Sam Huff, the great middle linebacker, died last week. He was 87.
Huff was born at a mining camp in West Virginia. He had a standout college career at the University of West Virginia. He was both an All-American lineman and an academic All-American.
The New York Giants drafted Huff in the third round of the 1956 draft (30th pick overall). Of those taken in the first round that year, only Lenny Moore would have a career comparable to Huff’s. Among the second round picks, only Forrest Gregg would have one.
At first, Huff struggled to find a role with the Giants. But everything came together when they converted him to middle linebacker. Under the tutelage of defensive coordinator Tom Landry, Huff quickly excelled at that position.
By his third season, 1958, Huff was a first team all-pro. Along with Joe Schmidt (Detroit Lions), Chuck Bednarik (Philadelphia Eagles), and Bill George (Chicago Bears), Huff was considered one of the top linebackers in the game. (Ray Nitschke of the Green Bay Packers had not yet emerged as a star.)
In 1960, CBS News ran a program, narrated by Walter Cronkite no less, called “The violent world of Sam Huff.” The network followed Huff through a game with a radio transmitter inside his shoulder pads. The TV audience could hear both the violence of Huff’s collisions and his high-pitched chirping throughout the contest.
The program made Huff the most famous defender in the NFL, just when the league was becoming at least the co-equal of baseball in our national sports consciousness. However, some questioned Huff’s status at the top of the food chain.
The theme emerged that Huff was overrated and that, by piling on, he got credit for tackles others made. Sure, there were games when the Giants held Jim Brown, the greatest running back I’ve ever seen, to scant yardage. But for all the talk of a Brown-Huff showdown, the Cleveland superstar had to contend with the best defensive line of the era — Andy Robustelli, Jim Katcavage, Roosevelt Grier, and Dick Modzelewski.
As a Washington Redskins fan and an anti-New Yorker (what kid would like being teased by older cousins from New York about the haplessness of the teams he roots for?), I subscribed to the view that Huff was overrated. But in 2008, I watched a program commemorating the 50-year anniversary of the classic NFL championship game between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts — the game that was instrumental in putting the NFL at the top of the sports heap. The program included the tape of the game.
Huff made plays from sideline to sideline. He seemed to be everywhere. In that star-studded contest, Huff looked like the best defensive player on the field.
The 2009 program featured commentary from some of the game’s surviving stars. But not Sam Huff. He refused to participate. Why? Because the Giants lost.
After the 1963 season, the Giants traded Huff to the Washington Redskins. Huff was 30 years old in the 1964 season. He was still good enough to make the Pro-Bowl that year, and provided strong leadership throughout his time with the team. But he was no longer a true star.
Huff still had plenty of attitude, though. In a Redskins-Giants game in 1966, Washington led 69-41 with seven seconds left. The Skins had the ball within field goal range, but no one expected them to try for three more points.
However, on came Charlie Gogolak to kick a short field goal and run the score up to 72-41.
I assumed that Otto Graham, Washington’s coach, had gotten carried away and ordered the kick. However, it was Huff who yelled for the field goal team to come on.
Why? Because he was pissed off at the Giants, and their coach Allie Sherman, for trading him.
It made sense in a way. If Huff could be bitter about the 1959 championship game 50 years later, why not act upon a grudge against the Giants that was less than three years old?
Huff retired after the 1967 season, but returned as a player-coach for one more year in 1969. Washington’s new coach, Vince Lombardi, who had been an assistant coach with the Giants early in Huff’s career, persuaded him to come back.
Huff continued on as an assistant coach for one more year and then found his way into broadcasting. When his Redskins teammate Sonny Jurgensen retired, the two teamed up to do color on the football team’s radio broadcasts.
They were wildly popular with the fan base. Many Washingtonians watched Redskins games on TV with the volume off and the radio on.
Jurgensen provided most of the analysis. Huff provided attitude, humor, and, um, color. Together, the two were the beloved high priests of Washington football during the glory years of the 1980s and very early 1990s.
Huff was successful in business, as well. He worked as Marriott’s liaison with sports teams for three decades. He also raised horses, did a syndicated broadcast on horse racing for three decades, and became chief executive of the West Virginia Breeders Classics horse races in Charles Town.
Not bad for a coal miner’s son. Not bad for anyone.
RIP.
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