Oct. 26, 2017
by Bill Traughber
When former Vanderbilt offensive tackle Bob Asher (1967-69) began playing as a sophomore, many predicted him to graduate as an All-American. With his ability, Asher quickly gained an advantage in the line acquiring the moniker ‘The Smasher.’
“Bob Patton was one of my coaches,” Asher said recently from his Chicago home. “He was a terrific coach that went to Clemson and played in the pros. Scouts had been talking to him when they came to our practices during spring football. Since I was a starter in my sophomore year and I had the size that got their attention.”
“In the SEC it was just lean, mean and keen something Bear Bryant made famous in the SEC. I wasn’t, but I did get to 225 pounds as a sophomore. I was tall [6-foot-5], but not bulky. I did a lot of scrabble blocking where you didn’t hit a player in his numbers, but got into their legs and carried them five yards down the field.”
Asher, 69, is from the Arlington, Va., area where he lettered in football, basketball and track at Denis J. O’Connell High School. All the ACC schools and many other colleges had recruited him. At this time Vanderbilt was not very successful on the football field, which did not detract him to becoming a Commodore.
“I was definitely looking at academics,” said Asher. “I had parents that were pushing me to go to William & Mary. It is a state school with very good academics. They also liked Villanova. I told them at the time, and I was only 18, that I wanted a chance to go as far as I could in football at a good academic school. I wanted to look at the potential I had as a football player. Vanderbilt fit that very well. They were in the SEC and I wanted to play against the top players in the country.”
Jack Green was in his fifth season as the Commodores head coach when he recruited Asher. Vanderbilt was coming off a 1-10 (SEC, 0-6) record when Asher was a freshman and at the time, freshmen were ineligible for varsity competition.
“Vanderbilt went 1-10 in my freshman year,” Asher said. “Coach Green felt a lot of pressure. His background was really strong with a real good reputation. He was going up against the best teams in the nation. To be honest, we didn’t have the players. We got a quarterback my sophomore year, Gary Davis, who came out of junior college.”
“We got some other good players where we hoped we could generate some offense. I can remember my senior year playing Michigan in the opening game. We thought we had a good team. It was like 14-7 going into the fourth quarter. We wound up losing, 42-14. They just wore us down.”
After the 1967 season, Bill Pace replaced Green. Pace was an offensive-minded coach.
“I really thought Bill Pace was a good coach,” Asher said. “He had a warm personality and very encouraging. He never talked down to his players and appeared to be a smart coach with a new system. He came to us from Arkansas and brought in their system, which was an option-type offense. We had Watson Brown, who was a local favorite and a really good option-type quarterback. We had a lot of hope that we could do something big. In my junior year we had a winning year, which was an accomplishment back then.”
In Asher’s first year of varsity eligibility, Vanderbilt was 2-7-1 (SEC, 0-6) with wins over William & Mary, North Carolina and a tie with Navy. Asher became a starter on the offensive line where he would eventually start every game in his college career.
“That was another reason going to Vanderbilt, which made a lot of sense,” said Asher. “I could have gone to Penn State when Joe Paterno was in his first year. There were opportunities for me to go to bigger schools and decent academic schools. I knew that at Vanderbilt I would have the opportunity to play right away. We were much more competitive than the 2-7-1 record indicates.”
In his junior season, Vanderbilt improved to 5-4-1 (SEC, 2-3-1) with wins over VMI, Army, Tulane, Kentucky, Davidson and a tie with No. 15 Florida. Asher would be named to the All-SEC second team.
“We played Tennessee pretty close [10-7] and thought we had a chance to go to a bowl game that year,” said Asher. “That was driving us the entire year. A few of those teams we beat were not that good. We beat Davidson very badly [53-20]. The real challenge was to beat some of the SEC teams. Back then Kentucky had a record much like ours. We needed to beat teams like Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia that we played every year. It was encouraging in our senior year since we had a lot of players retuning. Unfortunately we played Michigan in the first game that beat us up a bit.”
Vanderbilt was 4-6 (SEC, 2-3) in Asher’s final college season and he became a team captain. Victories came over Alabama, Tulane, Kentucky and Davidson. In the fourth game of the season on Dudley Field, the Commodores defeated Paul “Bear” Bryant’s No. 13 ranked Crimson Tide. That was Vanderbilt’s last victory over Alabama in Nashville.
“That was definitely a highlight,” Asher said. “I remember Bear Bryant saying how disappointed he was that he brought Alabama in for the game as a contender for the national championship and lost to Vanderbilt. I thought, well, thanks Bear [Asher laughing]. Beating a Bear Bryant team is something you always remember.”
