Pro Football's Main Attractions

Anyone Auditing the books this past summer at the offices of the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles-- in fact, at all but a handful of the 28 clubs in the National Football League--would find items in the budget for make-up men, hair stylists, costume designers, fashion consultants and choreographers. Choreographers? On a football club? What in the name of Vince Lombardi was happening in the N.F.L.?

What was happening? Simply this: A majority of clubs had decided, after some considerable soul-searching, to emulate the Dallas Cowboys and get some sexy new cheerleader/dancers of their own. Super Bowl XII probably had a lot to do with the choice. None of the 100,000,000 Americans who watched Dallas beat Denver in the Superdome last January could help but notice (thanks to the CBS cameramen and their adroit producers) that both clubs also had crews of lusty wenches rooting them on.

Owners and general managers and promotion directors all over the league started phoning Dallas and Denver, looking for tips on how they managed to put together such fine groups of young women. Certain season-ticket holders who had the ear of management contributed some gentle urging of their own. In Los Angeles, David Mirisch, Hollywood press agent, nephew of the movie-making Mirisch Brothers, wrote to the Rams' Carroll Rosenbloom. He wondered, "How can Dallas and Denver field these sexy women while Los Angeles, the film capital of the world, does nothing at all?" After the Eagles were drubbed by the St. Louis Cardinals in St. Louis, where the Cards had been rooted on by their own classy Big Red Line, Philly owner Leonard Tose was told by his girlfriend, Caroline Cullum, "Darlin', our ladies aren't looking that hot. We've got to get our cheerleaders' act together." In Boston, Mike Chamberlain, director of sales and promotion for the New England Patriots (which has had a less than outstanding group for several years), said at a club meeting, "If we're going to have 'em, let's make use of 'em." In all three cases, the owners said, "Good idea. See if you can put together a troupe."

They did. They held open tryouts. They hired choreographers. They had costumes designed. They developed jazz-dance routines. The year before in New England, 85 had tried out for the cheerleading squad. Last summer, 480 beauties showed up for 32 spots on the Patriots' side lines.

It was much the same all over the league. The Baltimore Colts had had a cheerleading group for years. But now they made a real effort to upgrade them, had new costumes designed, developed niftier routines. Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams dropped a team from a local junior college, with its old-fashioned "two-bits, four-bits, six-bits, a dollar" cheers, and hired Darla Humes, who ran a popular disco out on the Gulf Freeway, "to put together a super dance group--but not a group that looks like a bunch of hookers." In Miami, owner Joe Robbie hired June Taylor to assemble something worthy of the Dolphins. She did: Her Dolphin Starbrites are as stunning as the girls who danced for her on The Jackie Gleason Show in the Fifties and Sixties. In Buffalo, they liberalized the eligibility requirements for the Jills; until this year, they had to be over 21 and married. Now the Jills look jazzier: Half their troupe of 25 are unmarried and under 21. In New Orleans, owner John Mecom, Jr., and his wife, Katsy, changed the name of their troupe from Bonnes Amies to Angels--and then put the famed New York designer Halston to work on a new, satanically angelic costume for them. In Cincinnati, the staid Paul Brown gave the go-ahead to organize a group called the Ben-Gals. Even ultracon-servative Green Bay joined in the fun. The Packers invited three local TV stations to cover their open tryouts and asked the townsfolk to help pick a suitable name (the Sideliners) for the cheerleader/dancers who would be their answer to the Dallas challenge.

"It all started about six years ago," recalls Tex Schramm, general manager of the world-champion Dallas Cowboys, "when we evaluated our fans' response to the kinds of cheerleaders we'd had here from the outset. The fans simply didn't pay much attention to our old-fashioned cheerleaders." It was not a terribly astute observation. Nowhere do pro-football fans join in organized cheers like the college kids do. But Schramm's genius was to recognize that fact--and do something about it.

"We changed our approach," says Schramm. "We decided to make our cheerleaders more or less atmosphere producers. We used them to bring excitement and showmanship to our new stadium. Gradually, they began to do that. I think they really started catching on in 1975--in that play-off game in L.A. And then finally that season in the Super Bowl." The Cowboys lost Super Bowl X to the Steelers, 21-17. But Schramm remembers that the Dallas cheerleaders (he still calls them cheerleaders, even though they don't lead cheers) got a lot of attention from the TV cameramen.

Aha. TV. The most pervasive force in America, the force that not only reflects reality but helps shape it as well. The thing is, Schramm explained, there's no better segue from the playing field to a TV commercial (or vice versa) than a good shot of a pretty girl. Of course, that sometimes causes problems for the likes of a Jack Buck up in the announcers booth. (One day last season, Buck and Andy Russell were doing a Miami-Baltimore game in Baltimore for CBS. A cameraman found a cheerleader with a startlingly good figure and the producer punched the shot up on the screen. "Uhh," gasped Buck. "It's getting so that 'a pair on the 50' doesn't have the same meaning anymore.")

