Billy Freakin’ LeFear

As we’ve mentioned before, back in the 70s, people disappeared a lot. Oh, I don’t mean they actually disappeared, though, of course, that happened, too, as it has for all of human history and continues to today. No, what I mean is, they disappeared from whatever corner of the popular culture they inhabited, often never to be seen again.

Actors were prime examples of this. Back in the days of just a handful of television networks and 175 or so Hollywood movies a year, many actors found their careers effectively ended when the phone simply stopped ringing. Maybe they’d been working steadily in supporting roles in movies, or maybe they had a TV series and then did guest spots for a while, maybe got a few more pilots, none of which got picked up and, eventually…silence.

For various reasons, the phone stopped ringing and the parts stopped coming and the money stopped coming in and, hey, it was time to get on with your life. Actors who met that fate did lots of different things after they disappeared from the screen. Some stayed in the profession working in theater. Some taught. Some got “regular” jobs. But, for the folks who might see that actor in an old movie or a rerun of an old TV show, well. They didn’t know any of that and couldn’t know any of that and, hey, “Where Are They Now?” That question and the disappearances that prompted it were so prevalent that newspapers and magazines (remember them???) often did “Where Are They Now?” features with reporters looking up a performer long off the screen and “catching up” with them in their current life. 

But, actors weren’t the only folks who “disappeared”. It happened to artists in music, of course, and to professional athletes as well. (Yes, we’re finally getting to the point.) A guy would be around and the next season he wouldn’t be and that would be, pretty much, that. If the guy were a big star or played for the home team, you might find out that he’d been cut or retired or gotten injured and couldn’t play anymore. But, if not? Just like the actors and musical artists, he was just…gone.

Today, of course, it’s different. Opportunities for actors have increased exponentially. Few performers find that the phone stops ringing. And, with the net and social media, well. Even if someone is out of sight, it’s pretty easy to find out “Whatever Happened To…”, in the vast majority of cases. But, in 1976? Just about impossible. Which is why I just recently found out what happened to one of my favorite football players of the 1970s…Billy Freakin’ LeFear.

Billy LeFear, he of the absolutely awesome name, was born on February 12, 1950 in Magnolia, Arkansas, and lettered in football, basketball and track at Booker T. Washington High School. He was an all-state football player, but despite plenty of quickness and speed, he didn’t end up in a major college football program. Instead, he enrolled at Henderson State University, then in the NAIA, where he played football for four years and made all-conference twice.

Now, all-conference twice at an NAIA school is a pretty thin resume, even back then, but scouts apparently noticed Billy LeFear, because the Cleveland Browns selected him in the 1972 NFL Draft…in the ninth round. Yeah. A round that doesn’t even exist anymore. He was selection number 230. And, despite the slim chances a rookie drafted in the ninth round had of sticking with an NFL team in those days, LeFear made the final cut along with ten other rookies, including future All-Pro Thom Darden and three other guys with great names, Cookie Brinkman, Bubba Pena, and my favorite, Fest Cotton.

LeFear was a running back, but the backfield wasn’t where he did most of his damage, mainly because Cleveland had some pretty good players in front of him, including former CFL All-Star (and Connellsville’s own) Bo Scott, All-Pro Greg Pruitt (who joined the team in 1973, LeFear’s second year in the NFL), and, oh yes, Hall of Famer Leroy Kelly. So, while Billy got the occasional touch out of the backfield (very occasional…like…um…three carries in his rookie year), where he shined was in the return game.

At this point, you might be asking yourself how a fairly obscure kick returner for the Cleveland Browns got onto my radar as a kid, let alone became one of my favorite players. Well, here’s the thing. Back then, NFL coverage was far more limited than it is today. One game Monday night. Three games Sunday. Usually two at 1pm and the other at four. And, one of those games, starting in 1973, after the NFL’s “blackout rule” was lifted, always featured the home town Steelers. Who played the Browns twice a year every year. So, yeah, two out of fourteen weeks, I saw the Browns. But, it was more than that. Because, as Cleveland was, as it still is today, in the same division as the Steelers, well, other Browns games also showed up on local television. Oh, you didn’t see the Browns ten times a year or anything. But, four or five times in fourteen weeks of the season? Yeah. And, that meant you got to know some of their players…the ones that stood out…like Billy LeFear.

The name was part of it, of course. I was nine. “Billy LeFear” was going to stick in my mind a lot more easily than Billy Jones. But, the other part was that Billy LeFear was one of those guys. He was quick. And he was fast. And he was a danger to go…every single time he touched the ball.

LeFear touched it rarely in that rookie year of 1972, but, in 1973, he became the Browns’ regular kick returner and returned punts some, too. He even started a single game in the backfield and tore off a 43-yard run, showing off that speed. But, on returns? He was electric. He didn’t have to break one or even break a long one. He just had to take that first step, make a cut, come up to speed…he might…nope, they got him. But, next time…

During that 1973 season, LeFear averaged 23 yards a kick return (back in the days when it was harder to return kicks) and averaged 22.5 in 1974. Though he never took one to the house in either of those years, he absolutely breathed excitement into some desultory Browns seasons in which the team went a combined 11-15-2 and, um, 0-0 in the post season.

In 1975, Forrest Gregg took over for Nick Skorich as coach of the Browns. But, things didn’t get any better for Cleveland. By then, the once proud franchise, which had been one of the league’s powers in the 1950s and 1960s, had fallen on hard times, sharing the AFC Central with the rising Houston Oilers, the playoff-regular Cincinnati Bengals (yes, it was a long time ago) led by the guy who’d made the Browns into a power, Paul Brown, and, of course, the dynastic Pittsburgh Steelers, who, in 1975, had the franchise’s best team ever on the way to the second of four Super Bowl wins in a six year span.

Cleveland finished 3-11 in 1975, a full seven games behind the Oilers…who finished third in the four-team division at 10-4. (Cincinnati ended up 11-3 and grabbed the AFC’s lone wild card playoff spot. The Steelers finished 12-2 and won the division.) But, if the Browns didn’t have much for fans to get excited about in 1975 (Kelly had retired, Pruitt averaged only 76 yards a game, and QB Mike Phipps tossed all of four TD passes…against nineteen interceptions.), it had Billy LeFear. And, he was still a danger to take it to the house on every return. And, then, well.

November 23, 1975. The Browns were 0-9 and hosting the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals were 8-1 and tied with the Steelers atop the division. A kick came to Billy LeFear. He took that first step. He made a cut. And, he was gone. LeFear took the kick 92 yards…and was tackled just short of the end zone. Only, he wasn’t. It looked like he’d been tackled, but he actually hadn’t been touched. LeFear had gone down as a result of a gruesome leg fracture.

