My Favorite Football Player Growing Up Was Jimmy Colclough AKA: "Jimmy Coleslaw"

My earliest recollection of watching sports was in 1960. I was four years old. And it wasn’t a bad year to start. The Boston Patriots entered the start-up  American Football League (AFL) that year, and with veteran quarterback Butch Songin under center, rookie flanker Jimmy Colclough caught 49 passes for nine touchdowns. They finished 5-9.

1960 was also Ted Williams final year with the Red Sox. At 41, he finished a great career with a great season, batting .316 BA with 29 HRs and 72 RBI. He hit a home run in his final at-bat, but the Sox finished a disappointing seventh with a 65-89 record.

At the time, the Celtics owned the City of Boston and dominated the sports pages. Bill Russell would go on to lead the Celtics to eleven championships between 1956 and 1969, two as Player/Coach. He won eight in a row between '58 and '66.

'61 was Yastrzemski’s rookie year, and the Red Sox improved to 76-86, but the Boston Patriots were the big surprise, finishing second at 9-4-1. The Bruins were 15-42-13, and the Celtics won another NBA title, no shocker there.

Despite the Red Sox's struggles, my two favorite athletes at the time were rookie left fielder Carl Yastrzemski and Boston Patriots flanker Jimmy Colclough.  

Yaz’s number 8 and Colclough’s number 81 instantly became my favorite numbers. 

In ‘62, at age 26, Colclough caught 40 passes for ten touchdowns with a league-leading 21.7 average yards per catch, besting guys like Bo Roberson (Raiders), Bob Scarpitto (Broncos), and Don Maynard (NY Titans). In ‘63, Yaz won his first batting title (.321) at age 23.  

Yasrtrzemski was born and raised on a potato farm in Southampton, NY, and graduated from Bridgehampton High School. He spent his entire professional career with the Boston Red Sox, where he hit 452 home runs, had 3,419 hits, earned seven Gold Gloves, a Triple Crown, won three batting titles, was an MVP in the regular season as well as in an All-Star game, was named an All-Star 18 times, and was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.  Although I was living in New Jersey in '83, I made it back to Fenway to be in the right field bleachers for Yaz's final game. His number 8 was retired in 1989.

Colclough was born in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated from Quincy High School. After a stellar career at Boston College, where he led the team in receiving for two seasons, Jimmy spent a year as a defensive back for the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League before signing with the Boston Patriots of the AFL, where he spent nine years. There was a little glitch at the end of the '65 season when Jimmy was traded to the Jets for 1964 Heisman Trophy winner John Huarte (QB, Notre Dame), but before the '66 season began, Jimmy was reacquired via a trade, and back in Boston, where he belonged, and still wearing number 81!

Jimmy played his last game for the Patriots in '68, but he's still eighth in Patriots history with 5,0001 receiving yards, which remained a record until Stanley Morgan broke it in 1983. Colclough is currently third in career average yards per reception with 17.7, behind only Harold Jackson (20.3) and Stanley Morgan (19.4).

In 1969, Colclough partnered with two of the most eligible bachelors in professional sports, Derek Sanderson of the Boston Bruins and Joe Namath of the New York Jets, and opened the popular "Bachelors III"  singles bar in downtown Boston.

Is it just me, or does "Broadway Joe" look like he knows his way around women and alcohol? (Grand Opening Bachelors III, 1969)

Dick Raphael. Getty Images.

In 1978, Colclough served as the head coach of the Boston State Warriors, a position he held for two years. In his first season, the Warriors were NEFC co-champions with a 6–2 record (6–3 overall). 

In 1968, my best friend's family invited me to the Top of The Hub restaurant, considered an "upscale American fare, with live jazz & renowned 360-degree view from the top of the Prudential Center." After our waitress introduced herself, she announced that we were sitting at the same table as the Yastrzemski’s, who had just finished dinner. The waitress then looked at my friend and said, “You’re sitting in the same seat as “Yaz.” My friend wasn’t a big baseball fan like me, and while he smiled, my jaw dropped in shock and disappointment. The look on my face didn’t go unnoticed, and the waitress, trying to console me, said, “And you’re sitting in the same seat as his wife!” Yaz’s first wife, Carol, the mother of his three children, was a good-looking woman with blonde hair and a beautiful smile, but at the time, I felt like a runner-up on a game show who was given a consolation prize. But it was better than nothing.  

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I never came close to meeting Jimmy Colclough. He passed away in 2004 at age 68. In 2009, Colclough was named to the Patriots' 1960s All-Decade Team.

Recently, my wife was in a room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and while she was there, I would occasionally get up and take a walk around the floor to stretch my legs. I usually read the signs next to the doors of each room that say the RN’s first name and the patient’s last name. I recognized many of the nurses' names, but I always hoped none of the patients' names were familiar…

Due to the shortage of hospital beds, patients are discharged quickly—and, if I'm being honest, sometimes too quickly—and as a result, patient names change rapidly.

I was walking around the floor, and on my way back, I noticed the patient's name in the room next to ours had changed. It said "Colclough."

The door was open, and at least eight people were visiting the patient, so I stood just outside the small room, peeked in, and couldn't help myself. "Excuse me. Are you guys related to Jimmy Colclough, the Patriots flanker from the '60s?"

They collectively said they were, and the oldest guy in the room cracked a big smile and said, "Come on in!"

It turns out he was Jimmy's brother, and everyone there was a Colclough.

I explained that Jimmy was my favorite player in the '60s, and 81 became my favorite number. I told them I styled my hair like his: crew cut, jelled in the front, and combed back into a little flip. I revealed that my friends and I affectionately called him Jimmy Coleslaw, like a lot of kids did. One of the women in the room, a school teacher, said that during her first year teaching, some of her students started calling her "Mrs. Coleslaw," but she put an end to it quickly.

When I started rattling off the names of Jimmy's teammates—John Morris, Jim Lee Hunt, Houston Antwine, Bobby Dee, Tony Romeo, Art Graham, Babe Parilli, Gino Cappelletti, Ron Burton, Larry Garron, Larry Eisenhauer, Tom Yewcic, Don Webb, Tommy Addison, Jim Nance, Ron Hall, Nick Buoniconti and Leonard St. Jean—I raised some eyebrows. They all knew I was a huge Patriots fan from the beginning. 

Boston Globe. Getty Images.

The D-line in '67: Larry Eisenhauer, Houston Antwine, Jim Lee Hunt, and Bobby Dee

I spent 35 minutes in the room with the Colcloughs, long enough for them to inform me that the correct pronunciation of their last name was Cole-Cluff and that a broadcaster started calling Jimmy Cole-Claw. With all the publicity Jimmy garnered as a deep threat for the Patriots, the family decided to go forward with the new pronunciation.

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I can't remember having a better time in a hospital room than with the Colcloughs. It came at a difficult time for both our families, and reminiscing about better times was uplifting.

By the time I left the room, the Colcloughs had made me feel like I was family. That's the kind of people they are—good people.

I immediately told my wife about meeting the Colcloughs, and she smiled, too.

In honor of the Colcloughs…