Cleveland Browns
LIFE photographer Thomas McAvoy was in the locker room of the Cleveland Browns football team in July, 1951 and took all of these photos except the last one. None of the photos were published in the magazine.
Gang showers were standard in those days. Players were not modest around each other.
Even more players crowding into the shower room.
Players were also not modest around the photographers. A player felt like scratching his butt? He scratched his butt.
LIFE had no problem with rear nudity, but it did not publish frontal nudity, so photographers tried to avoid taking shots of it. But a good photographer just keeps snapping away in hopes that one of the pictures will be good. If frontal nudity happens, it happens.
These are big guys, but they're small compared with today's pro football players. In the 1940s and 1950s, the average NFL offensive lineman was 6 ft. 3 in. tall and weighed 223 pounds. Today, the average NFL offensive lineman is 6 ft. 5 in. tall and weighs 315 pounds. If these guys played today, they'd get crushed.
Here's a player who's not so small weighing himself on the locker room scale.
We end with this photo by LIFE photographer George Silk of another Cleveland Browns player wringing out something . Like all the players, he's walking around naked in the locker room (in front of an open door to the outside!) and he's completely unconcerned.
3 comments:
Sadly, gone are the days....
The good old days at the gym with dad my first thought using public showers was to keep the swimming trunks on, he asked me with I was missing a ball and pulled his trunks down and I did the same.
Loving all them
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