The unknown Unitas

Rick Maese

October 20, 2006

Tomorrow marks 50 years since anyone was given even a glimpse of what was in store.

In Chicago, at Wrigley Field, on Oct. 21, 1956: Ligaments in George Shaw's right knee popped. As he was dragged off the field, a baby-faced kid from Western Pennsylvania, with black high-tops and a sharp crewcut, trotted on. No one knew Johnny Unitas' name then. A half century later, of course, we all do.

John's first of 5,186 passes was a short throw into the right flat that Chicago cornerback J.C. Caroline timed exquisitely. Intercepting the ball in his longest stride, Caroline returned it fifty-nine yards for a touchdown with Unitas and Alan Ameche giving feeble chase. The rest of the game was a Gothic nightmare of botched handoffs and fumbles. John and his ball carriers were so unused to one another that, when he wasn't bumping into them, they were crashing into him. The final score was 58-27. "That would be enough to rattle anybody, wouldn't you think?" Raymond Berry said. "Do you know how much that affected him? I don't think it affected him at all." For the record, in the midst of this debacle, John threw his first official touchdown pass, thirty-six yards to Jim Mutscheller.

That's from Johnny U, a new biography written by Tom Callahan and released just last month. When Sandy Unitas first put down the manuscript of the book, a sense of relief hit her. "We were all so happy someone finally got the story right," said Unitas' widow.

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You see, 50 years have passed since Unitas got his first regular-season action in a Baltimore Colts uniform, but for some reason, his story wasn't adequately bound in book form until now, and suddenly there's plenty of opportunity to talk about it. Not only is Callahan's tome on bookshelves, but there's a program at the Sports Legends Museum on Sunday looking back on one of the most important iconic figures the game has ever seen. Callahan, Sandy Unitas and former teammates Berry and Lenny Moore are scheduled to appear.

"Baltimore thinks it knows his story; it really doesn't," said Callahan, an eighth-grader at Immaculate Conception when the Colts won the 1958 NFL championship. "The story hadn't been told."

For proof, you need look no further than Unitas' own autobiography, published in 1965. "My father's name was Leonard Unitas," the book states. Actually, Unitas' brother was Leonard; his father was Francis Joseph Unitas. That book, and several others that followed, was chock-full of misnomers and half-truths and embellished anecdotes that would become a part of the quarterback's legend.

It prompted longtime Sun sportswriter Cameron Snyder to ask Unitas, "I got your book and I have only one question. Did you write it?"

"Hell," Unitas responded, "I didn't even read it."

Shot as a child

Callahan's book delves into Unitas' childhood and family background more thoroughly than anything before it. The author recounts how Unitas was shot twice as a child: When he was 5, the casing of a .38-caliber bullet fired by his brother tore through Unitas' leg, and later when he was a junior in high school, while cleaning his sister's Colt .380 automatic pistol, Unitas accidentally shot himself through the middle finger of his throwing hand.

No love for Shula

There are other tidbits that will likely be inscribed in Unitas' lore. No one can ever again question the Hall of Famer's feelings for Don Shula. One teammate quoted Unitas as saying that "if that son of a bitch was across the street and his guts were on fire," Unitas couldn't be bothered to go put out the flames - though the quarterback used much more colorful language. (The author suggests that Unitas and Shula were more alike than different, which caused a strain on their relationship.)

And because Unitas played when he did, his story expectedly intersects with several social themes and societal struggles from the period. Though the Colts all wore horseshoes on their helmets, it wasn't a time when everyone walked around colorblind. Geno Marchetti recounted a story of Jim Parker visiting Ameche's restaurant in 1959 or '60 and Ameche saying, "Jim, I can't serve you." Parker, in one of the last interviews before the lineman died last year, told Callahan: "I wasn't going to cry about it, but I believe Alan did. I don't think he ever stopped feeling bad about that."

As with any Unitas story, Callahan was forced to draw from several other characters. He had to; Unitas guarded his private life so carefully that it's never been easy for any teammate, coach or writer to crawl into his head and pretend like he understood what exactly made the Hall of Famer tick.

Even his wife used to tease him, "For someone so simple, you sure can be pretty complicated."

"Yes, he was a private person," Sandy said, "but he knew that he was, I guess you'd say, a 'celebrity,' in the eyes of other people. And there's a certain amount of responsibility that goes along with that."

It's quite an obstacle to profile someone when his teammates and friends admit that there were walls built that only family members were able to see behind. Callahan isn't the first to point out that this is part of what made Unitas such a good leader, someone who inspired confidence in everyone around him.

"I don't think he let any of them in," said Callahan, who got his start at The Evening Sun but spent much of his career writing for Time magazine. "John kept his distance. He was a good guy to be around, he told some stories, but it was almost like he subscribed to this code of what it meant to be a pro. And he was never going to be just another teammate. He was apart from that."

The book suggests that Unitas' high school coach, Max Carey, instilled in his young quarterback the idea that while Unitas could have fun, he couldn't be just one of the boys.