“Johnny Unitas, the Hall of Fame quarterback who broke nearly every passing NFL record and won three championships with the Baltimore Colts in an 18-year career, died Wednesday. He was 69.”
Nobody wore a pair of black high-tops like Johnny.
Back in the day, at Roosevelt Elementary, we used to fight over who we “got to be” during recess football games:
“I get to be Johnny Unitas! I get to be Bart Starr!” I doubt if little kids still do that today…I mean, can you imagine?
“I get to be Trent Dilfer!”
Here’s to you, Johnny…God’ll have to fashion a halo with horseshoes on either side.
Trent Dilfer’s a pretty good guy. I can imagine it. Jon Kitna would have been a better example.
That said, Johnny Unitas was the QB when I was growing up. He just got it done. Not as flashy as Joe Namath, but still, you’re right, that’s who every little boy wanted to be for a while.
Talk about the loss of a boyhood hero, I was 8 when he started playing for the Colts. He was so great to grow up watching. Sad to hear of his passing.
Jim
That’s too bad. Talk about one of the all time greats of the game. This guy had it all. He had some impressive stats, but his reputation was built as a leader, a big game qb, and a being winner.
Absolutely, to a young kid back around mid 60s, Johnny U., #19.
He was our hero. Man, I’m getting old. God bless you, John.
I can’t even believe it. He was a very well known man around here- he worked for a local company (the Matthews Group) and was always willing to show up for charity events and donate signed footballs and such- I met him years ago when my ex worked for the same company and they were flying somewhere. Man, he was a good guy.
Sorry, no disrespect to Dilfer…I was just saying there are no real larger than life QB’s out there, with the possible exception of Favre. The jury’s still out on Warner. Stewart? Nah. McNair? Uh-uh. McNabb? Maybe. Testeverde? Forget it. I really don’t think there’s been a QB since Young, Aikman & Co. hung up their cleats that kids really want to emulate, IMO.
The greatest QB of all time, bar none, and a genuinely nice guy. At Ravens games, when the video montage of the Ravens and the real Colts is showing, just before the introduction of the players, the black and white clip of #19 still gets the loudest cheers.
Godspeed, Johnny. A little part of every Baltimore football fan dies with you.
Bubba Smith said this about Johnny Unitas: A guy broke through the line, hit him, pushed his head in the ground. He called the same play, let the guy come through and broke his nose with the football. I said, “That’s my hero.”
I feel for you, Charm City.
Hear, hear. Johnny retired when I was but 2 years old, but Dad grew up a Colts fan in Bethesda and I heard many, many stories which put Johnny Unitas in the same league with Paul Bunyan and John Henry the Steel-Drivin’ man. R.I.P.
(Incidentally, Dad still refuses to accept the so-called Indianapolis Colts, and I nearly do too.)
Unitas was the hero of all small, slow guys. Scouts who saw him in practice were unimpressed and he was cut by the Steelers. He worked best when the chips were on the line and it was time to lay the cards down, face up.
I think the main reasons I do so are both that my father does (whence I derive most of my sports followings) and that they moved March (28?) of 1983.
At the time, I was not quite one and a half. So I do not remember them as the Baltimore Colts.
One of my favorite pictures is of my brother, who was about 6 years old at the time, on Christmas morning. He has just received a Johnny U. uniform. He has the jersey, pants, and helmet on, armed cocked back ready to go for a TD, and Bullwinkle slippers on his feet.
wow. The only referenceI had to Johnny Unitas was that he had a haircut you could set your watch to. 
Its good to know that he had many admirers.
Johnny U. was my very 1st football hero. At the tender age of 7 or so I hand-painted a Colts horseshoe on my helmet and put up a tire swing to practice throwing the ball through (I had read somewhere that was how he honed his throwing arm) just so I could be like him. Super Bowl III broke my heart. Damn that cocky upstart Joe Willy Namath!
He was the kind of guy that was a GOOD role model for kids of the day (unlike many of today’s sports figures). He will be sorely missed. God bless you, Johnny U.
'84, Pun. March 28th 1984. A black, black day. Now it looks like the Irsay blood runs true and Jimmy’s gonna pack the Colts off to La-La land. I don’t care, I just wish they’d give us our name back.