Sport: George Blanda Is Alive and Kicking

Monday, Nov. 23, 1970

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Not Even a Shoe. Blanda has been getting his kicks in pro football ever since 1949 when he joined the Chicago Bears and played with such venerable old fry as Sid Luckman and Bulldog Turner. Son of a Youngwood, Pa., coal miner, George was signed out of the University of Kentucky for a measly $600which Bear Coach George Halas demanded that he pay back if he made the team. He made it, playing linebacker and filling in as quarterback and place kicker. Never happy under Halas ("He was too cheap to even buy me a kicking shoe"), Blanda came into his own when he switched to the American Football League and led the Houston Oilers to the championship in 1960 and 1961. Rescued from possible retirement in 1967 by the Raiders, he reciprocated by leading the A.F.L. in scoring that year with 116 points; so far this season, he has completed 14 of 24 passes for four touchdowns and kicked 24 extra points and eleven field goals to lead Raider scorers with a total of 57 points.

"The guy almost embarrasses you," says Raider Center Jim Otto. "He's out there, 43 years old, running the wind sprints, yelling all the time, coming in to pull it out for us." Adds Coach John Madden: "I don't even think of George's age. If we need him, he's ready. Besides, I'm the coach and I'm 34, so I'd rather not discuss ages." Neither would Blanda, who earns $40,000 a year and says he will keep playing "as long as I can walk to the bank."

^{* That same afternoon, the New Orleans Saints' Tom Dempsey,
who was born without a right hand and only half a right foot, upset the
Detroit Lions 19-17 in the final two seconds with a field goal that traveled 63
yds., seven yards farther than the old record of 56 yds. set in 1953.}