The Baltimore Colts: The Team that Helped Shape the NFL and Broke a City's Heart

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show.

From the arts to sports, then business to history, and everything in between, including your stories, send them to OurAmericanStories.com for some of our favorites. Mike Levin was president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, one of the great hoteliers of all time, a legend in his business. He also happens to be a friend, who almost every time I talk to him, I learn something about him, myself, and life.

He's what you would call a wise man, and we need more wisdom in this country, and we love bringing wisdom to this show. Up next is a story Mike tells about his time in law school. Mike had graduated from Tufts. He's a Boston guy, a die-hard Patriots fan. We'll forgive him for that. And in the end, this is a story about empathy and about life, and he's a businessman talking about empathy, and ordinarily you wouldn't think that would happen.

Let's hear Mike and his story. Tufts was a really great experience and prepared me to go to law school. So I applied to law school, and I took the LSATs, and I'm never a great test taker, but I scored in those years 75 or 78th percentile, something like that. So I decided I'd apply to all the best law schools except Harvard and Yale. So I applied to Columbia, I applied to Stanford, I applied to Michigan, I applied to NYU, and University of Chicago, which at that time, those were all the highest rated schools. I got into all of those schools in law school, and even with my LSAT test, it was a little easier then. And I got a scholarship to University of Chicago because they were trying to recruit from the East Coast, and Tufts had the right to pick a student who was getting in to take the scholarship, so I got a scholarship. I did get into Columbia, but how fate works, I was supposed to go to Columbia with a good friend of mine from Tufts, a guy named Robert Field. And his father had a law firm, was partners with a law firm in New York City, and he said, go to law school with me, and then we can work in the firm together. I said, oh, gee, that's a ready-made job. I said, great, we'll go to school together.

Well, he didn't get into Columbia, and I did, so I decided not to go to Columbia and take the scholarship and go to Chicago. So that changed my life, too. And I worked my butt off in Chicago. I was lonely.

It was the first time, other than summer camp, that I was away from home that far. But I really put my nose to the grindstone. I took my Latin school study habits into law school. We had five courses in the first, it was a trimester. We took the exams. I went home for Christmas, and when I got back, I got my marks, and I did very well on four of the courses, and on one course, I got a 41. It was a contracts course, and of all the courses to get a 41 on, you would think that no one in the world in contracts could possibly get a lousy mark in contracts.

I mean, it's really a relatively simplistic course compared to criminal law and real estate and a few of the other things I was taking. Anyway, the professor of the course was a guy named Malcolm Sharp. All I knew about Malcolm Sharp was his book that we were using, and that he had been one of the criminal lawyers defending the Rosenberg trial with the two spies that were eventually executed for treason in the United States. So he was a pretty famous guy, and he started the class, and he said, if anybody had any questions about their exam, please come and see me. Well, I'm now, this had been, this was 1959, 1960, I'm now 21 or 22, and I'd never talked to a teacher, ever.

I never went about a mark. You know, teachers were authority figures. I mean, I grew up with teachers and policemen and firemen, and like a rabbi or a priest or anybody else, I mean, authority figures, you know, yes sir, yes sir. I mean, that's the way I was taught, and so I said, well, I guess I better go see this guy because I think I'm going to flunk. So I went to see Malcolm Sharp, and I'm terrified. I go in, and he said, well, why are you here, Levin? And I said, I'm here because I don't understand why I got a 41, and he said to me, I'll never forget it.

He said to me, you don't understand contracts, and I don't think he ever will. And I left, and I went back to my room, I got my books, I went to the bookstore, I sold my books back to the bookstore. My roommate was a guy named Richard Boghossian who went to Tufts with me, a terrific guy for me, became an ambassador to Nigeria.

He was in foreign service, a wonderful guy. I said, I'm leaving. I'm getting in my car, I had a 59 Volkswagen that I got for graduation. It was $1,565, and I was going to get in my car, pack up, and go home. And so he said, don't go, don't go. I said, no, I'm going.