The Browns would go on to beat the Bengals 35-23, making Cleveland the only team other than Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh to beat Cincinnati during the 1975 regular season. LeFear finished that 1975 season with a kick return average of 31.7 yards, the highest in the league. And, he’d never play in the NFL again.

Things began to turn around for the Browns in 1976. Brian Sipe replaced Phipps at quarterback and Forrest Gregg’s unit went 9-5 finishing just a game behind the 10-4 Steelers and Bengals in the AFC Central. But, Billy LeFear was conspicuous by his absence. Steve Holden and Ricky Feacher handled the returns for the Browns in 1976. Both did well. But, neither was Billy LeFear.

As for the man himself, well, his athletic exploits were over, but the honors weren’t. LeFear was inducted into the Henderson State University Hall of Fame in 2000 and into the Union County Sports Hall of Fame in Arkansas in 2014.

William Ray LeFear is 71 now and still with us. And, for those of us who remember him in his 20s, wearing number 26 for the Browns, catching that ball and taking that first step…while we held our breath…here he comes, if he gets a block right there…well. We’re thankful he’s still around. And, just as thankful for the memories.

The Worst Place In The World

If you know much about the geography of this planet, then you know there are plenty of inhospitable places on it. Like, for example, Devon Island, the 27th largest island in the world…and the largest to be completely uninhabited. Devon’s severe climate and desert setting make it the perfect place for exactly one thing…simulating the conditions you might find on Mars. And, no, I’m not making that up, because scientists have already done so.

But, I digress. Some of those inhospitable places are fairly well known. Others, like the subject of this essay, are much less so. But. That doesn’t make them any less forbidding.

There’s never been an elephant on Elephant Island, which is an ice-covered, mountainous piece of rock in the Southern Ocean 152 miles off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. But, it has an elephant-like appearance and elephant seals were spotted on its shores by an English ship captain named George Powell in 1821, and, thus, the island got its name. But. That wasn’t its original name. The island was actually discovered earlier in 1821 by ships of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition and named “Mordvinov Island” after Admiral Nikolay Mordvinov, a well-liked Russian political figure of the day. Mordvinov’s name didn’t stick, however, and Elephant Island it became and remains to this day. Despite that lack of elephants.

And, Elephant Island lacked something else for nearly 100 years after its discovery. People. Not a single person had stepped foot on the island until 1916. And, when men finally did make landfall on the island’s desolate shores, let’s just say they didn’t come for a visit.

The first man to place a boot on Elephant Island was a Welsh sailor named Perce Blackborow. He’d been a stowaway on explorer Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition after not having been hired to the crew. The expedition planned to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent, but the ship Shackleton commanded, Endurance, became trapped in and eventually crushed by the Antarctic sea ice. The men, including Blackborow, having abandoned the ship and saved her three lifeboats, spent months living on drifting, cracking sea ice, first trying to make land on foot and, eventually, seeing the impossibility of doing so, simply drifting on the ice and hoping it would take them far enough north to make an escape to land.

Eventually, a voyage in the lifeboats was forced by the breakup of the ice. Several destinations were considered, but, eventually, Shackleton settled on the nearest. Elephant Island. The three lifeboats and 28 exhausted men arrived at the island on April 14^th, but couldn’t find a place to make landfall. They found one the next day, April 15, at Cape Valentine. After a couple of days, the men moved again, to a location they named “Point Wild”, after the expedition’s second-in-command, Frank Wild. It was, perhaps, a bit more hospitable than Cape Valentine. But. Not, frankly, hospitable at all.

Because, again, Elephant Island is one of those places that simply aren’t fit for habitation, and, not just by humans. There’s no significant plant life on the island, nor are there any native animals. Migratory seals and penguins can sometimes be found, and chinstrap penguins nest there in season. But. Not a single species makes a permanent home there. Not one.

And, this was to be the “refuge” of Shackleton and his men. The explorer, though, didn’t plan to stay long. The island was rarely visited by any ships, even the whalers that were common in the area. There was no hope of passive rescue. So, Shackleton decided to fit one of the lifeboats out for an 800-mile journey across the frigid Southern Ocean to South Georgia Island, which hosted several populated whaling stations. (Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands was closer than South Georgia, but could not be reached, because travelling to it would have required sailing against the prevailing winds.) Shackleton and five crewmembers reached King Haakon Bay on South Georgia after 16 days. In an open boat.

Meanwhile, back on Elephant Island, the remaining crew had to wait. They built a shelter out of the remaining lifeboats and hunted for seals and penguins to stave off starvation. They found little. It was fall and then winter, times when both seals and penguins were scarce in the area. The men were exhausted, hungry, and frost-bitten. And, among the worst off was Blackborow, who’d developed gangrene. Two crewmembers were forced to amputate all the toes on his left foot.

As for Shackleton, well. King Haakon Bay happens to be on the south side of South Georgia Island. The whaling stations were on the island’s northern end. This meant that the party would either have to get back in the lifeboat and try to sail around the island, or cross its interior on foot. As a result of the condition of the boat and the failing health of some of the crewmembers, Shackleton decided on the land crossing. To that time, no one had ever crossed South Georgia Island on foot, and residents believed it was impossible because of the high, ice-covered mountain peaks and ridges that made up the, to that time, unexplored interior.

It was possible. Shackleton and two of his men crossed the island, doing things like sliding down a mountainside on a makeshift rope sledge. The end of the journey involved a descent down a freezing waterfall. But, eventually, Shackleton and his companions reached Stromness station, an inhabited whaling camp. A whaling ship was quickly sent around the island to pick up the remaining members of the crew who’d reached South Georgia. Then, came the larger task. Rescuing the men still freezing on Elephant Island.

Shackleton made three attempts, in three different ships. None of them could make it through the pack ice surrounding Elephant Island. He asked Britain for help, but, with the country in the middle of World War I, nothing would be available for months.

Back on Elephant Island, the crew was running out of food. Wild had refused to allow stockpiling of penguin and seal meat, seeing doing so as defeatist, since he believed they would have to wait only a month for rescue. By late August, this policy was having severe repercussions. The island was surrounded by ice, making rescue impossible, and there were no penguins or seals around to take for food. Stores were running so low that one crew member wrote in his diary that the men would be forced to eat the man who died first. Wild, meanwhile, was preparing for a boat trip to Deception Island in the hopes of meeting a whaling ship along the way. He planned to leave on October 5^th.

