It is sad to report the departure of one of the greatest Eagles of all time, Tom Brookshier, who passed away this weekend at 78 due to complications from cancer. Brookshier starred in the NFL from 1953 to 1961 (with 2 years lost to military service in ’54 and ’55) and was a starting cornerback on the last Eagles team to win an NFL championship in 1960. His uniform number 40 is one of only seven numbers retired by the Eagles.
But I remember him more for being a resident of our suburban Philly neighborhood for many years, and he, wife Barbara and his kids being an active part of our community. Growing up as neighbor kids, we simply knew him as “Mr. Brookshier”…
I knew from soaking in local sports history and from reading the backs of his Topps football cards how good a player Brookshier was. Drafted in the 10th round out of Colorado in 1953, he somehow made the 33-man roster of the Eagles that summer (yes, there were only 33 active roster spots back in the day!)…He was a long shot, but as he later explained, “I always seemed to be able to elevate my game to the next level…I was never projected as the best player in my class at any level. But if they moved me up a level, I would get better every time.”
Brookshier made immediate impact in his rookie year in the NFL. He became known as a big hitter and a sure, clean tackler. He was a ballhawk who intercepted 8 passes that first year. He gained a reputation as a shut-down corner.
Brookshier only made $5500 for that first year of play in the NFL. When drafted, he thought $5500 was going to be his signing bonus if he made the team. Not so, he quickly learned; $5500 was his salary.
There was mandatory military service for able-bodied men back in those days, so Brookshier did a 2-year tour with the Air Force by serving as an assistant coach for the USAF football team. He returned to the NFL in 1956 and picked up where he left off in his stellar rookie season.
The culmination of his career and the eventual sealing of his legendary status as a winner in Philadelphia was the 1960 season. The Eagles went 10-2 in the regular season and beat the Green Bay Packers for the NFL championship. Brookshier was joined by CB Jimmy Carr and safeties Don Burroughs and Bobby Freeman to form one of the NFL’s best secondaries.
Brookshier had to retire from the game during the 1961 season after suffering a compound leg fracture. But before long, he was more visible than ever as a TV and radio personality, first covering the Eagles locally then getting a national assignment for CBS and becoming paired with Pat Summerall for network telecasts for much of the ’60’s, ’70’s and early ’80’s. In an era without universal cable or home computers, Brookshier and Summerall were praised by media critics for their unforced, natural and friendly conversational method of reporting the action to a TV audience. Watching as a kid, I always sensed Brookshier knew the X’s and O’s in far more detail than he was revealing, yet had the good commercial sense to keep it simple in layman’s terms. I also got the feeling he and Summerall were good friends…which, in fact, they were.
After a regime change at CBS and a foolish controversy over a silly remark made by Brookshier about a Louisville basketball program, CBS brought in John Madden to take his spot on the national broadcast team. Brookshier simply went on to form a highly successful sports-talk-radio format in Philadelphia on WIP, a format which lives on today.
He as usual got better as he moved to the next level. No doubt he has moved up to the ultimate new level with his passing. But I’ll forever remember him as “Mr. Brookshier”, the nice man with the nice family down the street, the man who was usually smiling and would drop anything to help out a neighbor in a pinch….even a kid like me.
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