Frank Gifford dies

Peter King – 8/10/15

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/08/09/andrew-luck-indianapolis-colts-nfl-frank-gifford-hard-knocks

Frank Gifford: 1930-2015.

Two things I hope Frank Gifford is not remembered for:

As a football player, being KO’d by Eagles middle linebacker Chuck Bednarik in 1960 on one of the most brutal hits in NFL history. Bednarik, in an unforgettable photo, exhilarates in the hit, and Gifford missed all of 1961 with the effects of a concussion and a broken neck vertebra.

As a broadcaster, for Howard Cosell, his “Monday Night Football” partner, calling Gifford “the human mannequin.”

A few things you need to know about Gifford, an athletic, make-’em-miss all-purpose player from USC: He made the Pro Bowl as a defensive back, wide receiver and running back. And he threw 14 touchdown passes in his Giants’ career. He was the NFL’s MVP in 1956, when he led the Giants to a 47-7 rout of the Bears in the NFL Championship Game. “We were an insignificant franchise when we drafted him [in 1952],” Giants president John Mara said Sunday. “By the time he retired, in 1964, we were the toast of the town. It was mostly because of him.

He was the face of our franchise. During my youth, I wanted to be like Frank. All of my friends did. He was an icon in New York, a matinee idol.” Gifford’s total of 5,434 receiving yards was a franchise record for 38 years, until Amani Toomer broke it after the turn of the century. Gay Talese, the noted writer, tailed Gifford for a long story in 1956 and wrote he had “a quality of mind that makes him rare for football players.” He wasn’t quite Joe Namath in taking New York by storm, but very close.

Now for the TV side … Football players nimbly traverse the field-to-studio gigs today, dozens a year, seemingly. But they just didn’t do TV in the ’50s and early ’60s, until Gifford did TV. He started on the CBS station in New York while he was still playing, then transitioned to the Monday night booth in 1971. He won an Emmy for his TV work in 1977, and did Olympic TV work and guest-hosted “Good Morning America.”

“He was the guy who set the trend for players working in TV,” said Mara.

Al Michaels worked the football booth with Gifford for 256 games. “No matter how crazy it ever got,” Michaels said Sunday, “Frank was the coolest guy in the room. He was the sea of tranquility. I never saw Frank get upset; that was the amazing thing about him. Even when Howard referred to him as ‘the human mannequin,’ I never saw Frank direct any animus at him. But in football, if you lived in New York, you know how big he made the game—he was Mickey Mantle.”

Few players in any sport have ever been as close to ownership—and ownership’s family—as Gifford was with the Maras. When he retired, he used to drive to Giants games on Sunday with Ann Mara, wife of owner Wellington Mara, and sit in the family box. When Gifford was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977, Wellington Mara introduced him. When Mara made it 20 years later, Gifford was his presenter.

“He was family,” John Mara said Sunday night. “This one hit me like a thunderbolt.”