By that time, Shackleton was ready for his fourth attempt. He’d convinced the Chilean government to lend him a tug called Yelcho, which had been involved in the third failed rescue attempt. The little ship and its captain, Luis Pardo, set out for Elephant Island on August 25^th. On August 30^th, the men on the ship spotted the camp at Point Wild and rescued the rest of Shackleton’s party, spiriting them away to Punta Arenas in Chile. Leaving Elephant Island uninhabited again, as it had been, to that point, for all but four and a half months of its history.

In 1970-71, a British Joint Services Expedition (a surveying and mountaineering expedition) visited the island. The expedition contained one civilian from the British Antarctic Survey and 14 members of the British Armed Forces under the command of Malcolm Burley, a commander in the Royal Navy. The mission completed a preliminary survey of the island and climbed several mountains that had never been climbed before. The expedition was transported to the island by the HMS Endurance, which, at the close of the mission, transported the expedition members away from the island, leaving it uninhabited again.

For most of the year, it remains that way to this day, in the main because it lacks a safe anchorage for ships. Or, possibly, because, again, it’s a horrible place to live. If you happen on Elephant Island in the summer months (fat chance), though, you might actually find a few people. Brazil maintains a shelter on the island that can support up to six researchers. They visit briefly. But, they don’t stay. Perhaps they’ve learned something the seals and the penguins learned long ago. Elephant Island is a lousy place to visit. And you definitely wouldn’t want to live there.

My Old Friend John

The mists of time cover over the details of the first time I met John Thompson. They also cover over the details of the last time I saw him. But, in between those things? Well. There are lots of things that burn through that mist…and burn pretty brightly.

At some point during our respective childhoods, John moved in just down the street from me. He didn’t just live within walking distance, he lived within “shouting” distance. (And, if you remember those days, you know that the neighborhood moms took full advantage of “shouting distance”. Hey, there were no cell phones, but when a mom was shouting for one of us, nobody “sent her to voicemail”, because, we knew where we’d be sent if we tried something like that.)

John quickly became part of the neighborhood “gang”, and a bigger hearted guy you’d be hard-pressed to find. John, or JR as the family called him, was generally easy-going and easy to get along with. And, that was fortunate. Because he was a big guy and also a very strong guy. John was the kind of guy you wanted on your side in a fight. And, fortunately, in my case, he always was.

Now, again, John was easy going, so, he didn’t go around looking for trouble. And, it took a lot to get him to the point where there was going to be trouble. In the neighborhood, he almost never got to that point. Because, while we were all putzes, again, he was easy to get along with and he put up with us. But, one day. Well. Here’s the story.

This was during high school and we went up to the school to shoot some baskets. Somehow, we got into the gym. There were times when we managed to do that, though I don’t remember how. Other times, the place was locked up and we couldn’t. But, on this day, we did. And, there were some other folks there, most of which we knew. A game started up and all went well. Until one of the guys in the other group, one I knew but John didn’t, crossed the line.

I don’t remember exactly what that guy did, but John took exception. And, I quickly did what I always did when stuff like this was about to start. I grabbed John to stop him from killing this guy, which was exactly what he was going to do. And, then the guy did something that made me lose all respect for him. He swung on John while I was holding him back, hitting him in the face. At that point, all you-know-what broke loose. Fortunately, a bunch of guys got between this goof and John and stayed between him and the instrument of his imminent death until we could get John out of there. (And, while said goof went through the motions of being “held back”, trust me, if those guys had moved out of the way, he’d have ducked back behind them.)

On the way home, John was steaming. He spent almost the whole trip vowing to “get” the guy in question. Meanwhile, the punch that had been thrown, and it was a clean shot, hadn’t bothered John at all. I’m sure it hurt, mind, but he wasn’t unsteady on his feet or dazed or anything like that. A clean shot and it didn’t bother him at all. Yeah, you wanted him on your side in a fight. Meanwhile, the guy in question steered clear of John after that. As far as I know, revenge never happened, because, again, John was a nice guy. But, if he’d have heard “boo” from that clown even once, well.

But, most stories about T-Man, as we came to call him were a lot more lighthearted. Because, while John was a nice guy and just about everyone liked him, he was also quirky and would do stuff that we’d talk about for, well, ever afterward. We’ll get to some of that, but before we do, back to basketball. John was pretty good at the two main sports we played, baseball and football. When it came to baseball, he got it honestly. His dad, Ron, had been a good player in school. (And, it turned out, friends with my Dad, who’d also been a good player in school. Ron later became an umpire and could talk all day about umpiring and the ins and outs of same. And, Dad and I could listen all day, because it was fascinating stuff. To us. Not, however, to Mom. And, Dad well knew that. This, however, did not stop him from, at a party, “setting Mom up”, by telling Ron that she was a huge baseball fan and was interested in learning about umpiring…then walking away. Yes, Dad lived to be 80. But, there were some close calls. This was one of them.) In football, John could run fairly well and use his height to catch passes. And, if we were playing tackle, he was not exactly easy to bring down. But, in basketball, he was close to hopeless.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t play. He could do the basics as well as most of the rest of us (read: not that well). It was just that the game didn’t play to his strengths, which was using all that size and power. I can still remember a game on the outdoor courts at the high school. John was on a team with Mike Bowland (who, unlike most of us, was actually a pretty solid player). Mike kept feeding him down low…because I was guarding John and he had more than half a foot on me. Yet. He still couldn’t score. I’d get in his face with my hands up and he’d either pass the ball back out or throw up something terrible. And, Mike kept shouting “Power up!” But, John never did. Much to Mike’s dismay.

Speaking of high school and the high school, there was “The Hillside Fire Incident”. We were walking across what’s now known as “The Alumni Bridge” one morning on the way to school and John found a cigarette lighter lying on the bridge. He picked it up and began trying to light it. I told him to stop doing that, because the thing had been lying on the ground for who knows how long and was soaking wet. Trying to light it didn’t seem like a good idea. It was, however, a far better one than what he did next. He heaved the lighter over the fencing of the bridge and it landed on some rocks on the hillside below. And exploded with a puff of smoke and flame. Things were pretty dry down there, and a fire started.