Ah, yes. There you have it. Pro football has never been the kind of rah-rah sport that college football is, and what the pros are selling with these girls is sex. But no team wants to admit that. All of them talk about the amateur qualities of their squads of women.

One of the ways they emphasize that amateur status, incidentally, is by paying the girls little or nothing. Fifteen dollars a game is tops in the N.F.L.--and nothing for the days and nights of grueling practice sessions, nothing for having to memorize dance routines and cheers, nothing for braving icy rains in December. What fringe benefits they get--in Dallas, for example, a 13-week course from Dale Carnegie, plus fashion and make-up consultations and dance lessons from a choreographer--are useful but time-consuming.

Dallas' choreographer is Texie Waterman, a warm, attractive 40ish brunette who had a big say in the Lorch of Dallas design of the Cowboys' Cheerleader costume, part of which is a sexy blouse, made to be tied up bare-midriff style. As Texie points out, "It was very low-cut, so we had to find girls who would fill 'em out."

Or, as songwriter (and Oscar nominee) Carol Connors observed when asked to write a disco song for them: "What can I say about the Dallas Cowgirls? Nothing rhymes with cleavage!" (Connors managed to overcome the problem. Sample lyrics: "Deep in the heart of us Cowgirls, / Shinin' through our Texas eyes, / Is the love we have for the Cowboys. / The star of Texas is on the rise!")

A reference to burgeoning bustlines is about as close as anybody connected with any team gets to the subject of sex. And many team spokesmen turned virtually apoplectic when the subject of featuring the cheerleaders in Playboy was broached--though the sky didn't exactly fall in back in September 1974, when we pictured Raid-erette Jane Lubeck in glorious, full-frontal nudity. Jane, in fact, is now (text continued on page 159) one of the choreographers of the Rams cheerleaders, nicknamed the Embraceable Ewes in L.A.

Schramm may have echoed the sentiments of many when he told me, "I'll talk to you about the article you're writing. Maybe. But what kind of pictures you going to use? I'm worried about the pictures."

Now, anyone who has had a glimpse of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders knows that Schramm and his associates have assembled some of the sexiest girls in all of North America. Yet Playboy found Schramm and many others among the N.F.L. brass actually trying to hide their girls--much to the disgust of the girls themselves, who didn't think they wanted protection so much as more exposure.

Many of these cheerleaders yearned to pose for Playboy. But the men in the N.F.L. didn't want them to. The whole scene was a microcosm of the bigger world outside, where men were still trying to give women more "respect" (by not voting to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, for example) than women themselves thought they needed.

Playboy photographers were on the story long before I was. One lensman, Mary Newman, started shooting members of the Denver Pony Express doing their side-line stuff in the middle of last season. Struck by the girls' freshness and vivacity, he proposed that they do a Playboy picture story.

While that project was still in the talking stage, Denver officials, most notably PR man Bob Peck, who is the official "protector" of the girls on the Pony Express, accused Newman of "sneaking around behind our backs," even, horrors, calling girls at home to encourage their posing for Playboy. Peck threatened legal action and laid down an order to the girls: No posing. Some protested. They wanted to be in Playboy; couldn't they pose if they kept (most of) their clothes on? Faced with that option, Peck relented.

When I met Peck in June, he had a well-formulated position. "We want to have our cake and eat it, too," he said. "We'd like to get the publicity. We'd like some attention from Playboy. But we work in a small town here. This isn't New York or L.A. We can't live with the nudity."

Alvin Flanagan, president of Denver's channel nine, a cosponsor of the Pony Express, tried to articulate the no-nudity decision. "Why no nudes?" he said. "Well, no real good reason. Just instinct, I guess." He said he was thinking of one sweet young thing who showed up in the modeling segment of the Pony Express tryouts this year dressed in an exquisite white gown and carrying a white parasol. "We felt that if we allowed our girls to pose in the nude, we'd never get a certain type of classy girl to try out for the Pony Express again."

What was the Broncos' final position, as articulated by Peck? This: "That the members of the Pony Express are all of age and it's a free country. They can pose for Playboy if they want--with our blessing. But if they pose in the nude, they can't be members of the Pony Express anymore."

That seemed eerily politic. Peck was avoiding two dangerous extremes: telling the girls what they could do and telling them what they could not do. He phoned Ted Haracz, his opposite number at the Chicago Bears, to tell of his Solomonlike solution--and to warn him that I was coming to Chicago. When I arrived, a day later, at Haracz' office (as much a football shrine as anyplace in the country, with one of the N.F.L.'s real live gods, George Halas, actually sitting there in his office doing business), Peck's position had been adopted by the Bears, too. The Honey Bears could pose for Playboy, but not in the nude.

