Bakersfield High School football legend Frank Gifford, 84, died Sunday of natural causes in his Connecticut home.
The passing of the iconic New York Giants player, NFL Hall of Famer and “Monday Night Football” broadcasting star was confirmed in a statement from his family to NBC News.
One of the National Football League's best and most versatile players in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Gifford's skill, good looks and gracious manner made him an all-around celebrity in New York City.
"Frank Gifford was the ultimate Giant. He was the face of our franchise for so many years," Giants President John Mara said in a statement.
But for Bakersfield, Gifford will always be remembered as a Driller.
LINKED ARTICLES HOMETOWN
Bob Karpe played at BHS with Gifford, and the two remained friends for decades. Karpe said he was surprised by the news that his friend had died.
"I didn't hear of him being in poor health. Must have been a sudden thing,“ Karpe said. ”I hadn't heard that he was sick at all. He was my age, and I guess that's old enough to be called a full life, and his was a sensational life as well.“
Karpe said Gifford was just a “plain good old guy. Just a typical Bakersfield guy, you know?"
Gifford started out tough and had seen both sides of the nation’s economy, Karpe said.
"He made it over a very long and difficult road,” Karpe said. “When I first knew him, he lived out in kind of a old, small house a ways out on the Edison Highway, not where you'd think Frank Gifford would be living. And of course, after he grew up, he never did again."
Paul Golla, Bakersfield High’s football coach since 2005, remembers Gifford’s deep connection to his home town and alma mater.
"The most impressive thing when I talked to him was how much he gave Homer Beatty credit. That was his head coach at Bakersfield High. He said Homer had so much to do with his successes in life," Golla said Sunday.
When the Drillers won the state championship in 2013, Gifford was watching from afar.
"He never really left. He remembered where he was from. (Gifford’s wife) Kathie Lee tweeted 'Go Drillers!' when we were on the bus on the way down to the state title game. He always remembered. They were little things, but that's a big deal to us,” Golla said.
COLLEGE
After winning the 1947 Central Section championship with the Drillers, Gifford graduated and went on to Bakersfield College.
”He was a typical Bakersfield guy, a Levi’s, T-shirt-type of guy, until he got into the NFL. He was a really good guy,” remembered BC offensive coordinator Carl Bowser, who was the Renegades’ water boy when Gifford played at BC.
“He had this little roadster car,” Bowser said. “He'd park it on California Avenue. I'd hang around after practice and leave about the same time he would leave. I would be riding my bicycle and he would be going the same way. He'd tell me to get on my handlebars and he'd tow me.”
Gifford transferred to USC, where he started for three years and was an All-American in 1951.
The next year, the Giants drafted him, and in a 13-year career, Gifford was All-Pro at three positions and the league MVP in 1956.
STAR PLAYER
Gifford was a key player for the Giants during their 23-17 loss to the Baltimore Colts in the 1958 NFL title game, which was decided in the league's first-ever sudden-death overtime period.
It came to be known as "the greatest game ever played" and sports historians say its dramatic finish and national TV coverage set football on a path to become the most popular sport in the United States and a multibillion-dollar industry.
Gifford, who played mostly as a running back and wide receiver, led the Giants to the NFL championship in 1956 while winning the league's most valuable player award, and he helped take them to the title game in five other seasons.
Gifford's career was interrupted in 1960 in one of the most notorious plays in NFL history, a brutal but legal hit by Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Chuck Bednarik that left Gifford unconscious. Gifford retired from playing but returned in 1962 and played three more years.
All told, Gifford ran for 3,609 yards and 34 touchdowns, caught 367 passes for 5,434 yards and 43 touchdowns, and threw 14 touchdown passes on the halfback option. He was named the most valuable player of the 1956 season, in which the Giants won the league championship. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.
Calling Gifford "an icon of the game," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Sunday in a statement: "Frank's talent and charisma on the field and on the air were important elements in the growth and popularity of the modern NFL."
Gifford had dabbled in broadcasting during his playing career — his first show was reportedly on Fridays during the NFL off-season on KERO-TV in 1957. He became part of the Giants television team after retiring before ABC hired him in 1971 for the second season of its iconic "Monday Night Football.”
"I was his guinea pig on KERO downtown,“ said Don Johnson, who played with Gifford at BHS and later against him at Cal and with the Philadelphia Eagles. ”We were both in the dark about how to do interviews, and I was one of those guys who he wanted to talk to. He wasn't a natural; he had to work hard, but you'd think he was a natural by the time he got done with it."
Former Californian sports editor Larry Press would have coffee with Gifford when he’d pop back into town to visit his mother.
"I went to a Super Bowl or two with him, and he'd always have a huge crowd, but he was always very nice. He called me Poison Pen, but if I wanted to get some time with him, he'd say, 'Hold on, let me get done with these folks,' and he'd give me all the time I wanted," Press said Sunday.
MONDAY NIGHTS
Gifford was teamed with another retired NFL star, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith, and the sharply opinionated Howard Cosell. Gifford handled the play-by-play work while Cosell and "Dandy Don" provided running analysis.
Much of the broadcast's appeal came from the interplay of the folksy Meredith and the acerbic Cosell, while Gifford played the straight man.
"Howard pontificated. Don Meredith was the country guy who kept the big city slicker straight. I kept law and order," Gifford said in an interview that aired when "MNF" ended its run on ABC and moved to the ESPN network for the 2006 season.
"Monday Night Football" was a steady winner in the ratings. Gifford stayed with "Monday Night Football" for 27 years before retiring in 1998.
In 1986, he married his third wife, Kathie Lee Gifford, star of "Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee" and later the Today Show.
Gifford had three children with his first wife, Maxine, and two with Gifford.
"Deeply grateful to all 4 ur outpouring of grace," Kathie Lee Gifford tweeted Sunday, adding his family was "finding comfort in knowing where Frank is."
REMEMBERED
Gifford leaves behind a legacy of mentoring younger generations of Bakersfield athletes.
Former NFL quarterback David Carr, older brother of Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, said he was reminded of his Bakersfield roots during his time with the New York Giants when Gifford showed up in the team's locker room.
"I had a chance to talk with him for a little while, " Carr said in 2015. "He walked into our locker room and said, 'Where's the boy from Bakersfield?' It was a really cool moment."
Former Driller Jeff Buckey was an All-Pac-10 Conference pick while at Stanford and played three years at the left guard position for the Dolphins and finished his career with the 49ers.
"One my favorite memories as a pro was when Hall of Famer Frank Gifford came and talked to me before a game with the Pittsburgh Steelers," he said. "Frank told me it was great to see another Driller player in the NFL and great to talk ‘Driller to Driller.’"
Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was one of many to tweet or otherwise issue statements about Gifford.
"Judy and I are saddened to hear of the passing of Driller great Frank Gifford,” he wrote. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family. He was a local product that graduated from Bakersfield High School and played at Bakersfield College before becoming an NFL Hall of Fame player. He never forgot Bakersfield and he will be missed.”
“Once a Driller, Always a Driller," McCarthy concluded.