Now, what happened next is all you need to know about which of the two of us was the better person. John looked over at me and said, “Uh oh, what do we do now?” What he meant, of course, was, “who do we call?” Should we report it to the school office, call the fire department, what? Because, obviously, we had to do something. My mind, however, was working differently. Because, neither of us were going down for this. I responded, “Start walking.” He looked at me, stunned, and said, “But…” I said, “We go to class, just like every day.” And, he said, quite logically, “But, the hillside outside the school is on fire! What if it spreads?” Me: “Then, we’ll have a fire drill. Now, start walking…”

We went to class. And, for about the first hour, I kept expecting the fire alarm to sound. It never did. On the way home, however, neither of us was completely certain we’d gotten away with it. So, as we crossed the bridge, we both looked, kind of surreptitiously at the spot where the fire had started. There was a nice burned patch, but, fortunately, the fire had reached an area with little vegetation and hadn’t spread any farther. Once we were long over the bridge and on the way back to the neighborhood, we gave one another a look…one that said, “We shall never speak of this…” And, for many, many years, we did not.

Not long after high school, John joined the Air Force and left the area. He was eventually stationed in North Dakota, but we stayed in touch. He’d return home every so often and we almost always got to visit. He’d regale us with tales of those crazy “Daks” (natives of the Dakotas) and the cold and the snow.

Two big things changed about John in the service. One had to do with that cold. He’d become so used to the biting cold of the Dakotas that most of what we got here in Western PA didn’t bother him. He’d walk around in a light jacket when it was well below freezing. The second involved cigarette lighters. Because, while John never smoked when we were growing up, that changed in the service. The next time I saw him, he smoked like a train. Which leads me to some more stories.

After John left the service, he returned to Guntown and we started hanging out some again. And, one day, we were headed somewhere in his car and I noted that he had a little holder for his cigarette pack. And, being the putz I was, while he was concentrating on driving, I took the pack from the holder, closed the holder up, and hid the pack. Yeah. That was a mistake. He reached for a cigarette, then started looking around the car for the pack. “Where are my cigarettes? What happened to my…” Now, he is not looking at the freaking road here. He’s searching for this cigarette pack. And, I figure the joke is now officially over before we die in a high speed car crash. “Here! Jesus Christ, look at the damn road!!!” To his credit, he looked at the road the entire time he pulled out the cigarette, lit it, and then inhaled. Then, he looked at me with a grin. “Don’t ever do that again!” Me: “Don’t worry, you nutjob!”

And, speaking of cars and cigarettes, here’s another story. One day we headed over to my grandmother’s to pick up something. Again, John was driving and this time The Bro was along. Now, John and I were grown men at this point, but, Grandma, as she always would, still saw us as kids. And, she didn’t let us leave without doing something she always did when we were kids. Giving us a sweet snack for the road. In this case, it was pudding pies. Vanilla. Now, the only possible reason Grandma could have had for having pudding pies in the house was to have something to give to any kid (or, any adult she’d known as a kid) for the road. In all the years I knew her, I never saw her eat a pudding pie. Nor did I ever seen Grandpap eat a pudding pie. Nor did I ever see either of them eat anything in that oeuvre. But, she had ‘em, and, like she did when we were kids, she pulled out three and said, “One for you, one for your brother, and one for your friend.”

Out to the car I went with three pudding pies and whatever we’d gone there to pick up for Mom. I passed out the pudding pies, and, as I was doing so, John dropped a lit cigarette on the floor of the car. It rolled up under the dashboard where we couldn’t get to it. It was going to be the hillside fire all over again, except this time it was going to burn whatever manmade fiber the carpet was made out of. With luck, it wouldn’t have become a conflagration. Without it, the whole car might have gone up. So, I grabbed the first thing I could find that I could shove under the dash to smash out the cigarette. John’s pudding pie. (I’m not making this up. Because, this is too ridiculous to make up.) A few quick smashes and the cigarette was out. But, not before John shouted, “Hey! That’s my pudding pie!” Me: “The car is literally on fire here!” And, in a classic line The Bro and I have repeated ever since, John said, “The car is insured. The pudding isn’t.” We were laughing too hard to wonder if the car were actually insured for that. (Insurance agent: “What happened to your car again?” John: “I dropped a lit cigarette on the floor, it rolled under the dash and it caught the car on fire. We couldn’t get fire out in time and, eventually the gas tank blew…” Insurance agent: “You couldn’t crush out the cigarette?” John: “Well, the only things we had were pudding pies, and we didn’t want to ruin those, so…” Insurance agent: “Pudding pies cost, like, fifty cents! A fifteen thousand dollar car is a burned out hulk!”)

But, as much fun as he sometimes had after returning from the service, he was drifting. Not personally. He had friends and a great family, but professionally. He didn’t really know what he wanted to do. I think he missed the service and sometimes wished he were still in the USAF. So, he went from job to job and nothing really stuck. Things were coming to a head, but, before they did, there was one more adventure. Baseball season was coming and I decided I wanted to go to the opener. But, even in those years, tickets went fast. I managed to get seats, but they were plenty high. Then, I invited John and his dad to come with. (I’d have invited my dad, but there was no way that Dad was taking a day off work to go to a baseball game.)

It was a freaking disaster. We’re talking Three Rivers here, where there were about 20,000 good seats for baseball. And, we were nowhere near any of those. We were in the nosebleeds, where every pop up looked like a home run and the players looked like the ones in early sports video games, little specs moving around the field. To make matters worse, it was about 35 degrees and the wind was blowing at about fifty miles an hour. We didn’t see a vendor all day. No popcorn. No peanuts. No hot dogs. (There was no sense bothering with the cold beer…but a nice bottle of whisky would have hit the spot.) And, to put the cherry on top, the team lost. (Shocking, I know.) Now, here’s all you need to know about John and his dad. All we did on the way back to Guntown was laugh and joke about how ridiculous the whole thing was. It was a disaster. But, we all had a good time anyway.

Not long after, John decided to make a move. He left town again and moved to Tennessee. At that point, as people so often did in those pre-social media days, we lost touch. I’d hear things about him now and then, what he was doing, where he was. Some of the stories came back to me through Dad, who saw John’s dad every so often and would ask him about what John was doing. Eventually, my old friend became a truck driver, and, according to what I heard, he enjoyed the job and the life.

Now, here’s what I expected. I expected that, one day we’d cross paths again, and that one night we’d sit around talking and laughing and catching up and then bringing back all the memories from our teens and twenties. Sitting around talking, just like we did the night of the five-year class reunion. Not with the class, mind. Just the two of us. Yeah. One last story.

