1951 NFL Draft: Oral history – Eddie Kotal, pro football’s pioneer scout

When Dan Reeves moved his Cleveland Rams to Los Angeles in 1946, eyeballing dollar signs with the city’s 103,000-seat Memorial Coliseum, he created pro football’s first sophisticated scouting system.

At the time, NFL teams were still relying on reports from alumni and college coaches, plus what they could glean from reading the sports pages of daily newspapers and college football preview magazines to make their picks.

But Reeves brought change when he hired Eddie Kotal as head scout of the Rams in October 1946. Together, they created the model for today’s personnel departments.

Of the two, Reeves was the visionary and the one who bankrolled the venture.

NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who started with the Rams as a PR intern in 1946 and later served as their publicity director and general manager in the 1950s (Christl & Don Langenkamp interview, Oct. 8, 1978): “Dan Reeves was the first owner to get a strong awareness to the importance of scouting. Dan realized it was the lifeblood of a franchise. So he had Eddie set up the system and supervise it. He and the Rams were the forerunners of your present scouting systems.”

Future Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who headed the Rams from 1955-59 (Christl interview, March 6, 1979): “The guiding genius of the draft was Dan Reeves. Dan came up with the idea of getting full reports on everybody, putting them in books. When you walked into Eddie Kotal’s office it looked like a library. … When the Rams went into a draft, they had seen everybody. They had compared all the players. They knew who they wanted to take first, second, third, fourth, fifth and right on down the line.”

When hired by the Rams, Kotal was scouting for the Green Bay Packers while employed as a “field man” for the government-run Office of Price Administration in Green Bay. Kotal had been retained by the Packers as a part-time scout in 1944 after serving as Curly Lambeau’s backfield coach the previous two seasons. A product of what was then Lawrence College, Kotal also played halfback for Lambeau from 1925-29.

With the Rams, Kotal performed the groundbreaking legwork that produced some of the most fruitful drafts in league history. He became scouting’s first nomad, spending all spring and fall on the road visiting college campuses.

Tex Schramm, who spent 10 years with the Rams and served as GM from 1952-57 (Christl & Langenkamp interview, circa late 1970s): “Eddie was the first fulltime scout in the National Football League. In those days it was unique to even have a one-man operation in scouting and he was both (head of personnel & the lone scout). … Eddie would go out and really travel. He was probably the first guy who was well known on all of the college campuses from actually having visited them representing a pro football team.”

Red Hickey, assistant coach with the Rams from 1949-54 (Christl interview, Jan. 10, 1979): “(Kotal) had been in football all his life. He had played and coached. He loved it. He was a great detail man. He liked traveling. He’d leave LA at the beginning of the football season and wouldn’t come back until football season was over.”

Gillman, former college coach in the 1940s and early ’50s (Christl interview, March 6, 1979): “(Kotal) was the first of those scouts who was on the road like a hound-dog, chasing people down. Everybody in the world knew Eddie Kotal. He’d stop into Cincinnati, and we didn’t have any pro players. Our people were not that big. But he’d stop just to say hello and make damn sure we didn’t have anybody.”

In 1951, when the Rams won their first NFL championship in Los Angeles and second in franchise history, Kotal’s handprint was all over their roster, which even more impressively, included mostly players unearthed in the hinterlands of college football.

Included were five rookie starters on the offensive line.

Dick Simensen, the left tackle, was signed as a free agent after playing at what was then the College of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Dick Daugherty, an 18th-round draft pick from Oregon, was the left guard. UCLA’s Leon McLaughlin, who was drafted in the 19th round in 1947 as a future – the result of eligibility rules covering war-time servicemen – was the center. Bill Lange, the right guard, was drafted out of Dayton in the 30th round in 1950 and had his pro career delayed a year by an injury. Tom Dahms, a free agent rookie from San Diego State, was the right tackle.

In fact, there were 13 rookies in all on the Rams’ 33-man roster and there would have been 14 if their No. 1 draft pick and the MVP of the 1951 College All-Stars, tackle Bud McFadin, hadn’t been drafted into the Army.

Three other rookies started on the Rams’ defensive line, including future Hall of Fame end Andy Robustelli, a 19th-round pick from tiny Arnold College in Milford, Conn. The two rookie tackles were Jim Winkler of Texas A&M, a third-round selection in 1949 who had his pro career delayed two years by Army duty and illness; and Jack Halliday, who had been drafted by the Baltimore Colts in 1950 and signed by the Rams when the Colts folded.

Robustelli (Christl interview, June 5, 1979): “I think I was drafted because of the punts I blocked. I think I had like 14 in my career. Lou DeFilipo (an assistant coach at Fordham) was living in New Haven and watching me constantly. I think he was supplying Kotal with the information.”

