Sid Gillman. Josh Katzowitz
himself. In order to earn more money and to fulfill a request made by an old friend, Gillman traveled to Cleveland on the weekends to play for the professional Rams. It wasn’t the NFL—he had already turned down that chance—and Gillman considered the first edition of the American Football League a rinky-dink startup, but he also wanted to help out his buddy.
The reason Gillman joined the team in the first place was due to an old Ohio State teammate named Buzz Wetzel, who had been a fullback on Francis Schmidt’s original squad. Wetzel had tried to draw up enough interest and capital to start a pro football team in Cleveland, and he had recruited Gillman and former Ohio State players Gomer Jones (a 1935 captain) and Max Padlow. But after realizing his idea was probably not going to come to fruition, Wetzel told his former teammates to forget it. Jones went to the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals, Padlow to the Philadelphia Eagles, and Gillman to Denison.
At the last minute, Wetzel secured the financing, but with the caveat that the team be built around the top players from the state of Ohio. The financiers, which included a lawyer, a publisher, and an ink manufacturer, realized that the smart way to make back their money was to build a following based on players the Cleveland-area fans knew the best. The more Buckeyes, the better. Gillman didn’t have much desire to play pro ball, because there wasn’t much money in it and because it wasn’t nearly as popular as college football (one advertisement in the Rams program desperately tried to explain “Why pro football is faster and more interesting to watch than college football”). But Wetzel was an old friend, so Gillman agreed.
And what a team it was. The 1936 Cleveland Rams squad featured seven All-Americans, and with talent like that—plus, the ability to buy top-notch seats at League Park at a bargain price of $1.50—the Rams were a popular attraction. In the home opener, they walloped Syracuse 26-0 in front of 5,000 spectators, and the scene convinced one writer to exclaim, “Give the Cleveland Rams a few seasons together and they’ll take a place right alongside the best pro teams of the nation.”
Gillman was having a wonderful time taking the field with his old Buckeyes buddies. He would play games Sunday, practice with the Rams on Monday, and then return to Denison to coach the rest of the week. The 25-year-old Gillman was learning from one of the great mentors of his life in Tom Rogers, and he was trading sweat and blood every Sunday in the pros. Life was pretty good for the Gillmans with their white sheet tacked to the wall and $1,800 a year filling their bank account.
Life was pretty good for the Cleveland franchise as well, drawing interest from the NFL. While the Rams were successful on the field and at the box office, the rest of the AFL slowly crept into the murky waters of irrelevance. With the franchise’s options limited, the monopoly-hungry NFL threw the Rams a lifesaver, and with a strong fan base and a stadium already in place, the ownership group accepted the invite. It spelled doom for Gillman’s pro career.
With the AFL on the brink of insolvency (the NFL, once again would be a league by itself after the 1937 season), the NFL decided to punish those who had flouted its rules in order to play for the enemy league. Since Gillman hadn’t reported to the Redskins after they acquired his rights and then had the temerity to join the NFL’s opposition, the league banished Gillman—along with Padlow and Jones—from playing in the NFL for five years. News reports deemed the decision outrageous and unfair, and nearly 5,000 fans signed a petition of protest and sent it to NFL president Joe Carr and the league’s executive council. Homer Marshman, president of the Rams, gave a two-hour speech at a league meeting in which he reminded those there that part of the reason the NFL wanted the Cleveland franchise in the first place was because of the three players it had suspended. The protest fell on deaf ears.
“It’s hard to figure out,” Jones, a Cleveland native and an eventual College Football Hall of Famer, said after learning of his punishment. “I talked with the manager of the Chicago team and he said it would be all right for me to go from the National into the American league, especially since I was going to play at home. I never thought I would have to get a written release. It now looks like I’m stuck, but I certainly hope to get reinstated.”
It never happened. Instead, Jones eventually ended up as a long-time assistant coach for Bud Wilkinson at the University of Oklahoma, and after Wilkinson retired in 1964, Jones took over. He went 9-11-1 in two seasons, and he resigned afterward (though he stayed on as athletic director). Padlow joined the Cincinnati Bengals of the AFL, but after the season, the league disbanded and Padlow’s career ended.
Gillman, meanwhile, returned to Granville and his assistant job at Denison. He turned on the film projector and never looked back again. He was not a player anymore. He was only a coach.
Sid and Esther were settling into his new job quite nicely in the small town of Granville that featured the picturesque college of Denison. To the Gillmans, it was a beautiful place—aesthetically and professionally. Though the Gillmans were Jewish and Denison, at the time, had a Baptist affiliation, religion was never an issue.
“They asked if we wanted to go to church; they learned and we learned,” Esther said. “There was no disapproval. It made us all better. This is how you learn about each other.”
While Gillman was beginning his coaching career, Esther’s thoughts kept returning to her dream job: becoming the mother to a trove of children. She, largely through the anti-Semitism in her home town, wasn’t a schoolteacher. She never earned her college degree. Watching film at home with Sid was fine, but it didn’t fulfill her in the same way raising children could. A white sheet tacked to the wall couldn’t compare to a blanket wrapped around a baby. “At the time,” Esther said, “I never thought of anything else.”
On September 25, 1936, she got her wish, giving birth to her daughter, Lyle. A year and a half later, on January 23, 1938, Barbara—who would become known as Bobbe—arrived to give Sid a trio of women in his household to whom he must attend. The adjustment, as was to be expected, was immediate. Esther spent much of her time soaking the cloth diapers in the bathtub. When Sid arrived home from football practice, he’d take out the washboard and scrub the diapers clean. They’d rinse and rinse and rinse some more before boiling the diapers on the stove to sterilize them for the next day’s use. By the time the diapers were ready to be hung dry, it was 2 a.m. Neighbors marveled that the Gillmans’ laundry was on the drying line so early in the morning; it was Esther’s secret that she performed the chore in the middle of the night.
Denison had mixed results from 1934 to 1936. The team went 13-10-2 in those three seasons, but in 1937, the program had a breakthrough, going 6-1-1. Rogers was making a name for himself and his coaching staff—his career winning percentage of 66.7 is second in school history only to Woody Hayes—but even in the program’s down times, Sid always found comfort in his family. If football was his No. 1 priority, his family, at this time in his life, was No. 1-A. When Sid knocked off work in the evenings, he’d pick up the bassinet containing Lyle and set it next to him. If he switched rooms, Lyle and her bassinet came with him. He needed those kids on top of him at all times, so Gillman physically carried them wherever he roamed inside his house.
Likewise, when Lyle went to sleep, she needed her father nearby as she dropped into unconsciousness. So, Sid would place her in the crib, and he’d slowly back away. He’d get to the top of the stairs, and he’d wait. Then, he’d slip down one step. Then another. Then another. When he reached the bottom, Lyle, more than likely, was sleeping, and Gillman could resume his night. He had no other choice. Lyle demanded it. “She was a tough little girl,” Sid said. “She had to have her own way.” If that meant Sid had to wait on her like a butler while she fell asleep, so be it.
As Bobbe grew into adolescence, her mother could sense the maternal instincts in her blood. If Esther needed a minor chore performed or if Lyle needed to be calmed down, Esther could rely on Bobbe to make sure it was done. You can still see that today. Lyle readily admits that Bobbe is the den mother who makes sure the remaining family sticks together like glue. If plans need to be made, there’s a good chance Bobbe is the one making them.
Gillman wasn’t destined to keep his family for long at Denison. Even after taking the job under Tom Rogers, he still worked with