Mel Bashore

Bill:      [Whizzer White] . . . a great football player.  In fact, I played with a lot of good ones.  I thought he was the best one, all around.  At that time, he was a fullback for us in single wing in 1940, ’41, and ’42.  He did tailback, run real hard, and weighed about 190 pounds, about 6’2”.  When we played the Bears and the guys would tackle him.  He wouldn’t down until we knew he was down.  They said, “Boy. It’s like hitting a bunch of bones.”  He was a lean 6-2, 190 pounds.  They felt it when he hit ‘em.  He did the playing.  He’d do the passing and also play defense in those days.  You used to play 60 minutes here and there.

 

Mel:    Did you call him Whizzer on the team?

 

Bill:      Oh, yes.

 

Mel:    I don’t think he likes that name now.

 

Bill:      I don’t know.  If I saw him, I’d call him Whizzer.  That’s for sure.

 

Mel:    Didn’t he come in a year or two before you did?

 

Bill:      I couldn’t say.  He wasn’t with Detroit when I first went up there in ’40.  But he came to us, if I remember right, about ’42.  He played the ’42 and ’43 season there.  He was with, I think it was Pittsburgh before that, before he came to Detroit.  He was one great back, I’ll tell you.

 

Mel:    Of all the guys you played with on the Detroit team, is he the one who stands out?

 

Bill:      I’ve always said that.  I felt that, he was tough.  He ran hard and he tossed and kicked and did the punting and he played the defense.  Like I said, I remember that a lot of other guys that would tackle him would say it was like hitting a bunch of bones.  He was tough.

 

Mel:    When you broke in in the pros, that was ’40 and you had that good career at USC.

 

Bill:      We had a coach by the name of Potsy Clark.  I don’t know whether you remember anything or not.

 

Mel:    Yes.  Potsy’s last year was your first year.

 

Bill:      Boy, he was tough.  I’ll tell you.  He was an old Marine sergeant.  I played in the All-Star game in 1940.  There were four fellows from USC that went to the All-Star game.  Myself, and Harry Smith, Grenny Lansdell, and Amby Schindler.  Four of us.  Anyway, we got beat by the Green Bay Packers something like about 45 to 28.  It was a good game.  Amby Schindler looked good.  He really looked great.  He was a hard runner and he was making a lot of yards against the Packers.  Grenny Lansdell didn’t get to play.  Schindler played and Grenny Lansdell, Harry Smith, Bob Winslow, and myself.  There were five of us.  Lansdell didn’t even get in the game.  All through the remarks that was made, the tailback was from Iowa.  Niles Kinnick.  Lansdell afterwards was interviewed and he said, “You know, Kinnick couldn’t have made our fourth team.”

 

Mel:    He was a Heisman winner.

 

Bill:      Yes. He was a Heisman.  And he really wasn’t, I didn’t think, an outstanding player.  He was a good football player, but at that time, we had some good ones, like Schindler, and Grenny Lansdell, and [Artie Van Easter?].  What I was going to tell you, after the game, we went to Detroit the next day to report to the Detroit Lions camp.  That was Harry Smith and myself and Bob Winslow.  We got in there about one o’clock and practice started at one o’clock, you know, and I’d played a lot of ball that night.  Potsy Clark said, “Well, we’re going to have a scrimmage.  We have to try you guys out.”  After playing a game that night, we had to enter a scrimmage for about fifteen or twenty minutes.  That’s the way Potsy was.  He was tough.  We at that time carried thirty-three players was all the National League let you carry.  We ran [?] to win us some ball games.  Potsy said, “Well, by gosh,” he said, “I’m going to keep cutting some guys until we start winning.”  We went down to seventeen players.  That’s all we had.  Seventeen guys and some of ‘em were hurt.  When we played in the National League, there were seventeen players.

 

Mel:    What was the upper limit you could have?

 

Bill:      Thirty-three.

 

Mel:    So he carried the season with seventeen players?

 

Bill:      No.  That was probably the last two or three games that we played.  We started with thirty-three.  He said, “If you guys don’t put out, I’m cutting ‘em.”

 

Mel:    Did they tender you an offer before the All-Star game?  Did you get a letter of invitation?

 

Bill:      Yes.  They drafted me.  I guess at that time, the highest paid lineman they had on the team in 1940 was making $200 a game.  We had guys that were making $50 and $75 a game.

 

Mel:    Was your contract guaranteed with Detroit?

 

Bill:      No way.  It was game to game.  We got paid for the exhibition games.  It was a straight $50.  That’s all we got out of exhibition games.