Remembering John Mackey

For those of you that didn't know, John Mackey died today.

Mackey is a Hall of Fame tight end that played for the Baltimore Colts.  He was as much a part of those great teams of the 60s and early 70s as Johnny Unitas and Raymond Berry.  The Mackey Award, given to the nation's best tight end in college football, is named in honor of him.

But, since I was an NFL Films junkie as a kid -- before the NFL Network started carving all that classic footage up and packaging it into neat top 10 lists -- I remember him as the guy that caught a deflected pass from Johnny Unitas in Super Bowl V and took it 75 yards for a touchdown.  I used to watch all the old Super Bowl highlights and that play really stuck with me.

The play in question can be viewed here if you start it up and go to about the 27 second mark.  At the time, it wouldn't have been a legal forward pass had the defender not touched the ball.  Back then, if an offensive player touched a forward pass and it went back up in the air, a defensive player needed to touch it before an offensive player was allowed to.

About ten years ago, I went to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio with my friend Forty and my brother.  Forty called me the day before we left and said, "Looks like there will be players there signing autographs.  Herman Moore is going to be there and some guy named John Mackey."

I immediately shouted, "JOHN MACKEY?!?!  I LOVE THAT GUY!"  So, we went to Canton and looked at all the exhibits and ended the tour with the autograph session.  At that point, Herman Moore was a pretty big deal -- also a really nice guy, he talked to us longer than Mackey and wished us well as we were standing outside the building and he was exiting -- but I was focused on Mackey.

Mackey was seated at a table and was flashing his Super Bowl ring around like a fat girl that just got engaged.  I went up to him and had the following conversation...

Me: Mr. Mackey, I'm a big fan and I'd like to congratulate you on a great career.  I guess you should sign this.
Mackey (not looking up): Thank you, thank you.  I appreciate that.
Me: I have a question for you and I've wanted to ask you this for about 15 years.
Mackey (still not looking up): Sure, go right ahead.
Me: It's Super Bowl V and Unitas drills a pass into Lenny Moore's pads that bounces off him, bounces up in the air, and may or may not have been tipped by the defender.  You haul in the pass and go 75 yards for the touchdown.
Mackey (now looking up): That was one of the proudest moments of my career.  What's your question?
Me: Did the defender touch the ball?
Mackey (fixes himself and stares right into my eyes, his gaze burning a hole straight through to the bald spot on the back of my head): It's not my job to say who touched the ball and who didn't.  It's my job to catch the ball and score touchdowns.  It's the ref's job to say who touched the ball and who didn't.  He said the guy touched it and I scored.
Me: I see.  Thank-
Mackey: If you sit there trying to figure out who touched the ball and who didn't, someone's gonna knock your head off.

My assumption is that he signed something for me, because I grabbed it and scurried away.

That's my John Mackey story.  He seemed like a great man, even if he was pretty old school and a little salty.  After all, I was just some idiot that came along asking a dumb question about something that happened 30 years before that.  It's possible that he was obligated by international law to be a little salty.

He will be missed.