Ray Brown told me of the delight John used to take in signing autographs in the lobbies of their hotels on the road; sometimes Ray would have to go find him and drag him away from the kids who were surrounding him, just to get him up to their Saturday night team dinner. And as Sandy Unitas recalls, Johnny was always a little uncomfortable about being asked for autographs if there were other players around-"He'd say, 'This is whoever; wouldn't you like to get him to sign this?' " she says. "He always would recognize the other players and friends, and not want the attention to go onto him."
In Vietnam, Johnny was the guy, wherever we went.
The first few years after our game, Johnny picked up where he'd left off on the football field. In the '59 title game against the Giants, he opened with a bomb to Lenny Moore, and never looked back. He won two league MVP trophies between '64 and '67. But all the sacks and years of throwing with that overhand snap, that distinctive style that always seemed to produce a perfect pass, finally caught up with him. In the final preseason game in '68 in Dallas, he tore the tendons in his right elbow. He threw only thirty-two passes that year, backing up Earl Morrall. In one game in 1968, when he went one for eleven, the Memorial Stadium crowd booed him.
Don Shula put him in during the third quarter of the 1968 Super Bowl against the Jets, after Morrall had struggled, but it was too little, too late. He led one touchdown drive. He still managed to win a Super Bowl ring, two years later, after the Colts, Steelers, and Browns had moved into the AFC. Sharing duties with Morrall in a sloppy win against the Cowboys, Johnny got his last ring.
The Colts traded him to San Diego in 1973, and it was a bad fit from the start. It pained me to watch Johnny playing-or standing on the sidelines-in one of those flashy pastel Charger uniforms, in that Southern California sunlight, with a bum arm and, by now, two very bad knees.
"When Johnny was traded, he supposedly had right of first refusal," according to Sandy. "But he got a call from a reporter who told him he'd been traded to San Diego. I remember John telling me, 'Honey, I can't afford not to go. It's the largest contract I ever had-$250,000."
The Chargers of the early seventies were a notoriously drug infested team. They were coached by Harland Svare, who had coached the Rams from 1962 to 1965, then taken over the San Diego head spot in 1971. The old farm boy wasn't ready for the pharmaceutical revolution. "What really brought me down was the introduction of not only amphetamines, but marijuana," Harland told me, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. "We tried to control it. On the Giants, all we had was a few drinks every night, and that was it." (Well, maybe more than a few.)
The drug use, the indifference about staying after practice, the losing attitude, the beach-town mentality-it all turned Johnny off. He'd grown up in a gritty coal town and had his best years in a proud port city, both of them sports-crazy. How could he play for a city full of people whose main sport was worshipping the sun? How could he hit receivers, as he was quoted in Tom Callahan's terrific biography Johnny U, who were "smoking that rope"?
Another thing was missing: the camaraderie. In Baltimore, Sandy tells me, Johnny loved to sit around with the guys and talk about games over beers. In San Diego, there was none of that "they just wanted to grab their surfboards and head for the beach," as Sandy tells it. But win or lose, she says, no matter what team he was playing for, Johnny Unitas always left it at the stadium: "You'd never know if he'd won or lost; he'd just come home, lean down, give me a kiss, and say, 'Let's go to dinner.' " He retired in July of 1974, not because of his arm, but his knees.
He would eventually have both replaced. One year later, Sandy said, the FBI knocked on the door, asking about drug use on the Chargers. She says he wasn't shy about telling them whatever they wanted to know. San Diego had left a bad taste in John's mouth.
For a while, his restaurant, the Golden Arm, enjoyed success, but the place eventually went out of business, and every other business he touched seemed to go bad as well, from a hotel in Florida to an electronics venture that caused him to declare bankruptcy.
When Johnny took a job doing TV ads for Bally's Casino, it was a sign of things to come. When he began to pick the point spread in "The Johnny Unitas All-Pro Football Report" ("I have to make a living," he said), Rozelle banned him from appearing at league sanctioned functions.