(I got the impression that both Haracz and the Bears' general manager, Jim Finks, were of a mind to let the girls exercise their own judgment about their own private lives. Haracz gave (text continued on page 380) Main Attractions (continued from page 160) me a copy of the club's rules for the Honey Bears. For the most part, they were very general. "The Honey bears will conduct themselves in a proper manner when representing the Chicago Bears Football Club. Honey Bears are not allowed to drink alcoholic beverages or smoke while in costume. There will be no fraternization between the Honey Bears and the club's players, coaches or front-office management." I asked Haracz about the no-fraternization rule. He smiled. "That just means when they're in costume or on the field," he said, adding that he knew some of the girls dated some of the players. One, Playboy Club Bunny Claudia Mendron, is the girlfriend of quarterback Bob Avellini.)

Some clubs were not as hip as the Broncos or the Bears. Some simply wouldn't talk with Playboy's Photo Department at all. The Dallas Cowboys Professional Football Club was one of them--thereby giving a golden opening to those ex-Cowboys Cheerleaders who have organized themselves into Texas Cowgirls, Inc., a circumstance that enables Playboy readers to enjoy views in this issue of the Cowgirls, Inc., they never would have had when the girls worked for Schramm. Houston Oilers' owner Adams queried Photo Editor Jeff Cohen closely over the phone about his intentions--and then, no doubt unaware that the First Amendment still applies, even in Texas, demanded to know whether Playboy had permission from the N.F.L.'s commissioner, Pete Rozelle, to do the story. The Cincinnati Ben-Gals' choreographer, Shirley Bird, had been excited about the prospects of Playboy's coming to town, but she canceled her invitation to the photogs when owner Paul Brown recoiled at the very idea. Without any explanation, Buffalo also reneged on its invitation. Miami's famed choreographer, June Taylor, never returned Editor Cohen's phone calls (if, indeed, the club ever gave her his messages).

Other N.F.L. clubs, on the other hand, couldn't do enough to cooperate. Atlanta was one of those clubs. But when Playboy's peripatetic Photographer David Chan went to a rehearsal of the Falcon cheerleaders and matter-of-factly told a brace of young women he was giving them an opportunity to pose clothed, semiclothed or nude, the Falcons' PR man, Charlie Dayton, came un-glued, phoned me in California and wailed, "Bob, you gotta do somethin' about this. If I let 'em shoot the girls nude, they'll run me out of town on a rail." The people in Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Diego and Seattle extended Playboy every kind of courtesy. None of them asked Playboy what kinds of pictures we intended taking of their girls. Editor Cohen finally chose to shoot four each of the Patriots' and the Colts' finest, and one from each group volunteered for some nude poses. In San Diego, photographer Arny Freytag had no trouble getting Elizabeth Caleca to pose in the nude: She's Miss Nude California and a runner-up for Miss Nude U.S.A. Up in the state of Washington, Kim Santy, daughter of a man who owns a sizable chunk of Seattle, didn't pose nude, but her costume was so diaphanous she might as well have.

On the other hand, Cohen didn't even send a photographer to St. Louis, whose Cardinals pulled a protective mantle over their Big Red Line--all coeds from the University of Missouri who are actually sponsored by radio station KMOX. In New Orleans, Dee Kelly Boyd, the manager of the Angels, vetoed owner Mecom's early, eager approval of a Playboy shooting in the Bayou, but not before photographer Arny Freytag had shot Angel Bunny Hover--who was so crestfallen to think she might not appear in the magazine that she phoned Cohen and pleaded with him not to scrap her. (He didn't.)

We also got a "no deal" at first from Los Angeles. The Rosenblooms, Carroll and Steve, had already taken some heat from the National Organization for Women and feared that cooperation with Playboy would be interpreted as further evidence that the club was "exploiting" young women. After some reasoned discussions, however, the Rosen-blooms went halfway with Playboy. When they got Playboy's agreement that the manager of the Embraceable Ewes, David Mirisch, would have approval over shots to appear in the magazine, they told Playboy to come ahead. (Just before this article went to press, Mirisch was given his walking papers by the Rams. Why? There were at least three versions of the story: One, that the Embraceable Ewes themselves were unhappy with the way he ran things, specifically, the way he parceled out potentially lucrative promotional assignments; two, that the costumes and game routines he had approved had been roundly criticized; and, three, that the Rams' own PR department didn't care to have its limelight stolen by a Hollywood press agent. No one seems to think the incident had anything to do with Mirisch's cooperation with Playboy.)