I sold my books. Next thing I know, I got a call from the dean, Edmund Levy, who became eventually the attorney general of the United States. He said, I'd like to see you. I went to see him, I told him the story. He said, please don't go. He said, you finish the year, you're going to be fine. Don't worry about it. I mean, he knew a contract, of all the courses, a contract was probably not that, you know, I mean, you don't have to be a genius to pass a contracts course.

I mean, the way they did it in those days. So I said, no, I'm going. I wrote a letter to my parents so the letter would arrive before I got there.

But this is an interesting story because if I could redo it, I would have finished the first year. I think it was a bad decision on my part. It was emotional.

It was just so difficult to think that I could get such a lousy mark. So I drove home. It was about a 19 hour drive at the time. I had a sing on the way home in the car to keep myself from falling asleep.

I got home. I had no idea what my parents were going to say. I was the first graduate student person to get a professional degree. You can imagine what that means to first generation Americans and what have you. And when we come back, more of what happens next is Mike returns to his family.

No diploma in hand. Mike Levin story continues here on our American story. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation.

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And we continue with our American stories and Mike Levin story. He had just quit the University of Chicago because he got a wickedly bad grade from a very tough and in the end, mean contracts professor saying and speaking over somebody that they'll never do better. It's just ugly.

It's just mean. Mike's returning home. Let's listen to what happens next. So I walked up the door and the door was open. My father was standing at the door and he said, welcome home.

And after a tearful greeting when we had dinner that night, they said to me, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I said, Boston University is down the street. Let me take a look at some graduate programs and maybe I'll get a degree in something.

And that's how everything else started. I went to Boston University, got into a master's in public relations and communications and was a year long program with a thesis. And I had a lot of time on my hands. I had been a camp counselor over the summers and a director of athletics and assistant head counselor. I've had some administrative jobs and whatever.

And there was a part time job posted and I thought I could make some money and pay as I was going. And it was at the Morgan Memorial Home for Boys. And it was sort of like an assistant social worker. So, well, I had to be close to being a counselor at camp, you know, the same kind of thing. And I went down there and I get greeted by a guy whose name was John Morland.

He was about six, five, must have gone 250, found out he was a former football player for Grambling, an all black college. And he was a Ph.D. in social work, took my resume, you know, he talked to me, said, OK, I'm going to give you the job. And he said to me, you never worked for a black guy, have you? I said, no, I didn't make any difference to me. I didn't care.

Anyway, I had a nice experience there for the year. And at the end of the year, Dr. Morland calls me in the office and I said, look, I'm going to be looking for a job. He said, I'll tell you what. He said, I'll hire you here.

Why don't you become permanent? And he said, I'll pay for you to get a master's degree in social work. I said, I need to make more money.

I'm getting married in May and I don't know if I could afford to be married in this situation. So I said, will you write me a letter of recommendation? And he said, sure. And I saved the letter. I could read it to you.

Yeah. And it says to whom it may concern. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to recommend to you Michael A. Levin. The young man came to work with us about a year ago and during this period has contributed a great deal to the efficiency of our unit. However, there are several intangibles beyond efficiency, which have accrued to us in consequence of his presidency. He is jovial, personable and intelligent fellow.

He has been found to be circumspect and is dealing with all members of the organization. He has made up for lack of experience by initiative, desire and in short, hard and thoughtful work. He put his heart into his job at all times. Mr. Levin will be an asset to anyone, whether in an employment or a social situation. Lastly, I can only say Mr. Levin's present will be very much missed. This young man has an excellent future in store for him.

His executive potential is paramount. Thank you. Sincerely yours, J.B. Moreland. To this day, every time I look at that letter, I don't understand how he possibly could have known in one year with the exposure I had working 30 hours a week that that description of me could be written. I don't I don't ever remember being jovial. I don't remember. I know I worked hard.

I know I read all the files. I know about I I wanted to learn about the kids that were in the home. So I kept pulling the files out and understand there are 15 or so resident kids. And I remember that one was a descendant of Ulysses S. Grant, the president United States family. And and they were troubled kids and that his his parents were all military and they made him sit at attention at the table when he was one or two years old. It was in the in the stuck in my head. And and there was it was a very racially mixed group.

