Green Bay Packers' quarterback Bart Starr remembered as class act

Packers legend Bart Starr left a winning blueprint for all QBs to follow

By Bill Bender
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/packers-legend-bart-starr-left-a-winning-blueprint-for-all-qbs-to-follow/1dxmw9f2mr9o91bk25siwpk66m
May 26, 2019

Bart Starr, the MVP of the first two Super Bowls and the quarterback of the Packers' five-championship dynasty in the 1960s, died on Sunday. He was 85.

Expect memories of Starr to pour in for his role on those Vince Lombardi-led teams that transformed Green Bay into "Titletown, USA" and ushered in the Super Bowl era. He is the quarterback who tip-toed behind Jerry Kramer's block into the end zone on a quarterback sneak in the Ice Bowl against Dallas. He is the clutch winner who finished 9-1 in the postseason. He is the Southern gentleman from Montgomery, Ala.

As far as the 26 modern-day quarterbacks in the Pro Football Hall of Fame go, Starr will always be the ultimate Boy Scout.

That's exactly how I'll always remember him, too. After all, that is where I met Starr for the first and only time.

My father grew up during that Green Bay run in the 1960s - which produced NFL championships in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967 - and whenever he talked about quarterbacks, Starr's name always came up first. Starr was a winner. Starr was class. Starr was, well, a star in every sense. That is how you are supposed to play the position.

Of course, I wore Starr's number in junior high trying to impress my dad not knowing I would unexpectedly be thrown into the starting role. I did not win nearly as much, but I tried to carry myself the same way as Starr.

Brett Favre and Reggie White would become my idols later, and I'll never forget covering Favre's Hall of Fame induction a few years after my father passed away. It's like that with my son and I when it comes to Aaron Rodgers now, and maybe it will be like that with him and his children with the next franchise quarterback.

That family tradition starts with Starr.

Starr will never be considered a better quarterback than Favre and Rodgers, and that's fine. He'll still be the winning standard for how Green Bay quarterbacks should be judged, and he maintained that label well after retirement.

I went to an early-season Bengals-Packers game at Lambeau Field in 2009. Favre was in Minnesota, and Rodgers was still trying to cement his spot as the starting quarterback. Green Bay fans were divided on that issue, but at halftime when they trotted out several Packers legends, Starr got the loudest and proudest ovation. There was a never a doubt about that.

Which brings me to the Boy Scouts.

In 2010, my wife Kimberly was a reporter at the Rock Hill (S.C.) Herald, and she was assigned to cover a Boy Scouts of America benefit on March 9. Starr was the guest speaker, so of course, I tagged along. I was not going to pass up on a chance to meet Starr, but it was even better simply listening to him.

Starr spoke about the values of the Boy Scouts and the importance of the organization. The speech was good. But every time he mentioned Lombardi and the "relentless pursuit of perfection knowing all the while we can never attain it," his voice would amp up a few octaves. I went back and looked at the program from that night, and I scribbled in a note in blue pen.

"It all starts with an attitude."

Starr said that when talking about Lombardi, the ultimate motivator who turned the Packers from a bottom-feeder into a dynasty. Starr often told the story about calling his wife after Lombardi's first speech with the team and saying, "We're going to start winning now."

That's what he did best. Starr had such an appreciation for the coach of that dynasty that he deflected much of the attention off himself. He finished 16-of-23 for 250 yards and two TDs with one interception in Super Bowl I and 13-of-24 for 202 yards and a TD in Super Bowl II. Starr would probably get affixed with a label such as "game manager" today, but he essentially did the 1960s version of what Tom Brady does now for Bill Belichick. Lombardi and Starr, a 17th-round pick in 1956, made that work.

Winning was the only thing the mattered. That's why he had so many fans like me who never saw him play in person.

I got a photo taken with Starr and snuck in on a scrum afterward, and he was fielding questions about the Rodgers-Favre drama that reached a crescendo the previous season. Starr gave political answers throughout about those two - he liked both. I snuck in a question about the legacy of his Lombardi teams and where they stacked up.

"Three straight championships, and we're the last team to do it," he said with a bite before staring me down.

That always stuck with me most from that night.

Starr is responsible for one of the most iconic plays in one of the most iconic games in NFL history, but he took the most pride in the fact that the Packers were the last team to three-peat. That accomplishment is every bit as impressive as the 1972 Dolphins' undefeated season because those three championships were from 1965-67.

It's how I'll always approach any sports argument. You start with the championships, then work your way down. After all, it was Lombardi who said, "If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second."

