Singer and television personality Andy Williams unintentionally startled me one night. It was the size of his head that was alarming.
Late in his career, Williams started performing in Branson. I was sitting on the end of an aisle at one of his shows. He came in a back door after intermission and was visiting with folks on his way back to the stage.
I didn’t realize he was in the aisle. When he tapped me on the shoulder to speak, I turned to see his face just a few inches from mine. I flinched because I had never seen a human head that big.
It seemed out of place on such a small body. He was not much over five feet tall and had a tiny frame. His head looked like a big pumpkin propped on a broomstick neck.
Watching him on stage from several rows back earlier in the show and seeing him on television countless times, I never noticed the disproportionate size of his head. But it was obvious up close.
This is not intended as criticism. In fact, friends in the television business had told me for years that having a large head was beneficial in the visual entertainment industry. They said it made people come across better on movie and television screens.
There are stories of stars like Harrison Ford, Jay Leno, Dustin Hoffman, Kelsey Grammar and John Travolta having oversized heads. A Hollywood writer said Kevin Costner has a head “the size of a bison’s.”
These thoughts on the dimensions of certain body parts arose from the recent hubbub about the size of Joe Burrow’s hands. It has been determined that the LSU quarterback who is projected to be the top pick in the NFL draft next month has small hands.
This hand size thing must be some new twist to the selection of players by pro football teams. There has always been a lot of attention to players’ height and weight and how fast they run a 40-yard dash, but I don’t remember hand size ever being discussed.
It turns out that the size of Burrow’s hands is nine inches, and that is considered little. Hand size is calculated by spreading your hand out and measuring from the tip of the thumb to the end of the little finger.
These NFL hand size experts remind us that New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees has a size 10.25 inch hand, so Burrow will be going into pro football short-handed so to speak.
He led LSU to a national championship and an undefeated season this year, won the Heisman Trophy and threw 60 touchdown passes. I wonder what he could have done with big hands.
Burrow has accepted this physical shortcoming with good humor. He recently tweeted, “Considering retirement after I was informed the football will be slipping out of my tiny hands. Please keep me in your thoughts.”
Foot size was important to one guy in my college days. Coach Jack Clayton had ordered new low quarter shoes for all of his Northwestern football players who had worn high tops for years.
A walk-on from New Orleans wore size five and a half, and there were no new low quarters that small. Coach Clayton told him he would have to wear some old high tops.
The kid said, “Coach, being as I have never played football, being as I’m only 5-foot-5 and being as I’m just 130 pounds, don’t you think I have enough disadvantages without having to wear high top shoes?” Clayton ordered him some low quarters.
I realized when I went out for baseball in high school that my head was small. My cap size was six and three quarters, and the smallest one available was seven and a quarter. That was before all these adjustable caps.
It was hard to hit the ball or snag line drives with a cap over my eyes. When I tried to field grounders, the hat would fall off around my feet and cause me to make errors.
Looking back, I had always dreamed of playing for the Yankees, and the small head and big cap probably killed my chances at a Major League career. And I might have been a movie or television star if I had a head like Andy Williams.
It’s hard for me to muster up much sympathy for Joe Burrow and his little hands.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES