In 1959, Tiffin native Bill Groman racked up 1,473 receiving yards as a rookie player for the Houston Oilers. It was the first season for the newly formed American Football League. That year, the Oilers became the first AFL champions.

Groman was featured in the Aug. 10, edition of the Houston Chronicle for his role in the two championship seasons with the Oilers. The article by Dale Robertson also pays tribute to another player, Charlie Hennigan. He and Groman played 25 games together for Houston, logging more than 5,000 yards and scoring 48 touchdowns between them.

This weekend, Groman was in Tiffin to visit his sister Judy Yocum and to attend his 55th high school reunion. He also sat down for an interview about his career in professional football, as a player from 1960-65 and later as a scout.

In 1954, Groman graduated from Columbian High School and went on to earn a degree in education from Heidelberg College in 1958. He is enshrined in the Columbian and Heidelberg Halls of Fame.

"At Heidelberg and in high school, I played football, basketball and ran track," Groman said. "I taught one year of high school at Perrysburg, Ohio, in 1959. I was a science teacher and was assistant coach in football there."

A fellow teacher at Perrysburg was the wife of Bob Snyder, who had played quarterback for the Chicago Bears and had coached in Los Angeles and at Notre Dame. One of the players Snyder had coached at Notre Dame, Lou Rymkus, was named the head coach for the Oilers.

Snyder knew Rymkus was seeking players to form the new team. At the time, Groman weighed less than 200 pounds.

"I played running back in college, but Bob took me out and threw the ball to me ... he thought I could play receiver. He contacted Lou Rymkus. That's how I ended up in the tryouts down there with the Oilers," Groman said.

Robertson's story says Groman sustained numerous injuries during practice sessions, but he was able to overcome those early obstacles. Groman was with the Oilers for three years, bringing home two AFL championship rings.

During the championship game the second year, Groman suffered a serious knee injury from a hard tackle on the field. The surgical techniques being used at the time left much to be desired. Groman moved on to play with Denver in 1963. At that time, the season included 14 games rather than the current 16.

"Every Friday I had to go and get a big needle stuck in the side of my knee to drain off 70 cc's of bloody fluid. Then they'd shoot cortisone in there. Come Sunday, it would feel good enough to play on. I'd play, and by Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week, it would start filling up with fluid again. By Thursday, I couldn't practice. On Friday, I'd get it drained again - 14 weeks in a row," Groman said.

He continued to have problems with that knee for his remaining years in football and into the present day. During the 1964 and '65 seasons, he played with the Buffalo Bills, the AFL champions both years.

"In the old AFL, I was on four championship teams, two with the Oilers and two with Buffalo, more than anybody else until the merger in 1970," Groman said.

Although he could not play football, he was tapped to be a scout for the NFL. For more than 36 years, he worked a short time for Buffalo, several years for Tampa Bay, and about two years for the San Diego Chargers. His last 16 years were with the Atlanta Falcons.

"I always lived in Houston, because I covered that part of the country and out to the west," Groman said. "When you're a scout, you go to all the colleges and watch them practice."

The players Groman recruited included Earl Campbell for the Oilers, Jim Anderson for the Falcons, James Harris and Doug Williams for Buffalo, and Ricky Sanders for the Washington Redskins. Groman said he picked out many other players from smaller schools, such as himself, who went on to make important contributions to their NFL teams.

"Nowadays, I think it's more of a business than it was back then. We didn't get paid near the money they do now. My first year, I made $8,000 with my contract ... At one time for the Oilers, I held seven receiving records, and the most I ever made from them was about $16,000," Groman said. "Nowadays, if somebody had that type of thing, they'd be making $10 million a year or even more, maybe."

Even $8,000 was more than the $4,200 Groman made during his first year of teaching and coaching. As far as other changes in the sport, Groman said merging the two leagues and adding the Superbowl playoff between the AFC and the NFC divisions was a major event. Before the merger, each league had its own championship, but the winners did not have the chance to square off.

"When they went together, they took all the records that both had them set and put them in one record book. That's why the record I set still stands," Groman said.

About five years ago, Groman became a widower. His son, oldest daughter and her three girls all live near their father in Houston. Groman said he recently spent about a week in San Francisco with his youngest daughter and her year-old twin boys. He said he manages to stay in shape by jogging and walking. His old football injuries have not slowed him as much as the deterioration of his vision, which is not unusual for his age.

"I'm 73, so if I can just get up in the morning and get out of bed, I'm happy," Groman said.

During the AFL 50th anniversary, Groman is looking forward to the special events the NFL is having. At some of the games, the teams will be wearing replicas of their original AFL uniforms, as they did for the Hall of Fame Game a week ago.

"The Tennessee Titans was the Oilers ... so they wore the original uniforms that we wore in 1960. They played Buffalo, so Buffalo wore the uniforms they had back then," Groman said.

Likewise, when Tennessee plays the Texans this November, there is to be a special observance prior to the game to reunite the surviving players from both teams. This weekend, Groman concentrated on catching up with some high school classmates before returning to Houston Monday.