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The first time Frank Leahy, the great football coach, saw Alan Amici, he made a solemn vow to get him for Notre Dame.
But as everyone knows, Amici turned up at Wisconsin.
The first time Coach Ivy Williamson of the University of Wisconsin watched him in action, Amici was moved up from the junior squad to the regular varsity.
In his first year with the Badgers, Amici set a school-rushing record as a freshman, 824 yards.
The first time Red Sanders, the UCLA coach, saw him after Alan personally racked up 139 yards in the 1953 Rose Bowl game against the Bruins,
Sanders called him the strongest runner in football history, not accepting Bronco Nagurski.
The first time he ever got his hands on the ball in a professional football game, Amici raked 79 yards for a touchdown.
And, the first season Alan Amici completed in the National Football League, he not only was voted the Rookie of the Year,
but also captured ball-carrying honors by rushing for 961 yards.
In 1948, at the age of 16, Amici walked resolutely into the City Hall of Kenosha, Wisconsin,
and legally changed his first name from Lino to Alan. Lino, to his way of thinking, was not rugged or mature enough.
Seven years later, Alan Amici had proved many times over that ruggedness and maturity are not a matter of names alone.
During that time he was an all-state choice on the high school football team, a track star who could cross the shot over 50 feet and run the 100 yards in 10-2,
a light heavyweight Golden Gloves champion, an All-American in college football, a Heisman trophy winner,
an all-pro fullback in the toughest competitive sport of all, the National Football League.
Off the football field, Alan Amici is a quiet, modest, and earnest young man who is married to his high school sweetheart and the father of two husky sons.
He is addicted to classical music and while in college maintained a B average.
Alan Amici was the Baltimore Colts' first selection in the National League player draft of January 1955,
after Amici had written football history at Wisconsin and in the Big Ten Conference.
The horse to which Wisconsin's football wagon was hit for four years lugged the leather for a total of 3,345 yards for the Badgers.
Amici served only on defense in his first two seasons, but with the end of the two platoon era,
he promptly took over full-time duty and put in 502 out of a possible 540 minutes as a junior and close to 500 in his senior year.
The same muscular shoulders that clear the way for him as a ball carrier serve him in good stead as a linebacker.
Alan tackles his defensive assignment with the enthusiasm of a freshman out to make the varsity
and has never required a personal timeout in his college and pro career.
Alan Amici is burdened with an apparently incurable modesty that causes him to regard his gridiron feats
not in the light of the excitement and publicity they attract, but with a cool eye on the assets it offers for the future.
He speaks rarely, if at all, about himself or his accomplishments.
It is characteristic that Amici's parents who were born and raised in Italy have to hear from others what Alan has been doing.
As an all-Wisconsin State fullback and the most valuable player on the Kenosha High School Championship team,
Alan Amici was one of the most coveted prep players in the land.
He could have gone anywhere, but the choice settled down between Notre Dame and Wisconsin.
He finally decided on Wisconsin.
Even with such fanfare, Badger coach Avi Williamson didn't indicate in the late summer and early fall of 1951
that he thought Alan Amici would develop fast enough to take advantage of the relaxation of the band of freshmen in varsity competition.
Williamson just didn't expect much from his big freshman. The Big Ten is no place for children.
Amici started on the junior varsity, but his first showing against the Iowa JVs was so impressive that he was boosted to second-string fullback.
Captain Jim Hammond was the number one fullback, but not for long.
Alan Amici's debut was hardly a spectacular one. He gained one yard and one try against Marquette.
Then on a gray, threatening October afternoon in Champaign, Illinois, with the two leading contenders for the Big Ten title fighting it out,
Amici suddenly burst into prominence by gaining 40 yards against Illinois in 10 tries.
After the game, Ray Elliott, whose Illinois team was happy to escape with a 14-10 triumph,
labeled Alan Amici the best freshman fullback that he had seen.
After that game, Williamson installed Amici as his regular fullback, switched Hammond to defensive halfback, and the horse was off and running.
He wrapped up his first season with one of the year's top performances.
Minnesota was the victim, and he ran all over the Gophers for 203 yards and scored two touchdowns.
When Alan Amici was graduated from Wisconsin in 1954, he had churned his way for more than two miles on gridiron turf and had scored 25 touchdowns.
It was about that time that Weeview Bank, ex-aid to Paul Brown in Cleveland, was brought to Baltimore to rebuild the Colts.
