He retired from the National Football League prior to the 1959 season – and then he REALLY retired 16 years later after the 1975 season.  Who am I talking about?  Why George Blanda of course.  He was 49 years young when he retired after a 26 year career in pro football that spanned four decades.  Blanda died in late September of this year at the age of 83 and his passing had a little more significance for me than it might have for a lot of people.

Growing up as a young boy in Western Pennsylvania in the late 50′s and early 60′s, I knew the Blanda name quite well.    George Blanda was born in 1927 in Youngwood, a small town not far from my hometown.   George starred in football at the then Youngwood High School.  He then went on to play for Coach Bear Bryant at the University of Kentucky and was subsequently drafted in 1949 by the Chicago Bears, which was coached by the legendary George “Papa Bear” Halas.  A little more than a decade after George departed Youngwood High, that school and several other small schools in the area were merged into one very large high school, Hempfield Area High School.  And it was George’s younger brother Tom who was the very first starting quarterback on that first Hempfield High team in 1956.  Tom was an excellent quarterback in his own right and he later went on to start at quarterback for Army.  Indeed, after his initial Army commitment was  just about up, the St. Louis Cardinals considered signing him but he decided to stay in the Army.  So yeah, the Blanda name was big around my parts!  (By the way, and not that it matters, but I later played football at Hempfield High in the late 60′s/early 70′s and one of my minor claims to fame is that a teammate of mine was a nephew of George and Tom.  Neither of us enjoyed even 1/1,000th of the success that George and Tom did.  Again, not that it matters.)

Anyway, back to George, and it really was George that people around my area talked about and rooted for.  From his first year with the Bears in 1949 however, Halas didn’t seem to have much confidence in him as a quarterback.  In the first couple of years, George was rarely used at quarterback and in fact, in 1951, Halas moved him to linebacker for that season.  From 1952 through 1954 George got some starts at quarterback but after that he was essentially used as a backup quarterback.  Throughout his whole time with the Bears, George was their placekicker.  Although his stats don’t reflect it, George was a pretty good, old-fashioned, straight-on placekicker, and he seemed to get better with age.  But for whatever reason, he and Halas never really got along and, getting tired of just being a kicker, George retired prior to the 1959 season.  But then came the American Football League in 1960, and George had a new lease on his football life.

George became the starting quarterback for the Houston Oilers of the upstart league and he led them to the first two AFL Championships.  George and his Oilers, as well as a number of other AFL teams, played an entertaining, wide-open brand of football and many people, including me, really embraced the new league.  I would argue, as do many others, that the success of the AFL helped to fuel the shift in popularity from baseball to pro football.   Soon,  the bidding wars for players ensued which in turn prompted the merger of the two leagues.  Clearly, Blanda played no small part in helping to create the NFL “monster” we have today.

However, Houston felt that, at age 39, George was done after the 1966 season.  George on the other hand believed that he had a lot left in the tank, so he moved on to the Oakland Raiders.  Granted he served as the placekicker and was only a back-up quarterback with the Raiders.  But he certainly had an impact on the Raiders success over the NINE years he played for them.  And not just as a kicker.  He was the backup to Daryl Lamonica and later, Ken Stabler, both of whom were accomplished quarterbacks.  But there were times when they struggled and George was sent in to try and ignite a spark.  And often he did.  There was one five-game stretch in the middle of the 1970 season that stood out.  It started in late October when he stepped in at quarterback early in a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers to replace an injured Lamonica.  He threw for three touchdown passes that day and kicked a field goal to lead the Raiders to a 31 – 14 victory.  He followed that up the next week by kicking a game-tying, 48-yard field goal (this was before sudden death overtime was instituted for regular season play) against the arch-rival Chiefs.  One week later Blanda entered at quarterback late in a game against the Cleveland Browns with the Raiders trailing by 7 points.  He engineered a drive that culminated in a 14-yard touchdown pass to Warren Wells.  With Blanda’s extra point conversion, the game was tied at 20-20.  Then with just 3 seconds on the clock he kicked a 52-yard field goal to win it.  But he wasn’t done.  The next week, again in relief of Lamonica, he lead the Raiders to another come-from-behind rally by throwing a touchdown pass late in the 4th quarter to beat the Denver Broncos,  24-19.  He capped off this amazing streak of game-savers with a last-minute field goal to beat the Chargers, 20-17.  Not bad for a 43-year old, huh?  I think this streak did two things.  First, this 4-0-1 run helped propel the Raiders on to a first place finish in the AFC West Division.  Secondly, his week-after-week heroics really excited football fans everywhere – no matter who their favorite team was, they rooted for the “old guy” to pull off another exciting comeback.

