Johnny Unitas, the legendary quarterback whose cool demeanor and pinpoint passing brought championships to the Baltimore Colts and popularity to the National Football League, died yesterday of a heart attack. He was 69.
The Hall of Famer was exercising at the Kernan Physical Therapy center in Timonium when he collapsed about 3 p.m. Doctors and nurses at the center attempted to resuscitate him but he died at the scene, according to a statement released by the St. Joseph Medical Center, where his body was taken.
"This is stunning, sad, sad news. He was a good friend, my contemporary. He helped make me love this game more," said Ravens owner Art Modell. "This is a sad day for the NFL community and an even sadder day for Baltimore."
Longtime friend Richard Sammis, owner of Town & Country Auto Brokers in Timonium, said he was with Mr. Unitas yesterday at the former player's office in the auto brokerage. He seemed healthy and happy, Mr. Sammis said.
"We were laughing and joking, and he did some business and made some calls," Mr. Sammis said. "Then he walked up the steps with his briefcase and said he was going to go work out."
Known as "The Golden Arm," Mr. Unitas owned virtually every NFL passing record at the time of his retirement in 1973, from career attempts to most 300-yard games.
Many of those marks have been eclipsed, but still standing is his string of 47 consecutive games with a touchdown, from 1956 to 1960. It is, along with Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak in baseball, considered one of the most unbeatable records in sports.
"He was absolutely the best quarterback who ever played pro football," said Jim Mutscheller, a retired Colts receiver who caught many Unitas passes.
"He was the best ever at concentrating on what he was doing and not getting rattled by defensive linemen trying to kill him. He made pro football in his time," Mr. Mutscheller said.
In 2000, Mr. Unitas was selected as one of four quarterbacks for the NFL's All-Time Team.
Born John Constantine Unitas to a working-class family in Pittsburgh, he became the ultimate Cinderella story and an inspiration for generations of youths. He was an unheralded and undersized passer at the University of Louisville and was the 102nd pick in the NFL's 1955 draft. The Pittsburgh Steelers cut him before the season.
He took a construction job in Pittsburgh and signed with the semipro Bloomfield Rams, who paid him $6 a game and played on a junior high school field strewn with cinders from nearby steel mills.
In 1956, he was signed as a free agent backup by the Colts. On Oct. 21, in a game against the Chicago Bears, Mr. Unitas took over for an injured starter. His first pass was intercepted for a touchdown. On his next play, he fumbled a handoff that the Bears recovered for another touchdown. The 20-14 lead he had inherited dissolved into a 58-27 loss.
But he persevered, displaying the grit that would, along with his crew-cut haircut and black high-top shoes, become his trademark.
His rookie completion rate of 55 percent set a record. The next year he was named the league's Most Valuable Player.
In 1958, he led the Colts to their first championship, an epic matchup against the New York Giants that has been called "the greatest game ever played."
The Colts were underdogs playing against the NFL's most glamorous franchise. But Mr. Unitas' fearless manner and unorthodox play-calling kept the score even and led to the first overtime in NFL post-season history, which the Colts won 23-17.
"It was his field generalship that won that game," said Joe Horrigan, a historian and vice president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. "He was cool in the huddle and cool in the game."
The televised drama convinced the networks of football's programming potential. Two years later, the NFL had its first network contract and Baltimore's raucous Memorial Stadium was the backdrop for a nation's growing obsession with the NFL.
"At a time when national television was beginning to focus on the NFL, 'Johnny U' captured the public's imagination and helped drive the growing popularity of professional football," said NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. "One of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game, he epitomized the position with his leadership skills and his ability to perform under pressure."
By the end of the next decade, Baltimore was the center of the sports universe with Mr. Unitas leading the Colts and Brooks Robinson playing third base for the Orioles. From 1969 to 1971, the Colts went to two Super Bowls(1969 and 1971) and the Orioles to three World Series.
Fans thrilled to Mr. Unitas' aggressive play, which favored aerial bombardment over a conservative ground attack. Teammates were awed by his disregard for oncoming rushers and his ability to play through broken bones and other injuries. Baltimoreans fell in love with a plain-spoken, rough-hewn hero who epitomized their city of steelworkers and longshoremen.
"Unitas was a kind of everyman," said C. Robert Barnett, a football historian at Marshall University in West Virginia. "He came from virtual obscurity and made it like we all hoped we could, and in the process remained a humble, understated person. He was the star with the crew cut and the powerful arm."
Retired broadcaster and Unitas friend Vince Bagli said: "He had a kind of controlled recklessness on the field. Even Mutscheller said he didn't expect John to throw that pass out in the flat on second down during the winning drive in 1958."
