by Adam Lazarus
The cover of the team’s media guide featured Hostetler dressed as a gun-toting cowboy beside a white stallion. Billboards along the interstate praised his intimidating play. And a record—entitled “Old Hoss, the Ballad of Jeff Hostetler” and set to the theme song from the television show Bonanza —was distributed to radio stations across the region. (One lyric, sung in a distinctive West Virginia twang, glorified that “Ole Hoss, Ole Hoss can really get those first downs. He’s got the arm, he has the range to be end zone bound.”)
The media blitz worked.
“He is more handsome than his pictures suggest. The nose, so prominent in the photographs, becomes part of a more attractive package when you see it in conjunction with the carved cheekbones and toothy grin,” wrote one Philadelphia reporter. “[His] strong arm has led the West Virginia University football team to a No. 4-ranking in both wire service polls and a No. 1-ranking in the hearts of the residents of this rugged little city. Hostetler’s biography is as all-American as his looks. He is a 4.0 finance student. He dates the coach’s daughter. He does not curse . . . he does not drink, either, not even beer.”
The victory in early October over Pitt helped the Mountaineers achieve their highest-ever ranking in the national polls and enabled Hostetler’s rise in the Heisman race. Defeating the Panthers snapped a seven-game losing streak with their rival, but to fully establish themselves as the best team in the region, they would have to exorcize a much bigger demon.
The Mountaineers’ seventh game of the 1983 season was against Penn State in Happy Valley. Every year since 1959, West Virginia had played against, and lost to, the Nittany Lions. The most recent loss fit the norm: a 24-0 shutout at home. Jeff Hostetler started that game, squandering the opportunity to show up the coach and quarterback that sparked his departure from State College. Adding insult to injury—he badly sprained his knee in the first quarter—three turnovers by Hostetler yielded three Todd Blackledge–led touchdown drives.
Paterno’s team went on to win the national title at the end of that season. A year later, the number-four ranked Mountaineers held similar aspirations. Like Jim Kelly—who twice toppled Penn State in critical, program-defining wins—Hostetler was desperate to craft a victory over Paterno’s Nittany Lions.
I still had friends at Penn State, and they told me the coaches had gone all out—at my expense—to fire up their team. The whole week before the game, they’d played that Heisman Trophy promo song (the one written to the “Bonanza” tune) over the PA system. They plastered the locker room with the West Virginia cover shot of me in the cowboy suit with the white horse. I cringed when I heard that. By the time the week was over, the Nittany Lions were chomping at the bit to play, if only because it meant they wouldn’t have to hear that song anymore. I’d always known that song would come back to haunt me—and it did.
Before a record crowd of 86,309, Hostetler completed his first seven passes, avoiding would-be tacklers all afternoon, and keeping the score tight.
“We had him pinned in a few times,” said defensive tackle Greg Gattuso. “But he kept getting away.”
Ahead just 21-17 in the third quarter, the Nittany Lions defense tightened up and kept West Virginia’s offense out of the end zone the rest of the game. A late touchdown by freshman D. J. Dozier sealed Penn State’s 41-23 win.
“Later my family came over,” he wrote. “I think it was hard for them, because they wanted that win even more than I did. My brothers especially—even Todd, who was playing baseball then at Penn State—had wanted to see a Hostetler beat the Lions and show Paterno the error of his ways.”
Two road defeats in the final four games cost West Virginia their shot at the best season in school history and an appearance in one of the big-stage bowl games. Still, an 8-3 record earned a spot in the Hall of Fame Bowl in late December. Cold winds and the Kentucky defense handcuffed the Mountaineers in the first half: Hostetler misfired on his first ten attempts.
“Nothing seemed to go right in the first half,” he said. “But I’m proud that the team had the confidence in me and the coaches stuck with me.”
To jump-start the team, Nehlen opened the second half with a successful onside kick, and minutes later, Hostetler found Rich Hollis for a sixteen-yard touchdown pass that evened the score at ten. Playing in his final college game, Hostetler set up the go-ahead score, keeping the ball on the option, to charge thirty-seven yards to the Kentucky two. On the next play, he hit Rob Bennett for the winning score. After the game, Norm Hostetler told reporters that his son battled through the fourth quarter with a concussion.
