Remembering Ernie Accorsi

Ernie Accorsi	Tue, Sep 1, 11:27 AM
to me

Hi Andy:
I miss Beano every  day of my life. He left a void that can’t be filled because there has never been anyone like him
I must quote him at least five times a week.
I’m thankful for John Lukacs for the book which has all the good lines preserved
I hope you’re doing well. I’ve had some health challenges but I’m 85, I have to expect that.
Thank you for the kind words about GM. Tom Callahan is one of America’s great authors.
All the best. Hail Beano
Ernie

It was less than three weeks ago that the classy, friendly, so accomplished Ernie Accorsi wrote the above, as I had sent him my post on the 95 year anniversary of Beano Cook’s birth.

One can see regarding health challenges and 85, yet this is still, the fact, great NFL executive and Renaissance Man, Ernie Accorsi died, a not good, unexpected event.

I will go to something, appropriate to the near middle and now end/eternity question of Ernie’s extraordinary, accomplished life.

What a day— (41-0) Giants vs the Minnesota Vikings in the 2000 season NFC Title Game. Of course, Ernie was at the tilt and when he got home there was Beano’s message on the answering machine.

Simply and beyond emotionally put: “He Knows.” –I guess G-d (it is Yom Kippur), however, Beano was referencing Ernie’s late father and how proud he would have been, knowing.

Try reading “The G.M.” about Ernie, written by Tom Callahan, the latter cited with great praise in the above letter.

Tonight, exactly 56 years since the first “packaged” NFL Monday night game: the Giants at the Rams. Accorsi got Eli Manning to the Giants and retired as team general manager and addressed the team, after a late Sunday afternoon wild card round loss, at Philadelphia, vs the Eagles in ’06.

’07 and the ’11– certainly no “craps,” not the best team, but a pair of title teams, with a core of players Ernie Accorsi drafted.

There was much else he did. Ernie loved baseball had Mickey Mantle and John Unitas as his sports heroes, plus was public relations director for the ’70 title winning, then Baltimore Colts.

Last night, 8 days shy of the second packaged game, when the supposed to be “NFL team of the ’70’s” Kansas City Chiefs ripped those eventual champion Colts, ’twas K.C. by 3 at home vs the Indy Colts.

Oh the NFL then and people such as Ernie Accorsi.

Out to dinner, the night before the ’96 NCAA Basketball semis. Beano got tickets for those semis for Ernie. I went to the final. Ernie liked that I recalled Jim O’Brien winning the Colts first game, the one before K.C. on a field goal. His 32 yard field goal called on radio, by the great Ted Moore, for so long the Packers’ broadcaster, won the Super Bowl.

Read the book “The GM: The Inside Story of a Dream Job and the Nightmares that Go with It’

by Tom Callahan, as it is chock full of both great tidbits and wisdom.

Just as Ernie hailed Beano, I hail both with memories flowing, including the precious letter/I guess e mail above. Imagine Ernie, Beano, Johnny U and Mickey telling stories!

Go easy Ernie, the plane landed, you got the luggage, that for a great career and a life so well lived, with kindness.

The magnificent Ernie Accorsi, pictured above.