We both got letters about the reunion and he called me a few days after receiving his. “Are you going?” Well. I hadn’t thought much about it, but, sure. Why not. So, we made plans to go. And, on the night in question, John calls. “Still going?” Me: “Why not.” He comes over to the house. We get up to go and I made a joke about missing a ballgame for this. And, we shared a look like the one we did the day of the hillside fire. “You sure you want to go?” Me: “Let’s go down to the bar and watch the damn game.” And, that’s exactly what we did. And, like always, it was a lot of fun.

So, that’s what I figured. I figured we’d do that again someday, talk about the old neighborhood and all the fun we had. Well. I figured wrong. And, it’s not OK. It’s too soon for him to be gone. Too soon.

Know what I remember most about John? The laugh. Man, that laugh was something, a sort of snicker that could roll into a full on belly laugh at times. I was pretty sure I was going to get to hear it again someday. And, I wasn’t wrong about that. Because I can hear it right now. And, I can see that grin like it was yesterday. Thirty years or so, it’s been. Thirty years. But, like it was yesterday. Thank you, my friend. Thank you for all those good times. I know I was lucky to get to share them with you. But, I’d still give an awful lot right now for just one more.

One Punch

For decades, the late Rodney Dangerfield used a one-liner about hockey. “The other night, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.” That same joke has never been made about basketball, but, there was a time when fights in basketball were just about as frequent as in hockey. And, if you don’t remember that, you aren’t alone, because that time was before December, 9, 1977.

How pervasive was fighting in professional basketball before that date? Sports Illustrated ran a cover story on “enforcers” in the NBA. John Brisker was known as “the heavyweight champion of the ABA”. And, the most-famous moment of the 1976 NBA Finals was a near brawl between the man on the cover of that issue of Sports Illustrated, Darryl Dawkins of the Philadelphia 76ers, and Maurice Lucas of the Portland Trail Blazers.

Fighting on the court, though, wasn’t something that developed in the 70s, when Dawkins, Brisker, and Lucas played. It had been around as long as the NBA. From the very beginning of the league until that date in December, 1977, lots of guys fought. But, nobody fought with Wilt Chamberlain. Ever. Because, Wilt was, by far, the strongest man in the league and might well have been the strongest man on the planet. And everyone knew it. He once broke up a fight between two guards by grabbing one in each hand, lifting them both off the floor and saying, “Nobody wants to see you two fight, so just stop.” They stopped. As did anyone else when Wilt took a couple of steps in their direction. But, nobody else was Wilt. Everybody else was fair game. And, you never knew what might start a fight, or how one might end.

Again, fighting was pervasive, and that’s why many teams had “enforcers”. Among the three most feared was Lucas, the greatest basketball player ever to come out of Pittsburgh. He led Schenley High School to the PIAA basketball championship in 1971, took Marquette to the National Championship Game in 1974, and won the NBA title with the Portland Trail Blazers in 1976. Sonny Vaccaro called Lucas the strongest man he ever met. He was 6’8”, 240 and it was all muscle, muscle he was about to unleash on Dawkins late in game two of those 1976 NBA Finals. The Blazers were being blown out and about to go down 2-0 in the series when, after a scuffle for a rebound, Dawkins threw a punch at a Trail Blazer and, pretty much, missed. Didn’t matter. Lucas went after him and, had the fight not been broken up, may well have committed homicide on national television. (Dawkins was a big man, but not in Lucas’ league when it came to fighting.) As it was, the incident fired up the Blazers, who proceeded to destroy the heavily-favored Sixers in the next four games to claim the series and the title 4-2.

The strongest man in the NBA after Wilt retired was Washington Bullets center Wes Unseld, the second of the most-feared enforcers. Unseld was 6’7”, a little short for the position. But, he made up for that with his power. Listed at 245 pounds, he played at closer to 260, and, was scary strong. Unseld could fight, but he usually acted as enforcer by stopping fights, simply by getting in between the two guys trying to fight. Because, you could not move Unseld if he did not want to be moved.

The third member of the “enforcers” triumvirate was, believe it or not, 5’10” guard Calvin Murphy. No. I am not making that up. Murphy was an incredible athlete. And, he had also been a Golden Gloves boxer. He was involved in many fights over his career and never lost one. The most famous came against 6’8” Sidney Wicks of the Celtics, a fight so popular with fans of the Houston Rockets that it was shown over and over again on the scoreboard. Murphy leaped into the air, grabbed Wicks by his hair, pulled him down to Murphy’s level, and landed seven lightning-fast punches before the fight could be broken up. As you can imagine, the Rockets got no end of response from fans by showing the fight any time the Celtics were in town. Until Celtics coach Tom Heinsohn, a hot-tempered, 6’5” former player himself, approached the Rockets coach before a game and uttered just one line. “The next time I see that fight on the scoreboard, the next fight is gonna be between you and ME.” Heinsohn walked off. And the fight never played on the scoreboard again when the Celtics were in town.

Now, think about that last paragraph. Can you imagine a fight being played over and over again on the scoreboard at a basketball game today? Unthinkable.But, again, not before December, 9. 1977. The thinking on fighting started to change after the near-brawl between Lucas and Dawkins, two huge, powerful men. It was plenty scary, and the league made some rules designed to punish that kind of thing more severely. But, they didn’t go far enough.

Fighting continued into the 1977-78 season. In fact, on opening night, with the Lakers playing the Bucks, Milwaukee center Kent Benson elbowed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the stomach. Kareem responded by punching Benson in the face, breaking the Milwaukee center’s jaw and Abdul-Jabbar’s own hand. A few games later, the Lakers Kermit Washington got into it with Buffalo Braves’ center John Shumate and was attacked from behind by a Buffalo player. The incident troubled Washington, who’d grown up in a tough area of Washington, DC, and knew that you never let anyone get you from behind, where they could pin your arms.

Then came December 9, 1977.The Lakers vs. the Houston Rockets. Early in the second half, Laker Norm Nixon missed a shot and Washington battled for the rebound with Rockets center Kevin Kunnert. Things got more physical than usual, and Abdul-Jabbar got involved, wrestling with Kunnert. Washington stayed in the back court to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. After Kunnert and Abdul-Jabbar broke apart, Washington grabbed Kunnert’s shorts to keep him from racing down court. Kunnert swung an elbow that hit Washington in the upper arm and the swing turned him to face the Laker power forward. Kunnert denies what happened next, but several Lakers and Rocket forward Robert Reid have confirmed it. Kunnert punched Washington. Abdul-Jabbar then grabbed Kunnert from behind, pinning his arms in an effort to pull him away from the fight. Washington was already swinging and landed a punch to the head that dropped Kunnert to his knees.