Hostetler had now given the Mountaineers a pair of bowl appearances, eighteen wins in twenty-four games, and consecutive top-twenty finishes in the national poll.
Not winning the Heisman Trophy didn’t bother the modest Hostetler. He claimed his share of personal accolades that year. The first team academic all-American won the Hall of Fame Bowl MVP for his gritty performance in the win over Kentucky and earned spots on both the Blue-Grey Bowl and the Hula Bowl rosters.
During his week in Honolulu for the Hula Bowl, Hostetler received word that the Pittsburgh Maulers of the USFL selected him with their first “territorial” draft choice. A less-than-impressive financial offer from the Maulers quickly caused Hostetler to abandon any considerations of playing USFL games just a few dozen miles from his birthplace in western Pennsylvania.
As a finance major graduating in a few months with a 3.92 grade-point average, Hostetler could afford to be selective about his future. That spring, the University of West Virginia’s Finance Department nominated Hostetler for a Rhodes scholarship. He turned down the prestigious honor—“a great educational experience, but it would not have fit with pro football. Too much time lost”—to pursue his dream of quarterbacking an NFL team.
That dream started to materialize in early May when the New York Giants selected Hostetler with their third-round choice. (Boomer Esiason, who went to Cincinnati in the second round, was the only quarterback taken ahead of Hostetler.)
“I didn’t know anything about the Giants, had no idea. Hadn’t talked to them at all before the draft. I didn’t have any idea. And so I actually didn’t even know who their coach was. So when I got told that I was going there I didn’t know what their quarterback situation was or anything so I was kinda in the dark with it.”
Phil Simms was the Giants incumbent, but injuries, inconsistent play, and a complicated relationship with head coach Bill Parcells sidetracked his career. Scott Brunner took over when Simms was injured or ineffective, only to be traded to Denver a week before the 1983 draft. The other veteran vying for playing time was Jeff Rutledge, a former Los Angeles Ram for whom the Giants gave away a fourth-round pick.
“I thought that it was a great opportunity once I found out that they had a couple quarterbacks there, but nobody had been there playing and had the job locked up. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to at least see the field.”
A month after marrying coach Nehlen’s daughter, Vicky, Hostetler signed with the Giants in June. The new Hostetler family was even more delighted when Giants coach Bill Parcells refused to cave to the New York media, who speculated that the quarterback position belonged to Simms.
“After all our changes, wouldn’t it be crazy for me to say someone who has hardly snapped the ball in three years, ‘You have the job?’” Parcells asked reporters. “That’s not the way things are going to work this year.”
Training camp was wide open: Simms, Hostetler, and Jeff Rutledge each believed they could win the job. By the first exhibition game, Parcells decided that Simms and Rutledge would split time and Hostetler should watch from the sidelines.
“He’s not ready, and I told him so. I don’t want to throw him to the wolves.”
No one could blame Parcells for that decision. Simms and Rutledge were each five-year veterans; Hostetler was a rookie. Except the next week, Parcells told him that he would play the game’s last ten minutes against Indianapolis. He neve
r took a snap. He never took a snap the following week against the Jets. And in the final preseason game against Pittsburgh, he watched the entire game from the sidelines.
“It was Penn State all over again,” Hostetler later said.
Being told he would play in the exhibition portion of his rookie season irritated Jeff Hostetler. But keeping a rookie quarterback on the sidelines—even during the preseason—is not unheard of. And Parcells’ reasoning was sound: four months removed from college and with only a few weeks of training camp, he simply wasn’t prepared. He didn’t take a single snap at quarterback in 1984.
Not playing the next season also bothered Hostetler. But away from Giants Stadium and the team’s practice facilities, far greater concerns held his attention. In June 1985, Vicky Hostetler gave birth to the couple’s first child. The following morning, the entire family was stunned to learn that Jason Hostetler suffered from pulmonary stenosis: one of his heart valves was too narrow to pump a sufficient amount of blood from the heart to the lungs.
