The Slant's 30,000th hit came tonight. Oddly enough, it was a visitor from Japan and they landed here from a Google search of "Roy Gerela's Gorillas Picture". Sorry that you didn't find what you were looking for, and I couldn't find a photo of the sign either....but I remember it well dangling from the bleachers at Three Rivers Stadium. I bet if we ask Still A Dog, he'll be able to tell us something about Roy Gerela that we didn't know. On a somewhat different subject - a former Steeler from the 1940's that my dad knows from working at the same place recently passed away...Garry Feniello. I was lucky enough to get his autograph signed on the Steelers logo a few years ago. I would assume it's pretty rare. I met him a few years ago after eating breakfast at one of his haunts. Still A Dad took me over and introduced me to him. RIP.
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Roy Gerela is a guy I don't know a whole lot about that you probably couldn't find in Wikipedia or some other internet source. But here's what I remember about him:
He was one of the first North American born soccer style kickers. Born in Canada and played HS football and soccer in Hawaii. When the Gogolak brothers and Jan Stenerud were being imported from Europe, Gerela was as good as them at their own game.
If you read much of what I post here, you know I'm an old AFL guy. Gerela was the placekicker and punter for the Houston Oilers in the last year of the old AFL. He played for Houston the first year after the merger and then was cut in favor of Mark Moseley who you will remember as the kicker for the "over the hill gang" Washington Redskins of George Allen.
The Steelers gleefully signed Gerela in the off-season before '71. And what a breath of fresh air he was! Steeler place kicking was, putting it mildly, disasterous for the previous three season with Booth Lustig and Gene Mingo handling the kicking.
This was caused by one of the typical assaholic moves for which the Steelers of the 60s were known. Circa 1967 they traded proven placekicker, Mike Clark, to Dallas for God knows who or what. The Steelers always traded their good players to Dallas and got nothing in return in those days (see also Buddy Dial -I cried when the Steelers traded him).
Anyway Gerela came in and made the easy kicks look easy and the hard kicks look easy. Something not seen in the 'burgh for probably forever. And before you knew it, Gerela got swept up in the city's new found love for their pro football team. So in his second season in Pittsburgh when fandom really started to grow with Franco's Italian Army, and Dobre Shunka, our little place kicker found a place in our hearts with Gerela's Gorillas.
Gerela's Gorillas always sat in the endzone right behind the goal posts. And if Myron Cope is to be believed -and I am a beliver in all things Cope- the man in the gorilla suit could enable Roy's kicks to pass through the uprights whereas the gorilla could put up a "lower primate shield" preventing the opponents kicks from making it. I know this is true because I heard Cope descibe it live on the radio. And then saw the highlights on WTAE that evening to confirm.
Few remember that Gerela pulled a leg muscle in Super Bowl X and still gutted it out. One thing for sure, Cliff Harris remembers Gerela. And the ass thumping Jack Lambert gave him for congratulating an injured Gerela for missing that FG. God, am I glad that happend in 1976 when real football was still played. Jack Lambert would have been suspended for a year for doing that today!
Sadly (at least it was sad to me), Gerela was released when we drafted Matt Bahr out of Penn State in 1979. Gerela was picked up by the Chargers and I think played a few games for them but suffered another leg injury and retired after 10 years in the league.
Bahr was a solid kicker. And the Steelers, for the most part, have had solid place kicking in all the years since Roy Gerela left (especially see Gary "Le Machine" Anderson). But it was Roy Gerela who started the tradition and for that he should always be remembered.
Hope that guy from Japan learned something from this if he came back.
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