Through the years, teammates delighted in seeing him at reunions, at golf tournaments, or at other events, always signing autographs, despite a right hand that had become gnarled from the nerve damage that resulted from the torn elbow. "We had a big reunion in '98," Don Joyce remembers. "We were signing autographs, all lined up in this hall where we were having a big party.
Johnny was next to me, and there was a break, and I looked over, and I saw he was holding his pen in a funny way. I said, 'Writer's cramp?' He said, 'No, that's the way I gotta hold it.' He opened up his hand, and there weren't two fingers going the same way. It looked like someone had put his hand under a tire."
In 1993, he had his second knee replacement, and went into cardiac arrest the next night. He succumbed to another, for good, in 2002.
His funeral, in 2002, was held at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore-a soaring cathedral, more than a football field long. The cathedral was packed: men in suits, men in Unitas jerseys. Lines snaked out the door. Overhead, a plane circled, towing a banner: "Unitas We Stand." That day, Lenny Lyles said, "Baltimore became a cathedral."
Berry delivered the eulogy, and I quote from it here, because no one knew him better.
Thank you, John. You elevated us to unreachable levels. You made the impossible possible . . . You filled our memory bank full. Those images of your performances are still there and will never fade. But you did more than perform on the field. Individual achievements and glory didn't have a place on your priority list. All of us knew you were focusing on moving the ball into the end zone and winning the game. You didn't care who did what. Just do our jobs when called on, and we all win together. The Colts were a team, and your example and leadership set the tone.
Of all the Colts I spoke with for this book, maybe no one described Johnny better than the backup receiver and defensive back who only played special teams during the 1958 championship game-Art DeCarlo, a journeyman from Youngstown, Ohio, who retired in 1960. During those glory years, when Johnny was on top of the world, he and Art had a regular Monday golf game, and that sounds like typical Johnny: playing with a backup guy whose name has vanished from the records.
"He was a good golfer, and we'd tease each other about bad shots," Art says now. "But we didn't talk about football. He wasn't a star or anything. Johnny Unitas was just . . . well, he was just a normal guy."
The last time I saw Johnny, my wife, Kathie, was getting an honorary PhD in Washington for her personal fight against the abuse of labor overseas. Johnny was in D.C., too, and he and I grabbed breakfast together. That day, we talked mostly about golf.
His right hand and elbow were a real mess, and he showed me the Velcro glove he wore, to fit against the Velcro grips he had on his clubs. It was the only way he could play the game he loved so much.
It was a sad moment for me. We didn't talk football. We didn't talk about "the greatest game ever played." We were just old guys who had shared a remarkable moment in time.
To my way of thinking, among all quarterbacks, Johnny Unitas had an unparalleled career. Forty thousand yards passing. A stretch of forty-seven games where he threw at least one TD in each. But the stats aren't as meaningful as what I saw for myself, and what all of his teammates will tell you: this was a man who made everyone around him better. I don't think there's a statistic for that. But ask any football player, and he'll tell you that the ability to inspire your teammates is the trait that matters more than any other.
"The stats? He could have cared less," Berry told me. "All I know is that he changed my whole concept of being a receiver. That he was personable. That he had a great sense of humor. That he was an amazing guy."
For their eighte
enth wedding anniversary, Sandy gave Johnny eighteen bantam chickens, to keep their other livestock company: horses, cows, a miniature donkey. The farm, Sandy says, gave him peace-as did watching his children, from the bleachers of some high-school game.
hat is a sentiment I understand. As I've written this book, I've been able to watch Cody and Cassidy play on their respective teams: Cody, playing football through grammar school and high school; and Cassidy, a superb athlete, a few years younger, a standout in both field hockey and lacrosse.
As much as I've enjoyed watching Cody throughout his school years, always just beneath the surface lurked my fear and concern that he'd be injured. His senior year at Greenwich High School in Connecticut, last year, was bittersweet for both of us. His team was within reach of a championship season when Cody suffered a concussion during a scrimmage-his second concussion of the year, and third of his high-school career.