No one cared. I mean, it was very integrated and and the ability to be able to project yourself into the into the into someone else's position and emphasize with them. Like I talk a lot about when you have to terminate somebody. And I talk about terminations and firing.

It's the most hideous thing you have to do unless the person is a thief or a rapist or something like that. But for the lack of being able to perform the job, I mean, I would put myself in a situation of thinking about what you think it feels like when somebody tells you you can't perform anything. And I think that the experience with Malcolm Sharp was really one that that always stayed with me. How could the guy do that to me when all he had to do was to say, Mr. Levin, let me let me explain to you how you could have done from a 41 to a 61. I want to help you. My whole life would have changed on that.

Now, I don't know what to change favorably or not, but it would have changed. So when you have when you're in a position, an authoritative position, your responsibility with people and customers has to be how do you help them? Not how do you hurt them?

And I and I and I, you know, you know something? I don't think it's any different with your children when you bring up your children. I mean, nobody has experience being a parent unless they're a parent. You get your learning from day one. What's the difference between a child and your employee? What's the difference between a child and your customer?

It's the same thing. It's being able to say, can you project yourself into what it feels like? So when I began to develop a termination technique to say, look, I made a mistake. And the person looks at me and say, yeah, I said, I don't think the job fits.

I should have thought better. I want to take some responsibility. But you have to go. And how is that different than saying you failed? You're out. I'm disappointed in your performance.

And, you know, when I was a high school basketball player, I was a pretty good player in the state tournament. I played 30 seconds the last 30 seconds. I wasn't on the floor.

The last minute or so. He just put me in. My parents at the game. Because I was I was a sixth man, basically. So the next season, we had an alumni game. And I came back from Tufts where I was playing some freshman basketball. And I had improved a lot. I scored 22 points in the alumni game. And the coach came over to me afterwards. He said, Mike, said, where were you last year? I took my finger and I pointed to the corner of the bench. I was there. You know, I said, oh.

So I think after all is said and done with all this, we could walk through job after job after job. But, you know, and I know people don't change. They are who they are. And many years later, you know, I ran into a guy, a professor at the law school at Duke, was on a board with me. And he happened to know who Malcolm Sharp was. And he said, oh, I can understand that he behaved that way with everybody. And you've been listening to Mike Levin. And now you know why we tell you he's one of the wise men.

And we like bringing voices from every walk of life here on this show. Mike, obviously running the Las Vegas Sands. No small feat. Helping move and create Holiday Inn worldwide. One of the great hoteliers.

But in the end, it's his human nature and his humanity that always comes to the fore. Talk to anybody about Mike. They'll tell you. And by the way, if you have a leader in your community, somebody in the business world, a church leader, wherever, an education person. My dad was a great leader at a school system where he was a superintendent for 20 years. We'd love to hear their voice.

Bring wisdom across the airwaves and love. And Mike epitomizes both words. Mike Levin's storytelling is wisdom here on Our American Stories. This is our American stories, and we love bringing you stories about history and about sports.

And today we bring you a combination of the two. Here's Mike Gibbons, director emeritus and historian at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, also located in Baltimore, to tell us more about the legendary Baltimore football team that helped the NFL become what it is today. Today, we're going to be talking about the Baltimore Colts, one of the NFL's storied franchises, a team that helped put the NFL on the map for a variety of reasons, but also helped to give Baltimore a new identity. During World War Two, Baltimore was one of the industrial centers of the United States, producing ships and aircraft for the war effort. But at the conclusion of World War Two in 1945, the industries really lost their market.

They didn't have to produce ships and aircraft in the numbers that they did during World War Two. And so many of the plants in and around this area closed down and Baltimore lost its manufacturing capability. The town gradually slipped and declined and became known really as nothing more than a pit stop between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The Baltimore Colts arrived on the scene in 1953, and though in the beginning they were not very good at all, it gave Baltimoreans and Marylanders something to look forward to on Sunday afternoons in the fall. The team in 1956 had started to get a little bit better under head coach Weeb Eubank, and he started a quarterback by the name of George Shaw.

