Dick Lane
| Dick Lane | |
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Position (s): Cornerback |
Jersey number (s): 81 |
| born April 16, 1928 in Austin , Texas | |
| died on 29. January 2002 ibid | |
| Career information | |
| Active : 1952 - 1965 | |
| Undrafted in 1952 | |
| College : Scottsbluff Junior College | |
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| Career statistics | |
| Interceptions | 68 |
| the resulting gain in space | 1,207 yards |
| Touchdowns | 5 |
| Stats at NFL.com | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
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| Pro Football Hall of Fame | |
Richard Dick Lane (born April 16, 1928 in Austin , Texas , † January 29, 2002 ibid) was an American American football player on the position of cornerback . He played for the Los Angeles Rams , Chicago Cardinals and the Detroit Lions in the National Football League (NFL).
origin
Dick Lane's birth mother was a prostitute and his father, nicknamed Texas Slim , was a pimp . At the age of three months he was wrapped in newspaper and put in a garbage can , where he was found by his future adoptive mother , Ella Lane, who initially mistook his screaming for the noises of a cat. His adoptive mother had two other children and was a widow . Lane grew up in poor conditions and received a strict upbringing. Also, corporal punishment was used as a means of education. He got his first nickname Cue Ball because he threw a ball at the back of the head of a boy who was running away from him and the boy went down.
He played American football when he was in Austin high school . Although he played basketball in addition to American football at Anderson High School , he remained connected to American football. After a year in college , he joined the US Army for four years in 1948 . He was stationed in Fort Ord . There he could also play American football for his unit. After leaving the military, he worked in an aircraft factory. Since he had married, he said he was in dire need of a job at the time. He found a job with the Republic Aviation Company , where he was involved in the assembly of the Republic F-84 , a job which, however, did not give him satisfaction.
career
In 1952 he went to the office of the reigning NFL champions , the Los Angeles Rams . He was noticed by a Rams scout at one of his army team games . He presented newspaper clippings with match reports from his previous amateur teams and asked to be allowed to participate in the Rams training camp. He was given the opportunity to do so. He was able to convince his trainer Joe Stydahar and received a contract. His first salary was $ 4,500 a year. Although he should and wanted to be used in the position of an end , it was decided in Los Angeles to use him as the left cornerback, especially since the Rams with Tom Fears and Elroy Hirsch already had two good regulars in this position. He kept his shirt number 81, which is usually worn on one end. It was Tom Fears who gave him his second nickname, Night Train . Fears was his mentor for the Rams and constantly played the record Night Train by Jimmy Forrest . A roommate of Fears then nicknamed Lane the Night Train because whenever Lane walked in, Fears played that record. After Lane had tackled an opponent with a tackle during a preparation game, the track quickly became Lane's nickname in public.
Lane developed into a respected defense player in his rookie year . His attacks on the head or the neck of an opponent were particularly feared. The so-called Night Train Necktie is now a prohibited defense technique. Lane made 14 interceptions in the first year . This is still a record for rookie players today, which is particularly astonishing, since the regular season, in contrast to today's game rounds, was played in 12 instead of 16 games. With his team he was able to move into the play-offs , where they failed, however, at the Detroit Lions with 31:21.
After two years with the Rams, he was handed over to the Chicago Cardinals along with his teammates Don Paul and Volney Peters in exchange for Len Teeuws and Robert Morgan . With ten intercepted passports, he held the season best for the team from Chicago in 1954 . In 1960 Lane joined the Detroit Lions . After two weaker seasons in 1964 and 1965, Lane was disabled by a knee injury, he retired in 1965 in Detroit .
During his career he got in addition to his five touchdowns , which he scored through interceptions, two more touchdowns. Lane could never win a championship with his teams.
After the career
Lane briefly worked as a road manager for the comedian Redd Foxx after his playing career . He then became a coach at Central State University in Ohio and coach at Southern University in Baton Rouge , Louisiana . He also oversaw a Detroit Police Department sports program .
Honors
Lane has been elected to the Pro Bowl seven times and is a member of the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team , the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, and the NFL 1950s All-Decade Team . In 1974 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame . In 1969 he was voted the best cornerback in the first 50 years of the NFL by the American press. In 1999 the journalists from The Sporting News voted for one of the 100 best football players of all time.
In 2009, Dick Lane was also voted the NFL Network 's second most feared tackler of all time and only had to admit defeat to linebacker Dick Butkus of the Chicago Bears .
Off the field
The jazz fan Lane was married three times, including the singer Dinah Washington , whose seventh and last husband he was before her death. Her best man was basketball star Wilt Chamberlain . The musician was addicted to alcohol and drugs even before her marriage to Lane. Lane found his wife passed out in 1963. Next to her was a bottle of diet pills. She had obviously taken this with alcohol. Dinah Washington died at the age of 39.
In the film Paper Lion , he played himself, alongside numerous other NFL stars and the two main actors Alan Alda and Lauren Hutton , in 1968.
Lane recently suffered from numerous illnesses and the signs of wear and tear that professional sport had caused him. He had diabetes and was severely handicapped. For the last few years he has lived impoverished in a nursing home. The NFL paid him a monthly pension of $ 200. The night he died he heard jazz. He died of a heart attack and left two sons. Lane was buried in St. Austin National Cemetery in Austin.
Web links
- Homepage of Dick Lane
- Notice of death and obituary on the New York Times website
- Night Train Lane with the Detroit Lions ( February 18, 2006 memento on the Internet Archive )
- Dick Lane at the St. Louis Rams ( February 26, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive )
- Dick Lane with the Cardinals
- Dick Lane in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame
- Dick Lane in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Short biography
source
- Jens Plassmann: NFL - American Football. The game, the stars, the stories (= Rororo 9445 rororo Sport ). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-19445-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Background of the nickname
- ↑ Annual statistics of the Rams 1952
- ↑ 1952 NFL final - statistics
- ↑ Dick Lane at number 18 on the list of the 100 best football players of all time ( Memento from September 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Dick Lane video on the NFL website
- ↑ Death of Dinah Washington ( Memento of February 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Dick Lane's Tomb in the Find a Grave database
| personal data | |
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| SURNAME | Lane, Dick |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lane, Richard (maiden name); Night Train Lane (nickname) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American football player and coach |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 16, 1928 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Austin , Texas , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 29, 2002 |
| Place of death | Austin , Texas , United States |