Redskins’
Great Charley Harraway
by
Robert Janis
(I interviewed Charley Harraway via phone
on September 27, 2005)
There are a number of magic seasons involving the Washington Redskins
beginning in 1969 when Vince Lombardi coached them to a 7-5-2 season,
1971 when George Allen led them to their first playoffs in several
years, and 1972 when the Redskins were the champions of the National
Football Conference and battled the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VII.
One player who helped make all of that possible was Charley Harraway.
Harraway played fullback beside Larry Brown
during those eventful seasons.
Charley Harraway was born on September 21,
1944 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
His father was a sergeant in the U.S. Army and was assigned to different
bases around the U.S.
and Europe. So, as Harraway said,
“I grew up as an Army brat.” After a short time in Oklahoma
and Missouri, where young Harraway
attended elementary school, he spent time in France
and Germany during
his junior high school and part of his high school years and then
returned to the States to live in Seaside,
California when he attended Monterey
High School for
his junior and senior years.
That doesn’t mean that he delayed his involvement with football until
he was back in the States. He began playing football during his sophomore
year in high school in Germany.
It was one of his older brothers who kind of nudged him into the game.
“I have two older brothers,” explained Harraway.
“One is two years older than I am and we played together in the same
backfield in Germany. But my
oldest brother, who is four years older than I am, was my hero. He
played quarterback for our school team in Germany. He insisted that I play football.
At first, I really didn’t want to. But I also wanted to be just like
him.”
Actually, Harraway first tried out for the
school’s football team in his freshman year. But during a practice
before the start of the season he broke his ankle during a tackling
drill. “I was 15 years old or so at the time. I had to tackle the
biggest guy on the team who was also the center. It was the first
tackling drill I ever did. The team was divided into two lines. The
kids in one line carried the ball and the kids in the other tackled.
So when it came time for me to tackle, I got down on one knee and
waited for the guy to come to me. The guy came towards me, bold me
over and rolled over me and I broke my ankle,” he laughed. “I felt
like a hero. I went around for a couple of months with crutches. I
thought I was really something.”
Playing football for an American high school located on an Army base
in Germany was nothing like doing the same for a high
school team in the U.S.,
pointed out Harraway. First of all, there
were fewer students attending the school so there were fewer potential
players going out for the team. “We had about 300 plus students and
that included the junior high school,” said Harraway.
Second, the level of play was different. When Harraway
returned to the States and went to Monterey
High School for his junior and senior years,
it was a whole lot different. “There were several thousand kids in
the high school. So that meant that there were more players trying
out for each position. There was a whole lot more competition to make
the team,” he said.
In addition, Monterey
High School had
a pretty good football team. According to Harraway,
they were number 10 in the entire country. It already had some extremely
good running backs when he joined the team so he didn’t start during
his junior year. He was the starting fullback his senior year and
got a chance to run with the ball fairly often. He also played linebacker.
In addition, he played for the school’s basketball team. “I was actually
a better basketball player than football player,” he said. “I was
6-feet 2-inches tall and had to play the center position. I was a
pretty good scorer, but I didn’t develop the ball handling skills
I needed for a college player of my height. I thought it would be
a disadvantage for me to pursue basketball beyond the high school
level. I enjoyed basketball a lot more than football. But I had more
opportunities with football. Football was a means to an end.” After
his senior year more schools recruited him to play football than to
play basketball. He remembered that the University of the Pacific
recruited him for both basketball and football while San Jose State
University and the University of New Mexico
among others pursued him for football. He chose to attend San Jose State
University. “I
was sort of a mama’s boy and San
Jose was close to home.”
He had a pretty good career at San
Jose State.
He was the team’s starting running back and He didn’t make all conference
because San Jose
State University
was independent and didn’t play in a conference. However, he was invited
to play in the East-West Shrine Game.
So after his senior year in 1966 he was highly regarded by teams in
both the National Football League and the American Football League.
In fact, he was good enough to be involved in a little scheme that
was common during the rivalry between the two pro football leagues.
Back in those days each league would identify the players they wanted
the most and then try to hide them from the other league during the
draft. In Harraway’s case, the National
Football League, specifically with the help of representatives of
the San Francisco 49ers, whisked him
away to a hotel in Carmel,
California on draft day. Teams in the National
Football League knew where he was. Teams in the American Football
League did not. The draft took place over a weekend and consisted
of 20 rounds.
“Teams started to call me during the second round,” remembered Harraway. “St. Louis
was one of the teams that called first. They would say, ‘We’re
about to make our selection, we are interested in drafting you, will
you sign a contract for X amount of dollars?’ They wanted the player
signed before they would draft him. I didn’t have an agent or a lawyer
but I didn’t want to commit to anything. I wanted to negotiate. So
the Cardinals passed on me. Then another team called during the third
round and asked the same thing. Again, I wanted to negotiate. So they
passed on me. This went on for five or six rounds and then I had just
about enough of it and I left the hotel. I didn’t know that the Cleveland
Browns drafted me in the 18th round until I went back to school the
following Monday and some classmates told me. Later I found out that
the Kansas City Chiefs of the AFL drafted me in the 15th round.”