Starr had both, and he was as close to perfect as you can get. He left a standard for all quarterbacks to follow, both on and off the field, one that Favre, Rodgers and the next one will always be measured against with those five championships.

Starr was the ultimate Boy Scout and forever will be.

Let's hope he's not the last one.

Bart Starr was the toughest football player who ever lived

By Ian O'Connor
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/26826288/bart-starr-was-toughest-football-player-ever-lived
May 26, 2019

Nearly four years ago, when I visited Bart Starr in his Birmingham, Alabama, home, he did not remember the five NFL championships he had won, or theGreen Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, he had won them for. He could not place Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers, even though he studied Rodgers closely through the DirecTV package his wife and high school sweetheart, Cherry, had bought him as a Christmas gift.

Starr even asked me if I had played for Lombardi, the former coach at my New Jersey high school. We shared a small laugh over that before I brought up the 1967 Ice Bowl, one of football's most iconic games settled by one of football's most iconic players. Starr did not remember anything about that either.

The then-81-year-old former quarterback had suffered multiple strokes, a heart attack, four seizures, and significant brain damage within the previous year, and some doctors could not believe he was still alive. During one stay in the hospital, a doctor told Cherry her husband likely would not make it through the night. Bart woke up the next morning in much better shape.

He lost his memory long before he lost his life Sunday at 85. But Starr never lost his dignity while he reminded the world, in his last great comeback, that he was the toughest NFL player who ever lived.

When we think of old-school toughness on the football field, we often think of big and vicious hitters, fire-breathing defenders who played through injury and enjoyed cutting skill-position players in half. Chuck Bednarik, Ray Nitschke and Dick Butkus. Mean Joe Greene, Jack Tatum, Jack Lambert and Mike Singletary.

But at 6-foot-1, 196 pounds, the gentlemanly Starr made the most difficult championship play under the most difficult circumstances in a game that never should have been played. With the ball at the 1-yard line at Lambeau Field, down three points to the Dallas Cowboys with 16 seconds to go, Starr ignored his frozen hands and body, the subhuman Green Bay conditions (the wind chill was minus-48 degrees), and the fact that he was an aging, athletically-challenged quarterback who had already been sacked by Dallas eight times. Starr asked to keep the ball in a huddle with Lombardi, who ordered him to push it across the goal line. "And then let's get the hell out of here," the coach cried.

Starr scored, of course, behind Jerry Kramer's famous block on Jethro Pugh, and afterward his wife was stunned by the severe swelling in his face. No NFL player had ever been asked to give more on a single drive or a single play. Starr would be named Super Bowl MVP for a second straight time two weeks later, and he never again managed a winning record as a starter.

He would endure profound tragedy in his life, losing his son Bret to cocaine addiction at age 24 in 1988, when he found his boy's body on the floor of his home. Only Starr didn't quit, because he would never quit on anything. He was a fighter, the son of a tough-love World War II veteran and Air Force master sergeant who lost his favorite child, Hilton, to tetanus when the boy was 11, and who didn't think Bart would amount to much. Starr was the 200th overall pick in the 1956 NFL draft, a non-prospect who was benched during his final, winless season at Alabama and who was only drafted in the 17th round because the school's basketball coach had a connection with the Packers' front office.

Starr played 10 postseason games for Lombardi, and he won nine of them. He willed himself into the Hall of Fame; no quarterback has ever been drafted as late as Starr and still made it to Canton.

After the strokes and seizures, Starr tried to will himself back to health. Cherry and his personal aide and nursing assistant would wrap their arms around him and, on a count of three, lift him out of his chair and get him going through his day. He underwent stem-cell treatments, and rigorous exercise sessions with his trainer, Brian Burns, who kept reminding the old quarterback of his greatness to motivate him to keep a scheduled farewell appearance at Lambeau in 2015 for the halftime unveiling of Favre's retired No. 4.

Starr barely survived a bronchial infection in late summer to make that trip, and his trainer saw considerable gains in his physical and mental capacities. "I ask him what his number was, and he says, 'Fifteen,'" Burns told ESPN.com at the time. "I ask him who he played for, and he says, 'Vince Lombardi.' I ask him what position he played, and he says, 'Quarterback.' One time he said, 'Linebacker,' and we got a good laugh over that. But he's made incredible progress. He is really coming back."

On a desk in Starr's study stood a captioned photo with the Lombardi quote, "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." By all accounts, the quarterback didn't just chase perfection on the field. Strangers from all over would show up at his Green Bay doorstep, and Starr was forever willing to pose for their pictures or even invite them inside. As a young boy at Packers training camp, Bart Jr. asked his old man why he had just spent so much time signing autographs for so many fans.