Enter Rudy Tomjanovich. The Rocket forward raced down court to enter the fray in an effort to break it up. Washington had no idea that was the case. He just saw someone coming at him from behind, just like in Buffalo. He flattened Tomjanovich with a roundhouse punch that fractured the Rocket forward’s face and left him unconscious in a pool of blood in the middle of the arena floor. The punch was so hard that reporters actually heard it in the second-floor press box. And the damage was incredible. Tomjanovich had a concussion, but things were much worse than that. The bone structure of his face had been detached from his skull and he was leaking blood and spinal fluid into his skull capsule. He could actually taste spinal fluid leaking into his mouth, and later said that, immediately after the incident, he thought the scoreboard had fallen on him. The doctor who worked on Tomjanovich later said that he’d seen people die from far less serious injuries than ones the Rocket forward suffered, injuries that mimicked something someone involved in an auto accident at 50 miles an hour might have suffered.

Tomjanovich, miraculously, made a full recovery, continued his career and later became an NBA head coach. He won two NBA Championships with the Rockets and coached the United States to an Olympic Gold medal.

Washington’s story was different. He was immediately cast as the villain, partly because of the injuries his punch caused, and partly because of the way it was portrayed. The only replay available showed just the punch and not the melee that preceded it, making the attack look unprovoked. Washington was suspended for 60 days, the longest suspension in the history of the league to that time, but many didn’t think that was enough. He got tons of hate mail, much of it racial in nature. The hatred for Washington became so pervasive that the police advised him not to order room service once he returned to the league, for fear that he might be poisoned. Washington’s wife’s obstetrician refused her service when he found out who her husband was.

Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke, an execrable human being, wanted Kermit Washington gone, and forced a trade over the objections of coach Jerry West. The forward was shipped to Boston. Celtics’ general manager Red Auerbach lived in the DC area and had long been a fan of Washington’s. And, amazingly, he became a fan favorite in Boston, thanks partly to a sympathetic piece written by newspaper columnist Bob Ryan. But, Washington’s time in Boston would be short-lived, as a series of crazy coincidences was about to begin that would, once again, prove just how random the Universe is.

First, Kunnert, despite his frosty relationship with Washington, signed with Boston, making them teammates. Then, things got weirder. Boston’s owner, Irv Levin, was a California guy and wanted to move closer to home and his business interests while still owning an NBA team. Knowing that any efforts to move the Celtics would result in his violent death, Levin agreed to exchange franchises with John Y. Brown, Jr., who owned the Buffalo Braves. Levin then moved the Braves to San Diego and renamed them the Clippers. As part of the deal, four Celtics players were traded to the Clippers. Two of them were Washington and Kunnert. Now, not only was Washington teammates with Kunnert, he was also teammates with Shumate, with whom he’d had the fight in Buffalo. But. Not for long.

After the 1978-79 season, Washington’s first in San Diego, Levin decided he wanted to acquire Bill Walton, who’d been the star of the Portland team that had won the 1976 NBA Championship, despite the fact that Walton had missed the entire 1978-79 season due to broken bones in his foot. The two teams couldn’t agree on compensation, so the league eventually intervened and sent Washington, Randy Smith, and, unbelievably, Kunnert, to Portland. (And, that wasn’t the only strange part of the trade. Before Walton had led Portland to the NBA Championship, he’d been at UCLA on the teams that compiled a record 88-game winning streak. That streak had been ended by Notre Dame. And, the center on that Notre Dame team was John Shumate, the man Walton would be replacing in the starting line up in San Diego.) Washington played for the Blazers for three years, earning an all-star berth, before retiring due to knee problems.

The real legacy of the punch, though, was the sea change in the league as a result. NBA officials immediately understood that an incident like what happened between Washington and Tomjanovich could never be allowed to happen again. This wasn’t baseball, with average-sized guys going after one another. It wasn’t football, where everyone was padded up. And, it wasn’t hockey, with average-sized guys, unable to plant their feet, throwing arm punches. These were huge, powerful men with no padding standing, not on ice, but on wood floors in shoes designed for traction. Former NBA Commissioner David Stern, then the league’s chief counsel, said, everyone realized that “you couldn’t allow men that big and strong to go around throwing punches at each other.” So, the league acted, adding a third official and enacting a series of strict rules designed to eliminate fighting. And, they’ve just about done so. With a few exceptions (and the infamous Pistons/Pacers brawl in 2004, remember, involved players fighting fans, not other players), fighting has ceased to exist in the NBA. And, something else has ceased to exist, too.

In the aftermath of the punch, Tomjanovich told reporters, “I still don’t think there’s any way he could convince me or anyone else could convince me that what he did is excusable.” In November, 1978, less than a year after the incident, Tomjanovich was back playing with the Rockets and Washington was with the Clippers. The two teams played in Houston and Clippers coach Gene Shue suggested to Rockets coach Tom Nissalke that the two players shake hands before tipoff. Tomjanovich refused. Understandably, Tomjanovich used some not-so-kind terms to refer to Washington in those days. Today, he uses a different term. “Brother”. “This is no big deal that I just forgave Kermit or anything,” Tomjanovich said in an interview several years ago. “That happened a long time ago.” Would that we were all the kind of person that Rudy Tomjanovich is.

Big John

There are a lot of things they don’t tell you about middle age. (Then again, there are a lot of things they don’t tell you about a lot of ages, but I don’t have time to get into all of that in this space.) One of those things is that hitting said age bracket involves seeing many of the heroes of your youth pass from this mortal coil. They don’t tell you that. And, they don’t tell you how much that sucks.

The biggest hero of my youth, Dad, passed on three years ago, and he plays a big part in this story, as he does in almost all of my stories, because, well, he wasn’t just my hero, but my best friend for five decades. And, Dad and I had many similarities when it came to folks we admired both in everyday life and in the culture at large. But, there was a place where we diverged, and that line is the key to this story.

See, Dad grew up in the 50s, and he liked the kinds of guys who were respected in that decade. When it came to football coaches, for example, Dad loved Chuck Noll and Tom Landry, smart, solid, no-nonsense guys. Now. Let me digress just a moment. Yeah. You knew it was coming, so, here we go.

Years ago, I read a story in which, when the lead character went to Heaven, right after being reunited with family members and friends who had preceded him to the great beyond, he found himself in the company of his heroes, people he’d admired throughout his life. Well. Gang. If this is how it really goes up there and I make the cut, believe me when I tell you, I’m going to meet Tom Landry.

