Charley Trippi

Coaching

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Transcript from "Coaching"

When I finished negotiating those contracts, of course, the first year I go up with the Cardinals we win the world’s championship, the National Football League, we win the championship, and you know, of course, then people start realizing that I was worth what I was getting. So I managed to put all that together….. and as life went on, I played nine years with the Cardinals, and ended up coaching five years with them. So I spent fourteen years with the Chicago Cardinals. After I finished coaching with the Cardinals, I coached with Coach Butts five years here at the University of Georgia. But when I started coaching with Coach Butts, it was a different sort of atmosphere because for the longest time I never could confront Coach Butts and be comfortable talking with him until I started coaching with him … but when you coach with a guy and you spend fifteen hours a day on both football field and then meetings and everything, then you got to know him real good. The funny thing about Coach Butts is … we were playing Florida one year and we got down near the goal line. We had fourth and about 10-12 yards to go to score on the fourth down. I says, “Coach, don’t you think we ought to kick a field goal?” And his answer was no … he says … “You don’t ever win football games with field goals.” I just got back from professional football and I knew what field goals did to a football team, so I didn’t answer him, because I never talked back to Coach Butts. Whatever he said was the scheme of the day. We had a good place-kicker back in 1942, Leo Costa. He was a good extra point kicker. Would you believe he played three years in Georgia and never kicked a field goal?? That is almost impossible to believe, and in the era you see today, the field goals. I watched a football game the other day and the score ended up 9 to 6 and they kicked five field goals in that game, so if Coach Butts was alive today, he wouldn’t believe what was actually occurring on the football fields.