Why do legends die... so quickly

Talking to my daughter tonight. Commented how quickly people move out of the conversation, go from being household names to afterthoughts-- in the blink of an eye.

Think of Jay Leno? Remember him? Just barely right. He was The Tonight Show host. Had the best job a comedian can get. Then his tenure ended. He's forgotten. Or so it seems.

David Letterman? A comedy genius. The man who introduced irony. And that's the key to comedy performance-- a total revolution. Well, he ended a few months ago and is not completely forgotten. But almost.

Jon Stewart. You loved him. But you'll probably forget him. Can't see him every night. He doesn't exist.

Maybe if you were just the right age to savor Jon Stewart he will continue to resonate and hold a magic place in your heart and your memory bank. I didn't fall into that demographic. So Jon takes a minor role in the repertoire of characters filling the back rows of my consciousness.

Frank Gifford passed away, a football star and Monday Night Football broadcaster. The cool thing is he was immortalized in the literary annals by Frederick Exley in his incomparable A Fan's Notes-- must be read to be believed. Oxley is like Holden Caulfield, all grown up and still fucked-up as hell. A brilliant and wonderful book and with a strong Frank Gifford motif.

But I like Gifford. I was a 10 year old kid in NYC when he was a young gazelle for the NY Football Giants as they were called back then. Not to be confused by the baseball team NY Giants from up in the Polo Grounds.

And then for a kid who loved media... what could be better than The Hick, The Prick and Gif... the "irreverent county-boy" Dandy Don Meredith, "the contentious" Howard Cossell, and Frank Gifford "with his low-key persona"... calling the Monday Night football games at the behest  of Roone Arledge. Gifford was the rational one, keeping track of the ball and the flow of the game. But they're all gone now and soon to be forgotten. (Quotes are from the NY Times obituary of Frank Gifford on August 10, 2015.)

That's the nature of this beast, this thing called mortality. You have to reach a certain age to realize just how cruel it is, and how beautiful... we all dance to the tune of the Grim Reaper.... the kings, the peasants, the butchers, bakers, candlestick makers and football announcers too.

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio,
A nation turns its eyes to you (woo, woo, woo)

(Simon and Garfukel, Mrs. Robinson lyrics)

Frank Gifford: Last of the Great White Running Backs

Frank Gifford was a hero of mythological proportions in the late 1950s. Frank played running back for the New York Giants. New York has a way of creating legends, mythologizing sports stars and gilding them with Greek-godlike attributes. Frank fit the bill. He had the looks. Frank ran gracefully as a running back as the New York Giants football team, the tam that found its identity in hallowed Yankee Stadium. As a ten year old kid I liked the guy, number 16 on his uniform, and he embodied the traits we liked in our Fifties heroes-- modesty, hard work and a nose for victory. Frank outlines his exploits and the hard scrabble early days of the New York football team in The Glory Game, his 2008 book about the NFL championship game of 1958.

He never deviates from his modest temperament across the pages of The Glory Game. Gifford, ever the ambassador of goodwill demonstrates equal affection for his teammates guys like Sam Huff and Charlie Conerly and for the Baltimore Colts, the opponents, a team that included Johnny Unitas, Gino Marchetti and Raymond Berry.

Gifford cannot claim to be the last of the great white running backs-- that was my term. Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung achieved great running statistics for the Green Bay Packers in the 1961 season, after Gifford's glory years had passed. And Jim Brown symbolized the future of football. Jim Brown anticipated the arrival of the great African-American running back. Jim Brown, Lenny Moore and Bobby Mitchell, the early black stars, jump out from the cold, hard statistics on rushing yards as the future of pro football. The sport had to accommodate the unquestioned superiority of the African-American running back, for sports by definition are a level playing field.

But Gifford had a certain aura. He as a King of New York in the 1950s-1960s and beyond. He straddled the electronic era, the era of television and football's emergence as the TV sport par excellence. He announced the games on Monday Night Football, poised between Don Meredith and Howard Cosell, the Texas hick and the New York prick. Both guys were funny and they needed the gentler spirit of Frank Gifford to class up the joint.

Gifford got in trouble with sex scandal, a tabloid affair with buxom Suzen Johnson in 1997. His Monday Night Football days were numbered. Frank partook of the electronic landscape for gossip long before TMZ made it an art form. And even that hotel room setup adds to the luster. Suzen did a Playboy spread and you had to sympathize with Frank's fall to temptation.  Kathie Lee Gifford, Frank's wife and a powerful figure in daytime TV, struggled to keep the marriage to Frank going despite the massive media circus and the marriage continues to the present day. Frank is now 83 years old.

But Frank should not be forgotten. The son of an oilfield worker, Gifford did not have the grades to get accepted to USC. He eventually made it there. His strong delivery as a TV announcer proves he had no lack of intelligence. Frank was a King of New York, pals with Toots Shor make that a natural fact. Gifford had all the right stuff, really proved himself a natural for the Big Apple spotlight. His book, The Glory Game, continues in the vein of grace and modesty. He acknowledges David Halberstram would have been the man to capture the 1958 NFL championship game and all of the sociological implications-- the integration of American life through television and the rise of Frank's favorite sport. Halberstram died in a car accident while pursuing the subject of football's rise from the 1958 championship game. But Frank's version makes a damn fine book, smooth and effortless as a crafty running back cutting through the line.