Remembering Frank Gifford

Twenty years after fellow 1956 MVP and champion, Mickey Mantle, with whom he shared a locker at Yankee Stadium and many other things, not the least of which great player status, Frank Gifford also died on the second Sunday in August. Gifford was one week shy of his 85th birthday on August 16th, the same date Babe Ruth and Elvis Presley died.

Gifford had “it,” that certain quality of charisma and good looks that made a star. He also could play and was a versatile, at one time two way player, for the New York football Giants, playing on 6 Eastern Conference winners and one NFL champion, that in 1956.

“Fearless Frank” went on to fame and fortune, an early beneficiary of “jocks” in ads, and broadcasting. His tenure and ascent to play by play, while nowhere near indicative of the miserable standards now (think so called “pretty boy” Chris Fowler, a man devoid of play by play skills, yet the lead announcer on college football) did represent a ‘warning,’ as he replaced Keith Jackson on the Monday Night Football package for its second season in 1971.

Yet “Giff,” who yields almost “Mantle like” admiration in so many my age and older, was an excellent analyst, and though challenged by play by play and mistake prone (just ask Howard Cosell, but that is a “long distance phone call” as Mr. Cosell, like Mantle also died in 1995) was professional and hard working enough to make the broadcasts/telecasts more than adequate.

He loved the NFL and the players. Frank Gifford knew the game and appreciated greatness in it whether citing old Giants’ team rival, the Cleveland Browns’ great running back, Jim Brown or praising Pittsburgh Steelers’ Hall of Fame receiver John Stallworth “holding on” to make a fine pass reception, despite a big hit on him during a game.

I worked with Mr.Gifford a few times and while a bit distant, he did communicate. At a function, I found myself next to him, each of us taking a rather large “Bullwinkle” doll. Mine represented the closest my parents got to a grandchild, while Frank was so excited thinking how much one of his children was going to like it.

In a conversation that followed Gifford talked of how his 1956 Giants’ (47-7) victory in the title tilt vs the Bears was the biggest margin in Giants’ title winning annals and how he told Wellington Mara, the team owner and good friend/father figure just that.

Sadly 1963 is a terrible link to the late, charismatic President, a time before his assassination, distant and hopeful, a far cry from now. It is December of that year and I am 8 so it is not the “groundbreaking” personal event recalled in “The Four Seasons” song “December 1963,” but a meaningful one.

I am allowed to break away from my family’s visit to my grandmother in the hospital and go to the lobby and tune in the radio broadcast of the Eastern Conference showdown between the Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers. (No home television in those days, 10 years removed from the eventual lifting of the blackout).

During that brief period that I was in the lobby, Frank Gifford made a one handed catch that helped the Giants win and even though I was not a Giants’ fan, that memory is the most pleasant of many such memories I have of the truly accomplished Frank Gifford.

My thoughts and there are so many about what this versatile player and man represents to me, that I will write more in the near future.