Old 98: Something Special to the End

He used to call me “the boulevardier.” It was our own wry joke because my socks didn’t always match, my ties were sometimes an off-purple and my sports coats glowed in the dark.

I showed up at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble in 1968 in wing-tip shoes, alpaca sweater and a topcoat you could see through. He took one horrified look and hustled me over to Geneva ski stores where I got the apres-ski boots, fur-lined jacket with hood, ski poles--everything but the surgical cast autographed “Better Luck Next Run--Jean Claude.” He might have saved my life. I had walking pneumonia by the time he took charge.

Taking charge was his stock in trade. The world knew him as Old 98 or Harmon of Michigan. I knew him as friend. I called him “The Fox” because he always ran through life as if something was chasing him. Tom was not a guy to sit still.

No one ever ran with a football any better, not the Galloping Ghost, The Gipper, O.J., Walter Payton, Gale Sayers--nobody. He was almost the last of what they used to call the “triple threat” players.

He lived a life right out of Frank Merriwell. Campus god, war hero, celebrity, he was a James Bond come to life. He married a gorgeous movie star and they had the most beautiful children this side of “The Sound of Music” cast.

Death caught Tom Harmon from behind the other day. Believe me, it never would have happened if he had a football in his hands. It came so quickly he didn’t have time to change gears or stiff-arm it.

He didn’t die the way most people do--in a hospital bed or under round-the-clock care. He died, so to speak, under his own power. He died, in a manner of speaking, coming out of a locker room. He had just shot 18 holes of birdie-riddled golf, he had showered, he felt good, and he was off to a travel office to get airline tickets for a golf tournament, the Bogey Busters, in Dayton in June. Tommy had no idea the game was in the fourth quarter.

The phrase, All-American, was invented for guys such as Tom Harmon. He had the name, the game. He bought the whole ethic. He had the kind of football career no one will ever have again. For all his marvelous skills, Bo Jackson will never play defense. Harmon did. Skillfully.

He punted, passed, ran, kicked field goals and points-after-touchdown. He ran for 33 touchdowns at Michigan, passed for 16, scored 237 points. He won the 1940 Heisman trophy, the sixth collegian to do so.

He was a combat pilot in the war, shot down over China and crash-landing in South America. He was a survivor. He walked out of both crashes. They made a movie about his life. He joined the Rams after four years in the war and he still has the team’s third-longest run from scrimmage (84 yards against the Bears) behind Kenny Washington (92) and Eric Dickerson (85). He holds the record for the second-longest punt return (88 yards vs. the Detroit Lions) in Ram history. If it had to do with football, Tom could do it. Harmon seldom went down from the first hit. It was said in college he led the conference in torn jerseys and broken noses. There were no facemasks in the Big Ten in the ‘40s.

I knew Harmon as a broadcaster and golf partner in late years. He was a man of great pride. Whatever Tom Harmon did, he wanted to do well. He never got more than a few pounds over his playing weight, his dress was impeccable, his habits beyond reproach. He radiated dignity and reserve, but he was a staunch friend.

I remember once our rotund friend, the columnist Bud Tucker, whose forte was Don Rickles’ type of insult humor, was trying his routines on a glowering stranger at the hospitality suite in Baltimore during a World Series. Suddenly, the fellow lunged at Tucker with intent to do great bodily harm. Harmon shot out of his seat, collared the combatant and wrapped his arms around his neck and hissed, “You gonna sit down and be quiet or do I snap your head off?” The fellow sat down. Quietly.

Another time, we were playing golf at Augusta. The club permitted us media types to play the course the morning after the Masters and Harmon had played a typically fastidious Harmon game when an interloper took up heckling. What was so great about Tom Harmon? he sneered. Why, he went on, he bet Tom couldn’t even beat him running. Oh, said Tom, when and where? Here and now, the guy answered. As they lined up, the guy, a little unnerved, wanted to know: “You ever run on a track?”

“A little,” Tom answered. (He was the Indiana state sprint and hurdle champion). As they lined up for the start, the fellow looked nervously at Harmon. “Aren’t you going to take your coat off?” “Why?” Harmon answered coolly. “We’re only going to run, aren’t we? We’re not going to fight or anything?” Harmon won the 60-yard dash by 10 yards.

He called everybody “Pappy.” He enjoyed celebrity but he had a sense of humor about it. He was twitted once at a testimonial as speaker after speaker extolled him for bravery in being shot down or crashing on two continents. “Hey, Harmon,” the emcee told him. “Your plane went down in China and South America? I don’t know how to tell you this, but we were at war with Japan and Germany. What were you, on your way to bomb Peru?!” Harmon laughed louder than anybody.

He used to tell the story himself of the time when he came to California and his colleagues on the Rams were Les Horvath and Glenn Davis, Heisman trophy winners, both. And, when his wife dusted off his trophy and announced proudly it was the Heisman, Ruth Hirsch was to blurt out “Oh, is that what that is?! I thought everybody had one!”

At the height of his career, in a celebrated case up at Strawberry Canyon in Berkeley, a fan came out of the stands to tackle him as he was on his way to a touchdown. I like to think Death had to come out of the stands or Harmon would have eluded it, too. He died as he had lived--a hero. You never went into a room with Harmon without someone coming up to you and recalling “the day you beat us at Minnesota,” or “the day you ripped through the Buckeyes.”

He takes an era with him. When Tom came on the field, it was still a game for raccoon coats, hip flasks, porkpie hats and the last of the flappers. He helped the game become the big time it did.

Some guys, when their career is over, get out of shape. It’s hard to believe they ever were athletes. Not Harmon. Right to the end he looked like a guy who still could go all the way.

Wherever he is today, I hope they have a football. And a guy who can block. I know one thing: the number 98 won’t be taken. There was only one.