Sudden Death

Baltimore's Colts trailed the New York Giants 17-14. Johnny Unitas, Baltimore quarterback, glanced quickly at the clock. In the next 2 min. 30 sec. he had to move the Colts from their own 20-yd. line into field-goal range, tie the score and force the first sudden-death playoff in a National Football League championship game.

Unitas had to do the job against the toughest defense in pro football. The Giants' defensive team had already blocked a Colt field-goal try, smeared Unitas himself at crucial moments, made a devastating goal-line stand inside its own 5-yd. line and had roared back from a 14-3 half-time deficit on the wings of aging (37) Quarterback Charley Conerly's passes for two touchdowns.

Handsome Quarterback Unitas went to work. Throwing hook passes to the side lines that got just enough for vital first downs, he drove the Colts to the Giants' 13. There, with a precious 9 sec. left, Steve Myrha booted the tying field goal.

Once the Colts got the ball in overtime, Unitas put the game away. He waited until the last second in the face of Giant tackling, hit his receivers with bullet passes, sent Fullback Alan Ameche the final yard for a hair-raising 23-17 victory and the Colts' first N.F.L. title.

The football talents of 25-year-old John Unitas (pronounced unite us) went begging for years. The son of a Pittsburgh coal dealer, he was turned down at Notre Dame and Indiana, the only major colleges that gave him tryouts ("I only weighed 145 then," he explains). Unitas settled for the University of Louisville. The Pittsburgh Steelers gave him a brief tryout, sent him home. Disappointed, he got a job with a pile-driving crew, played football on the side (salary: $6 a game) for a Pittsburgh semipro sandlot team. Baltimore picked him up there in 1956 with a telephone call.

"The call cost us 80-c-," says Colts' General Manager Don Kellett. "We've come out so far ahead, it looks like a swindle." With a shot at the starting quarterback job part way through the 1956 season. Unitas, now grown to 190 Ibs., compiled the highest pass completion percentage (55.6) of any rookie pro passer in history. In 1957 he led the league in passing yardage (2,550) and touchdown passes (24), was named the league's most valuable player. This season, more than any other man, he has been the spark of the Colts' title drive. Explains Johnny: "I just got a chance to show my stuff. That's all I've needed, but nobody ever gave it to me before." Against the Giants, Unitas showed more stuff than they cared to see.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.