WARM WELCOME FOR WARREN
Article written by Pie Traynor (Sports Director KQV) for the offical program (25c)
of the game played at Forbes Field November 4th, 1945.
Along with thousands of other Pittsburgh football fans I have been thrilled with the comeback performances of the Steelers. These, as many of us know, have been the result of a happy combination of circumstances, which include great work by Buist Warren.
Want to know about Warren? Well, here's a story I used on one of my recent broadcasts on KQV:
"This season's surprise package among the Pro gridders is a slim-hipped halfback who used to do his strutting for the Tennessee Volunteers. By name he is Buist Warren. By all standards of Pro Football, he is terrific.
Buist or Buzz as his teammates call him got off to a very inauspicious start in the National Professional League this fall. In fact, just a little over a month ago Warren was just another Navy dischargee looking for a' chance to turn an honest penny or two.
His first thought was football. After all - Buzz had played in the Orange, the Sugar and the Rose Bowl with the Tennessee teams of 1938, '39 and '40. Buzz didn't star in those games. He had the ill luck to be playing in the shadows of two great stars - Johnny Butler and George Cafego.
And the Vol coach used Warren principally as a relief man. When the Varsity had softened up the opposition - with end runs, Warren was sent in to shell them with passes. And Buzz developed into one of the prettiest passers ever turned out in the hill country.
In his secondary role, Warren didn't rate the headline. Consequently, Coach 'Greasy' Neale, didn't have the band out when Buzz popped up in the Philadelphia Eagle camp. It seems Bobby Suffridge, a former Tennessee guard now with the Eagles, suggested that Buzz come to Philadephia.
Maybe Coach Neale has lost some of his famed football insight, or maybe 'Greasy' thought he had enough backs in Mel Bleeker, Steve Van Buren, Sonny Karnofsky and Jack Banta. Anyway, a couple of exhibition games went by the boards and Buzz still was getting his quota of exercise by sliding up and down the Eagle bench.
About 16 days ago, Neale decided to unload Warren onto the Pittsburgh Steelers. And that decision may go down in Pro Football history as the prize boner of all times. For Warren has changed, the Steelers from the League's easiest touch to a team that's respected around the circuit."