"Everybody who wants an autograph will get one as long as I'm not holding up the team," Starr explained to his son. "One thing you have to remember: These are the individuals who make this team possible."

Starr was the individual player who made Lombardi's dynasty possible. In the end, Cherry, his wife of 65 years, never stopped pushing him forward. She helped feed him and transport him from one appointment to the next. Even on nights when sundown syndrome dramatically altered his serene disposition, Bart asked Cherry to play him Il Divo's rendition of "Unchained Melody" before he fell asleep. Starr once asked her to promise she would play that song at his wedding. He meant to say his funeral, and his wife wouldn't stop teasing him about that.

Cherry believes that football contributed to her husband's decline; she saw too many concussive hits, and too much postgame pain, to think otherwise. His fingertips remained pale in later years, she thought, because of what he put himself through in the Ice Bowl. But Bart was not a man defined by regret, even if he had trouble finishing a sentence in the hours I spent with him in his home.

On exit that day in 2015, I told Starr that I thought he was the toughest man to play in the NFL.

He looked at the floor, as if the compliment embarrassed him. "Well," he responded, "I've been the luckiest football player ever."

Go look at the film of the Ice Bowl. When it came to Bryan Bartlett Starr, luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.

REMEMBERING RED KELLY, A SUPERSTAR LIKE NO OTHER

By Stan Fischler
https://thehockeynews.com/news/article/stan-fischler-remembering-red-kelly-a-superstar-like-no-other
May 3, 2019

Without any fear of contradiction, I will firmly and unequivocally state that Leonard ‘Red’ Kelly was the most unique, underrated and undervalued superstar I have ever seen.

Since I began watching hockey at (old) Madison Square Garden in 1939, my statement covers 80 years, and since Kelly entered the NHL in 1947, that makes it 72 years, if you will. I was 15 years old and Red was 17 when he signed with Detroit. In fact, one could make a case for Red as the greatest player of all-time, depending on your set of hockey values.

Let’s start with the obvious. No player in history broke into the NHL as a defenseman and proceeded to become a Hall of Fame backliner during his dozen-year career with Detroit, where he won four Stanley Cups with the Red Wings. Then, playing for seven-and-a-half more seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs, he transformed into a Hall of Fame center and the orchestrator behind major domo Punch Imlach’s four Stanley-Cup winners at the corner of Carlton and Church. That gave Leonard a grand total of eight Stanley Cup rings.

As an innovator, Kelly was way ahead of the game. Bobby Orr is mistakenly credited with being the first defenseman who became a modern-day offense-man, or rover, if you will. With little fuss and fanfare, Red was doing that before Bobby was born. I vividly remember taking a trip to Montreal for a Red Wings-Canadiens game in 1953. My purpose was to see how The Forum exploded when Rocket Richard scored a goal. Well, I was stunned to the very core. The Rocket went scoreless, but the 2-0 Detroit victory was the result of two magnificent rushes by Red.

It was Kelly’s very ability to smoothly bob and weave his way through enemy defenses that eventually inspired Imlach to move this amazing stickhandler up to center. And, let’s not forget, that the arrestingly productive young Frank ‘Big M’ Mahovlich – Red’s left wing in Toronto – became a Hall of Famer himself because of Kelly’s mentoring, not to mention radar passes.

Kelly was unique in so many ways. In a sport that’s often a war game on ice, Kelly unfailingly was the league’s gentleman star. Teammates never would hear filth from his mouth. “By Hum!” could have been his most angry words in the heat of a game. And, yet, there was another dimension – toughness – that often was ignored as part of the Kelly repertoire. Oh, boy, could this guy fight. I vividly recall the extraordinarily bitter Detroit-Toronto 1950 playoff semifinal Game 1. That was the one that resulted in a near-career-threatening injury to Gordie Howe for which the Motor City crew blamed Leafs captain Ted Kennedy. As a result, Game 2 was like a Pier Six brawl on ice. This time Kelly stepped out of character, fighting one of the toughest Leafs – I believe it was Vic Lynn – and Red was not the loser.

I’ll give another note that few remember. Red took a stance during the 1959-60 season that became the predecessor of free agency. Following a contract dispute with Jack Adams, the Wings boss traded Leonard to the New York Rangers with forward Billy McNeill. “I retired rather than go to New York,” Red insisted. The NHL was rocked by his decision, and the furor eventually abated when a deal was cut with Kelly winding up in a trade to the Leafs. History was made on the night of Feb. 10, 1960 in a game against the Habs. “I want you at center, going up against Jean Beliveau,” said Imlach. (Beliveau just happened to be the best center in the league.) Punch liked what he saw, put Kelly on a line with Big M and Bob Nevin, and the Leafs were off to the races.