Asher would be named an All-American and All-SEC first team. He played in the North-South Shrine Game, Senior Bowl and the College All-Star Game. Dallas selected him in the second round in the NFL draft. The Cowboys would trade up in the draft to select Asher.
Also selected in that same draft was Asher’s Vanderbilt teammate defensive end Pat Toomay, who was selected by Dallas in the sixth round. Asher and Toomay arrived together as freshmen at Vanderbilt. Toomay played five years (1970-75) with Dallas and 10 years in the NFL.
“I had an agent named Bucky Woy who was famous because he had Terry Bradshaw and Ron Shankling of the Steelers that he represented,” said Asher. “Bradshaw became the No. 1 pick in the country. I was the No.1 pick in the second round. Shankling was No. 2 in the second round.”
“He signed Bradshaw and Shankling to good contracts. Dallas drafted me and offered me a lot less than Shankling. He helped me as an agent. It was every player’s dream to go pro. I played every down at Vanderbilt for three years and I didn’t have any issues until I got to the pros.”
A knee injury would limit Asher to six games as a rookie and surgery was eventually delayed until after the season. Playing with the Cowboys gave Asher the chance to learn and develop.
“I backed up Rayfield Wright at right tackle and he went into the Hall of Fame,” said Asher. “He could have been the best offensive tackle ever. I could see the level that I would have to play in the NFL to be a good offensive tackle. I learned quickly from him.”
“The other tackle was Ralph Neely who had been All-Pro for three or four years before Rayfield became a starter. I was in a predicament with two All-Pros at tackle. They tried to make me a center, but I thought I was too tall. By the time I snapped the ball everybody was all over me as far a hitting me.”
“You can imagine using your arm to hike the ball and the guy on your nose is giving you a forearm after he saw the ball move. It was too difficult of a position for me. I had to basically back-up two All-Pros. The guy who would pound my nose in practice was Bob Lilly. When I was playing center, I was snapping to Roger Staubach. These guys are Hall of Famers. That was the real experience for me as a rookie.”
The Cowboys were 10-4 and NFC Eastern Division champions. They defeated Detroit (5-0) in the divisional playoff and San Francisco (17-10) in the NFC title game. Tom Landry was the Cowboys’ head coach.
“Coach Landry was a very shy and quiet coach that never yelled or cursed,” said Asher. “He was very religious. Coach Landry was with Vince Lombardi as assistant coaches with the Giants. Then Vince went to Green Bay and Tom to Dallas. They had a strong rivalry after that. He was a very innovative coach. The reason I believe the Cowboys drafted me was they thought I would be able to understand their system since I was from Vanderbilt.”
“Their system was difficult and almost a language. This is how Staubach would give us a play in the huddle. He’d say ‘fire, red right, trips flip, power 49, near G.O., halfback pass.’ That was one play. Fire meant it was a play action; red was a split backfield; right flip means the tight end goes right and flip means two receivers on the same side.
“Power meant a pulling guard power sweep. Power 49 meant four back in the nine hole; near G.O. meant the near back would go to the slot position; G.O. meant both guards are pulling. That is how he created his playbook. It was like a language.”
Dallas played the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V in Miami. The Colts would win the game 16-13 with a fourth quarter field goal with five seconds on the clock to break a tie. Though Asher’s knee injury had limited him during the season, he was able to play in the game.
“I didn’t start, but I played on special teams with the punt return team,” Asher said. “I can say I played in the game, but I was not a factor. I had hurt my knee and played in six games during the regular season. One of our coaches Jim Myers made it a point that I played in the game.”
“We were on the two-yard line when Duane Thomas fumbled the ball [stripped by Colts LB Mike Curtis] and that turned the game around. If we had scored it would have been a different outcome. We were the favorites and expected to win the game.”
“They had Johnny Unitas who was late in his career, but was a seasoned quarterback. They had John Mackey who caught a tipped pass for a touchdown. There was a lot of disappointment especially for Bob Lilly and the guys that had been around for a long time.”
Asher did have knee surgery and missed all of the 1971 season and was placed on the injured reserve list. When Staubach was injured in Dallas, the Cowboys traded Asher to the Chicago Bears for quarterback Jack Concannon. Asher knew the Bears defensive line coach Chuck Cherundolo whose son played with him in high school. Cherundolo pushed for the Bears to acquire Asher because they needed offensive linemen.