Blanda put in five more years with Raiders and continued to come through with clutch performances from time-to-time, mainly as a field goal kicker.  Although there was never anything like that logic-defying, 5-week performance in 1970, people never ceased to be amazed by the fact that this man in his 40′s could still compete in a truly young man’s game.

I only had the opportunity to see Blanda play twice, both in 1972.  The first was the opening game of the season when the Raiders went to Pittsburgh to play the Steelers.  My father and I, both rabid Steelers fans, went to the game anxious for the Steelers to get off to a good start in what we hoped would be a championship season for them. (Full disclosure – having moved to the Washington area  in 1975, I am now a diehard Redskins fan – OUCH!)  The Raiders were starting third-year quarterback, Kenny Stabler, with the idea that Lamonica would be turning over the reins to him and he would become the quarterback of their future.  While he eventually did, it did not start out well for him that day.  The Steelers jumped out to a 17-0 lead early in the 2nd quarter.  Meanwhile,  Stabler was struggling, throwing three interceptions.  Hoping to get a spark, Raiders coach John Madden sent Blanda in the game in the 2nd quarter and he promptly led them down the field with some clutch completions, ending the drive with a 26-yard touchdown pass that finally got the Raiders on the scoreboard.  Amazed by what we were seeing on that drive from this 45-year old, my dad blurted out rather loudly after one of his completions, “Look at that SOB”, only he didn’t use that abbreviated version!   But the way he said it clearly had the tone of admiration, not one of anger at what Blanda was doing to the Steelers.  I of course being the proper 19-year old, immediately chastised him for using that kind of language in a public setting with young kids around.  (You have to understand that in those days, fans were much more civil at games than they are now a days.  The foul language that unfortunately is so prevalent at NFL games today, was not commonplace back then.)    In any event, in response to my admonishment, my dad looked at me and said, ‘”What?  Look at what he’s doing”.  And he was right.  What we were witnessing from this old guy who was much closer in age to my 56-year old father than he was to me, was indeed truly amazing.  Without admitting it, I think we were both kinda pulling for this home-grown guy who we rooted for from afar for years, even if he was leading his team against the Steelers.  But Madden did get his spark from Blanda. In the second half, he inserted Lamonica into the lineup and he threw for a couple of touchdown passes to make things interesting.  But the Steelers hung on for a 34-28 victory.  We left that game satisfied with the victory and thrilled that we got to see one of Blanda’s last hoorahs.  Although somewhat anticlimactic, the second time we saw Blanda that year was in the AFC Divisional Playoff Game when he came in to kick the extra point late in the 4th quarter after Stabler scrambled for a 30-yard touchdown run.  After Blanda’s PAT, the Raiders took a 7-6 lead and seemingly wrapped up a hard-fought win.  But that was the Franco Harris Immaculate Reception game, so we were able to leave that game very happy as well.

If you look at both Blanda’s passing and kicking statistics you’ll find that they are not remarkable, especially when compared to today’s standards.  His career completion percentage was 47.7% and his career field goal percentage was 52.4%.  His season-high completion percentage as a starter was 53% in 1963 and he had a season-high 69.7% field goal percentage in 1973.  So you might ask, how did he get into the Hall of Fame?  Well, fortunately, I think the voters not only recognized his longevity but his overall contribution to the game.  He provided exciting fireworks on the field in those early years with the Oilers, at a critical juncture in time, when pro football was trying to establish it’s game as the new “America’s Pastime”.  His leadership skills and his ability to consistently come through in the clutch, often in unbelievably storied fashion, helped elevate his stature to a Hall of Fame level.  additionally, his fiery style of play contrasted with his genuinely likable character off the field didn’t hurt either.  Blanda respected the game and he respected the fans.  In this era of the “Me First” athlete, I get a sense of comfort when I think back about guys like Blanda, who played as much for the love of the game as they did for the money they earned.  So, it was for all these reasons, and not just for the fact that he was a hometown boy, that George Blanda became one of my boyhood (and adult) sports heroes.  And that’s why when he passed away, I took a moment to pause.