I defy any historian to come up with a player who performed such a unique transformation. I might add the soft-tempered Red skated under two of the most demanding – some would say hateful – leaders in Adams and Imlach. Jack’s problem in Detroit reminded me of why the Leafs didn’t originally sign Red back in 1946 when he was skating for St.Michael’s College with future NHLers Ted Lindsay and Jim Thomson. “The Toronto scout,” Red recalled, “didn’t want me because he said I wouldn’t last in the NHL for 20 games.” Likewise, Adams blew it when he figured Kelly’s legs were gone by 1959 and eventually unloaded him. So, Red went out and won four Cups and Adams got zilch.

Kelly went on to enjoy both a coaching and political career, but I only got to know him personally after his retirement. Each year Kelly and his lovely wife, Andra, would show up at the annual Canadian Society of New York Hockey Awards dinner. It was then that I got to appreciate his warmth and sincerity. Those seemingly insignificant hockey chats remain among my fondest memories in more than a half-century on the hockey beat. But when I look back at my opening statement that Red could be evaluated as the greatest of all time, it’s not an idle throwaway line.

Look at it this way: More than Wayne Gretzky, more than Eddie Shore, more than Mario Lemieux or Bobby Orr, Red Kelly mastered every aspect of positional hockey, except goaltending. To this day he remains the most underrated superstar to come down the pike. Yet his dossier cannot be disputed. He was the balance wheel of champions as a defenseman in Detroit, and, as a center, the most decisive factor in creating a dynasty in Toronto more than a decade later. No other hockey player can make that statement.

When I brought these facts up to Kelly at one of the Canadian Society hockey dinners, he blushed as usual, which prompted me to tell him: “Red, you only had one problem as a hockey player, you never had a good press agent!”

Otherwise, Red Kelly would have been The Great One before The Great One!

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Gino Marchetti, Baltimore Colts legend and Pro Football Hall of Famer, dies at 93

By Mike Klingaman
https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/nfl/bs-sp-colts-marchetti-obit-20190430-story.html
April 30, 2019

He was rugged, rangy and relentless in his pursuit of quarterbacks. For 13 years during their heyday, the Baltimore Colts were defined by a slab of a man known simply as Gino.

No Colts player epitomized the club — or the city — better than Gino Marchetti, the Hall of Fame defensive end who died Monday of pneumonia. Mr. Marchetti, 93, passed away at Paoli Hospital in Paoli, Pa.

“I kissed him and he knew me and smiled,” said Joan Marchetti, his wife of 41 years. “That was Gino’s way of saying goodbye.”

The son of an immigrant coal miner, Mr. Marchetti rose from lunch-pail environs to become captain of the two-time world champions (1958-59) and one of the most feared pass rushers in NFL history. He often played hurt; he always played hard. Colliding with the 6-foot-4, 245-pound Marchetti, Detroit quarterback Bobby Layne once said, was "like running into a tree trunk in the dark.

Swift and smart, Mr. Marchetti was the prototype of the modern defensive end, said Don Shula.

"He revolutionized the way you play that position in the NFL," said Mr. Shula, former Colts player and coach. "Prior to Gino, the attitude [of pass rushers] was to try to physically overpower the offensive tackle. Gino showed that with good instincts and a lightning quickness, he could get around his man without really engaging him.

"The offensive tackle's uniform never got very dirty, but the quarterback's sure did."

Those almost balletic moves — Mr. Marchetti could leapfrog over a man to make a tackle — and his ability to muscle linemen aside made No. 89 the bane of enemy backfields and a favorite of Baltimore fans.

"Gino romanticized defense," The Evening Sun's Bill Tanton wrote.

Dark-haired and swarthy, Mr. Marchetti won the city's heart with a string of gritty comebacks from injuries. Appendicitis in 1954. A dislocated shoulder in 1955. Neither sidelined him for more than a month.

In 1958, as he was making a saving tackle in the NFL championship game, Mr. Marchetti's ankle snapped. Lying in the Colts' dressing room, waiting to hear the outcome, he muttered, "If we win this game, it's worth getting a broken leg."

Four months later, egged on by the club's owner, Mr. Marchetti and two teammates opened a burger joint on North Point Road in Dundalk. Crowds flocked to the drive-in for the double-decker "Gino Giant" and a chance to meet the sandwich's namesake. By 1982, "Gino's" had mushroomed into a nationwide chain of 469 fast-food restaurants when it was sold to Marriott International for $48 million.

