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Show ' JHr X' y Rick Casares, hard-chargi- ng pro football star, credits his mother for guiding him from pool-ha- ll gangs to gridiron fame. 1 QJffom V T by Stanley Roberts reached my teens, I was hanging around the streets a lot, and secretly spending time in the neighbor- hood pool hall." Call it a mother's instinct, but somehow Mrs. Eleanor Casares found out. "The next thing I knew," Rick recalls, "she'd snatched me off the streets. She began guiding my interests to more wholesome 9 activities and encouraged me in sports. That's when I found myself in the YMCA, and I really got wrapped up in athletics." When he was 14. Rick got particularly "wrapped up" in one sport which didn'l at all meet with Mrs. Casares' approval. "I started boxing," Rick says, "and won the Diamond Belt Title. I received several offers to turn professional and was seriously When fullback Rick Casares of the Chicago considering it." But Mom said no. She was so Bears gets his hands on a football, anyone wearing emphatic about it that she moved the household to a different-colore- d Tampa, Fla., where there were no boxing offers. jersey had better take cover! All-PAt Tampa's Jefferson High School, however, there selection was the The piston-legge- d National Football League's leading ground gainer were plenty of other sports opportunities, and Rick took advantage of them! His four-spo- rt last season. Yet the person this exploits at touchdown terror credits for his success Jefferson High are legend. He became an basketball and track is his mother. Rick Casares isn't a "mamma's boy," fullback, an but he's certainly proud of his mother. sensation, and a star first baseman. "But football was my first love," Rick lays, "and "Frankly, I don't know where I'd be right now, if it weren't for Mom," Rick admits. "Things so easily it was the sport I wanted to stick with." Casares could have gone in another direction and a bad received more than 50 bids from major colleges, but selected the University of Florida at Gainesville, one when I was growing up in Paterson, N. J. scat on where his mother could have a "Dad died when I was seven," explains the gridiron great, "and with Mom working, his collegiate career! I was left pretty much on my own. By the time I Rick was a busy boy the next few seasons. Florida M 1 fimm, g . ro 220-pou- All-Amer- nd All-Sta- te 25-year-- old 18 Family Weekly. September 8. 1957 50-yard-- line ica Coach Bob Woodruff ran him at every backfield position besides letting him punt, pass, kick off. and converboot extra points. It was Rick's extra-poi14-sion that gave Florida its victory over the University of Tulsa in the 1953 Gator Bowl. Casares was the hottest player in the Southeast until early in his senior year. Then the Army sudcandidate. denly inducted the "I was afraid that was going to wash me up in milifootball," Rick says. "I thought my two-yetary absence, plus the fact I'd played only two games my last college season, would ruin my chances in pro football." But Mother's instinct said otherwise. "Mom suggested I keep playing football in the service," he says, "and maybe I'd still get a chance with the pros when I got out." The prophetic Mrs. Casares was right again. Rick fullback choice, became a unanimous and the Bears promptly drafted him. "I was tickled to death," he says, "and I've really tried hard for Chicago. I had a pretty good season last year." That's quite an understatement considering that Rick gained 1,126 yards, just 20 shy of the all-tirecord, and scored 10 touchdowns. When the Bears 1, for the league's defeated the Detroit Lions, Western Division title, Casares ripped off 190 yards touchdown romp. in 19 carries, including a That's one fur the record books. But the entry might have been in a police blotter if Mother hodn't been on the sidelines! nt 13 All-Amer- ica ar All-Servi- ce me 38-2- 68-ya- rd |