Doctors performed surgery on the one-day-old child and over the next eleven months, he endured four more operations to correct the problem.
“Now he’s doing real well. He has a lot of fun, and he’s becoming more active. The doctors are pleased with the way he’s doing. Only time will tell if everything will be good,” Hostetler said when Jason was seventeen months old. “This puts everything in perspective. I know what my priorities are—what’s important and what isn’t. That little boy is important. This makes you realize how lucky you really are and how trivial all the other little worries and disappointments are.”
Compared to the painful uncertainties caused by Jason’s health crisis, not seeing action as a quarterback during those first two seasons was “trivial.” But by 1986, with Jason’s health improving, Hostetler was once again ready to focus on football. Contributions on special teams (blocking that punt against Philadelphia) and as an emergency wide receiver seemed to make his coaches take notice. Bill Parcells personally told him he would compete for the job as Simms’ backup.
Unfortunately, his fourth season in the NFL, 1987, got off to the worst start yet. A bruised kidney suffered in a preseason game against Cleveland landed him in the hospital, then on the injured reserve list for a month. Jeff Rutledge retained the second-string job.
“I knew it was do-or-die when I went to camp in 1988,” Hostetler said. “I had worn Giant blue for four years, and when Bill Parcells said again that he wanted to know what I could do, I figured I would have to show him something or make room for someone else.
“I had a good preseason camp, and they told me I had earned the No. 2 job. They were keeping [Rutledge], too, at least for now. But I was officially the backup to Phil. At least I was moving in the right direction. It wasn’t where I wanted to be, but maybe I was on my way at last.”
Hostetler finally earned a chance at quarterback later that season. In a November loss to Philadelphia, Eagles defensive end Reggie White slammed Simms’ left shoulder into the ground, forcing him out of the game. With Jeff Rutledge on injured reserve, Hostetler was the only other quarterback on the roster. In his first prolonged quarterback action in fifty-nine months, Hostetler struggled, tossing a pair of interceptions, including one in overtime that set up Philadelphia’s game-winning score.
With Simms still sidelined, Hostetler started the following week against New Orleans.
“If Hostetler plays,” Parcells said, “we will use our full game plan. He should be able to handle our offense by now.”
Despite that statement, the Giants utilized a conservative, run-heavy approach to hide the inexperience of their quarterback. On one of the few pass plays, Hostetler tossed an eighty-five-yard touchdown to Stephen Baker, giving New York a 7-6 lead early in the second period.
Still, Parcells chose Jeff Rutledge (who was activated from the injured list the day before) to begin the third quarter. On the opening two plays of the second half, New Orleans sacked Rutledge, who fumbled the ball each time; he finished the game with an interception and virtually identical statistics to Hostetler. The Giants eked out a 13-12 victory.
“The reason I changed quarterbacks is that I felt Rutledge had a bit more experience. I thought Hostetler did a good job and I told him that.”
Hostetler, infuriated at having been removed, lashed out to reporters after the game, saying, “I’m hot, did you ever see anything like that?” Once again, false promises bothered him more than did watching from the sideline.
“I’m through here,” he told reporters. “[Parcells] told me that I had done a good job, but that he wanted to make a change. He said he’d get me back in there. But he didn’t say anything to me after that.”
Hostetler instructed his agent to demand a trade. Giants General Manager George Young consulted with the head coach.
“George asked me, ‘You want to keep him?’ I said, ‘Of course,” Parcells responded.
With unrestricted free agency for NFL players still several years away, Hostetler needed Parcells and the Giants. And with starting quarterbacks made of mere flesh and bones, the Giants and Parcells needed Hostetler.
“The rule of thumb is, people don’t get rid of good players. This isn’t fantasy football. That’s for the fans,” Young later said. “The best thing to do is pick the young players and develop them the way you want.”
The Giants were not going to trade him. That didn’t stop Hostetler from storming into Bill Parcells’ office.
