The Beast – #55 – Hangs Them Up One Last Time: E.J. Holub Passes – The Beast(#55), hangs them up one last time! Sept 22, 2019
I didn’t know of Emil Holub of course, nor did I even meet him til way late in his Chiefs career and then only briefly. He exuded a toughness. He was, as they said of him back then, a “Beast.”
When the Texans became the Chiefs, and the Chiefs arrived in town, was when we began to be introduced to the players who would play the game for KC. Holub, a Lubbock Texas hard scrabble football player of the golden era of Texas Sports was noted for his play in HS and one of his early coaches was Grant Teaff.
Holub attended Texas Tech, 1957-1961 and was drafted by both the Cowboys and Texans. He chose the Texans. Holub was a two time all-American Center and was nicknamed “The Beast” and was the first player of Texas Tech to have his number retired (#55).
In his rookie year, he once played a game where he was on the field for 58 minutes at Center and LB. Later on, he had another game of 54 total minutes. This was unusual to say the least, to have a player go both ways in pro football in the era of platooning.
By 1964 Holub appeared in only 9 games and then underwent surgery (1st of 20 operations) which curtailed his season. By the time his career ended, he had undergone 18 or 19 other surgeries and the last one took place the year he retired from the NFL which was 1971 and he endured one more in 1973.
After the 65 season he was moved to the right side at OLB. It’s difficult for me to imagine but Holub, was known as a “Holler Guy” and still called a Beast. There was another linebacker of the era who had the nickname of “Concrete Charlie” and you have to think they were among the toughest of the tough, but I will leave that for another article, for another time.
Holub, in taking over at center saved his career they say, for another 3 seasons. He would have blood and fluid drained from his knee and then he would hit the field for practice or for a game. He was a starting LB for the first bowl in 1967 and the starting center in Super Bowl IV. In the first week of training camp, 1971, he re-injured his left knee and retired.
Holub’s move to the offensive line happened because of a torn hamstring and as noted, it was one of 20 he would endure, 1957 to 73. Holub’s teammates were often amazed to see him sitting in the training room, his knees being drained of fluid and blood just before taking the field.
A sportswriter was interviewing Holub late in his NFL career, saw Holub in front of his locker, and the writer noticed the cross hatching of scars on his knees joked that he had lost a knife fight with a midget.
I remember hearing him talk the way Texans do though Imagine he lost the more noticeable West Texas accent. He was indeed old school. He makes me ashamed to say that I was tough because I worked the Derrick Floor in the early 70s and I know those old school men of the world were tough as nails. Holub was quoted as saying to the doctor’s: “I got zippers all over my knees, un-zip’em and zip’em back up.
Keep in mind that those surgeries were back in the day when such surgeries were far more invasive. Indeed, Mac Lee Hill, a RB for KC early on, lost his life on the operating table, and the Mac Lee Hill Award is given each year in memory of Hill.
Emil E.J. Holub passed away yesterday at the age of 81. It is fitting to remember him and his import to the miracle decade of the Kansas City Chiefs and to recall his toughness, and his importance to Len Dawson as a a center for the offensive squad. He said about football was not such a tough thing. It’s no different than any other line of work…Oil field worker, steel worker, whoever. Accidents happen and you go on!”
I will never forget him in the Chiefs Red n’ Gold and I imagine he is still goin’ on.
David Bell — ArrowheadOne
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