So, yeah, Dad and I were in agreement on guys like that. But, there was the line. And, there’s no greater example of where that line was drawn than the quarterbacks who played in Super Bowl III. Dad was a huge admirer of John Unitas, the tough, smart, no-nonsense quarterback of the Baltimore Colts. He had little love, however, for Unitas’ opponent, Joe Namath of the New York Jets. Because, while crew cut sporting, high-top wearing John was Dad’s kind of guy, long-haired, white shoe-wearing Joe with his big personality and even bigger arm, was not.

I, on the other hand, love Joe Namath. Then and now. Because, while Namath was Broadway, he was Beaver Falls, too. And, he never forgot the latter. He was every bit as tough and smart as Unitas was, and every bit as talented, too. And, he told everybody who’d listen that an ethnic kid from a Western Pennsylvania steel town could do anything. And, then, gang, he went out and proved it. So, while Namath was never one of Dad’s favorites, he was always one of mine. And, years later, long after Joe had retired, Dad came around to realizing just how great Number 12 had been. Just like he came around on another guy I loved…Oakland Raiders coach John Madden.

Yeah, this is where we’re going. I loved Madden before the whole freaking country loved Madden. I loved Madden when he was the heavyset rumpled coach pacing the Raiders sideline screaming at people. And, Dad hated Madden…for a couple of reasons.

First, Madden was the anti-Noll. Loud and boisterous to Noll’s quiet and stoic. He was the anti-Landry, flamboyant and laid back to Landry’s reserved and detail-oriented. (While Landry exercised so much control over his players that each man had to know what steps to take with which foot against every possible play in Landry’s “Flex Defense”, Madden had three rules: 1. Be on time. 2. Pay attention. 3. Play like hell when I tell you to.) And, all of that rubbed Dad the wrong way. But, even worse was the fact that, as his beloved Steelers were rising to greatness in the 70s, the team that most often stood in their way was Madden’s powerful Raiders.

Now, let’s rewind a bit to tell you something that, in the words of Pete Townshend, “people forget”. Prior to the 70s, the Steelers bête noire had been, as hard as it might be to believe now, the Cleveland Browns. No. I am not kidding. The Browns joined the NFL from the old AAFC in 1950, the year the modern NFL was born. And, throughout Dad’s youth following the Black and Gold, the Browns dominated his favorite team. In the 50s, the teams played twenty times. And Cleveland won 15. In that decade, the Browns made the post-season eight times and the NFL Championship Game seven times. The Browns won three NFL Championships. The Steelers never finished higher than third, never once making the post-season.

The 1960s wouldn’t be any better. The Browns and Steelers played twenty times and Cleveland won 15 of the games. The Browns made the post-season six times, the conference championship game twice and the NFL Championship Game twice. In 1964, Cleveland won its fourth NFL Championship. The Steelers never finished higher than fourth, had exactly two winning seasons, and did not make the post-season. By decade’s end, Cleveland had four times as many NFL Championships as the Steelers had appearances in the post season. (The Steelers had qualified once in their history, in 1947, tying Philadelphia for the lead in the Eastern Conference. The result was a one-game playoff. Philadelphia won 21-0.)

Thus, at the dawn of the 70s, with Chuck Noll in his second year trying to clean out the Augean Stables that was the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Browns were the team Dad wanted to beat the most. But, that would quickly change, because the franchises were going in opposite directions. With Paul Brown, who’d built the team into a powerhouse long gone to Cincinnati, Cleveland was fading just as Pittsburgh was rising under Noll. As a result, the decade of the 70s would see a complete 180 in the series, with the Steelers winning 15 of the 20 meetings. (And, the fact that, after losing 31 of the first 40 contests, Pittsburgh now leads the all-time series 78-61-1 tells you all you need to know about how things have gone for the teams since.)

Of course, it took Dad some time to become a believer, so to speak. Not in Chuck Noll, mind. From the very beginning, Dad thought Noll was the guy who would finally lead the franchise out of the wilderness. A former player himself, he understood the game and could see progress being made, even when it wasn’t evident on the field, like in the team’s 1-13 first season under the future four-time Super Bowl winner. But in the fact that the Steelers were about to surpass their old rivals to the point where a new rival was going to come into the picture. That changed in 1972.

The Steelers/Raiders rivalry, of course, began on December 23, 1972. And, as the teams had been in different leagues until the 1970 merger, said playoff game was only the third meeting between the Steelers and Raiders. Oakland had won the first, in 1970. The Steelers had won the second, earlier in 1972. (In the third quarter of that December 23rd game, by the by, Roy Gerela hit a field goal to put the Steelers ahead 3-0. Those were the first post-season points in the history of the franchise. But, I digress.

The Steelers led 6-0 in the fourth when Ken Stabler ran 30 yards for a TD that put Oakland ahead 7-6. Madden was seconds from his third semi-final in four years as head coach. (Oakland had made the AFL Championship Game his first year and the AFC Championship Game his second, losing to eventual Super Bowl Champions Kansas City and Baltimore respectively.) Then came Terry Bradshaw, Jack Tatum, Frenchy Fuqua, and Franco Harris on his white charger. (And, despite memories which have gotten hazy over time, nobody in Pittsburgh save those at Three Rivers Stadium saw it happen. The game was blacked out within a 75 mile radius of the stadium due to NFL television rules at the time. It was aired on tape delay the next day. My friends and I did hear it live…hear it, not see it, because the game was broadcast live on the radio, with the giant talents of Jack Fleming making a call that will live on until the sun supernovas and melts the Earth.)

Madden, until the end of his days, still insisted it was the most unfair thing that he’d ever seen happen on a football field. In a 1980s interview, the coach described it this way. “In the history of football, when a guy crosses the goal line, it’s either a touchdown or it’s not. They didn’t know if it was a touchdown. I went out, they said, ‘Get away, we don’t know what happened.’ So now, the referee leaves the huddle and he goes over to the dugout, on the Pittsburgh Steelers side, and gets on the phone, and he makes a call to someone. Then he hangs up, and then he walks out the middle of the field and signals touchdown, some five or ten minutes later. They said that they didn’t look at replay, they didn’t do anything. I still don’t know who they made the phone call to because they won’t admit it…that question has never been answered to this day.”

Whatever happened, the Steelers went on to play in the AFC Championship Game, and Madden’s season ended. Folks have said, erroneously, it says here, that the Immaculate Reception started the Steelers dynasty. It didn’t. The team lost the following week, and, the following year, 1973, got crunched by Madden’s Raiders in the first round of the playoffs, 33-14. Madden went to the semi-final for a third time. And lost again. This time to the eventual Super Bowl Champion Miami Dolphins.