Though he played in the era before sacks were an official NFL statistic, Mr. Marchetti's legacy has never depended on numbers. In 1969, he was named the best defensive end of the NFL's first half-century. Three years later, in his first season of eligibility, Marchetti entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In 1994, he was one of three defensive ends selected to the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, alongside David (Deacon) Jones and Reggie White.

On Tuesday, teammates remembered Mr. Marchetti as a giant on and off the field. "He was my man, a great human being," said Lenny Moore, 85, the Colts' Hall of Fame running back and receiver. An African-American player in the Jim Crow era, he remarked of his white teammate: "With all of the racism and stuff going on then, Gino was right there in our corner, and we never forgot that. This hits the heart."

Dan Sullivan, 79, an offensive guard who played with Mr. Marchetti for four years, recalled going one-on-one against him in practice. Time and again, Mr. Sullivan said, "Gino would put a quick move on me and I'd fall flat on my face. One quick step and he was past you. There wasn't a defensive end his equal."

Bob Vogel, an All-Pro offensive tackle and the Colts’ No. 1 draft pick in 1963, won’t forget the first time he lined up against Mr. Marchetti in training camp.

“Talk about a lamb being led to slaughter,” said Mr. Vogel, 77. “He went around me and through me. It was like he was saying, ‘I can put slick moves on you, but I can also run over your skinny butt.’

“But I also remember Gino sitting next to me on the plane after we got stomped in San Francisco that year. He said, ‘We will come back from this; don’t be discouraged.’ Here was the king of kings, talking to a kid who was wondering why the Colts drafted him. That was a precious moment for me.”

Born in Kayford, W.Va., Gino John Marchetti might have followed his father into the mines, had the family not moved west during the Great Depression. They settled in Antioch, Calif., where Mr. Marchetti grew up, the fourth of five children, chafing to follow his siblings into high school football.

"I remember sneaking into my oldest brother Lino's room and trying on his uniform," Mr. Marchetti told The Sun in a 2006 interview. "I was 9 at the time. The uniform didn't fit, but I sure enjoyed wearing it when Lino wasn't at home."

The summer before his freshman year, Mr. Marchetti worked in a laundry to earn money for football shoes. He got the shoes but failed to make the team at Antioch High. Undaunted, he rooted through the school's garbage, found an old uniform, dressed and begged to practice with the varsity. His wish was granted.

"I didn't become a starter until my senior year," he said. "Then we lost every game."

It was 1944. Mr. Marchetti left school, enlisted in the infantry and was sent to Europe toward the end of the World War II. His was the first U.S. battalion to link up with Soviet troops at the Elbe River in Germany in April 1945.

"I got a lot stronger in the army," he said. "Carrying a 42-pound machine gun all over Germany helped."

Returning home, he tended bar and played semi-pro football for two years. When another of Mr. Marchetti's brothers, Angelo, was recruited by Modesto Junior College, Gino tagged along on a whim. Homesick, Angelo dropped out. Gino stayed at Modesto and starred at tackle.

In 1948, an assistant coach at the University of San Francisco heard of his exploits and invited him for a tryout. Mr. Marchetti rode onto campus on his Harley, a long-haired motorcyclist dressed in a leather jacket "that was so cool I think it had 17 zippers," he said.

"I walked into Head Coach Joe Kuharich's office wearing motorcycle boots with metal heels that clanked,” Mr. Marchetti said. “When I left, Kuharich asked his assistant, ‘Where did you find that hillbilly?’ ”

"Don't worry," the aide said. "He can play."

A two-way tackle, Mr. Marchetti started all three years at USF, which went undefeated in 1951. The Dons might have played in the Orange Bowl had they not been an integrated squad. Bowl officials suggested the team leave its two black players at home.

"Forget it," said Mr. Marchetti, the captain.

He was the second-round draft choice of the New York Yanks in 1952, but the franchise moved to Dallas before Mr. Marchetti's rookie year. Despite his stellar play on defense, Dallas folded after one awful (1-11) season and became the Baltimore Colts.

The Colts moved Mr. Marchetti to offensive line — for one season. In 1954, new coach Weeb Ewbank returned him to defensive end, his favorite.

"There's too much structure on offense," Mr. Ewbank told Marchetti. "You need to play by the seat of your pants."

Mr. Marchetti's response?

"I could have kissed Weeb," he said.

He went on to be selected to 11 Pro Bowls, lead the Colts to back-to-back championships and wreak havoc on the rest of the league.