In the fourth game of 1956, Shaw was injured. And to replace him came a rookie quarterback by the name of Johnny Unitas. Johnny went to the University of Louisville, where he was a star quarterback, and he was drafted in 1955 by the Pittsburgh Steelers. But he lost out in the competition for quarterback to a fellow who would later show up on the Baltimore landscape, a guy by the name of Ted Marchobroda. So Unitas played semi-pro ball in his hometown of Pittsburgh and waited for a phone call that ultimately came before the start of training camp in 1956. And that call came from Colts general manager Don Kellett. For the price of a 90 cent long distance phone call, Kellett was able to secure Unitas and bring him to Baltimore. He played well enough in training camp and in exhibition games to make the roster and was George Shaw's backup.

So now we go forward to game four. The Colts did not play well under their rookie quarterback, who threw an interception for a touchdown return. And the Colts fumbled four times, losing badly to the Chicago Bears that day. But over the last eight games in 1956 with Unitas at the helm, the team went four and four and there was hope for a brighter future. I went to my first game in 1957, the home opener against the Detroit Lions.

I was, let's see, 11, 10 years old at the time. And what a spectacle it was to go out there on a Sunday afternoon, beautiful day. And I remember squinting my eyes because the Colts wore white helmets and you could see the sun glitter off of those helmets. The team the Colts faced in that home opener, Unitas' first home opener, by the way, as a starter, were the world champion Detroit Lions. Well, the Colts, under Unitas' leadership and strong arm, put a lick on them in Detroit that day, winning the game and propelling to a pretty good season for the Colts. They finished with a record of seven and five with a lot of burgeoning stars, guys like Gino Marchetti, Lenny Moore, Raymond Berry, Unitas, Artie Donovan, all future Hall of Famers. There they were in Baltimore and we knew that we had something special. In 1958, the Colts went nine and three and captured the Western Conference crown that took them to the championship game at Yankee Stadium in New York where the Colts would face the Giants. Weeb Eubank, in the visitors locker room at Yankee Stadium that day, gave a pregame speech to his team referencing every one of them, walking around to all 33 players, addressing them and saying, you wouldn't be in the NFL if it wasn't for your Baltimore Colts.

You really never had it together until you got here, so go out there, play your best, and give it all you've got. The 1958 game is often referred to as the greatest game ever played, and the reason is Johnny Unitas and what he was able to do to pull out the game in what turned out to be the NFL's first sudden death over time. Late in the fourth quarter, with the Colts trailing by three points, Unitas gets the ball back on his own 14-yard line, 86 yards from the Giants goal line, and Johnny, at that moment, invented the two-minute drill. He took his team down to the 13-yard line with about 10 seconds left on the clock. Steve Meyer, the place kicker, came in, kicked a 19-yard field goal to tie the game and send the game into overtime. In overtime, the Colts stopped the Giants on a contested, controversial placement of the ball. The Giants swear that they got a first down on Frank Gifford's third down run, but the referees said, nope, you didn't make it, and they punted to the Colts, and the Colts, under Johnny Unitas, took the team down the field and into the end zone, Allen Ameche scoring the game-winning TD for a 23-17 victory. So that game was witnessed by the largest audience ever to see an NFL game on television.

TV was still pretty new at that time, and the high drama that played out that afternoon was never forgotten by the fans who watched it. The game is often said to be responsible for putting the NFL on the map. It certainly put Johnny Unitas and his Baltimore Colts on the map. They went on to become one of the premier franchises in the history of the league. In Unitas' 16 seasons as a starting quarterback from 1957 through 1972, they suffered only one losing season, and that was their last season, 1972, John's last season in Baltimore.

