"COMPETITIVENESS: Good – a fighter, stays after his man; hard worker." - Bengals scout Frank Smouse's report on Dave Lapham.
They say you've only got one shot to make a first impression. When it comes to Dave Lapham and the Bengals, it's been good enough to survive 50 years.
After studying Syracuse's Lapham perched on a training table in a high school dank Montgomery, Ala., locker room during the all-star week at the Blue-Gray Football Classic, Bengals assistant general manager Mike Brown wrote a typically succinct summary dated 12/18 at the bottom of one of the club's 1973 prospect reports.
"EVALUATION BASED ON BLUE GRAY GAME PRACTICE SESSION:
'Will go in 2nd round. Not great quickness, but will hit. Good buy as 3rd on physical qualifications.'"
Now Brown, the Bengals president, is watching Lapham head into his 50th season as a Bengal and his 40th as an analyst in the radio booth where he has become the voice and conscience of the franchise. Those first 10 years came as the most versatile offensive lineman in club history, where he played every position in a game twice and always seemed twice as smart as the guy across from him.
"What I remembered is how big he looked," Brown says. "Big guy. I was impressed with his size. He was quick enough. He was solid. Good enough to win with and win because of him. What separated him was how smart he was."
Lapham displays those brains every Sunday exulting Xs and Os, his passion the perfect foil for play-by-play man Dan Hoard's humming narratives. The Bengals' first impression of his intelligence was impressive enough for them to attach to his scouting report the exam paper from the "Otis Self-Administering Tests of Mental Ability."
The future man in the booth was able to correctly answer the question "A radio is related to a telephone as is (?) to a railroad train," when he chose the word airplane from the group of a highway, gasoline, speed and noise. The man who set the tone for the game that put the Bengals in their first Super Bowl when he went sleeveless in the Freezer Bowl correctly answered, "A man always has (?)," when he chose nerves from children, teeth, home and wife.
There's no sign what the circled 54 in red means in the top right corner of the test. But you get a clue what it indicates from the late Frank Smouse, their lead and highly-regarded scout heading into the 1974 draft.
He knew it even before Lapham's senior season in Upstate New York when he wrote on the line for mental attributes, "Good in these, 2.85 grade & will graduate on time. Public Relations"
As early as April 5, 1973, the day before the Yankees' Ron Blomberg became baseball's first designated hitter at Fenway Park, Smouse also filed in the same report, "With improved blocking techniques, should make it. Has more natural football ability than a lot of ours, and more raw size; could be that big guard we need. He is a smart one, also."
In classic Smousian fashion, he underlined "ours." More than 50 years later, it's no surprise to Lapham that the late Smouse was a big advocate. He always seemed to be at the 'Cuse. And he made sure he had Lapham's home address on Mitchell Lane in Wakefield, Mass.
"Frank was really aggressive," Lapham says. "There'd be a bunch of guys around and he'd step up and pull you away so he could talk to you by himself. That would get the other guys mad. He was all business."
What struck Lapham is that Smouse even made the trip to Syracuse a year later after his stunning sojourn to four different all-star games in five weeks following his senior season. Bengals' offensive line coach Bill "Tiger," Johnson also made the trip north to push around Lapham in a workout and then invited him and his long-time roommate Chuck Smyrl to lunch.
Johnson obviously liked what he saw, but in the Dead Sea Scrolls of Bengaldom, there's no mention of his observations.
Director of player personnel Pete Brown was hesitant about the decline of Syracuse football, but did observe Lapham played in college with Bengals star tackle Stan Walters: "Employing the Hindu theory, that is Stan Walters, why not Dave Lapham? … Stan did turn into a success. One might say, accordingly draft him."
Jack Donaldson, the Bengals offensive backfield coach, signed a report with his nickname J.D. and wondered about his strength. Assistant director of player personnel Doug Hafner didn't think he had a great senior year.
But his three strengths Hafner emphasized, "size, potential, and intelligence," flourished in those four all-star games Lapham played. Even back then, it was unprecedented, but Lapham has always been grateful for the advice from legendary Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder who counseled him to play in all the all-star games he was invited.
Lapham may have been Schwartzwalder's last captain, but the old World War II paratrooper led Lapham to the next step. Unprecedented today, but ultimate yesterday.
"We never went to a bowl when I was at Syracuse, and he told me, 'Son, you deserve it if you want to do it and you're healthy,'" Lapham says. "He told me, 'It can't hurt you. You'll be playing against really good talent. Just take every practice seriously.' It was a blast. It was the best decision I had made up to that point. A four-game, five-week journey."