“I went in and Bill and I had a knock-down, drag-out discussion and it wasn’t very friendly. But it was a situation where I got off my chest what I wanted to say. And if you know Bill, Bill’s not going to sit there and take anything; he had his comments to say,” Hostetler said years later. “I left there and was coming out to practice later in the day and he comes up beside me and says ‘You feel better?’ And I just looked at him. And from that point on, I knew exactly where I stood with him and he knew where he stood with me.”
“I thought he was a bright young guy,” Parcells said two decades later. “I think Jeff as a young player was a little sensitive and certainly frustrated. Because he was there a long time and he really wasn’t getting an opportunity to play and as any competitive guy would be he wanted that opportunity. I understood his sentiments, but yet, we weren’t in the habit of trying to get rid of good players.”
Hostetler set aside his frustration from the New Orleans game—what he called “the lowest point of my whole football career, lower than the Fiesta Bowl”—and returned to the Giants, awaiting his next chance to play. It came a year later.
With Simms injured in the first quarter of a game against Minnesota, Hostetler contributed to a Giants comeback victory: his mobility outside of the pocket produced key first downs. Simms remained inactive for the Giants’ next game at Phoenix and Hostetler made his second start in six years. Unlike the Saints episode a year earlier, Parcells did not experience any “gut feeling” that prompted him to make a halftime switch. Hostetler scrambled for two touchdowns and again converted several first downs through the air in the 20-13 win. New York improved to 8-1.
“I thought Jeff handled the game well,” said Parcells. “We ran the ball real good. We played within ourselves.”
Although Simms returned for the next week, Parcells and the Giants players had a growing trust in Hostetler.
“I think our guys have confidence in me now. Before [the Cardinals game] some of them said that you’ve waited a long time, so take advantage of it,” he said afterwards. “I’m just trying to get the job done. Maybe I’ve helped myself for the future, knowing the team has confidence in you and you’re able to perform better. You expect to win.”
That confidence grew much more the following autumn.
Three consecutive victories to open the season established New York as the early front-runner for the 1990 NFC East title. In Week Four against Dallas, Simms’ three touchdown passes built a 24-10 advantage early in the fourth quarter. Parcells surp
rised the Cowboys, his offense, and especially his second-string quarterback, when he inserted Hostetler to close out the game.
“I wanted him to run the offense without running out the clock,” Parcells said. “I wanted him to drive the ball down the field and try to score.”
A fifteen-yard run along with a twelve-yard pass completion pushed the Giants into Dallas’ red zone. With less than ten minutes remaining, Hostetler capped off an eight-play, sixty-six-yard drive by eluding Cowboys defenders Ken Norton Jr. and Tony Tolbert, then racing into the end zone for a twelve-yard touchdown.
“I think [Parcells] was testing me, I think he was testing my preparation, he was testing me whether I was ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
Two weeks later, Hostetler was again thrust into the Giants lineup, and this time with three full quarters remaining. On the final play of the first period, two Phoenix Cardinals high-lowed Simms, knocking him out with an injured ankle. Hostetler took over and produced a short scoring drive that put New York in front 10-3, five minutes before halftime. But after that field goal, neither the Giants offense nor the defense could do anything right, and Phoenix surged to a 19-10 edge with just over five minutes remaining in the game.
Shaking off four sacks as well as a fumble and an interception (both of which preceded Cardinals scores), Hostetler floated a perfect post-corner touchdown pass to a diving Stephen Baker. Trailing 19-17, the defense then forced a punt with one minute to play. Two completions by Hostetler moved New York from their own twenty-nine-yard-line into field-goal range. On the game’s final play, the Giants kicker nailed a forty-yarder to complete a spectacular comeback.
“I thought it was an outstanding comeback and a great job by Hostetler,” Parcells said. “I’m glad he’s been around for the time he has because I don’t know if a guy with less experience could have done what he did.”
Once again the following Sunday, Simms was under center when the Giants took on Washington.
Although being relegated to second-string and not playing on Sundays bothered, even angered, Hostetler, he could understand it. For nearly seven full seasons, the Giants had thrived under Simms, who won fifty of eighty-three starts from 1984 to 1990, a stretch in which New York earned five playoff berths and a Super Bowl title.