"[Mr. Marchetti] knocked down blockers like they were rag dolls," San Francisco lineman Leo Nomellini once said. "He had the look of death in his eyes on the field."

Sundays always found Marchetti nervously pacing the dressing room, five hours to kickoff.

"I probably walked 30 miles before the game," he said.

The thought of facing Mr. Marchetti gave adversaries the jitters as well.

"You'll never know the sleepless nights I had when Green Bay was getting ready to play Baltimore," said Forrest Gregg, the Packers' Hall of Fame offensive tackle.

Exploding off the line, Mr. Marchetti had the speed of a running back for the first five yards.

"He came off the ball like he was shot from a cannon," Ordell Braase, the Colts' other defensive end who died last month, had once said. "I have a photo on my wall of me sacking Detroit's Earl Morrall. That's probably the only time I got to the quarterback before Gino did."

Mr. Marchetti's secret?

"At the line of scrimmage, I never watched the ball. I'd watch the three guys opposite me," he said. "If the guard left a split second before the tackle did, I was off. You could tell the play from the way they leaned, or the way they put their knuckles down.”

Defensively, the Colts paired Mr. Marchetti with Art Donovan, a burly left tackle. The two proved a perfect match. Mr. Marchetti was tall and lean; Mr. Donovan wasn't. Mr. Marchetti rarely spoke; Mr. Donovan seldom fell silent. But on the field, few teams could handle the tandem of Gino The Giant and his sidekick, Fatso.

"Sometimes my speed would get me in trouble, and Artie's quick reactions would save me," Mr. Marchetti said. "And sometimes when he couldn't get outside quick enough, I'd be there.

"I felt real comfortable with Artie next to me."

Once, they wound up sidelined at the same time in Union Memorial Hospital. Nurses found the two in their room, mixing highballs in an ice pitcher and using a thermometer as a stirrer.

Ironically, Mr. Marchetti's broken ankle, suffered in the fourth quarter of the Colts' sudden-death victory over the New York Giants in 1958, might have helped Baltimore win the championship. On a third-down play, he tackled Giants' runner Frank Gifford near the first-down marker, then was buried in the pile-up. Mr. Marchetti's screams distracted officials who, in the aftermath, might or might not have misplaced the football.

Six stretcher bearers hauled Mr. Marchetti off the field. When play resumed, the Giants were forced to punt.

Afterward, in the visitors' jubilant dressing room, a News-American reporter described the injured lineman: "Here he stretched on a training table deep in the stadium, six-feet-four of battered bliss — a fractured ankle on one end and a face split with a marvelously happy grin on the other, the game ball clutched to his chest."

Mr. Marchetti was "the greatest player I ever played with," the late Jim Parker once said.

"For 11 years, I thought the Colts were going to trade me and I was afraid I'd have to play against Gino — so I watched him real close," said Mr. Parker, a Hall of Fame offensive tackle. "I never saw anybody beat him, really."

Mr. Marchetti's deeds weren't limited to the playing field. In 1962, after a 7-7 season, the Colts fired Mr. Ewbank. On Mr. Marchetti's advice they hired Mr. Shula, then 33 and the youngest head coach in NFL history. Mr. Shula coached Baltimore to seven consecutive winning seasons en route to a place in the Hall of Fame.

Mr. Marchetti played his last game in 1966, at age 40. He retired on three separate occasions; the first two times, the Colts brought him back. He quit in 1963, but returned a year later to lead the team to the title game won by Cleveland, 27-0. Less than a minute remained when Browns quarterback Frank Ryan, wanting more points, called a timeout. Riled, Mr. Marchetti stormed across the line of scrimmage.

"As Gino walked toward Ryan, Cleveland's whole offensive line parted like the Red Sea," Colts runner Tom Matte recalled. "Gino pointed his finger at Ryan and said, ‘I'll get you for this.’ ”

Soon after, in the Pro Bowl, Mr. Marchetti collared the Browns quarterback, who suffered a separated shoulder on the play.

"It was a clean hit," Mr. Marchetti said. "But [Browns owner] Art Modell got on me about that in the locker room afterward."

Mr. Marchetti said Mr. Modell, who would eventually own the Ravens, never forgave him.

"I think that's why [Mr. Modell] never invited me to any Ravens functions," the lineman said.

Mr. Marchetti had a soft side, too. As team captain, he took part in the pregame coin toss. There, with all to see, he would tap his helmet with his right hand.