As for the Steelers, the exact date of the beginning of the dynasty was November 25, 1974. The team, at that time, was a solid 7-2-1, but it was a mess offensively, having started three quarterbacks in those ten games. Joe Gilliam was the starter at the beginning of the season, but, eventually, he was pulled for Bradshaw, who was pulled for Terry Hanratty before Bradshaw was inserted back into the starting lineup for good for the Steelers’ Monday Night game against the New Orleans Saints. Pittsburgh won the game, lost the next week against Houston, and then won five straight, the last being  a victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IX. The fourth of those five victories came in Oakland, where the Steelers, trailing 10-3 entering the final quarter, did it to Madden’s Raiders again, rolling up three touchdowns in the last fifteen minutes to win 24-13.

Madden’s fifth trip to the semi-finals came the following year against the best team the Pittsburgh Steelers have ever had. The 1975 unit outscored its 14 opponents by over 200 points and, after a loss to Buffalo in Week Two, ran off 11 consecutive wins to push its record to 12-1. The final week, with everything clinched, both the Steelers and another playoff team, the LA Rams, called off the dogs, playing their backups extensively in what many thought might be a preview of Super Bowl X. It wasn’t. The Rams, after beating the Steelers, won the following week, but were absolutely obliterated by the Dallas Cowboys in the conference final 37-7. LA managed less than 120 yards in total offense compared to Dallas’ 450. Meanwhile, the Steelers, after disposing of the Colts in the opening round, engaged in a typical slugfest with Oakland. The game featured a whopping twelve turnovers, and, while Pittsburgh outgained Oakland by only 11 yards, the Steelers won the game 16-10…and left the Raiders fuming yet again, this time about the field outside the hash marks being frozen solid. Raiders owner Al Davis always claimed the Steelers deliberately froze the outsides of the field to neutralize the Raiders’ deep passing attack. The Steelers explanation, which is far more probable, is that the tarp covering the field leaked allowing the rain that had fallen the night before to get to the artificial turf and freeze it. Whatever the reason, the Raiders had fallen short yet again, while the Steelers would win their second Super Bowl two weeks later against the Cowboys.

Bridesmaid Madden finally became the bride the following season, but, in inimitable Raiders fashion, not without controversy. The Raiders romped to a 13-1 record, including a regular season win over the two-time defending champion Steelers. Oakland’s only loss? To the New England Patriots, who would be Madden’s opponent in the team’s opening playoff game. The Patriots led 21-17 late in the fourth quarter when Ken Stabler threw incomplete on third and 18. The game was all but over. Enter Ben “Givin’ Him The Business” Dreith…who called a phantom roughing the passer penalty on New England’s Sugar Bear Hamilton, giving the Raiders a first down. Two more Patriots penalties followed and Ken Stabler scored on a one yard run to give the Raiders the 24-21 win.  No one would come close to Oakland the rest of the season. The Raiders roared past the Steelers 24-7 in the semi-final and finally grabbed the brass ring with a 32-14 victory over the Vikings in the Super Bowl. And, while I’d been more than a little upset at the way the Patriots had been jobbed (especially because I liked that team and New England’s coach, Chuck Fairbanks, about whom we’ll talk more later), when it was all over, when “Old Man Willie” sealed things for the Raiders in Siper Bowl XI, well. I couldn’t have been happier for Big John as he was carried off the field by his players.

Oakland looked to be heading right back to the big game in 1977, running off an 11-3 mark yet still finishing a game behind the surprising Denver Broncos. Denver blasted Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs, while the Raiders went OT to beat the Colts in the famous “Ghost to the Post” game. That set up a third meeting between the division rivals, who’d split the season series. It was Madden’s fifth straight trip to the semi-finals and his seventh in nine years. And, then, stuff happened, as it always seemed to with Big John on the sidelines. With Denver up 7-3 and driving for a score, running back Rob Lytle was hit by Tatum at the one yard line and fumbled. Raider Mike McCoy scooped it up and looked to be on his way to making it 10-7 Oakland when the play was blown dead. The officials had not seen the fumble and gave the ball back to Denver at the one. Jon Keyworth scored on the next play to put Denver up 14-3…in a game the Broncos would win by three points, 20-17. A fourteen point swing. Madden was out in the semis again…only, this time, for the first time, the team that beat him wouldn’t win the championship. Dallas hammered Denver in the Super Bowl. And Madden had coached his final playoff game.

In 1978, the Raiders slipped to a 9-7 record, finishing a game out of the playoffs. The rejuvenated Steelers romped to a 14-2 record and their third Super Bowl win in five years. Madden, tired of all the flying required in his job (due to claustrophobia), retired and moved to the broadcast booth. He was working lower level games when Dad’s Steelers beat the Rams to win their fourth Lombardi Trophy after the 1979 season. But, in 1981, CBS moved Madden to the “A” team with Pat Summerall, creating the greatest football broadcasting team of all time, and also creating the forum that would allow Madden to go from highly-successful (His winning percentage is still best all-time for any coach with at least 100 games.) coach to beloved sports icon. Eventually, Madden worked for all four major networks, moving to FOX with Summerall when CBS lost the NFL, then to Monday Night Football to work with Al Michaels on ABC and finally to Sunday Night Football on NBC.

 But, it’s the years working with Summerall for which Madden will most be remembered, at least by me. If Pat and John were doing a game, no matter who was playing, I’d be watching. I can remember hating weeks when CBS/FOX didn’t have the doubleheader game. That meant Pat and John would be doing a 1pm game, and it might be a game I didn’t get to see. But, on those doubleheader weeks? Oh, it was appointment TV. Get in the chair. Get a drink and maybe a snack. Settle in. And let Pat and John drive the bus. There was nothing better. Ever.

As I’ve mentioned previously in this space, I used to do PA announcing along with play-by-play and color commentary for a variety of sports. I stole every single thing I ever did as far as PA announcing and play-by-play went from Pat Summerall. Everything. Because, there wasn’t anyone better. Again. Ever. As for Madden? I stole exactly nothing from him, because you could not. The guy was one of a kind and any form of imitation would have been seen as exactly that. The very best ever. Both of them. And, in the same booth.

 I can still remember so many of those games and those afternoons. And, if Heaven is like what it is in that story, well. Pat and John are together right now. And, the football fans up there are going to be treated to some fantastic broadcasts. Heaven. I hope that’s where they are. Because, that’s what they brought to us. Just a little bit of Heaven.