Today's Tidbit... Hanging With A Glue Guy

We talk more about glue guys in basketball and hockey than football and baseball. Still, regardless of the sport, glue guys help teams do the little things correctly, contributing to a team's success in ways unaccounted for by the game's statistics.

Bruce Maher was a glue guy in college, but not in the usual sense since he was a star on the University of Detroit's football and baseball teams in the late 1950s. Maher redshirted before taking a starting role as a sophomore halfback on offense and defense. He performed well enough to be drafted by the Detroit Lions in January 1959 as a future pick following his junior year of eligibility. After earning Associated Press All-American honors as a senior, Houston's AFL team also drafted him.

Maher played defensive back for the hometown Lions in 1960 and spent time with the Detroit Tigers' Class B minor league team in 1961 before committing full-time to football. Maher played seven more seasons with the Lions, earning the team MVP in 1965.