Harraway signed with the Browns for two
reasons: first, he considered the NFL the premier league and he was
excited about playing with Jim Brown. “I thought I would play behind
Brown and learn a lot from him,” said Harraway.
However, that was the time Brown was doing the movie “The Dirty Dozen.”
He was finishing up shooting on the west coast and had asked the Browns
owner, Art Modell, if he could get to training
camp just a couple of days late. Modell said no. The team and Brown went through a public argument
over the issue and as a result, Jim Brown quit football.
When Brown played running back Ernie Green played beside him. When
Brown quit, Green was moved to fullback and Leroy Kelly became the
starting halfback. Kelly had been returning kick offs and punts for
the Browns. Harraway made the team as a
back up for Green and played on special teams for a couple of years.
Green got hurt during Harraway’s second
year with Cleveland,
so he got a chance to play a little. It wasn’t until his third year
with the Browns that he actually started at fullback. That was also
the year the Browns played the Baltimore Colts in the NFC title game.
“I had hurt my knee in the game before the title game and I couldn’t
practice the whole week,” noted Harraway.
“So they shot me up with Novocain for the title game and I played
on the damaged knee the whole game. We lost the game and I returned
home to the west coast. And I couldn’t walk on the bad leg. After
two or three weeks I still couldn’t walk on it. So we called a doctor
and it turned out I needed surgery. I got the surgery done and re-habed
and was ready for training camp with the Browns the next year. But
I re-injured the knee just before training camp started and I couldn’t
practice and the Browns had brought in two running backs, they drafted
Ron Johnson and they picked up Bow Scott from the Canadian Football
League. So I was cut. Vince Lombardi, who by that time was the new
head coach of the Redskins, picked me up off waivers for $100. Larry
Brown had also been drafted by the Redskins that year.”
Yet, all through training camp
Lombardi kept
trying out different backs. Harraway and
Brown did not play together nor did they start a game until the beginning
of the second half of the first regular season game in 1969. “Lombardi
told me and Larry that we would be starting the second half. Things
went quite well. We won the game.
“At the first team meeting after that game Lombardi, with that big
huge grin on his face and that barrow chest, said, ‘Alright guys,
we got it going. One of the best things we have are
two real good running blacks. Well, some jaws dropped and there was
some nervous laughter and snickering and Lombardi got angry and boomed
out, ‘What’s wrong!!’ A player told him that he had said ‘running
blacks.’ Well Lombardi just broke out in a booming laugh and then
the rest of the team felt comfortable enough to laugh with him. And
that right there meant a great deal to the team. All the players had
a tremendous respect for Lombardi.” The Redskins had a 7-5-2 record
that year. Their first winning season in 14 years
(1955 -- 8-4). Then tragically, Vince Lombardi died of cancer
prior to the 1970 season and Bill Austin became interim head coach.
The Skins finished 6-8 and the team hired George Allen as head coach
for the ‘71 season. With Allen in, Larry Brown and Charley Harraway
were the team’s starting backfield. In 1971 the Redskins made the
playoffs for the first time since 1945 and they made it all the way
to Super Bowl VII in 1972. With Allen coaching and Brown and Harraway
at running back, Charley Taylor at wide receiver, Jerry Smith at tight
end, and of course Jurgensen and Kilmer
at quarterback and a great defensive unit, the Skins were a perennial
playoff contender.
Harraway remained with the Redskins for
the 1973 season. But in 1974 he jumped to the Birmingham Americans
of the new World Football League. It was hard for him to say no to
the new league. The Americans had offered him a five year no cut contract
worth $200,000 a year. “Only a handful of players were signing million
dollar contracts back then and George was only offering me $75,000,”
said Harraway.
He was the starting running back for the Americans and the team won
the League’s Championship -- the World Bowl. However, the WFL had
major financial problems, went bankrupt and soon died. “I remember
after we had won the World Bowl and we were changing out of our uniforms
in the locker room, the IRS was there taking everything as soon as
we were discarding it.”
Harraway sat out of the game for one year
and then tried to rejoin the NFL. “I called Don Shula
and asked him if he needed a fullback and he said that he did. He
asked who, and I said me.” The Dolphins had lost both Kick and Czonka
to the WFL. The Redskins still had the rights to Harraway
but a deal was worked out and he made plans to attend the Dolphins
training camp to prepare for the 1976 season. Later he learned that
the Dolphins were bringing in Don Nottingham to challenge Harraway
for the job. Harraway didn’t want to go
through yet another year of fighting off competition. “I had just
had it up to my ears,” he said. So he did not attend camp and retired
from football.
