NFL Sunday: A deja vu banner day
By Andy Pollin
The flying banner pictured above was paid for by a national women’s advocacy organization, UltraViolet. Their stance is NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell must either resign or be dismissed for his handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case. “We live in a country where one in four women are victims of domestic violence, said UltraViolet organizing director Karin Roland. We can’t afford to have an NFL commissioner who doesn’t take domestic violence seriously.”
Whether Roland and UltraViolet know it or not, and whether or not the flying banner was influenced by this, that same airspace was filled with another plane flying a similar banner for entirely different reasons, 36 years ago. In both cases, the banner sponsors were fed up. How that banner came to fly in 1978 makes for quite a story.
In 1963 the New York Giants glory days came to end with a loss to the Chicago Bears in the NFL Championship game. From the mid-50’s through the early 60’s, the Giants had been regular participants in the championship game, winning it in 1956. Their 1958 loss to the Baltimore Colts in overtime is considered to be the game that ushered the NFL into the modern era. However, by 1978, the Giants had ranged from mediocre to bad for a decade and a half,with only two winning seasons.
Part of the problem was ownership. The team was co-owned by Wellington Mara and his nephew Tim, who’d inherited his half of the team from his late father, Jack Mara. Wellington and Tim were on such bad terms that they’d had a partition built between their seats in the owner’s box at Giants Stadium. Wellington ran the football side the business, but had to go through interference from Tim. It wasn’t working out well.
In week 12 of the ’78 season, things came to a head. The Giants at 5-6 were hosting the 6-5 Philadelphia Eagles. The winner of the game would likely still have an outside shot at the playoffs. The loser was probably out. With seconds to play, it looked like the Giants were going to win. They led 17-12 and needed quarterback Joe Pisarcik to take a knee and the game would be over. Incredibly, offensive coordinator Bob Gibson called “65 Power Up”, which called for Pisarcik to hand off to fullback Larry Csonka. What followed remains a nightmare to Giants fans to this day. Pisarcik bobbled the handoff, which hit Csonka’s hip, bounced on the artificial turf, was picked up by Eagles safety Herman Edwards (yes THAT Herman Edwards) and returned 26 yards for a 19-17 Eagles victory.
Losing coach John McVay called it, “The most horrifying ending to a ball game I’ve ever seen.” Giants fans couldn’t have agreed more. And this time some of them decided to do something about it.
It started with Ron Frelman taking out an ad in the Newark Star-Ledger, encouraging fans to send him their tickets for a public burning at Giants Stadium. More than a hundred fans responded and Frelman burned the tickets in a urinal outside the stadium before the Giants next home game against the Rams. Frelman put the ashes in an urn and mailed it to Wellington Mara.
Taking notice of this incident was Newark furniture dealer Morris Spielberg. He organized the “Committee Against Mara’s Insensitivity to Giants Fans.” They met at a motel near Giants Stadium and passed the hat. A total of $236.50 was raised to get their message across. For the final home game on December 10th against the St. Louis Cardinals, Spielberg hired a plane to fly over the stadium with a banner reading “15 Years of Lousy Football – We’ve Had Enough.” And when that plane passed, even though the Giants were on their way to a 17-0 win, the fans chanted, “We’ve had enough.” There were 24,374 no shows, but it was loud enough to stop play briefly.
Change may have been inevitable, but the flying banner is widely credited with what followed. McVay’s contract was not renewed at the end of the season. There was support to hire Joe Paterno away from Penn State, but they settled on Ray Perkins. He would run the offense and chose a young college coach to run the defense – Bill Parcells. Mara was ready to hire a general manager and asked Commissioner Pete Rozelle to help in the search. George Young was the choice. Within seven years, Perkins replaced Bear Bryant as coach at Alabama, Parcells was elevated to head coach and the Giants were Super Bowl champions.
UltraViolet may not get it’s wish for Commissioner Goodell, but as Giants fans found out 36 years ago – it doesn’t hurt to fly a banner.
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