Faultless Frank Gifford turns 82 today. He was one of the most versatile players in NFL history. He started as a halfback and was later switched to wide receiver. He made the pro bowl 8 times. I do not remember him as a player but as an announcer in the booth on Monday Night Football. He was the play-by-play man in the booth with Howard Cosell and Dandy Don Merideth. The best Monday Night Football crew ever. These guys were why people tuned in. For a former athlete Frank did a good job. He was kind of the straight man. Howard and Dandy Don were the show.

One thing I will always remember being a Steeler fan. Before the 1974 playoffs on the last Monday Night Game of the season they were making their predictions on who would win the Super Bowl. When Frank took the Steelers, Humble Howard jumped all over that pick and how there was no way the Steelers were going to win. The Steelers would go on to win their first Super Bowl that year.

Also something I never knew until a few years ago. When John Lennon was assassinated, it was late in a Monday Night Football game that the news broke. During a commercial Howard wondered  ‘do we go with this news or what?” Frank said immediately that “this is big news we go with it” So they come back from a commercial and Howard tells America that John Lennon has been assassinated.

The hardest hit I have ever seen on the football field is Chuck Bednarik’s hit on Gifford in the 1960 season. Gifford suffered severe head injuries and retired, he would come back in 1962. The picture of Bednarik standing over Gifford after the hit is one of the iconic photos in NFL history. Some of his teammates thought Gifford was dead. One story goes that after the game they were on their way to the locker room. They pass a room with a body on a cot, covered with a white sheet, they thought it was Frank. Turns out a fan had died of a heart attack during the game.

Today is also Frank’s wife’s Kathie Lee Gifford’s 59th birthday. One of the worst career moves ever- Kathie Lee Gifford leaving Regis on that show they did.

below a video on Chuck Bednarik and the hit on Frank Gifford.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_4yA3TVh7A