Frank Gifford

("Frank Gifford, Celebrity as Player and Broadcaster, Dies at 84")

He was a made for TV football star, impossibly good looking, well spoken, playing a glamour position on a championship team. Before Paul Hornung wrested the title of Golden Boy from him with those incredible Green Bay Packer, Vince Lombardi squads of the early 1960's there was Frank Gifford.

It was the perfect storm of talent, town (New York) and timing, as the images of our sports heroes no longer were limited to the pages of the newspaper, but entered our homes and our conscience as never before.

Frank Gifford's life would keep him in the public eye for most of his adult life, first as sports hero, later sandwiched between two very big personalities on Monday Night Football and finally as the spouse of Kathie Lee. It was a remarkable run and one in which, apart from very brief dark moments in his marriage, and one terribly frightening collision with Chuck Bednarik, greatness and glory were his constant companion.

Frank Gifford was a product of the second half of the twentieth century, of the melding of sport and entertainment. It was his good fortune as well as ours that we met and remained friends for so many decades.