When I received a call telling me that he was just fine, but shouldn't drive, and could I pick him up, my heart nearly stopped.
My first call was to my dear friend Dr. Russell Warren. Fortunately, I caught him during his morning walk. He told me to bring Cody to his house, which was within blocks of our own home. After a lengthy discussion, and an MRI that showed no damage, Russell, who has known Cody all of his life, uttered the toughest words Cody had ever heard: "Your football is over."
For me, it was a relief. For Cody, it was devastating. The pain was eased somewhat when his teammates soared to their conference and state championships, with Cody still a part of the team: holding for field goals and extra points. Later, at his team's award ceremony, I was the proudest dad in the world when Cody received the coveted Coaches' Award for Inspirational Leadership.
As I write this, Cody is on his way to USC for his freshman year. He's just finished a starring season for Greenwich High in volleyball, a sport he hopes to pursue at USC.
'I’ve saved one Giant player for last. His story still tugs at my heart.
His memory is with me every day. He didn't star in the 1958 game, and he hasn't gone down in the statistics-heavy history of the NFL as any kind of immortal, mostly because he never drew a single bit of attention to himself. But the players who played with him, and shared that locker room with him, regard him as one of the faces on the game's Mount Rushmore.
It's difficult for me to sum up Kyle Rote with a single sentiment, so I'll leave it to his widow to characterize my beloved teammate. "Kyle was a man's man, and very humble," says Nina Rote today. "And he would want you to leave him out of this book."
That I cannot do. Kyle meant too much to me-too much to all of us. Who else would write a poem for a team meeting, to inspire us in a way only he could? Who else would always listen to every one of us when we had a problem we needed to share? He wasn't just intelligent, talented, and possessed of a great sense of humor and a sense of modesty I've never encountered in anyone else, before or since; he would give you anything and everything he had. He was constantly there for us. For me.
Kyle never bought into the celebrity, the headlines. He never saw himself as a star. And he never saw himself as someone as talented as he really was.
"He didn't put any of his trophies around the apartment," Nina Rote says now. "In fact, when we married, we both had apartments. We chose my apartment. He emptied his apartment and moved to mine. So one day I went through everything in his apartment, and there in a second bedroom, all along the top shelf, were all these plaques.
"I asked him about them. 'Oh, I was just going to leave those,' he said. 'Don't take them.' I packed some anyway, but I didn't put them up. I have some bronzes, and an eagle that's very decorative.
The rest of them are under my bed. Isn't that terrible?
"But he never took that kind of thing seriously. He knew that when someone made you 'Man of the Year' or something, they also seemed to be raising money for something-and those causes are important, of course. But with the plaque or trophy you were usually expected to make a speech, or meet and greet a roomful of a thousand or so 'new friends.'
"I don't know how many of the athletes who received those awards ever thought they were actually a 'Man of the Year,' " Nina tells me, "but Kyle never did."
When he retired in 1961, Kyle coached the Giant backfield for a couple of years, then went into broadcasting: radio at first, and then television in the late sixties and early seventies, for NBC. The network phased him out, and he founded an air-freight company. He died in 2002, leaving behind-in addition to his own son, Kyle Rote Jr., a former soccer star-at least ten boys named Kyle, by former teammates and other NFL players, including, as I've said, my own.
One of my favorite Kyle poems, "The Highest Effort," contained in a privately printed collection of his verse, includes a telling stanza that, I think, says a great deal about Kyle's ambivalence about the fame that came his way as a football player. The message of this particular verse, I think, is about keeping perspective: a hard thing to do when people are putting you on a pedestal you never really wanted to climb onto.
How high should one reach to acquire accolades, Or should reaching be part of such human charades?
What height can a person expect to attain If, in reaching, he's lost more in life than he's gained?
"Maybe he was too humble," Nina says now. "You could walk all over him, and he'd let you. If you wanted to take advantage of him, he'd let you. There was no way he'd flout himself. Quiet as he could be. If you didn't know him, you wouldn't know anything about him. It would never come from him.
