campaigns of key chains and color brochures fueled by college sports information departments across the country.

Hart is put off by it all.

“Back in ‘49, they notified the recipients by Western Union, and it was not all the hype that’s involved nowadays, which I don’t care for,” he said. “It’s performance on the field that should (count).

“When I received the wire I took it to John Druze, my end coach, showed it to him and asked him, ‘What’s the Heisman Trophy?’ He kind of lit up a little, and then he explained to me what it was.

“It wasn’t all these ‘candidate’ things,” Hart said. “Of course, that’s all you guys (sportswriters) that are the cause of all that. And the statistics involved and the evolution of the quarterback and the (running) back is derived out of the way the game is played nowadays, which is free substitution (with) an offense and a defense.

“As a result, the only thing left for people such as yourself on the (West) Coast to knowing what’s happening with things back in the Midwest and the East is the statistics, because you can’t see every game, so that is the governing factor.

“Therefore, a lineman, who in my opinion is oft-times a better athlete than the backs or quarterbacks, doesn’t have the statistics, and they’re only playing one way, and nobody ever mentions who blocks for O. J. Simpson as he runs up the scoring and yardage.

“I’ve always contended that if there is any consideration of a lineman, he has to play both ways to have (enough) exposure to allow him to be recognized. When they play only half a game, it’s really not much of an area to judge. They don’t have the opportunity to create the charisma we’re all looking for.

“The game is played such that the lineman will never receive the acclaim that he should receive.”

The late Braven Dyer wrote in his Times column of Oct. 29, 1949, about “Hart’s phenomenal touchdown against the (USC) Trojans in the Coliseum last December. . . . Quarterback Frank Tripucka threw a short pass to Hart, who caught it on the 35 and then shook off eight Trojan tacklers on the way to the goal line.”

Hart never has reconciled himself to modern-day football. When it comes to free substitution and coaches sending in plays, he is definitely from the old school.

“I’m a proponent of single platoon football,” he said. “The way we substituted in ’46 under Frank Leahy was to put one team in for both offense and defense in the first quarter, then take out that team and put in a second team for both offense and defense.

“Jim Martin and I were co-captains in ‘49, and we just stayed on the field until the score allowed us to leave. I remember Leahy saying, ‘Leon, don’t get hurt because you gotta play anyhow.’

“We should give the game back to the kids and let ‘em play, rather than all this puppeteering from the sidelines.”

In those postwar years, there was no shortage of manpower for football, which led to pressure to let everybody play.

“(Free substitution) evolved (and) the costs of the game started to skyrocket and some of the smaller schools began to drop football,” Hart said. “I wonder whether now it’s a fact that more people are playing.”

Hart would like to see a rule that a player leaving the game in one quarter couldn’t return until the next quarter.

“A lot of the schools that want to play 11 men against 11 men would have a chance of winning,” he said.

“Notre Dame played Alabama in the Cotton Bowl one year, and Alabama had 70 men in the game by halftime. Notre Dame had 35, and I was appalled at that. What chance does a (small) school have playing against that?

“As a result, you have a polarization of the good athlete to these major television schools, which become farm clubs for the pros, once they don’t require their athletes to be students.”

Dyer also wrote of Hart: “He is the chief reason why opposing teams find it almost impossible to pass against Notre Dame this year. . . . He bulls in from his end position and virtually knocks the blocker, or blockers, right into the passer. There’s no defense for Leon Hart.”

Hart arrived at Notre Dame from Turtle Creek, Pa., already 6-5 but only 225 pounds. Four years later, he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and signed to play pro football with the Detroit Lions.

The Heisman was nice, but the degree did a lot more for him.

“A Heisman Trophy is a badge that you wear the rest of your life,” he said. “In those days I could attribute a $3,000 bonus to the Heisman Trophy, and I thought that was all the money in the world. I got married on that.

“It didn’t last very long and it’s nothing compared to nowadays, which I think is foolish, anyway.

“My first contract was (for) $15,000, and with the $3,000 bonus I was a high-paid guy. I was a classy guy.” He laughed.

“I applied for a job myself with an asphalt paving company while I was in Detroit. I was an expediter and engineer for them.”

Now Hart has his own business, Leon Hart Industries, which manufactures Tire True, an internal tire balancing product for truck tires, and Spec 222, a rust control primer. He also is a manufacturer’s representative for various automotive suppliers.

Compared to today’s million-dollar football contracts, such as Tim Brown will sign, it may not sound very glamorous.

But Hart said, “I’m concerned with the college student nowadays recognizing the fact that athletics are only a temporary thing and they should rely on their education.”

Even when Hollywood beckoned, Hart’s large feet remained firmly planted on solid ground.