But up to them, they had the best record in the NFL for 15 years under Unitas, and they were tied with the Cleveland Browns for most wins over that period in the NFL, so a pretty successful team. Now, other things to think about when we're talking Baltimore Colts football is a series of firsts that took place at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, better known as the largest outdoor insane asylum. I remember going to my third game in 1960. My father and I got season tickets, and we sat in the end zone where the Colts came out for pregame introductions. And I'll tell you, when Unitas took the field and was introduced to the crowd in the closed end of this horseshoe-shaped stadium, it was the loudest sound I've ever heard to this day, the biggest noise I've ever heard.

That stadium, just by its architecture and by the enthusiasm of the fans, 60,238 every weekend that they played, just was almost unimaginable to comprehend. And we've been listening to Mike Gibbons tell the story, not just of the Baltimore Colts, but in the end, a story of Baltimore itself, especially post World War II. And by the way, Mike Gibbons is the director emeritus and historian at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, which is in Baltimore.

By the way, if you're ever there, go. When we come back, more of the story of the Baltimore Colts, of Johnny Unitas, and more with the sports historian of the city of Baltimore here on Our American Story. And we're back with Our American Stories and the story of the Baltimore Colts, the football team that helped put Baltimore and the NFL in the spotlight. Here's Mike Gibbons again to tell us about this historic team and the presence that they had in the world of professional football.

Vince Lombardi from the Green Bay Packers, the legendary Hall of Fame coach, said that he hated coming to Memorial Stadium, the worst place on the road for his team to visit. And it wasn't just the sound. The Colts had cheerleaders. They were the first team in the NFL to have cheerleaders.

They were the second to have a marching band, and they had a great fight song, which the town just loved, and every time the band played it, we all stood as though it was our national anthem. The Colts had a mascot, a live horse, Dixie, who with Dixie's rider would go around the outside of the playing field every time the team scored. And this really pretty much unnerved the opposing teams as they came to Baltimore and contested the Colts. And that's one of the reasons we think that the Colts had such a great record over all the years. Another profound memory for me was 1959, so the year after the Colts had beaten the Giants in the greatest game ever played in New York, the Colts and the Giants repeated the exercise by playing the NFL championship game in Baltimore, and I was there with my dad. The Colts win the game, and fans ran onto the field. Everybody was so excited they didn't know what to do, and I kept saying to my dad, let me go down there. And he was like, no, you're not going down there.

You might get hurt. What they were trying to do was to dissemble the goal post down in the closed end of the playing field, not really understanding that the NFL had changed from a wooden goal post the year before to an all-metal goal post in 1959. So they were able to knock the goal post down, but not much more than that. Let me take you up to 1965. The Colts and the Packers were vying for the league championship. The Colts had won it the year before, 1964, and now they're vying with Green Bay for the conference title in 1965. The teams finished the regular season with identical 10, 3, and 1 marks, and that forced a playoff game in Green Bay, and the Colts headed out there at a severe disadvantage. The Colts' number one quarterback, Johnny Unitas, had been injured earlier in the year. His replacement, Gary Quaso, was injured in the second to last game of the year, and that forced running back Tom Matty to come in and play quarterback. Tom had played quarterback at Ohio State, but it was a running offense, and so they didn't throw the ball a lot, and Tom was not an elite passer by any means. But Tommy came in, and the Colts took a lead of 7-0 early on in the game.

And as the game came to a conclusion, the fourth quarter winding down, the Colts were clinging to a 10-7 lead over the Green Bay Packers. And at that point, Packer kicker Don Chandler came in. He booted a field goal that was ruled good by the referees, even though it appeared to sail wide. It was a high kick.

It went way up over the goal post and seemed to veer to the left. But the referees allowed the points, thereby tying the game, and the Packers went on to win in the second overtime game ever played. The first, of course, the Colts participated in as well in 1958 in New York. Now we move up to 1971. The Colts, under Unitas, make another postseason appearance, losing to the Miami Dolphins. But nevertheless, they made it as they headed into the 1972 season. Problem with this team at that point was that they were getting old. A lot of the veteran players were just kind of running out of gas, so it was up to Unitas to try and carry them forward one more time.

But he couldn't do it. He was replaced about midway through the season by Marty Domres. Domres guided the Colts to a 5-9 record that year. In the last home game, something profound happened, and Baltimoreans will never forget it.

