The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

"Number 31 had a reputation as a hard-nosed, never-say-die running back," NFL Films narrator Harry Kalas says during a highlight reel of Charley Harraway's eight-year career with the Cleveland Browns and Washington Redskins.

The grainy, slow-motion footage from the 1960s and '70s shows Harraway lowering his head time after time in grinding collisions with tacklers. There's one particularly violent helmet-to-helmet smashup with Miami Dolphins linebacker Doug Swift in Super Bowl VII in 1972. It's a double-tap: after Swift's hit, Harraway falls backward and his skull rebounds from the turf like a bouncing basketball.

"I don't have specific memories of those things," Harraway, 67, says now. "When they rang your bell, that wasn't anything. You just stayed in the game. You didn't ever come out. You didn't tell anybody, necessarily. I remember one time it happened – I don't remember the game – but I remember just lying there kind of on my elbow, picking grass so I wouldn't get up and start stumbling around and so forth, until I gained my thought processes."

Harraway guesses he had 20 or more concussions in his playing days, when he blocked for teammates Leroy Kelly and Larry Brown and carried the ball for more than 3,100 yards himself.

He's paying a price for all those head blows.

For the past 20 years, Harraway's had periodic memory lapses, brief but scary episodes where he doesn't recognize his surroundings. This spring, doctors found early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, a probable consequence of the pounding Harraway's brain suffered during his football career.

welch wrote:One of my long-lasting memories: first Dallas game of 1972, Sonny starting, everyone healthy. Dallas scores TD and two FG's in the first few minutes. Things look bleak. Sonny ambles to the huddle, steps to the line as he pulls his pants higher on his beer-belly. Looks left and right, connects on a 20 yard pass to Larry Brown, Charlie H. blocking. Redskins work their way back into the game, mixing runs by Larry B., passes to Jerry Smith and Brown and Charlie Taylor and Roy Jefferson. To fans who were tired of the George Allen offense ("Larry Brown left, Larry Brown right, Bill Kilmer pass to Taylor"), this was the offense we remembered.

Late in the 4th quarter, Redskins have driven to the Dallas 10, and the Dallas defense, dizzy from Sonny's play-calling, is prepared for a Larry Brown run. Sonny seems to hand off to Larry and defenders go inside and outside to make the tackle. Brown cuts down the outside tackler with a perfect block and Charlie Harraway glides around left end and he's into the end-zone before.