On an evening in March 1964, St. Louis Cardinals running back Bill Triplett was having dinner at home when he felt a dull ache in his chest. “My wife said I probably ate too fast,” Triplett recalled to Newsday.
When the chest pain returned at dinner the next night, Triplett and his wife grew more concerned. At a visit to a doctor the following day, X-rays showed a dark spot on his right lung, Newspaper Enterprise Association reported.
“I was thinking cancer,” Triplett, 23, confided to Newsday.
Instead, the diagnosis was tubercle bacillus, a bacterium that causes tuberculosis. As Triplett said to Newsday, “When … they told me I had tuberculosis, I was shocked, yet I was relieved (it wasn’t cancer).”
After sitting out the 1964 NFL season, Triplett returned to the lineup and was the leading rusher for the 1965 Cardinals.
Making the grade
Growing up in Girard, Ohio, near Youngstown, Bill Triplett had 11 siblings _ nine sisters and two brothers, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. An older brother, Mel, was a fullback for eight NFL seasons with the New York Giants (1955-60) and Minnesota Vikings (1961-62). Giants receiver Kyle Rote told Newsday that Mel “is the best blocking fullback in the league. There’s no fullback who protects the passer better.”
Bill Triplett also was a football talent, but schoolwork was a struggle. “When I was a sophomore in high school, I was looking forward to one thing _ getting out,” he recalled to the Post-Dispatch.
Triplett’s attitude changed when pole vaulter Bob Richards, a two-time Olympic gold medal winner, gave a talk at the school. “Listening to him, it dawned on me that the only way I’d play pro football would be to study and make the grade in college,” Triplett said to the Post-Dispatch. “It didn’t come easy, studying. I’d been timid and shy. If I did know an answer, which wasn’t too often, the teacher had to drag it out of me. So I started taking speech courses.”
In 1958, Triplett accepted a football scholarship offer from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and majored in industrial technology. Fast and strong, Triplett developed into a top college running back for head coach John Pont. As a senior in 1961, Triplett rushed for 1,418 yards and became the first Miami player selected to the East-West Shrine game.
“My parents trained each of us that being a person of color, in order to stand out or to get ahead, you had to be twice as good as the next person, and that’s always been embedded in the back of my mind,” Triplett told the Warren (Ohio) Tribune Chronicle.
Do the right thing
The Giants drafted Triplett in the sixth round but he didn’t make it to training camp with them. Seeking a veteran quarterback to back up Y.A. Tittle, the Giants traded Triplett to the Cardinals for Ralph Guglielmi in May 1962.
After Triplett clocked the team’s second-fastest time in the 50-yard dash at training camp (only receiver Sonny Randle was faster), Cardinals head coach Wally Lemm tested him at multiple positions (running back, flanker, defensive back). Triplett also returned kickoffs.
When the Cardinals arrived in Jacksonville, Fla., for an exhibition game against the Green Bay Packers in August 1962, St. Louis’ black players were told they’d be staying at “a motel on the other side of the tracks” instead of at the team hotel, Triplett recalled to the Warren Tribune Chronicle.
Though the hotel wouldn’t permit blacks to stay as guests, the black Cardinals were informed by the club that they were expected to attend team meetings at the hotel. “I refused,” Triplett told the Tribune Chronicle. “By my refusing, two of my teammates did the same.”
According to the Warren newspaper, in a meeting with Cardinals co-owner Charles Bidwill, Triplett told him, “You speak of family. What parent would take some of their children and disband them to an unknown facility and tell them to just find their way? I said, ‘Not with me, sir.’ ”
In the game against the Packers, Triplett ran back kickoffs for 55 and 30 yards. The next week, in an exhibition against the Vikings in Minnesota, he returned a kickoff 91 yards for a score.
Versatile skills
The 1962 Cardinals determined they were OK at running back with John David Crow and Prentice Gautt but needed help in the defensive backfield, so Triplett spent his rookie season as a strong safety (six starts) alongside free safety Larry Wilson and returned kickoffs (averaging 25.3 yards on 24 returns).