In his eight seasons in the National Football League Harraway
played in 109 games, rushed the ball 822 times for a total of 3,019
yards (a 3.7 yard average per carry), and scored 20 touchdowns. He
had 158 receptions for a total of 1,304 yards (averaging 8.3 yards
a reception) and caught seven touchdown passes. His best years were
with the Redskins.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Season Team
Games Rushes
Rushing Yds Avg.
Rushing Tds
1966
Clev.
14
7
40
5.7
0
1967 Clev.
14
5 -14
-2.8 0
1968 Clev
13
91 334
3.7 0
1969 Wash
13 141
428
3.0
6
1970 Wash
13 146
577
4.0
5
1971 Wash
14 156
635
4.1
2
1972 Wash
14 148
567
3.8
6
1973 Wash
14 128
452
3.5
1
1974 Birm
(wfl)
--------------------------------
Season Team
Games Rec
Rec Yds
Avg.
TD Rec
1966 Clev.
14
0
0
0
0
1967 Clev.
14
0
0
0
0
1968 Clev.
13
12 162
13.5
1
1969 Wash.
13 55
489
8.9
3
1970 Wash.
13 24
136
5.7
0
1971 Wash.
14 20
121
6.1
0
1972 Wash.
14 15
105
7.0
0
1973 Wash.
14 32
291
9.1
3
1974 Birm.
(wfl)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harraway
played for some of the greatest coaches in NFL history -- Blanton
Collier, Vince Lombardi, and George Allen. He most respected Lombardi.
He found Collier to be a bit too old and thought that the game had
passed him by. And as for George Allen, Harraway
commented that he was a great motivator. “George was charismatic and
had tremendous excitement and he wasn’t only a coach but he was a
business guy. Blandon was laid back and dull in his approach. Players
need to be motivated and it was Lombardi who was a master at that,”
said Harraway.
Some observations about pro football have stuck with Harraway
through the years. For him, it was a means to an end and a constant
battle for survival. “When you are not a super star like Larry Brown,
Charley Taylor, Sonny Jurgensen, you are
always fighting for your job,” he said. “In the background the coach
is always looking for someone to replace you. I didn’t get the ball
enough during the games to earn my keep. So the long and short of
it was it was always survival. Yes, it was fun and the camaraderie
was great. But my job was always up for grabs. It was a daily battle
on game day and practice days. With all that pressure, you can’t rest
on your laurels. You had to play hurt. If you didn’t play, someone
else would take your place. It was dog eat
dog.”
And it was the survival element that influenced Harraway’s
philosophy toward the game. “I would watch the young players with
their tremendous talent coming into the league and I would watch what
they did after practice and after the game. For them it was fun. They
were looking to get the most fun out of the game. As a consequence,
they wouldn’t study the play book. You needed to know the play book,
the defenses and offenses so you would know what you had to do. So
I saw a lot of players come and go because they made mistakes in practice
and a stigma was attached to them by the coaches. No coach would tolerate
mental mistakes. So I struggled not to make mistakes. I knew that
I was not going to be the featured back and that I was not going to
get enough hand offs, so I concentrated on my blocking skills. Players
coming out of college didn’t block. So I found a niche. I concentrated
on blocking. I learned that you don’t have to knock a guy down to
make a good block. You can screen him or cut him. Do anything so that
defender couldn’t put a hand on Larry.”
Back in the days Harraway played pro football,
players took jobs during the off-season because the amount of money
they earned as players could not sustain them for an entire year.
Harraway used this time to educate himself
on how to sell. He took jobs as a salesman and also served as an account
executive for the Xerox Corporation in Columbus, Ohio.
During his time with Xerox he was involved with the company’s sales
and management program. He took other jobs too and was able to get
a good, basic professional training. Today he is president and CEO
of Team Harraway Realty selling homes and investment properties in
Florida (website: http://www.wescore4u.com).
He now lives in Port Charlotte, Florida
and he is building a home for himself and his wife in Sarasota,
Florida. He married during his second year
in the NFL and he and his wife Gail both run the business. Both of
them also run a Christian
Ministry called Team Harraway
which began soon after the two were married in 1967. Harraway
has spoken to many churches and activity events on the subject of
being a born again Christian and he is available to train selected
congregation members on how to establish an effective evangelism program.
His son, Charles E. Harraway III, is an account executive for Trend West Resorts,
a company that sells time shares.
He has no regrets. He concluded that though he did not make the kind
of money that today’s pro football players do, the money he did earn
was good for the time. “I thought I was on top of the world when I
signed my first contract for $15,000 and a $5,000 bonus plus a brand
new Thunderbird. It was good money then. You got to remember, it was
1966,” he said. “When we were playing I thought we were doing well.
But times change and the economy changes,” he concluded.
