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Once A Star #2 Date: 01/01/85 | Running Time: 50 min. Add Once A Star #2 to playlist Nominate this video My Clip Video Editor Bookmark/episode description Save

The second of two hour-long programs profiling former professional athletes. The show focuses on these athletes' lives after retiring from sports, with archival footage sprinkled throughout. We get an in-depth look at these personalities, while also indirectly getting a sense of the difference between professional sports of the '50s, '60s, and '70s versus today: virtually all of the athletes work for a living. This program includes segments on Former Chicago Bears Doug Atkins and Bill Wade;  pioneer female jockey Robyn Smith; hockey’s Dennis and Bobby Hull; pool hustler and oddball raconteur Minnesota Fats; baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn; and former world heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson. 0:00 Bars and tone. (There is a brief break around 0:30). 1:02 Text mentions this show has WGN Emmy nomination. 1:20 Opening titles for “Once a Star” and host introductions. 3:20 1963 Bears player Doug Atkins, #81. 3:33 Atkins, now a beer distributor in Knoxville, TN and a pit bull owner, talks about the jobs he has had since leaving football. He was not prepared for the real world after leaving football. 4:25 Atkins talks about the '63 Bears, his favorite team he played on. He says it was the only team he played on that didn't have a problem with cliques. 4:58 Atkins talks about his reputation for laziness. Coach George Halas hired a detective to check up on his after practice habits. Halas was happy to find out all the gossip he found out about team problems. 5:56 Atkins talks about the giant scales they had to weigh the players. They would manipulate the scale so they would appear to weigh less. 6:40 Atkins talks about the fines they had to pay for being overweight. 6:59 Atkins talks about the differences he had with Halas. He says that other players after they retired began to complain about Halas, but he thinks that's bad, and was glad he got all of that out while he was still playing. 7:44 Atkins talks about his frustration with the youth today who don't know anything about football before the Super Bowl existed. He says the championship games back then were much harder than the Super Bowl. 8:33 Atkins talks about the ‘63 Bears and Mike Ditka. 9:02 Hosts talk about Atkins' large size and about how unprepared Atkins was for post-football life. Also the fact that using detectives is very common. 10:05 Brickhouse talks about an incident that occurred in 1963. When the Bears became the 1963 World Champs, player Ed O'Bradovich accidentally threw his helmet into the stands during the celebration. Fan Norm Wolf caught the helmet, and decided to give it back 22 years later, in honor of the 1985 Bears win. We see Wolf throw the helmet back to O'Bradovich. 11:23 Commercial break. 11:34 Stone introduces next segment about a female jockey, Robyn Smith. She is now 41 and is living in Beverly Hills with her husband, Fred Astaire. 2:00 Smith talks about always wanting to be a jockey and a cowboy. 12:33 1974 clip. Smith talks about how she was just as good as all the men, but it was hard for her to get work. She says she has a God-given talent for getting horses to race. Most people just avoided hiring her since it was easier to avoid controversy. She never considered riding work since it was so much fun. 14:08 Smith talks about how 1972 was her best year. This year she had a top agent for the only time. She only had him for two months on a special deal. She had a great season, but still got dumped. 15:07 Smith married Fred Astaire in 1980 and quit riding. She says she just couldn't do both because she is getting too old. 15:44 Hosts talk about her career. 16:23 Mengelt introduces Secretariat, champion horse. Since retiring from racing, he has been bred with 500 mares. 16:50 Clip from Belmont Stakes 1973. Shots of Secretariat in 1985 getting groomed and exercising. 17:17 Commercial break. 17:33 Brickhouse introduces the Hull brothers, both hockey players for the Chicago Blackhawks. (Dennis and Bobby). 18:00 Park Ridge, IL. At an ice rink, we are introduced to Bobby Hull, who is now a cattle breeder. He says he had a natural talent for hockey. 18:33 Dennis, who is now an athletic director for IIT. He says he was not a natural player, but he practiced so much he became better than everyone else. He says his brother was a “real exciting player.” 19:20 Bobby talks about Dennis's abilities. He says that goalies were very scared of him. He says his dad was the driving force behind his success, but his mom helped him get through his dad's harshness. He says he couldn't have played without the pressure, which mostly came from his father. 