Like countless other boys, Sam Havrilak grew up idolizing Mr. Unitas, riveted by his leadership and bravado on the football field. But when Mr. Havrilak joined the Colts in 1969 as a rookie running back and was assigned the locker next to Mr. Unitas, he saw a human side to his hero. They became fast friends in their four years together as teammates, and they stayed that way for 33 years.
"I've never seen a more courageous football player," Mr. Havrilak said. "But his humanity surpassed anything he ever did on the field. He never once turned down an autograph in all the years I knew him. The city of Baltimore has lost a great person and a great friend."
Off the field, Mr. Unitas could be generous and caring, according to Larry Harris, a former Evening Sun sports writer who covered the Colts between 1967 and 1976. But he was a fierce competitor.
When the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Colts in the final game of the 1967 regular season to win the Western Conference and meet the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs, the plane ride back to Baltimore was a somber trip.
"I was sitting in a row opposite John," Mr. Harris recalled. "I looked across the aisle at John, and there was a great big tear running down his cheek."
In 1973, before the start of the season, Mr. Unitas was traded from the Colts to the San Diego Chargers. He retired after that season.
At his induction into the Hall of Fame in 1979, Mr. Unitas said: "A man never gets to this station in life without being helped, aided, shoved, pushed and prodded to do better. I want to be honest with you: The players I played with and the coaches I had ... are directly responsible for my being here. I want you all to remember that. I always will."
Like many of the old-time Colts players, Mr. Unitas was disappointed when team owner Robert Irsay moved the franchise to Indianapolis in 1984. Mr. Unitas protested the display of his records in the Hall of Fame's Indianapolis Colts section.
And although he wasn't in favor of the route that the former Cleveland Browns and current Ravens took to come to Baltimore, Mr. Unitas embraced the return of professional football to the city, often appearing on the sidelines at Ravens games.
"Johnny Unitas was Baltimore - guts and grit. Nobody thought he could be a professional football player, much less the best quarterback who ever played the game. He believed that he and every member of his team were the best, and they went out on the field again and again and proved it," Mayor Martin O'Malley said.
Success was more elusive for Mr. Unitas after his playing days. In the 1970s he and one of his former high school coaches invested in what turned out to be swampland in Florida. The venture failed, spawning lawsuits. In 1984, a courier service he operated failed when an accountant allegedly absconded with $250,000. He took on a number of ventures, including operating the Golden Arm restaurant in Baltimore County, and purchased an electronics firm that he ended up selling for a loss. In 1991 he filed for personal bankruptcy.
In 1993, Mr. Unitas underwent emergency triple-bypass heart surgery. In recent years he suffered from injuries sustained in his playing career, including nerve damage to his right arm that impaired his grip.
Mr. Sammis said Mr. Unitas was engaged in a number of enterprises at the time of his death, including endorsement deals with several firms. He attended St. Joseph Catholic Church in Texas, Md.
Mr. Unitas was untiring in his work for charitable causes. He established the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Educational Foundation and supported research on leukemia, cystic fibrosis and prostate cancer. He helped the efforts of the Ed Block Courage House. With his wife, Sandra, he supported Second Step Inc., an organization that assists victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
Mitch Tullai, a semiretired teacher and former football coach at St. Paul's School for Boys, which several of Mr. Unitas' children attended, said Mr. Unitas was a doting father who often attended games in which his children played.
"It could have been a bit intimidating. You know, he was the greatest quarterback in history, but he never interfered. He was a very affable, wonderful person," Mr. Tullai said.
Mr. Unitas is survived by his wife, Sandra L. Unitas, of Baldwin; sons John C. Unitas Jr. of Baldwin; Kenneth E. Unitas of Bel Air; Robert F. Unitas of Parkville; Christopher M. Unitas of White Hall; Joe Unitas of North Hollywood, Calif., Chad Unitas of Lutherville; daughters Janice Ann Unitas-DeNittis of Parkville, and Paige Unitas of Baldwin.
His former wife, Dorothy Jean Unitas, died in May.
Son Kenneth Unitas was defeated Tuesday in the Republican primary for state Senate in Harford County.
The family was in seclusion yesterday. Funeral arrangements were incomplete last night.
Sun staff writers Bill Free, Mike Klingaman, Roch Kubatko, Edward Lee, Lem Satterfield, Candus Thomson and Kevin Van Valkenburg, researchers Elizabeth Lukes and Paul McCardell, and Rich Scherr contributed to this article.