"That was a signal to my mother," he said. "It meant, ‘Hello, Mom. I love you.’ ”


Gino Marchetti signs autographs at the Gino's restaurant in Glen Burning (Baltimore Sun)

Of all his accolades, Mr. Marchetti said his overall reputation as a clean player meant the most.

"I never got hit with a 15-yard penalty," he said. "No late hits. No clipping. No hitting out of bounds. I didn't make stupid mistakes or put the team in trouble."

Mr. Marchetti stayed active in later years. A heart attack in 1981 led him to shed 85 pounds he had gained since retirement. He enjoyed fishing in the Atlantic on his 40-foot boat in which he chased marlin off — where else? — the Baltimore Canyon.

Bowling was a passion. At age 79, he rolled a 299 in a seniors tournament, one pin shy of a perfect game.

In retrospect, he never thought of himself as a giant.

"I was just a little guy from Antioch who never had any idea of leaving," he told The Sun in 2006. "I figured I would go to high school, work in the mill, retire and go fishing in the Sacramento River. That was my plan. That's what you did."

Instead, he earned two World Championship rings, became a multimillionaire and hobnobbed with presidents and celebrities.

A favorite photograph hangs on the "Hall of Fame Wall" in his home in West Chester. It's a picture of the late Clark Gable surrounded by five Colts players who met the actor in 1960 at the airport in Los Angeles. Mr. Marchetti ticked off their names: Johnny Unitas, Alan Ameche, Bill Pellington, Carl Taseff and Mr. Marchetti.

Not bad for a little guy from Antioch.

On Tuesday, the Ravens acknowledged Mr. Marchetti’s passing in a statement, calling him “a giant of a man with a giant heart who helped many in need … we appreciate the kindness and respect Gino showed the Ravens over the last 23 years.”

Besides his wife, the former Joan Plecenik, Mr. Marchetti is survived by daughters Gina Burgess of Downingtown, Pa., and Michelle Kapp of Drexel Hill, Pa.; sons John Marchetti of Exton, Pa., and Eric Marchetti of West Chester, Pa.; stepdaughter Donna Lloyd of Mountain Top, Pa.; 16 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Funeral services are incomplete but being handled by Alleva Funeral Home in Paoli.

mike.klingaman@baltsun.com

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Remembering the great John Havlicek

By Bob Ryan
https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/celtics/2019/04/27/remembering-great-john-havlicek/vYowjlTxVcQk4zQfbxTQ7K/story.html
April 27, 2019

The Celtics' John Havlicek moves the ball past the 76ers' Julius Erving during an NBA game in Boston on April 29, 1977. Photo Credit: AP

The late David Halberstam was infatuated with Larry Bird, who, he proclaimed, was “authentic.”

Following that lead, I would label John Havlicek as “genuine.”

The listed synonyms for genuine include true, pure, actual, unaffected, sincere, and, yes, authentic.

Yes, I think that covers it. John Havlicek was a genuine superstar basketball player and an exemplary human being.

Paul Westphal, who observed Havlicek as both a teammate and an opponent, may have summed John up as well as anyone ever has. “John Havlicek,” he says, “was exactly who he was supposed to be. He deserved the respect he had.”

I can speak from the vantage point of a 23-year-old kid who found himself plopped without warning or any kind of direct preseason preparation into NBA coverage two days before the 1969-70 season opener. No one could have been more welcoming or accommodating to the rookie writer than John Havlicek, then 29 years old and in the midst of a five- or six-year span when he was, quite simply, the best basketball player in the world, and, yes, I am well aware that both Oscar Robertson and Jerry West were still quite viable. It was a professional thrill and privilege to write about Havlicek’s brilliant playing. And it was a personal thrill to make the acquaintance of a true basketball luminary who treated everyone with courtesy and respect.

He was as cooperative and helpful to a college kid with a credential as he was to, say, a Frank Deford from Sports Illustrated. No one ever came away from an encounter with John Havlicek saying, “Geez, what’s wrong with that guy?”

We wound up doing a book and, while I’m not apologizing for it, I can truthfully say I wish I had done a better job. I was flattered and honored when he asked me to work with him, but it was my first experience in the “As-told-to” business and I was still intimidated by the aura of the man. He had more to give than I ever asked for. He deserved better than me. After all, he was John Havlicek.

OK, let’s get one thing straight right now. He will forever be acclaimed as the best sixth man in basketball history, and indeed he was. But I feel that association actually does him a grave disservice.

