Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas Paperback – August 28, 2007

Allow me to introduce the masterly Tom Callahan, author of a compelling book: “Johnny U: The Life & Times of John Unitas.” The title, however, doesn’t begin to capture the full sweep of this powerful sports story. The book also reveals a history of the Baltimore Colts’ National Football League (NFL) team, particularly, its first championship year, 1958. Also, spotlighted by the author, are the Colts’ key talented players and coaches, along with its popular owner - Carroll Rosenbloom. The Colts existed from 1953 to 1983. They played their home games at Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street. Many a day that building was filled to its capacity of 53, 373 fans - cheering the team on to victory. It rightly earned the nickname: “The world’s largest outdoor insane asylum.” I’m pleased to say that on many occasions, as a native of Baltimore’s Locust Point, I was one of those ultra-excited fans. This included attending the victorious championship games of 1958, in NYC’s fabled Yankee Stadium. I also was lucky to get tickets for the 1959 title game, along with the 1970 title match, both played at Memorial Stadium. Getting back to the man himself, John Unitas (1933-2002). He was also known as “Johnny U.” He played quarterback for the Colts, beginning in 1957, up and till 1972. Together, Unitas, a NFL Hall of Famer, and his formidable teammates, made sports history. They built a legend that still lives on today. This book captures all the ingredients, amplified with anecdote after anecdote, that supports a belief in that sports legend. It fully embraces the golden days of quarterback Unitas, with his sixteen straight winnings season, the Colts’ franchise, and the NFL itself. Unitas’ family origins were soaked in the black coalfields of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. He was born poor. At age 5, his dad, Francis, died. His mom, Helen Superfisky, of proud Lithuanian stock, carried the family onward. This included John and his three siblings. Raised in the Brookline section of Pittsburgh, Unitas was told in Catholic grade school, he was “too light to play football.” At St. Justin’s H.S., however, he had packed on a few more pounds, up to 137 pounds, and was big enough to play quarterback on its team and gain some notice. Lucky for Unitas, Frank Gitschier, took an interest in him. He was then an assistant football coach at the U. of Louisville. Gitschier worked his magic and got Unitas admitted to the school in 1951, where he starred as its quarterback. Unitas was so grateful to him that he chose Gitschier to introduce him at his Hall of Fame ceremony. In 1955, Unitas was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but was soon cut by the coach, because he said: “we can’t carry four quarterbacks.” It looked like the end of the line for Unitas. He ended up playing that year for a semi-pro football team, the Bloomfield Rams, for a measly $6 a game. Think - the pits! As for cutting players, the Steelers were on a roll, the author underscored. Besides Unitas, the team had 
“also passed up on Lenny Moore and Jim Brown.” In February of 1956, however, the fates (or was it the Football Gods?) intervened. Don Kellett, general manager of the Colts, in what became known as the famous “eighty-cent phone call,” contacted Unitas. He invited him to Spring camp and a chance to work out for coach Weeb Ewbank, up at the Westminster, Maryland, location. The rest of Unitas’ development as a great quarterback is presented in detail. We see his evolution, play after critical play, into one of the premier athletes of his era. One of the beauties of this book is that, as the author is telling the story of Unitas, he is also intertwining elaborate accounts of many of the important players that would by 1958, constitute the NFL champions, the “Baltimore Colts.” Mentioned prominently in these riveting stories are the likes of: Gino “The Giant” Marchetti, Don Joyce, “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, Art “The Bulldog” Donovan, Lenny “Sputnik” Moore, Jim Mutschleller, L.G. Dupre, Alex Hawkins, Bert Rechichar, Alan “The Horse” Ameche, Jim Parker, Lenny Lyles, Tom Matte, Raymond Berry, “Fuzzy” Thurston, Joe Campanella, Steve Myhra, Alex Sandusky, Dick Szymanski, Carl Taseff, “Buzz” Nutter, Bill Pellington, Johnny Sample, Art Spinney and Earl Morrall. The author paints a bleak picture of what it was like for NFL players of that early 50’s era. The pay ranged from $4,000 to $7,500 a year. Most needed part-time jobs, some at the Bethlehem Steel’s facility at Sparrows Point, to make a decent living. How rough/dirty was the game of pro football back then? Jimmy Orr said, “They didn’t have any rules. I once saw a defensive guy kick a tight end in the face. No flag. They could bury your ass and not call a penalty. Roughing the quarterback? Forget about that.” In the off season, it wasn’t unusual to see a Colt player at a local park, movie house or restaurant. In other words, during this time period, there was little that separated the players from the fans. That all changed, big time, after the 1958 title game that the Colts won by a score of 23 to 17 over the New York Giants. Unitas’ family life is covered in thumbnail sketches by the author, too, with a mention of his two marriages and eight children. Callahan also gives an overview of Unitas’ business dealings, including his success with the “Golden Arm Restaurant and Bar” on York Road. The feud that developed between Don Shula and Unitas over the years is also touched on, as is the reporter, the late John Steadman, “blocking for 15 years” John Mackey’s bid for Hall of Fame status. In the last year of his eligibility, the tight end was, finally, selected. One of the things that made Callahan’s book so appealing to me was his sidebar stories on many of the players that I mentioned above. As just one example, he gave us some family history background on Art Donovan, No. 70, for the Colts, that sounds like it may have came “right out of a dime novel.” Donovan’s grandfather, Mike Donovan, was a Civil War soldier who marched with General William T. Sherman. Later, he drove “cattle with Wyatt Earp.” After that, he took up boxing and became the “middle weight champion of the world.” In his twilight years, he became a boxing instructor at New York Athletic Club where “one of his pupils was the police commissioner - Teddy Roosevelt!” Continuing, Art Donovan’s father, Arthur Donovan, Sr., was one of fourteen children. A son of the Bronx, he fought in the Mexican War, WWI and WWII, and then became a renowned boxing referee. He was the third man in the ring for “nineteen of Joe Louis’s title fights.” All the above is just a small sampling of the excellent writing and impactful stories you will find in Callahan’s book, “Johnny U: The Life & Times of John Unitas.” I’m giving it my highest ratings. This book was so good, the only thing missing was hearing the fabulous Baltimore Colts’ Marching Band playing. Sports fans - you don’t want to miss this one! -30-

