Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from soccer’s World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, that sparkling little city sitting around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. When a Redlands-based English teacher started refereeing football in the early 1940s, there was no Interstate 10 freeway, very few high schools with football teams throughout that area, nor a rare connection from that area to pro football. By 1967, he was the first head official refereeing what’s known as that first-ever Super Bowl! – Obrey Brown
NORM SCHACHTER, IT SHOULD be noted, was suspended along with his entire six-man crew, by NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle. During a crucial game between Los Angeles and Chicago on Dec. 8, 1968, Schachter’s crew denied the Rams a crucial down in a 17-16 loss to the Bears.
You never hear about stuff like that. Fifteen years later, I had a chance to ask Schachter about the play. About the call. About the suspension.
Rozelle, who played his part in Redlands during his days as the Rams’ public relations man, called the crew “competent.” They just made a mistake.
The Rams, who trained in Redlands before their season from 1948-1960, had thrown three incomplete passes in the late stages of that 1968 game. A penalty flag was thrown into the mix. That flag down, however, was not replayed.
“The ball was turned over to Chicago,” Rozelle said in his statement, “thus depriving Los Angeles of a fourth down play to which it was entitled.”
Five seconds were remaining. Ball at L.A.’s 47. Thirty-one yards were needed for a first down.
Schachter was a class act. He came to Redlands a few times during my years at the local newspaper. Most of those visits came in the 1980s and 1990s. Seems he had some remaining “connections” there that continued for many years despite such a brief stay in Redlands during his early days.
So did Rozelle, incidentally, come to Redlands, that is. Previous to his becoming NFL commissioner in 1959, he was the Rams’ publicist. Where did the Rams train from 1947 through 1960? The University of Redlands.
As for Schachter, consider that one of his former English students from Redlands, Jim Sloan, became a local photographer. Sloan, among others, was happy to pronounce the connection to a guy that had a bird’s eye view of pro football. Sloan, for his part, was an heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco dynasty. It was a guy who went on to travel a lot, shoot photos a lot – and keep connections to guys like Schachter.
OTHER REFS FROM LOCAL AREA
There were other officials from that area, including Redlands’ John Fouch, Sr. Down the road a bit from Redlands, Rialto, was Al Jury. It was Jury, in fact, that joined the NFL – just after Schachter retired, incidentally – when the league expanded its on-field officiating crew from six to seven. It opened up some great opportunities.
Fouch, a major high school star at Santa Ana High School turned into a superstar at Santa Ana Junior College before heading off to USC, where he shared the 1949 Trojan backfield with future NFL Hall of Famer Frank Gifford.
Fouch wore NFL zebra stripes for 15 years. The head referee in his crew was Red Cashion, the guy with the enthusiastic signature, “first dowwwwn” call. Eventually, Fouch moved to Redlands. His son, John, Jr., incidentally, became a quarterback that eventually took off for Arizona State.
After all those years away, Schachter still seemed impressed with Redlands despite moving from that 1941 small orange grove-covered community – no Interstate 10 freeway, or a heavy duty of sales approaches. Schachter, in fact, was generous with his time and comments.
Redlands, he said, “was a very nice little community when I taught and reffed here.” No, he never provided information that the Terriers weren’t much of a winning football program during those years.
Schachter carried around a significant sense of humor. He proved it with some of his responses.
I spent several minutes preparing for my interview with him. Was there ever a moment where you made a bad call – and knew it? Yeah, he’d go through a suspension later.
“I don’t waste time second-guessing myself,” he said. Couldn’t tell if Schachter was serious or joking. He was joking. “There’ll be millions who will do it for you.”
Talk on an NFL field must be pretty horrifying. Guys grunting, cussing, spitting, working themselves into a frenzy over, perhaps, a penalty flag. Horrifying?
“Oh, really?” he said. “I never heard that.”
Sarcasm was a nice little exercise for Schachter, who probably heard it all. “Listen,” he said, “when players lose it in their legs, they gain it in their mouths.”
Oh, yeah. It was Sloan who told me to ask him about the time his crew had been suspended. Refs aren’t perfect, though they’re probably expected to be, said Sloan. That December 1968 game between the Rams and Bears could have been his lowest point.
“Holding call on the Rams,” Schacter told me, explaining the suspension. “Fifteen yards in those days. Spot foul, too. We didn’t replay the down. That was the issue.”
He looked at me. Anything else? It was like he was saying, “I dare you to ask me anything more about it.”
So I took the dare. “How many times have you been asked about that?”
That drew a slight chuckle. “I lost count around 20,000 …”
I hadn’t even planned this next question. “Ever think about the fact that it was Rozelle, that he used to work for the Rams, that suspended you?”
“Pete hit us (his entire officiating staff) pretty hard with the suspension,” Schachter said. “No more games for us the rest of that season, including the playoffs. We were back the following season.”
It was, in fact, prior to that season he refereed a Super Bowl game. Schachter would be back.
Redlands: It’s where his officiating career began. Local games. There couldn’t have been many. High schools were scarce in that area. San Bernardino and Riverside just had one campus, like Redlands. Colton. Chaffey, in Ontario. Fontana and Eisenhower, in Rialto, didn’t even have their own high schools.
CLOSE CALLS & CONFESSIONS
He’d written “Close Calls: Confessions of an NFL Referee” in the early 1980s. The guy was an author. An official of famous NFL games. Never read the book. Can only guess how it was presented.
He also wrote text books. After his on-field days concluded, he worked for the league writing referees’ exams and other data. He edited the league’s rules book.
His “Confessions” book: Stories, humorous anecdotes, nuggets about his professional career in education. After starting as a Redlands-based English teacher in 1941, Schachter eventually became a principal at Los Angeles High School, later surfacing as superintendent (1971-78) in the L.A. school system.
All the NFL’s generation names were in “Confessions” – Lombardi, Starr, Butkus, Papa Bear, Shula, Madden, Paul Brown, Van Brocklin, you name it. Hired by Commissioner Bert Bell in the 1950s – $100 a game, 7-game minimum.
Pete Rozelle, left, who once served as a public relations specialist when the Rams trained in Redlands throughout the 1950s, shakes hands with George “Papa Bear” Halas, the longtime owner, coach and general manager of the Chicago Bears. Halas drafted Redlands’ Greg Horton in the 1974 NFL draft – third round out of Colorado. All part of a Redlands Connection. Photo by Jim Sloan.
Did all those NFL names have to be impressive. “No,” Schachter noting those names, “none of those guys ever spent time buying me dinner and drinks.”
That NFL retired following the 1976 Super Bowl, Pittsburgh’s 21-17 win over Dallas – Schachter’s third Super Bowl. He worked Green Bay’s 35-10 win over Kansas City, then Super Bowl V when Baltimore beat Dallas, 16-13, and, finally, the Steelers-Cowboys.
Twenty-two years in an NFL striped shirt. Brooklyn-born, a U.S. Marine, married to Charlotte for 56 years, sired three sons, Bob, Tom and Jim. Schachter studied for a doctorate at Alfred (N.Y.) University. For Schachter, the end came in San Pedro. Age 90. Died in an old folks home.
It was a long way from the famous Green Bay-Dallas “Ice Bowl” game where he was spotted wearing ear muffs in the freezing weather.
COMING – Super Bowl’s connection to Redlands.
