Couch: 50 years ago, Michigan State owned a very different NFL draft

It’s hard to imagine the eighth overall pick in the NFL draft not knowing he’d be selected that day, or that the draft was even happening at that moment. Or that the team that chose him would lean on a sportswriter to call him to let him know, and then not touch base for another few days.

Welcome to 1967.

The pro football draft as we know it began 50 years ago. Michigan State owned it that year. And on that historic Tuesday in mid-March, Gene Washington, more concerned with his final season of college track, was relatively oblivious.

“There was no earlier conversation with any teams about the possibility of me being drafted,” said Washington, an All-American receiver for coach Duffy Daugherty at MSU. “Nobody said, ‘You should be in Duffy’s office because you could get a call.’”

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Washington did get a call — albeit not actually from the Minnesota Vikings. He was the eighth overall pick and the fourth MSU player chosen in 1967. Bubba Smith went No. 1 to Baltimore, Clinton Jones No. 2 to Minnesota and George Webster No. 5 to Houston. That day, MSU became the only college to produce four of the first eight picks in an NFL draft. No college has done it since.

“The day of the draft, I was in the athletic office (likely for track and field) in Jenison Field House and one of the secretaries in the office saw me and said that I had a call from somebody,” Washington remembered. “So I picked up the phone and the person on the other end said, ‘Congratulations, Gene Washington, you have been selected in the first round by the Minnesota Vikings.’ The person on the other end goes on and says, ‘We’re so delighted and happy to have you join the Vikings and be picked in the first round. We’re very happy that you’re coming to Minnesota.’

“I wasn’t sure who was on the other line. I just knew the person was from Minnesota. I said, ‘Sir, what’s your name? Who are you?’ He said, ‘Well, my name is Sid Hartman and I’m with the Star Tribune.’ We finished the call and I would say about five days later I get a call from the Minnesota Vikings. And from that conversation, it was confirmed that they had drafted me. I had no knowledge other than from this reporter.”

Hartman is a legendary columnist, still writing at 97 years old.

The NFL draft in 1967 wasn’t the spectacle you see today. Or even televised. There were no mock drafts or projections. “We had no knowledge of nothing in terms of that analysis we see now,” Washington said.

It wasn’t even just the NFL draft then. It was the NFL/AFL draft, the first “common draft” between the two leagues, which announced their merger the previous summer.

“We were going into the situation where we were the first to be drafted by the official National Football League,” Washington continued. “The league had just merged. I remember that was a very important draft.”

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Not a lucrative one, though. Washington, Smith, Jones and Webster were actually a year late for that — or a couple decades early. When there were two drafts, the leagues had to compete financially for the players they selected.

In 1967, with the merger underway, there was one draft between the leagues.

“Looking back to last year when the kids were getting all that cash, it was kinda sad this morning when Houston called me and said, ‘Congratulations, we drafted you.’” Webster told the Lansing State Journal’s Bob Hoerner for Hoerner’s column on March 15, 1967. “There’s not much you can say. I guess I’ll just wait and see what they offer first.”

Webster died in 2007. Smith passed away four years later. But Jones remembers the immediate financial misfortune of the merger.

He, unlike Washington, was well aware of where he was likely to be drafted and the politics of the two leagues. The NFL had sent assistant commissioner Buddy Young to “babysit” Jones after Jones’ junior season at MSU.

“The AFL and NFL sent out people to go to key players, because they wanted them going to their league,” Jones said.

“After my junior year, I was a hot prospect. And you had two different leagues, so (Young) came after me to ingratiate me and introduce me to the founders of the National Football League, like (George) Halas, the owners of the New York Giants, the owners of the Detroit Lions. He introduced me to Black Nobility in Detroit.”

Jones didn’t have an agent or a lawyer like Smith did. It was just him and his mother, who was back in Cleveland. He grew up around the Cleveland Browns and wanted nothing to do with the AFL.

“At that time, the amount of money they were giving to professional football players, only two percent of the black population was making that kind of money,” Jones said. “I’m talking about playing for $25,000 a year. So for me to get a contract in the NFL, I was so appreciative. (Young told me) ‘You can maybe get another $25,000 or $50,000 but don’t worry about that. I was so sincere (in my appreciation), I didn’t. I trusted him.”

This was still the era of segregation. Washington’s hometown of Houston was entirely segregated in 1967. The black players on MSU’s famed 1966 team were seen as pioneers even in the Midwest.

When Minnesota selected three black players — Jones, Washington and Notre Dame’s Alan Page — with its three first-round picks, “that was kind of new,” Washington said.

What wasn’t new, was Sid calling the Vikings’ draft picks.

“We get together all the time and laugh about that,” said Washington, who lives in the Minneapolis area. “He was asked by the owner and by the general manager to call me. I think Sid also contacted Alan Page. That was not unusual.”

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.