Triplett got a chance to return to his preferred position, running back, when Gautt (kidney) was injured in the 1963 season opener against the Dallas Cowboys. Triplett rushed for 82 yards on 12 carries and made two catches for 51 yards. Game stats
With Gautt sidelined for the season, Triplett stepped in and performed well. He rushed for 85 yards and a touchdown against the Giants and rushed for 102 yards versus the Cleveland Browns. Game stats and Game stats
Triplett’s 1963 totals:
_ Rushing, 652 yards, five touchdowns. He averaged 4.9 yards per carry. Only Cleveland’s Jim Brown (6.4) and Green Bay’s Tom Moore (5.0) did better.
_ Receiving, 31 catches, three touchdowns.
_ Kickoff returns, 16.4-yard average on 14 returns.
Triplett figured prominently in the Cardinals’ plans for 1964 _ until it was discovered he had tuberculosis.
On the mend
Admitted to a hospital, Triplett was given strong antibiotics. His weight dropped from 210 pounds to 175, but the drugs “helped limit his hospital confinement to 18 days,” Bob Broeg of the Post-Dispatch noted.
That was followed by six months of rest at home, according to Newsday. He spent part of that time studying game films of other running backs. “I’ve learned a lot,” Triplett told the Post-Dispatch. “I’ve seen on power sweeps how the best ball carriers use their blockers to the best advantage, staying behind them until just the right instant … I’ve studied the better pass receivers among the running backs. I had a tendency to fight the ball rather than relax in catching it.”
Given medical clearance to play in 1965, Triplett looked strong, beating out Prentice Gautt for the starting halfback spot. However, his rustiness showed in the first half of the regular season. In the Cardinals’ first six games, Triplett rushed for more than 33 yards just once, gaining 93 on 22 carries versus the Cowboys.
“Coming back after sitting out a year was like learning how to run again,” Triplett said to the Associated Press. “I was just gauging myself. I was overanxious, not waiting for the holes to open, and running into blockers.”
Heading into Game 7 against the Giants, head coach Wally Lemm opted to start Gautt instead of Triplett. The plan disintegrated, however, when Gautt broke an arm on the opening kickoff. Triplett came in and gave a career-best performance, rushing for 176 yards on 23 carries and scoring a touchdown. Game stats
“I can still run as fast as ever,” Triplett explained to the Associated Press. “Maybe knowing I wouldn’t start relaxed me and I didn’t have time to get too anxious, but I don’t want to go through that (a benching) again.”
Triplett led the 1965 Cardinals in rushing yards (617) and rushing touchdowns (six). He also made 26 catches, including one for a touchdown.
New boss
Charley Winner replaced Wally Lemm as Cardinals head coach in 1966 and chose rookie Johnny Roland to be the starting halfback. Triplett was relegated to special teams. “There was nothing wrong with me,” Triplett told Newsday. “I was strong physically. I had my speed … but John played too good to be taken out.”
While Roland rushed for 695 yards and five touchdowns, Triplett landed in Charley Winner’s doghouse. Triplett told Newspaper Enterprise Association it was a “personality conflict” with Winner, who determined Triplett lacked drive.
“I’m not one of those fellows who shows a lot of emotion,” Triplett told columnist Murray Olderman. “I can’t be rah-rah. I build a fire within myself, and when it’s ready to come out, I’m ready to play. That’s the way I am.”
In March 1967, Triplett was traded to the Giants for linebacker Jerry Hillebrand. “We didn’t like to give up Triplett,” Charley Winner told the Post-Dispatch. “We think he still has lots of potential.”
In his first regular-season game with the Giants, Triplett rushed for two touchdowns against the Cardinals. It was the only time in his 10 NFL seasons that Triplett carried for two touchdowns in a game. Game stats and Video
Those also were the only touchdowns Triplett scored for the Giants. After one season, they dealt him and linebacker Bill Swain to the Detroit Lions for safety Bruce Maher.
Triplett spent five seasons (1968-72) with Detroit, playing mostly on special teams the last three years.