Lapham went through it like some sort of breveted major from the Civil War. He played for the Blue in Montgomery, for the East in San Francisco at the Shrine Game, for the East again in the Hula Bowl in Hawaii, before winding up again in Alabama at the Senior Bowl playing for the North.
Honolulu wasn't exactly a vacation. Michigan coach Bo Schembechler put the East through grueling double sessions with all sorts of hitting. Lapham turned to Michigan defensive tackle Dave Gallagher, who would go in the second round, and said, "So this is how it is at Michigan." Gallagher said, "Pretty much. But I never thought he'd do this at an all-star game in Hawaii."
The last stop, the Senior Bowl, was played on Jan. 12, just 17 days before the NFL Draft on the B.G. calendar. Before Goodell.
Like today, it was the biggest all-star game when it came to attention. NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle spoke to the teams when he came down for a day. Lapham remembers Eagles head coach Mike McCormack virtually in his lap during a pass-blocking drill encircled by team officials. Agents prowled the hotel corridors unchecked, where Lapham was stunned to get a knock from Jerry Kapstein, the emerging powerhouse New England sports agent Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy once called "the Scott Boras of his day."
The talent was as high-end as the microscope. When he was at tackle during practice and the game itself, Lapham found himself going against Tennessee State's Ed "Too Tall," Jones, who would be the draft's No. 1 pick in less than three weeks. When Lapham went inside, there was the monstrous Indiana defensive tackle Carl Barzilauskas just before the Jets made him the sixth pick in the draft.
If there were any doubts about Lapham's versatility or strength, they ended that week. He felt like he held up and the Bengals must have thought so, too, because they took him in the third round. Just like Mike Brown hoped they would.
"Too Tall was so long and athletic. If you could pass block him a little bit, that would hold you in good stead. I felt like I handled it pretty well," Lapham says. "Barto was a guy highly-regarded in the interior defensive tackle position. He looked like he was 35 years already. He had a full beard. Hairiest guy I've ever seen."
There was a bit of a hairy situation for the NFL that winter. It was the first year of the World Football League, and Lapham was the first-round pick of something called the Birmingham Americans.
He made the visit after the pick, but that's all. There had been too many Sundays spent with his grandfather watching the New York Football Giants in the early game and the Boston Patriots in the upstart AFL in the late game. He was playing in the NFL, and that was it. And by then the leagues had merged and Browns legendary coach Paul Brown was now coaching the Bengals.
His grandfather made certain David knew that.
"Paul Brown is one of the most important figures in the history of the National Football League. You understand this, young man?" Lapham's grandfather told him. "I do, Gramp. I get it," Lapham had said.
Paul Brown knew before the draft that Lapham was not going to Birmingham. At some point, Lapham's agent (not Jerry Kapstein, but Bill Corcoran, a Wakefield High teacher and friend of the family who had a law degree from Suffolk University) informed the Bengals as such.
But that didn't help the wait. The way Lapham remembers it, the draft dragged because teams had to take time to make sure they didn't draft guys who had already signed with the WFL.
Of course, there was no TV coverage. And, he really had no idea what was going on in his Syracuse apartment at the phone 315-478-7847 at 106 Small Rd,, details recorded by the meticulous Smouse.
Back in Massachusetts, the future Lynne Lapham, engaged to be married in June, kept calling the sports desk of The Boston Globe to see if he'd been picked. She called so many times, that they kept telling her, "Be patient. He's going to go. Third round. Be patient. Third round."
"The same guy kept answering," Lynne Lapham says. "I don't know who it was, but he apparently knew what was going on."
Back in Syracuse, so much time had passed, Lapham started apologizing to his friends, saying it appeared he wasn't picked, and they started playing board games. Then a call came.
"It was Cleveland," Dave Lapham says. "They said they were going to draft me with their next pick. I asked them what round it was and they said it was only the second. I couldn't believe it."
But the Browns ended up not having another pick until the fifth. When the next call came, it was somebody asking if this was Dave Lapham and he said, "Yeah. This is Cleveland."
And Tiger Johnson's sandpaper voice crackled, "Don't ever say that name again, son. This is the Cincinnati Bengals."
After hearing the Bengals had taken him No. 61, Lapham said, "Sorry, Coach. Cleveland said they were going to take me with their next pick."
"I told you never to say that name again," Johnson retorted.
Dave Lapham, one of the smartest Bengals ever, learned his first NFL lesson well.
It turns out one of the questions he answered correctly in a scouting report from so long ago summed up the next 50 years.
"A person who never pretends to be anything other than what he is, is said to be (?)."
Lapham circled sincere. That's what the Bengals have been getting every one of their Sundays since.