Remember how Red Auerbach always said that who started a game wasn’t as important as who finished it? Few people realize that while Havlicek was a sixth man in the earlier stages of his career, that as early as his rookie season in 1962-63 he was third on the Celtics in minutes played. Or that he was second in Celtics minutes the following season. Forgotten, too, is the fact that by Year 2 he was already the team’s leading scorer. Bringing John Havlicek off the bench was a winning strategy; that’s all. And there was no other team in the league that even remotely had the luxury of bringing a player such as Havlicek off the bench.

By the time he stole that famous 76ers inbounds pass on April 15, 1965, Havlicek was already identified as an elite player. But there is no question that play, and the accompanying Johnny Most call (which led to an album of Celtics highlights), gave him a distinct identity. “I was starting to make inroads,” Havlicek once explained. “But after that play people realized I was going to be around for a while. And the album definitely influenced the way people thought of me.”

The truth is the way people who knew John Havlicek thought of him was borderline awe. Take Bob Knight, for example. The first time I met the fiery coach was when John introduced me to him in Cleveland following a Cavaliers game. Bob Knight was deferential to the point of — I know how crazy this sounds — meekness. I have since been told that is the normal state of affairs when Knight was around his old Ohio State teammate. The flip side was that when they were in school John was himself in awe of Knight’s sheer worldliness. John had grown up in a very insular world, bounded by city blocks, not highways.

“Bobby Knight knew things,” John once explained.

John Havlicek was who he was and that was a shy kid of modest means from a small Ohio community located across the river from Wheeling, W.Va. There was little room for extravagance or frivolity in the Havlicek household. During the recruiting process, Ohio State basketball coach Fred Taylor called to say he was coming to town and he would take the family out to dinner. When Coach Taylor arrived, John was still playing a high school baseball game. Taylor noticed that the dinner table had been set. Mom Havlicek hadn’t quite gotten the message. She assumed Coach Taylor had said he was coming to dinner. After all, no one the Havliceks knew ever ate dinner out.

I’m sure you’ve already read or heard all the stories about John being so meticulous that he hung his executive socks on a hanger in the locker room or how his locker always looked as if the general were coming for inspection. All true. Or how he would look at you in disbelief if he thought you hadn’t trimmed every sliver of fat off that steak in front of you.

"Havlicek stole the ball!" Celtics broadcaster Johnny Most's call describing the final seconds of Game 7 of the Eastern Division Finals is one of the most memorable in NBA history. Boston held on to a 110-109 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers after John Havlicek tipped Hal Greer's inbounds pass, intended for Chet Walker, toward teammate Sam Jones. The Celtics would go on to win their seventh consecutive NBA title, defeating the Lakers in five games.(Walter Iooss Jr./Sports Illustrated)

Another aspect of the Havlicek legend was that he was, well, charmingly thrifty. In those days, first-class flyers had the option of taking little nips of whiskey to make drinks. John was famous for commandeering as many as he could, and one night we found out why.

The Celtics clinched their 1972 first-round playoff series against the Hawks on a Sunday afternoon in Atlanta and immediately flew home. John had a celebratory gathering that evening at his apartment in Melrose, and John being John, of course my wife and I were invited. He opened a cabinet and there must have been a thousand of those little nips. Drink up, fellas!

Back to basketball. It is customary in sport when someone new comes along to ask, “Well, who does he or she remind you of?” In this case the question is who is the contemporary John Havlicek?

The answer is nobody. John’s last game was on April 9, 1978. In the ensuing 41 years, no player has played the game in a manner remotely resembling John Havlicek. Ray Allen was cited for moving without the ball, as is Stephen Curry is today. The acclaim for both rests solely on offense. John Havlicek was the consummate two-way player. It is difficult to explain Havlicek to someone who never saw him play because there is no frame of reference. None.

There is a new phenomenon in the NBA called “load management.” Perfectly healthy players are withheld from games for a “rest.” So check this out: The Celtics defeated the Lakers for the title, winning in six in 1968 and seven in 1969. In those 13 games, totaling 629 minutes (Game 5 in ’68 went to OT), care to guess how many of those minutes John Havlicek played? Hmm? How about 627. No typo. He sat less than two minutes out of those 13 playoff games. This is why I don’t want him damned by the faint praise of being a great “sixth man.”

Here is how John Havlicek concluded our book: “I’d like people to think of me as a guy who moved from a humble background in an obscure area into the limelight without changing his basic nature. I would like to be thought of as an athlete who enjoyed the sport itself rather than any controversy he could create surrounding the sport. I would like people to feel I had done something to enhance not only myself but the entire sport.”

Imagine if we could clone a million John Havliceks and spread them through all organized sport. Why, we could Make Sport Great Again.

Bob Ryan’s column appears regularly in the Globe. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.