"But he was a melancholy man. His mother was killed in a horrible car accident when he was fourteen-a mule, of all things, came in front of the car, at night. Smashed the car; it went into a ravine. His father was badly injured, and Kyle's brother came home from the South Pacific for the funeral. Then his brother went back and was killed at Iwo Jima. Kyle lived with friends to finish high school. So I think his melancholy came from the sadness of being without a family. That melancholy never left him. He wasn't sad . . . if you met him. He was funny. But many people who are funny, underneath it is melancholy." Kyle was funny-but so many times, what you thought was funny when you first heard it, in recollection seemed touching, insightful, and at times, brilliant.
All the things you'd have thought would have happened to Kyle Rote just didn't happen. From the time he stepped in that hole in a preseason practice in Jonesboro, Arkansas, everything began to go a little downhill. At the end, he was a heavy smoker, and he drank a lot. He was the last guy at Toots when the rest of us had gone home and Toots had fallen down drunk. He never gave it up.
Eventually, it caught up with him.
God knows what kind of player he could have been. Kyle's whole career was a one-legged effort. I guess what I remember most is probably his greatest gift: he made everyone happier just by talking to them.
"Everyone wanted to be his friend," Pat Summerall says now. Pat has a son named Kyle too. "You were lucky if you were." That makes me a very lucky man.
I've probably overused the word "family" in this book, but this will be my last reference to it, because it is the truest: to Wellington Mara, the team was family, and I have been humbled and honored to have been part of his. When I was welcomed into that elite fraternity in Canton in 1977, I asked Wellington to be my presenter, and he graciously agreed. His words are still with me, will always be with me: "For me, for twenty-five years Frank Gifford has personified the son every father dreams of, the player every coach dreams of, the father any son would cherish."
And then, the four words that still echo: "I like the man." It was the highest praise I ever received-until, twenty years later, in 1997, he asked me to be his presenter at the Hall of Fame.
In front of his eleven children, and thirty of his grandchildren, I tried to do him proud. I spoke of his eighteen divisional championships. I spoke of his role in making sure that the blossoming television revenues would be shared with the players, a visionary stance that guaranteed not only the solvency of
the league, but its extraordinary growth. I spoke of how "his fingerprints can be found all over just about every successful move the NFL has made over those seventy-plus years."
Wellington's role in this story, of course, is paramount. The New York Giants would be an afterthought in history without him. The modern NFL would not exist. The '58 game would not have happened. Neither would so many of the joys my life has contained. Wellington Mara scouted me. Wellington Mara signed me, to a generous contract-and each one was more generous. Wellington Mara welcomed me, at every turn, from my first Sunday in a Giant uniform to my last. He was there every step of the way, guiding me, mentoring, but more important, leading by example.
Six years after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, we had a more intimate gathering to celebrate the man. On the night before the season-opening game in 2003, I threw Well and his wife, Ann, a surprise party at the Tavern on the Green. He didn't want to attend the affair, and never would have showed up if he'd known the night was about him; I had to trick him into coming, with help from Ann, who got him over to the Tavern-where more than eighty five current and former Giants assembled to honor the man who had welcomed each and every one of them, over seventy-nine years of work for the Giants, into the team's fold.
I've been to a lot of parties over the years-in speakeasy-souled saloons, in Park Avenue living rooms, in small-town bars, in dormitory rooms. None of them were as great as that one I said my final good-bye to Wellington in 2005, at his funeral mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, on a brilliant late-October morning- perfect football weather. As I stood behind the hallowed and legendary altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral, in midtown Manhattan, gazing out at the two thousand mourners packed into the storied cathedral-family, friends, fans-I was struck, once again, and for the last time, by the breadth of the man's influence, the depth of the legacy. He was a man whose faith had always embraced both his religion and his team, and on this day, fittingly, the two came together.
The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever Page 26