Medford mail tribune., December 01, 1963, Image 42

GALLERY OF UNUSUAL PEOPLE
f 111 $ff
This WEEK approximately 500,000
people attending prize fights, foot
ball games, hockey, and other sports
events across the country will be shown
courteously and efficiently to their seats
by Andy Frain ushers, a semimilitary
corps of 7,000 young men who handle
between 70 and 80 events a day in 22 cit
ies from coast to coast.
Andrew T. Frain, a husky, pug-nosed Irish
man with a faint brogue, is founder, sole owner,
and chief executive of Andy Frain, Crowd Engi
neers. He has turned the handling of large
crowds of people into a science. He has been
facetiously called "Head of the House of Ushers."
Yet there is little doubt that Frain can truth
fully be called "King of the Ushers."
Whenever 200 or more people are gathered to
gether in one spot, Frain senses a potential cli
ent. He handles dog shows, flower shows, theater
waiting lines, department-store sales, fashionable
weddings, even funerals, where his men serve as
pallbearers and scrupulously violate the boss's
order to smile at all times.
The world's No. 1 usher was born in a crowd.
As the 16th member of a family of 17 children,
he was trained early in bringing order out of
chaos. "We slept in shifts," Frain recalls. "The
first one up was the best dressed."
THE elder KRAlN's income as a hod carrier was
scarcely adequate, so most of the boys pitched
in to help at early ages. Andy landed his first
ushering job at 13. Since ushering meant free
entrance to sports events, remuneration was nom
inal averaging a dollar an event. But Andy was
quick to observe that most ushers lacked ethics.
It was standard practice then to pad your sal
ary by letting in patrons at, bargain prices.
The idea of an elite, efficient ushering corps
was born in Frain's mind on May 29, 1923, when
Benny Leonard fought Pinky Mitchell in Chi
cago's old Dexter Pavilion. A riotous crowd of
12,000 jammed the entrances just before the
fighters entered the ring. Three thousand of
them were without tickets. Before the evening
was over, a major riot ensued and the National
Guard had to be called out
The first thing Frain did was to design a gold
epnuleted uniform with white gloves. He then
approached Maj. Fred McLaughlin, owner of the
Chicago Black Hawks hockey team. Impressed
King
OF THE
Ushers
From funerals to
football anything
that draws spectators
is likely to be handled
by this "Crowd Engineer"
By WILLIAM HEALY
with Frain's ideas, he took a chance and signed
him to usher his events at the Chicago Stadium.
Frain has been there ever since. Next came Wil
liam Wrigley, chewing-gum tycoon and owner of
the Chicago Cubs. After watching Frain and
his men operate at Wrigley Field, Wrigley ad
vanced him $7,000 for additional uniforms.
Frain's next target was Churchill Downs,
home of the Kentucky Derby. He decided on a
bold approach: he shinnied over a wall, surren
dered himself as a gate crasher, and demanded
to be taken to Col. Matt Winn, owner of the
track. Before Winn had a chance to berate the
brash young man, Frain had given him a verbal
blueprint of Churchill Downs' poor crowd-handling
facilities and its vulnerability to gate
crashing. Winn was convinced. Today Frain has
3,000 picked ushers to see that the annual erw4
of 125,000 attending the Kentucky Depty i
handled smoothly.
Frain ushers are mostly from the rasle of
high-school and college students. All stand st
feet and over. Working part-time, most of than
earn from $600 to $1,000 toward their tuition.
Out of a Frain alumni of 25,000 can be found
doctors, lawyers, clergymen, scientists, and many
men in public life. Frain is fond of dispensing
moral counsel to his charges. Once he discovered
that some younger ushers were spending their
salaries on girl skaters in an ice show. Frain
withheld their pay until the show closed.
In planning for a big event such as a national
political convention or a World's Series, Frain
maps his strategy much in the manner of a field
general deploying his troops before battle. He
spreads out a blueprint of the arena and goes
over it inch by inch with his lieutenants. He
wanders over the empty auditorium or stadium,
making careful estimates of the number of peo
ple he thinks will pass a given spot at a given
time. His guesses are rarely off by more than 50
persons in an hour's time.
Crowd behavior, however, is less predictable
than crowd flow, and this is Andy Frain's No. 1
headache. He regards football, boxing, wrestling,
and roller-derby fans as the most pugnacious;
baseball fans the best behaved; and hockey fans
the most restive. "They are always throwing
something out on the ice," says Frain fretfully.
Frain reserves his personal animosity for gate
crashers. Though their tactics are frequent
ly ingenious, Frain is on to them. Props such
as workmen's ladders, buckets of ice, and press
passes are employed to get past unwary gate
keepers. Once, at a prize fight, a man brandish
ing an alarm clock tried unsuccessfully to bluff
his way past a Frain usher by claiming he was
the timekeeper. Others have used the more di
rect approach of trying to bribe Frain ushers.
At one Kentucky Derby, a Frain usher was of
fered $150 to let a man "borrow" his uniform.
The offer was declined. The Chicago manufac
turer who makes Frain uniforms will not sell
them to anyone without Andy Frain's okay.
At 59, Frain could well afford to turn his em
pire over to Andy, Jr., and let him carry on the
Frain tradition of handling crowd situations
from the cradle to the grave (a Frain usher
once delivered a baby at a ball park) . But he sees
no reason to retire.
When ho dtws hang up his spurs, it will be
at his lavishly appointed house in Sauganash. a
fashiooabte Chicago suburb. The house has eight
bnthroomi. This would seem to be ample for
Irsin, a widower, and his five sons. But he isn't
taking any chances.
"I swore when I was a little guy that when I
grew up and had my own home, no one would
have to wait in line to use the bathroom," he says.
Family WnJcly, Dtcrmbtr 1, 19S3