Asher would play with the Bears for four seasons with records of 4-9-1, 3-11, 4-10, and 4-10. He started every game for the Bears in his first three seasons.
“Because I got such good training in Dallas in those first two years, I was way ahead of the linemen in Chicago as far as fundamentals,” said Asher. “I usually graded out as the best offensive lineman. We didn’t have any All-Pros and we weren’t a great offensive line.”
“We had Bobby Douglass who was like Watson Brown. He played the option very well and ran all the time. He ran for about 1,000 yards one year as a quarterback. We had an interesting team, but were behind a lot. We played against Minnesota who went to the Super Bowl a few times and we had a difficult time with them. They had a great end in Carl Eller who really challenged me to have a great performance. They also had Alan Page who was an MVP. We had to play them twice each year.”
Asher had one very memorable night playing with the Bears against the Vikings.
“Howard Cosell was broadcasting a Monday Night game when we played Minnesota and I had to play against Carl Eller,” said Asher. “We really took them to the final minute. I think they won 14-10. Chicago ran the ball mostly to my side of the line.”
“We did well running against them. Cosell was highlighting Eller as one of the great players and how I was doing a very good job handling him. My parents and friends who were watching the game on TV were thrilled that my name was even mentioned.”
In Asher’s final season (1975), he played in 11 games with two starts. He had some injury issues that limited his play. Abe Gibron was the Bears coach for the first three seasons Asher was in Chicago and Jack Pardee was coached in his fourth year.
“That season was memorable for me because of Walter Payton,” Asher said about his final season with the Bears. “He was a rookie. The biggest disappointment for me is when I got to the Bears, Gale Sayers retired after the second exhibition game. So I lost playing with one of the greatest running backs in NFL history.”
“Then Walter Payton was a rookie in the last year I played. He had a sprained ankle and missed about six games and then became a Hall of Famer. I never really had a chance to play with him either.”
Asher decided to retire from football after that season.“I had an issue with my neck,” said Asher. “When I hit somebody the nerves in my neck, arms and back would create some numbness. I just realized that would hurt my ability as a player and could also cause permanent damage. I just realized I wasn’t durable to play anymore.”
Asher said that the toughest defensive linemen he had to block in the NFL were Hall of Famers Carl Eller, Claude Humphrey and Jack Youngblood. In today’s football culture, especially in the NFL, concussions have become a big issue with the players’ health. Asher was asked about concussions.
“I had at least one,” Asher said. “I cut my guy at the knees and fell to the ground. The player kneed me in the head. I came off the field really woozy and the trainer was giving me the smelling salts. He was asking me how many fingers and stuff like that. My coach came over and was listening and said, ‘He’s all right. He talks like that all the time.’
“I went back in the game and that was it. In those days when you got your bell rung to me that was like getting a concussion. We weren’t that sophisticated at that time where they made sure you didn’t play if you got your bell rung. There was no concussion protocol.”
Asher was named in 1995 as Vanderbilt’s SEC Legend. He has become a very successful businessman in Chicago and travels the world.
“When I retired, I went back to school to get my MBA at the University of Chicago,” said Asher. “I coached their offensive line to see if I would like to stay in coaching. I learned real quickly I didn’t want to coach. I went to Smith Barney a brokerage firm. I had some money, but didn’t want to be one of those players that lost it all in a restaurant or did something stupid. I learned the business and made it my livelihood.”
Traughber’s Tidbit: On November 22, 1969 Vanderbilt amassed 798 total yards in a 63-8 thrashing of Davidson on Dudley Field. The total yardage was an NCAA record, which has since been broken but is still a school record. Senior tailback Doug Mathews led all rushers with 138 yards. Vanderbilt totaled 430 rushing yards and 368 yards in the air. Quarterback Watson Brown ran for 118 yards and three touchdowns. Mathews finished the season with 849 rushing yards to lead the SEC. He is the only Vanderbilt player to lead the conference in rushing.
Tidbit Two: In an obscure location in front of the Vanderbilt Soccer Field and near the McGugin Center parking lot lays a concrete slab that reads, “George R. Knox Public School.” Curiosity led to an investigation that discovered the George R. Knox Public School was once at the location of the north end zone of Dudley Field.
The school was located across the street from McGugin Center and Jess Neely Blvd. At that time Jess Neely Blvd., was Branch Ave. In this era homes and lots lined both sides of Branch Ave. The school eventually relocated and the building demolished to make way for the construction of Dudley Field in 1922.
It is not known where the concrete slab originated and why or when it was placed in its current location.