The last home game, the Colts were hosting the Buffalo Bills, not a very good team either. Midway through the fourth quarter, Domres had taken his squad to a 28-7 lead over the Bills. At that point, he was on the field, and he feigned an injury and hopped off the field. And the head coach said to Unitas, get in there.

So Johnny went in, and as that was happening, a small biplane flew over Memorial Stadium. Carrying a banner that said, Unitas, we stand. And the sellout crowd stood as one and started cheering as the fabled legendary Unitas made what many knew would be his last appearance on Memorial Stadium turf.

Unitas went out, took a snap from center, dropped back, and threw a 67-yard touchdown pass to Eddie Hinton. And then he ran off the field for the last time, the crowd sobbing, cheering, just going out of their minds, having witnessed one of the great moments in Colts and maybe in NFL history, storybook stuff you just can't make up. Unitas and many of the veterans were let go or traded after the 72 season, and something had happened after 71 that was not a good thing for our Colts. Colts owner, Carol Rosenblum, one of the greatest in NFL history, sold his team to Bob Irsay.

And Irsay was not a good owner. And he brought in a general manager by the name of Joe Thomas, who wanted to run things his way, and Joe was responsible after 72 for cleaning house, getting rid of the players. So the next couple of years, 73 and 74, under Joe Thomas and a variety of head coaches, the Colts were terrible. But in 75, they brought in a guy who Unitas had dealt with before back in Pittsburgh when he lost the quarterback job to who would become the Colts' new head coach, Ted Marchibroda.

So Marchibroda comes to town. He takes second-year quarterback Bert Jones and says, Bert, let's make this thing go. Jones had a lot of great players with him, and they returned the Colts to the path of glory as the team captured Eastern Conference championships in 75, 76, and 77. Unfortunately, they had three postseason births and lost them all, the first two to Pittsburgh and the final one, an historic game at Memorial Stadium to the Oakland Raiders, which the Colts lost to in double overtime, 37 to 31, I believe. That game, played on Christmas Eve that year, turned out to be the last playoff game that Baltimore fans would ever see their Colts participate in. In the summer of 1978, Bert Jones was hurt in an exhibition game, hurt his shoulder, and was out for a while, tried to make a comeback, and it just wasn't the same, and the team floundered without Bert's generalship out there and had a losing season.

The Colts would never have a winning season again as they lost six years in a row. The final six years in Baltimore, they were losers. And that, coupled with Irsay's unpredictable behavior as an owner and Joe Thomas as the GM just tearing that squad apart, led to a real drop in attendance. I think the last game they played in 1983, they drew 32,000 people.

Remember that they had been drawing 60,000 sellouts every game for years, and now they were doing barely half of that. That led to Irsay shopping around the team and ultimately moving them out of town to Indianapolis on a dark night in late March 1984. Word got out, people saw that the Colts had moving vans backed up to their training facility, and Bobby Irsay, under the cover of darkness, snuck them out of town as they headed to Indy. Now, something profound and good happened to the city regarding its Baltimore Colts.

Shortly after that, Baltimore Mayor William Donald Shaffer instructed Tom Matty to go to Indianapolis and negotiate with Irsay to try and get the Baltimore Colts Archives to come back to Baltimore. He was successful, so Shaffer got a moving van of the Baltimore Colts Archives delivered, and that day we became the Baltimore Colts official archives and museum. In 2005, our museum opened another museum called Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards, and it featured, among other things, a major display on the history of the Baltimore Colts.

It turned out to be one of the most popular exhibits in that museum. People would go in there and get tears in their eyes just thinking about their great Baltimore Colts teams. They really, as I said before, were more than just an NFL franchise. They were part of the fabric of this community and part of what made the NFL what it has become today. We called that exhibit Almost Religion because, in fact, that's what the Baltimore Colts were to the city of Baltimore. An excellent job, as always, to Robbie, and a special thanks to Mike Gibbons, director emeritus and historian at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, and the story of the Baltimore Colts here on Our American Stories.