I grew up in a family of die-hard Baltimore Colts fans. The only time we were allowed to watch TV during dinner was when a Colts game was on. And there was nobody on the Colts squad that we revered more than Johnny Unitas. We sweated every blitz--especially for home games you could only hear on the radio--leaving you wondering how hard Unitas might have been hit. We hung on every word of announcer Chuck Thompson, waiting to hear that John was able to get up after a hit and seem to be all right. Our family also usually attended one Colts game each season at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. I especially remember enjoying the knishes that they sold there!In addition to his description of John's hard-scrabble upbringing in Pittsburgh, college career at Louisville, and time with the Colts, the author has a number a good stories about the other members of the Colts bench and the critical games that they played.Many of the most interesting stories are about "Big Daddy" Lipscomb, the Colt's good-natured 6' 6" African American defensive player. My father would quote often Lipscomb's description of his defensive strategy, which was something like "I just grab a whole arm full of football players and peel them off until I come to one with the ball." Sadly, Big Daddy's years growing up must have been traumatic. The author reports that he carried police photographs relating to his mother's murder in his back pocket, and seldom was able to sleep in his bunk at the summer training camp at Western Maryland College (now McDaniels College) in Westminster MD. He also kept a gun under his pillow.There is a whole chapter on the Colts' famous defensive end Gino Marchetti. One interesting story deals with his college days at University of San Francisco. Gino's college team had been invited to play in one of the Southern Bowl games--but only if the two black players on their team did not play. To his credit, Gino spoke up for his teammates and refused to even consider accepting such an invitation--and that was in 1951! There is another story about the Colts that relates to team solidarity on racial issues--but one that I did not read in this book. I read that in the 1950's some of the Colts' players approached the owners of the Carroll Theater in Westminster, (the town of their summer training camp) and successfully secured an agreement allowing their black teammates into the theater. In so doing, they ended up opening the Carroll Theater to other blacks as well.I was interested to learn that coach Don Shula had originally intended to become a high school math teacher and had earned a masters degree in math at Case Western during the off season.The author also sheds some light on what is perhaps the most troubling game in Baltimore Colts history, the 1965 game for the Western Division Title against the Green Bay Packers. That game was the finale of a really nail-biter of a year for Colts fans. First, Unitas was knocked out of the game by a Chicago Bears tackle. We Colts fans hated the Bears more than any other team! Then our second string quarterback Gary Cuozzo was injured too. That left us with halfback Tom Matte as QB. Nevertheless, Matte and the rest of the Colts rallied and pushed on. Matte was aided by armband with some of the plays jotted down on it, and Colts made it all the way to the Western Division Title game. The heartbreaking play that sent the game into overtime was a game-tying Packer field-goal that was actually wide of the mark! According to the author, the league went on to try to prevent this sort of injustice in the future by raising the height of the uprights by ten feet, and by placing a ref under each upright.This books does a good job depicting Unitas as the unassuming, but inspiring and capable guy that we Colts fans loved. It was a time when professional football and its players were more down to earth. They weren't paid all that much in those days and lived in middle class neighborhoods. When one of the players bought a new house the other players helped him fix the place up, and in one such instance it was Unitas who laid the linoleum floor.I have my own personal story of meeting Johnny Unitas. Some summer days my Dad would take us up to Western Maryland College to see the Colts practice. After one such practice my brother and I (ages something like 7 and 10 years old) went up to Unitas to get an autograph as he walked off the field. He signed our paper gladly, and with a big smile on his face asked "You good boys?" "Yeah, we're good boys Johnny!" was our happy reply!

Great read. Great quarterback.

i cant say enough how goood this book is,the book covers john unitas from the very beginning up to his sad death.it is a great insight on his life and the early years of the nfl, including the classic 1858 game!!the only gripe is that there are quite a few names put in the book and sometimes it was hard to follow who was who, other than that its reight up there with the best nfl books ive read!