Whatever happened in L.A., it was the Oakland Raiders who deserved a special prize for displaying an infinite capacity for taking pains to "protect" their girls (though it was one of the Raiderettes and Editor Cohen, as it turned out, who felt most of the pain). The principal actor in this drama was Al LoCasale, a cheerful chap who holds the title executive assistant to managing general partner Al Davis. LoCasale is in charge of the Raiderettes, recruits the best-looking girls he can find in the Bay Area and takes delight in the fact that his troupe has not only quality but quantity as well. He boasts of a "front line" that averages 5'8" and quotes a local reporter who called it "awesome." He also worries about the possibility that someday the girls might become a counterproductive element in the organization. "What would happen," he wonders, "if some of our girls started getting endorsement contracts--and our players didn't?"

At first, LoCasale was the epitome of cooperation. He took me to lunch and loaded me with clips and souvenirs, including an eight-by-ten black-and-white glossy of a beauteous 23-year-old Raiderette, Suzanne Massett, along with her phone number. "Oh, I know all about you, Bob Kaiser," said Suzanne, when I phoned her. "Mr. LoCasale told me to expect your call." But after I had interviewed her on the phone and after she had met Cohen at the San Francisco International Airport, LoCasale changed his tune.

"We're willing to participate in this," he said, "but only if we have some control. This won't help the girls if we tarnish the image. And it could hurt our future recruiting." So, before Suzanne could be photographed, LoCasale insisted on a guarantee that the Raiders would have picture approval.

Working against a deadline, Cohen wrote the letter of guarantee and had Photographer Nicholas DeSciose prepare his studio in Denver and line up a make-up artist for a Friday shooting. Suzanne would fly to Colorado (at Playboy's expense) and return to California that evening, but LoCasale told her not to fly until she heard his words "Goodbye. Good luck."

The letter, sent by airmail, hadn't arrived in Oakland by Thursday. Cohen, back in Chicago by then, repeated its message via Western Union, then was dismayed to learn that his telegram, in the opinion of LoCasale, didn't represent "a good enough guarantee."

"Just exactly what," Cohen asked LoCasale, "do you want?" By then, it was already 10:30 p.m. Thursday night in Chicago, 8:30 p.m. Oakland time.

"Call my secretary at Raiderette practice for the proper wording," said LoCasale. "Then send me a telegram at home." Cohen did so.

According to Western Union's records, the telegram was delivered to LoCasale at 11:51 p.m., Eastern standard time. But he didn't phone Suzanne-- and she didn't fly to Denver the next morning. On Sunday, she ran into LoCasale at a press conference. "How did it go in Denver?" he asked her.

She blanched. "Mr. LoCasale," she said, "I didn't go to Denver."

"How come?" he said.

"Because I never got word from you."

"Oh," he said. "You can go."

A week later, Suzanne jetted to Colorado. According to DeSciose, she was somewhat tense during the shooting.

LoCasale dictated the rest of the scenario. "Tell you what," he told Cohen over the phone. "We're coming to Chicago to play the Bears on Saturday. Suppose we meet at the Continental Plaza and I can look at the photos."

Done. Cohen met LoCasale in the hotel lobby. "It was like dealing with Moscow," said Cohen. "LoCasale said five words: 'Jeff Cohen? Come with me.' " Silence in the elevator. Silence in the room. Then LoCasale donned a helmet with a magnifying glass suspended from its bill, so he could view the transparencies with both hands free, and looked at Cohen expectantly.

Cohen handed over DeSciose's pictures, 40 in all. LoCasale grunted his way through them, eliminated the sexiest 25--most notably, a set of Suzanne in a damp yellow blouse--and initialed 15 comparatively dull ones. Then he softened enough to report that his new bride had once been a Playboy Bunny in San Francisco and walked out, talking to himself.

Why should the Raiders get the sexiest girls they can find, then make it as tough as they can for a magazine to run sexy pictures of them? Maybe the answer lies in a consideration of the economic realities. As LoCasale put it to me: "We're already sold out for the season. We don't need Playboy."

By that time, Cohen had on his desk the combined efforts of five Playboy photographers who had been traveling for weeks, great color shots of 50 young N.F.L. cheerleaders--and the scrumptious, bumptious ex--Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders as well. He didn't need the remaining relatively uninteresting pictures of Suzanne.

Who was the principal loser in all of this? Answer: Suzanne Massett, who was hoping that Playboy exposure would help her budding Hollywood career. She'd spent the off season in L.A., trying to make the daily casting calls, and was just getting known in town when she upped and returned to her folks' home in Northern California--so she could spend yet another season, her fourth, with the Raiders.

One of the rumors around the N.F.L. is that the city of Los Angeles is trying to entice the Raiders to leave Oakland and head south when the Rams decamp for Orange County in 1980. That would mean that the Raiderettes, Suzanne included, would be in the show-business spotlight. But 1980 is a long way away, and that's a chancy way of trying to go Hollywood.