“I tested for ‘Quo Vadis,’ ” he said. “They originally wanted some big guy to wrestle the bull. Tony Owen, who was Donna Reed’s husband, was my agent. I didn’t even know what an agent was, but Tony was my agent for the movie thing.

“We went out to talk to the producer, and instead of wrestling the bull they were testing me for the lead. They said, ‘Ah, he’s too good-looking.’

“I tested with Julie Adams. We played a love scene.”

Somehow, Robert Taylor got the part instead.

“Then in ‘57, I went back and tested for a television series,” Hart said.

The role was that of Brock Callahan, a retired Los Angeles Ram football player who became a private detective.

“Sophie Rosenberg was my dramatic coach,” Hart said. “She was the same dramatic coach Rock Hudson had. We were on the same set practicing or being coached.

“That never panned out, either. I think what happened was I wanted too much money, or Tony wanted too much money. I wasn’t too excited about it, anyway.”

In 1952, while practicing for the Pro Bowl in Los Angeles, Hart philosophized on his career with Times columnist Al Wolf: “Football’s in my blood and will stay there for a while. Besides, it’s fun, this pro stuff. You play with and against the finest guys in the world. They’re murder out there on the field but swell fellows, nonetheless.”

Hart played eight seasons with the Lions, during which time the team won four divisional titles and three league championships.

His best season as a receiver was his second, when he caught 35 passes for 544 yards and 12 touchdowns.

In 1955, Coach Buddy Parker switched him to fullback, and he averaged 4.6 yards in 76 rushes.

“It kind of puts the Heisman guy on the spot,” Hart said. “It did then, where you have to prove yourself all over again. They’re all taking shots at you. But I didn’t have any trouble.”

Around the Lions, the feeling was that Leon wasn’t one of the boys--Bobby Layne’s boys. Hart seldom ran with the free-wheeling quarterback.

Before his final season in ‘57, he held out for a better contract, then tore a hamstring in training camp and played little thereafter.

According to a press report of that time, some unidentified “teammates and coaches believe the former All-American is dogging it.”

One “veteran Lion linebacker said of Hart, ‘Why should we knock ourselves out 12 games a season when this guy loafs around for all but two or three games a year and gets a lot more money?’ ”

After Hart retired, there was another report that “an ex-Lion coach (also unidentified) said Leon could have been one of the NFL’s great ends if only he would work at it harder.”

Hart was quoted as being “sorry and surprised” by the comments. He decided he didn’t need pro football anymore. In the ‘50s, there wasn’t much money to walk away from.

“I lost interest in it,” he said. “I made more money off-season than on-season, so why bother?

“I’ve never been a proponent of professional football. It’s a business, and nowadays they play push-shove-pass-catch. I don’t call that football.”

NEW YORK, Feb. 25, 1973 --Leon Hart, former All-American end and Heisman Trophy winner from Notre Dame, heads a list of 11 outstanding stars named Saturday to the College Football Hall of Fame.

Hart is one of only two linemen ever to receive the Heisman Trophy. The other was end Larry Kelley of Yale (in 1936).

Get ready, Tim Brown, to become No. 3.

“I’ve never met Tim Brown but I’ve watched him with great interest,” Hart said.

What Hart likes most about Brown is that statistics--or a lack of--don’t matter.

“The important thing with Tim Brown is, he affects the game so subtly that anybody with a trained eye can see what’s occurring when the other team doesn’t kick to him and they loft the ball on a punt so that the teammates can get down under it,” Hart said.

“They kick only a 25-yard punt instead of a 40-yard punt, and Tim Brown has gained 15 yards just by standing there. Then he signals for a fair catch and they get in the road and he gains another five by not even running.

“But the important thing is what (Coach Lou) Holtz does with him. His talent is such that they double- and triple-cover him, they put him out wide to the right and then run the option play opposite Brown, and the defense doesn’t have enough men left over to cover what ends up as the quarterback and the pitch man.

“He’s much more valuable the way Holtz is using him. He’s probably the finest athlete that ever came out of Texas. He’s for real.”

In ‘49, Hart was, too. He swept every major honor available to him. He won not only the Heisman but the Maxwell Award, was United Press lineman of the year and polled the most votes on UP’s All-American team.

In January of ’50 he was recognized as the male athlete of the year by a lopsided margin in an Associated Press poll. Next, in order, were Jackie Robinson, “famed Negro second baseman of the Brooklyn Dodgers;” golfer Sam Snead; Boston slugger Ted Williams, and Yankee relief pitcher Joe Page.

What does it all mean now?

Hart turned 59 a few weeks ago. He and his wife Lois--the girl he married with that $3,000 bonus--have six children and eight grandchildren “and counting,” he said.

“When I look at the kids and the grandkids, I thank the good Lord for all good things,” Hart said.