Bert Rose, publicity director of the Rams in the 1950s (Christl interview, Jan. 18, 1979): “I think Andy was drafted in the 20th round and a lot of people didn’t even know where Arnold College was much less who played for them.”

Actually, the best of the Rams’ rookie tackles was Charlie Toogood, their third-round choice in 1951. But he was limited by a knee injury for much of the season. Bobby Collier, yet another rookie drafted in the 18th round in 1950 as a future, served as a swing tackle on both offense and defense.

Two other rookies were key contributors in the secondary: Norb Hecker, a sixth-round selection from Baldwin-Wallace, and Marv Johnson, a free agent from San Jose State. In addition, safety Herb Rich was drafted by the Rams in the second round in ’51 after playing with the Colts as a rookie and being placed back in the draft pool after they folded.

Three of the Rams’ biggest offensive stars were future Hall of Famers – quarterback Bob Waterfield and receivers Elroy Hirsch and Tom Fears – who had been drafted while the team was still in Cleveland.

But close to 10 other starters or sometime starters were also uncovered by Kotal.

Among them was another future Hall of Fame quarterback, Norm Van Brocklin, a fourth-round pick in 1949 who shared duties with Waterfield. During the regular season, they had finished first and second in league passing and were voted the top two quarterbacks for the National Conference in the Pro Bowl.

In the NFL Championship Game, Waterfield played more snaps, but Van Brocklin threw the game-winning pass, a 73-yarder to Fears in the fourth quarter. Fears caught the ball 33 yards downfield and said after the game, “That pass was the most perfectly thrown ball I have ever caught.”

Two other starters in the Rams’ backfield and then for the National Conference in the Pro Bowl were 6-foot-2, 225-pound left halfback “Deacon Dan” Towler and 6-3, 225-pound right halfback Paul “Tank” Younger. Along with 6-2, 220-pound veteran fullback Dick Hoerner, they were known as the “Bull Elephant Backfield.”

Kotal signed Younger as a free agent out of Grambling in 1949, while Towler played at Washington & Jefferson College and was the Rams’ 25th-round choice in 1950. Indeed, Younger played both ways in 1951 and made the first-ever Associated Press two-platoon all-pro team as a linebacker.

Verda “Vitamin T” Smith, an alternate starter at right halfback and explosive kick returner, played at what was then Abilene Christian College and was signed as a free agent in 1949. Bob Boyd, who doubled as a safety and receiver, also signed as a free agent out of Loyola of Los Angeles in 1950.

On defense, end Larry Brink, a 17th-round draft choice in 1948 from Northern Illinois, was both an AP All-Pro and a Pro Bowl starter in 1951.

Other key starters for the Rams on defense included middle guard Stan West, who played at Oklahoma and was drafted in the first round in 1950; Don Paul, a Pro Bowl linebacker in ’51 who had played at UCLA and was drafted in the third round in 1947; and defensive halfback Woodley Lewis, an eighth-round choice in 1950 from Oregon, who intercepted 12 passes as a rookie and three more in ’51. Tom Keane, who played at West Virginia and was a third-round selection in 1948, doubled as a sometime starter at defensive back and end.

Bucko Kilroy, NFL lineman from 1943-55 and then longtime NFL scout and executive (Christl interview, Jan. 11, 1979): “(The Rams) had more personnel in 1950-51 than the rest of the league put together. They had so many guys they let go who wound up on all-star teams. Everybody uses Robustelli as an example; you could use lots more than Robustelli.”

Bears coach George Halas (Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1951): “The Rams have the finest personnel of any football team in the country.”

Jack Butler, rookie defensive back for Pittsburgh in 1951 and future head of the BLESTO scouting combine (Christl interview, Jan. 10, 1979): “At Washington & Jefferson, which was only 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh, they got ‘Deacon Dan’ Towler. I don’t even know if Pittsburgh knew he existed. (Kotal) scouted Grambling College. Whoever heard of Grambling College in the ’50s? They came up with Tank Younger. They did this in the ’50s. Nobody else did it.”

Younger (Christl interview, Jan. 10, 1979): “I talked to Eddie (Kotal) at one of our games late in the fall of 1947, I guess it was. Then I talked to him again when we played in Birmingham, Ala., at a Black bowl game called the Vulcan Bowl on the first of January 1948.”

Eddie Robinson, winner of 408 games in 55 seasons as Grambling’s coach, on Kotal’s impact on the Historical Black College football programs (Christl interview, March 19, 1979): “He kind of bird-dogged us at the end of the season and the Vulcan Bowl. He signed Tank, and guys came back and started looking at other players. The problem in the early years was that the pros felt players from Black schools were not well versed in fundamentals.”

Rose (Christl interview, Jan. 18, 1979): “(The Rams) were so confident nobody knew about Tank Younger, they just signed him as a free agent.”