20:34 Dennis talks about the Blackhawks' fans' reputation for being so loud. Bobby says he would have played hockey even if he wasn’t paid. 21:03 Dennis talks about liking his job with IIT. Bobby says making money is a cinch. They retired the same year and it was the first Christmas they spent together as a family for 20 years. 22:28 Mengelt and Stone talk about missing holidays when they were professional athletes. 23:25 Commercial break 23:43 Clip from Celebrity Billiards 1968 with Zsa Zsa Gabor and Minnesota Fats. 24:27 Hosts introduce Minnesota Fats, who hails from the streets of New York. 24:49 Introduction to Fats' pool career and style. Fats now lives in a hotel in Nashville. 25:17 Fats is labeled onscreen as a legendary hustler. He himself says he was not a hustler. He says he always played the best players. He says he never asked for odds, he just wanted to play. He claims to have been a pool genius from when he was 8 years old. 25:44 He talks about other players and about his own versatility. He says Masconi can't play straight pool, but he himself can play anything. He even entered eating contests. He doesn't eat junk foods, he eats chicken and turkey, not donuts and graham crackers. He talks about a friend who was a junkie for figs. He feeds pigeons every day. 28:35 He says he plays differently when he's playing for fun versus playing for money. He doesn't try to beat people who are really bad, like children or politicians. He says he's not scared of anything because he's real smart and doesn't take risks. 29:43 Commercial break 29:59 Stone introduces Bowie Kuhn, baseball commissioner. 30:29 Kuhn discusses a variety of topics, such as the Media and how they treat people. 30:52 Kuhn says that he is recognized more often than the players. He talks about his policies as commissioner. 31:25 Kuhn talks about the relationship between TV and baseball. He doesn't like the World Series being played during the day so that no one watches it. 31:59 Kuhn on owning a team. 32:31 Kuhn on the best interests for baseball. One has to consider the interests of the fans, owners, players, media and balance them. That is his job. 33:08 Hosts argue about Bowie's merits. 35:05 Mengelt introduces Bill Wade, #9, quarterback for '63 Bears. 35:30 Bill Wade is now a banker. He talks about his love for football. He says '61 was his best year; he didn't like the way they played in '63, it was less exciting. He talks about a game when it was 17 degrees below zero. Despite the cold, Coach George Halas wouldn't let him put on long underwear. 36:48 He talks about the contributions football has made to America. He says that soccer is getting very big, and he thinks this is dangerous because it is not a "total combat sport" like football, which he thinks is a better thing for America. 37:30 The hosts disagree with Wade's last statement. 38:08 Commercial break 38:22 Floyd Patterson, Heavyweight Champion of the World from Brooklyn. He held the heavyweight title for five years. He also was the youngest heavyweight champ in history. We see a clip from his 1956 fight against Archie Moore. Talks about thinking about boxing in his sleep. 39:55 Patterson says that any time you love something so much you take it above and beyond what it is. He would have boxed without the money. Says every fighter that does that has a special spark within. 40:35 Clips from two fights. He lost to Ingmar Johansson in 1959 and came back to beat him in 1960. 41:13 Patterson says boxing is a revenge sport. Clip from Patterson vs Tom “Hurricane” Jackson 1957. Audio was peaking on original so it was hard to hear. Says eventually people started following him around so he went out in disguises. Clip from fight against Sonny Liston at Comiskey Park in 1962. (Patterson lost that fight). 42:55 Says his life changed when he married his second wife. She became more important than boxing. He stopped after that when he realized something was gone from his sport. They now live in New Paltz, NY. 43:40 He adopted a son, Tracey Harris Patterson, who he is now training as a lightweight. 45:46 He says is very hard to be a regular part of society when you are famous. 46:04 Hosts say Patterson has a good head on his shoulders. 46:49 Commercial break. 47:00 Hosts sum up show and talk about life after competition. 48:02 End credits. 49:15 End of tape. Main Credits: executive producer, Charles A. Swilling; produced by Tom Weinberg and Thea Flaum; director, Bill Heitz; writer, Michael Meth Additional Credits: associate producer, Joel Cohen; assistant producers, Roger Wallenstein and Loretta Peterson ; assistant director, Joe Cornejo; art directors, Everett Williams, Linda Sato and Ed Hansen; editors, John Earl, Kim Hoglund and Stu Swansen no related documents List of comments You need to be registered user to post comments. Please login or register. Click here to login Your Clips This feature is available only in Clipstream version.