Eagles at Work

Coach Alfred Earle ("Greasy") Neale has no time for false modesty. He admits that his Philadelphia pro football Eagles are good--so good, he blandly says, that not a single member of Notre Dame's current glamour team could make his starting eleven. They were 1948 National Football League champions and are well on their way to repeating this season. This week, with a record of nine wins and one defeat, Greasy's nifty Eagles squared off against an old and bitter foe, the New York Giants.

On a half-frozen field at the Polo Grounds they put on a stirring show With the poise and precision of a well-trained ballet troupe, they pranced through their T-formation tricks. Tommy Thompson, Greasy's aging quarterback, who admits to 31 but is nearer 34, handled the ball as deftly as a shell-game operator at a county fair. An old halfback from L.S.U., 2O5-lb. Steve Van Buren, slithered past Giant tacklers for 53 yards to break his own league record for ground gained in a single season (his new mark: 1,050 yards). The Eagles cut the Giants down to size, 24-3.

Too Rough. Seldom had pro football seen such a superbly integrated gang of old pros--and Greasy Neale, 58, was the oldest pro of them all. "I won't sit next to him on the bench," cracks Van Buren, "he's too rough." Greasy runs the Eagles with the casual despotism of an old athlete who can never quite forget that he was a fast, elusive end at West Virginia Wesleyan, where he got his nickname.

A natural competitor, Greasy has taken a crack at big-league baseball (as an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds), coached college football from Marietta College to Yale, including W. & J.'s 1922 Rose Bowl team. His pros regard him as something special--a coach who mixes with his men, plays cards with them, kids them, takes their kidding, fines them and is even ready to tussle with them. Says big Al Wistert, his All-America tackle: "You can't help playing hard for a guy like that."

Why Not? Beneath Greasy's casual air, his sharp wit and his superstitions (he insists on being last to leave the dining room when his men are eating, last to leave the clubhouse, last out of the bus), lies a vast store of football know-how. He knew the kind of T-football he wanted: a combination of great power and flawless execution. In nine seasons with the Eagles, that is the kind he has developed--the prettiest and most deadly T-formation in the business.

After Sunday's victory, all he had to worry about (besides another game with the New York Giants) was next fortnight's championship playoff with the league's Western Division winners. Greasy was reasonably self-assured. Said he: "I haven't got 30 players. I have 30 coaches. Why not? They're smart fellows; they all went to college."

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