University of Georgia Athletics
Fran Tarkenton Still Going Strong
January 29, 2015 | Football
By Loran Smith
ATLANTA - Fran Tarkenton at 75! The first thing you can say about this Hall of Fame quarterback with that many years in life’s rear view mirror is that he has not slowed down any.
His waistline is the same as it was in college when he shopped at Dick Ferguson’s on Clayton Street in Athens. Back then his shoulder was the one he was born with. The one he has today is titanium. When he extends his reach and a little twitch of pain surfaces, he recalls that in head-on tackling drills, he was left with a separated shoulder. His arm was never the same. He would never again throw with the velocity of his teenage years, but it would not keep him from throwing deep. He found a way. His arm was NFL worthy as he mastered the art of moving the ball downfield with the short passing game--which is standard in the NFL today. Then it was the forerunner of West Coast offense.
It has always been his modus operandi to find a way to excel and succeed. Born with a curious bent, he has always been the grand inquisitor. He is the one who asks, “Why?” Often that question segues into, “Why not?” Don’t tell him he can’t do something. At mid-career, a teammate suggested that John Unitas' career records for passing would never be broken. Tarkenton disagreed. “Who’s gonna do it?” was the response. Tarkenton grinned, “I will.” After he broke all of the passing records, set by Unitas, Fran knew somebody would break his. All he wanted to be was the best of his time. Can you ask for anything more? Tarkenton has always been driven. There were few, if any, drop back systems in high school when he was learning the Split-T fundamentals from Weyman Sellers with the Athens High Trojans. Sellers was demanding, the most demanding Tarkenton ever knew. “It really made college a breeze under Wallace Butts who was supposed to be a taskmaster. Pro football became a snap," he says.
Sellers insisted that his quarterbacks hit and be hit. Tarkenton preferred finesse, but if the coach expected his players to compete back alley style, his quarterback was ready. He had learned to compete playing with his older brother, Dallas, in the alleys of his neighborhood in Washington, D. C. The preacher’s kid could dish it out and he could take it.
The scrambler he became, an unorthodox signal caller--the league has never known a brainier quarterback--but that was not what he wanted. He was buying time to make a play while the defensive he-men of his day--Deacon Jones, Chuck Bednarik, Merlin Olsen, Gino Marchetti--were consummate complainers and bitchers from having to chase him which often led to him finding an open receiver downfield. His antagonists had to drag themselves back to the line of scrimmage and begin the chase again.
He gloried in competition which began in those back alleys in the nation’s capital and segued into pickup games when he lived at 180 Nantahala St. in Athens. When he concluded the program at his surprise birthday party last week at the Mandarin Hotel, adroitly planned and executed by his pretty wife, Linda, he gave some insight as to who he is. “We lived on the wrong side of the tracks,” he said. We were not country clubbers. Maybe that gave me an edge. I woke up every day with a chip on my shoulder." He choked up when he remembered Dallas as his “hero.” Gaining control of his emotions, he said of his older brother, who died of Alzheimer's disease last summer. “He made me what I became.”
Last fall, in Minneapolis, I video taped a conversation with his Viking coach Bud Grant, who says Tarkenton was the best. Didn’t matter the circumstances, when the whistle blew, No. 10 was in the lineup. “A quarterback’s greatest ability is durability,” Grant said. “Nobody was more durable nor inventive than Fran.” The former Bulldog All-American lasted 18 years in the National Football League. Tough as they come, he cried uncontrollably when his dog died.
Today, there is laid back living at his home on Garmon Drive in Buckhead and at his retreat on Lake Burton. He still keeps up and he still speaks out. Sirius Radio likes him, Hannity likes him. Mainly because he has something to say and says it well. He has always been knowledgeable, insightful and upbeat--an interviewer’s dream.
In his time, he had to find work in the off-season. Today a quarterback with his success would not have to do that. My guess is that he would have a similar career if it had come along lately. He wanted to be more than a football player. He wanted to succeed in business. He left the wrong side of the tracks to become a Renaissance man.
