Evening star., 1962-09-29
SEGH AT LARGE
Cardinals Still
Strangers
By MORRIS SIEGH


IN THEIR DETERMINATION to crash the social sports
set in St. Louis the football Cardinals making progress
Starting their third there they finally being
confused with the baseball Cardinals Not often but often
enough to be encouraging. This is quite compliment
in St. Louis.
The Cardnals-Stan Musial's Cardinals not Sam
Etcheverrys Cardnas-have been the big wheels in St.
Louis for years It's not that the fans the
baing Names it's Just that only recently they
getting to know them.
Mention Cardinals St. Louis and practically every
body automatically thinks you're talking about Musal
Red Schoendenst the Dean brothers. Terry Moore Coun
try Slaughter Pepper Martin frankie Frisch and other
diamond stars who did much to make the wonderful
baseball lore of the Missouri metropolis
The football Cardinals They were sold down
the Mississippi River from Chicago to their home
to establish hard section of dehards like the old
settlers the baseball Cardinals. In time maybe the
Etcheyerrys Bobby Conrads and Sonny Randles will
become household words in ST. Louis but they aren't at
the moment.
MISSOURIANS ARE BY nature stubborn. They've got
to be shown In the first two in ST. Looie the
Cardinals haven't shown their neighboTs too much-a
1312-1 record Here thered be dancing in the streets
and no room in D. C. Stadium, but not St. Louis.
They haven't reached a status yet where they
permitted to practice in the stadium in which they
play their games. Gussie Buschs baseball Cardinals from
whom the footbalng Cardinals rent, won't let 'em re-
heare there except Saturdays where the most they
do is run up and down the sidelnes They don't want
damaging the field for Stan Musal Cardinals except
on Sundays where they often also trod lightly.
The gridiron Cardinals feel this is the year they'll
gain sure-fire respectabity in ST. Louis. They've
Eages) and lost Packers far and have high
hopes of interruptng the Redskins giddy little life to-
at D. c. Stadium One of the chief reasons the
visitors optimistic about their here tomorrow
and in ST. Louis in the future is their new coach
Waly Lemm.
UNTIL THE CHAMPION Packers finally won, ITO,
1osf haod had lost
a game head coach during league season. He hasn't
been head coach long, but his record still rather awe
his biggest did come in that other
league" the NFL calls the upstart AFL.
Lemm over last years Houston team for the last
nine games of the year and the Oilers won em all They
also upended favorte San Diego for the league title
Way, who served his pro apprenticeship as Cardinal
assistant in Chicago didn't start out as coach OF the
Oilers that season.
He at home in a small Illinois town. running his
sports store when Lou Rhymkus, the one-me Redskn,
separated from the head coaching job Lemm had
been there year before assistant and in this
moment of emergency Owner Bud Adams recruited Lemm
the fill-in coach With unbeaten of 10 games
and league title to boot in his first try Lemm naturally
was cnch to be retained
BUT FUNNY THING HAPPENED to him several
months later. He did get back to Houston, but
became the St Louis head instead. For that he
thank the Post office Department He had signed his
Houston contract for 1852 but when his wife took it into
town to mail it back to Houston she found the Lake
Bluff IlD post office closed
Several days later with the unmaied contract still
in the Lemm household the Cardinals called and told
him there job vacant with his old team and it was
his if he free to accept Bud Adams still hasn't
received Lemm's contract. This presumably made Mr..
Adams unhappy but at the moment the Cardinals don't
share his grief They like Lemm and the job this quiet
42-year-old is doing.
Lemms association with the Cardinals has been
longtime thing 1t started 20 years ago. the Cardinals
didn't know it then They were training at Lemm's alma
mater Carroll College, and of the young Carroll
undergrads picking up extra money by waiting on tables
for the pro team Lemm.
That's going a long way, from waiter to head
coach His chance assocatonship with the Cardinals that
year also did another wonderful thing for him. 1t dis
suaded him from being sports writer, his first love
until he met the Cardinals