Commodores’ Breakfast: Salata on stage

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - Paul Salata, who has lived a classic rags-to-riches

story, is simply happy to be around to tell it these days.

The embodiment of the American dream, Salata went from hawking

newspapers at a busy corner in Los Angeles during the Great Depression of

the 1930s to the portrait of Balboa Bay beachcomber wealth, having made

his home on exclusive Linda Isle since 1968.

Salata, 74, survived cancer surgery in February and is recovering

well. In fact, Salata is “thriving,” and this morning at 7:30 he’ll serve

as keynote speaker at the Radisson Hotel at the annual Commodores’ Club

Athletic Awards Breakfast, a Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce event

honoring the top 30 athletes at Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar high

schools.

“I still get treatments, but all my pipes have been reset, so my

body’s performing normally,” he said Tuesday. “I just need to gain back a

little strength and I’ll be rolling.”

The honorary mayor of Newport Beach and king of Irrelevant Week,

Salata is known around town as much for his gags and zany Irrelevant Week

antics as his philanthropic deeds and charitable ambitions.

Through Irrelevant Week, Salata discovered a way to put the underdog

on the map, celebrating the absolute dead last draft pick in the NFL each

year. The hokey, tongue-in-cheek affair might raise a few eyebrows for

newcomers -- especially during the roasting and toasting of Mr.

Irrelevant at the All-Star Sports Banquet -- but it has long been a

symbol of doing something nice for somebody for no reason.

A recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NFL Alumni,

Salata has helped bring significant recognition to Newport Beach through

the week-long revelry. The NFL grants him the privilege of announcing the

last pick each year.

Last summer, Sports Illustrated covered the 25th anniversary

Irrelevant Week, which was attended by numerous former Mr. Irrelevant

honorees, including NFL players Matt Elliott and Marty Moore.

When glancing at the football backgrounds of Elliott, a former

Michigan center who has played for the Washington Redskins and Carolina

Panthers, and Moore, who played in Super Bowl XXXI for the New England

Patriots, it begins to make Irrelevant Week sound (gasp!) not so

irrelevant.

But what a beautiful thing that is, considering its founder, a former

Hollywood actor and professional football player who later made a bundle

as a sewer contractor, came from such a tough road.

At age 12, Salata’s father, Chetko, a Yugoslavian immigrant, died

suddenly in 1938. Paul, one of seven boys, went to work to help take care

of their mother, Melania, and soon had a hot newspaper corner at

Riverside Drive and Fletcher Drive in North LA.

Salata became a whirlwind at Franklin High, serving as student body

president, class prankster and Athlete of the Year his senior year. At

USC, Salata caught a touchdown pass from Jim Hardy in the 1945 Rose Bowl

game, a 25-0 Trojans’ victory over Tennessee.

To this day, Salata puts family, USC and Irrelevant Week at the top of

his favorite’s list. “Those are three out of 300, but those are the first

three,” he said.

Never a starter in college, Salata managed to play end for the San

Francisco 49ers, Baltimore Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers, as well as the

Calgary Stampeders in the CFL. He laughs in claiming he invented the wide

receiver position, because he “didn’t like to block and kept moving

farther and farther out.”

Veteran Baltimore sports editor and columnist John Steadman, however,

who covered the Colts when Salata played, once wrote: “Just wondering if

the best pass catching hands belonged to Don Hutson, Raymond Berry, Tom

Fears or Paul Salata.”

In college, and even in his pro football days, Salata always had other

jobs. The roaster or the roastee of an endless parade of events, Salata

started perfecting his banquet emcee and public speaking skills while at

USC and with the 49ers, taking modest fees and accepting invitations

nobody else would touch.

Salata’s occasional gigs as a movie extra still make great

conversation. You probably saw him and didn’t know it. He was the ugly

thug who sliced Frank Sinatra’s nose in “The Joker Is Wild” -- the Joe E.

Lewis story. He was a prisoner of war with Bill Holden in “Stalag 17” and

was one of the ballplayers backing up pitcher Ronald Reagan in “The

Winning Team” -- the Grover Cleveland Alexander story.

He also tried his hand in baseball, playing one season for a farm team

of the former St. Louis Browns in Wichita, Kansas.

“Leaving professional sports can be a real letdown,” Salata once said,

“but you learn you can get as great a feeling from closing a sale, acing

an exam or volunteering, as you get from 50,000 cheering voices in the

stands.”

After sports and entertainment, Salata evolved into a successful

businessman, but he never forgot his roots when creating the nationally

famous Irrelevant Week.

“When I played, I was sort of a champion of the guy who never gets

recognized,” Salata said in a 1978 Sports Illustrated story that never

appeared in the magazine. “I always said if I ever could afford it, I was

going to do something for the guy you never heard of.”

Each year, Mr. Irrelevant is showered with gifts at the Arrival Party,

wined and dined and saluted throughout the week. The honoree is also

given the Lowsman Trophy at the All-Star Sports Banquet, the counterpart

to college football’s Heisman Trophy.

“No one else could think about doing something like that,” said

Steadman, who covered Salata in 1950 when he caught 50 passes for the

Colts.

Too bad the Sports Illustrated story didn’t make it into print 23

years ago, because Joe Jares’ bumped feature had a hot lede: “Paul Salata

is a screwball, an ex-professional football player and millionaire sewer

contractor, probably in that order.”