A grim-faced perfectionist with a monk-like dedication to football, he took over the reins of the cellar dwelling Colts
and announced he was embarking on a four-year rebuilding program, and that only time and patience,
plus some good football players, of course, could solve the problem of Baltimore's entry in the National Football League.
In his first year as boss of the Colts, Weeview Bank had more than his share of disappointments as the club again finished in last place.
At the end of that season, Weeview Bank and Don Kellett, the president and general manager of the Baltimore franchise,
set up the most extensive talent search in the history of the league.
Placed in charge of the project was Keith Molesworth, an executive vice president and former coach of the club.
He was instructed to spare no expense in turning up the best talent available.
Came the National Football League draft, and on the first round,
Baltimore selected Alan the horse Amici, a head of more than 300 top college seniors.
It was the wisest and most fortunate move the Colts ever made.
At the end of the 1955 football season,
Baltimore's Alan Amici found himself the league's number one ground gainer,
with 961 yards and 213 attempts, for an average gain of 4.5 yards per try.
He also scored nine touchdowns, the most in the circuit.
His little under 1,000 yards made Amici the first freshman ground gaining champion
since Bill Pascal of the New York Giants copped the title in his first year.
Only five other freshmen had won the title since 1934.
In 1955, Alan Amici was honored as no other rookie had ever been honored before.
The experts voted him.
Number one, the rookie of the year.
Number two, the offensive fullback on the all-pro team.
Number three, the outstanding back in the National Football League.
That, in a nutshell, is Alan Amici, an All-American in every respect.
Now, before you meet our special guest, Alan Amici in person,
in an interview from Municipal Stadium in Baltimore,
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Now back to Harry Wismer.
Alan Namichi, what was your greatest sports thrill?
Well, it was a very unusual one, Harry.
I opened my rookie season against the Chicago Bears,
and on the very first carry I was lucky enough behind very excellent blocking
by the offensive line to get through on a 79-yard run,
and that just happened to be a coincidence the first time I had my hands on the ball.
And Harry, that was my greatest sports thrill.
Alan, what was the big difference in making the jump from college
to the professional football ranks?
Well, the players are quite a bit bigger,
and in college ball I was considered a pretty good-sized fullback at around 215 pounds,
but you find that in professional football you're running against men
that go anywhere from 240 up to 270 or 80,
and I just can't bully my way around like I did in college ball.
Also, they have quite a bit more experience in professional ball,
which certainly stands to reason.
There are fellows with four years of college behind them
and many of them with professional experience.
Therefore, it's just a tougher game all the way around, quite a bit rougher.
There isn't any dirty ball that I've seen, but it's just a very rough game,
and I'm sure people realize that.
Alan, does weather make any difference in the progress of the game as far as you are concerned?
Well, I'm sort of a mutter anyway, Harry.
I don't mind playing in rainy weather or muddy fields.
I think it kind of helps the bigger, slower fellows like fullbacks and guards and tackles and so forth.
What is the most unusual play in which you participated, either in college or the professionals?
It certainly is an unusual play. It's one I'll never forget,
and it happened during an exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
We had a jumble up in the count that the play was to begin on,
and our quarterback backed away and our center became a little confused
and didn't know what to do with the ball, so he spun around and lateraled the ball to me.
I was the only back standing in the backfield at the time.
Everybody else had kind of wandered away, and so the ball landed in my arms,
and I didn't know exactly what to do with it,
and I remembered in the split seconds time that I had there that it was a pass play.
So I threw the ball, and it just happened to go into the wrong arms,
and it went down as an interception, but I still am credited with having a 1,000 pitching mark.
I threw one and completed one, but it happened to be to the wrong team.
Alan, do you feel that the present-day football players could go both ways if they had to by the rules?
By that I mean play both offense and defense in the pros.
Well, I feel that the players that I've seen on the Baltimore coast could go both ways,
but it's an awful lot nicer to just be able to go one way,
and I think it makes for better football.
You have a more specialized game, and the individuals just have a less amount of things
that they have to learn and that they can perfect,
therefore making it a better game as far as the spectators are concerned
and also better as far as the players are concerned.
I feel that professional football could be played in a one-platoon type game,
but I also believe that it's a better game the way it's played now with two platoons.
Alan, who gave you the nickname of the horse?
Well, oddly enough, that happened way back in my freshman year in college.
It was given to me by my freshman coach who, after watching a practice,
claimed that he thought I was hustling quite a bit and thought I worked like a horse.
Contrary to the opinion that I either look like a horse or eat like a horse or something like that.
Thank you very much, Alan Amici of the Baltimore Colts.