The Duke who gave all for the good of the game

Art Spander salutes NFL godfather Wellington Mara, who died last week

America never has been much for looking to the past, not in the way Britain does, perhaps because we don’t have the past. “History is bunk,’’ said Henry Ford. On the contrary, history is why the present exists. -NFL Football-

This was never made more clear than by the eulogies to Wellington Mara, who died from cancer last week at 89. He, as much as anyone, is responsible for the growth of the National Football League to its place as the No 1 game in the United States. -NFL Football-

Think of team owners these days, so many of them greedy, so many arrogant, so many self-indulgent, so many of them who would fit Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins’ description of Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder. “I do think that in the absence of any attention,’’ Jankins wrote, “he would take negative attention. He would rather be the central figure in a dysfunctional team than a peripheral figure in a successful team.” -NFL Football-

And not to be ignored is Malcolm Glazer, who besides dabbling in your football is quite visible in our football, owning the Tampa Bay Bucs. -NFL Football-

They’re out for themselves. Wellington Mara, who held every position from ball boy (back in the 1920s) to pres ident of the New York Giants, was out for the good of the league, the good of the game. -NFL Football-

If anything enabled the NFL to move ahead of baseball, the so-called National Pastime, in popularity, it was television. And if anyone enabled the NFL to develop the money-sharing television contract that kept the game compet itive it was Wellington Mara. -NFL Football-

In 1962, a young commissioner, Pete Rozelle, persuaded owners to trade lucrative local contracts for an untested national contract to share revenues equally. At that time, Mara’s Giants were being paid $175,000 for local rights, while the Packers, up there in Green Bay, Wisconsin, metropolitan population 100,000, were getting $35,000. -NFL Football-

“We’re only as strong as our weakest link,’’ Mara told the other owners. A cliche, but a truism. He sacrificed. And suddenly there were no weak links, at least when it came to TV money, which starting in 2006 will be $3.7 billion a year. -NFL Football-

Wellington Mara, nicknamed “The Duke” for the Duke of Wellington, was so revered that each official NFL football has the words “The Duke” imprinted on its sides. -NFL Football-

Wellington Mara, pictured below, was a gentleman from the old school. He showed up in locker rooms and on practice fields, but only to lend support, not to give advice. Mara’s father, Tim, bought the Giants for a reported $500 in 1925, three years after the NFL was formed and nine years after Wellington was born. -NFL Football-

“My earliest recollection,” Mara wrote, “I was nine-years-old, coming out of mass on a Sunday, and I heard my father say, ‘I’m gonna try to put pro football in New York today’.” -NFL Football-

It has never left, of course. The Giants, named for the baseball team which also played in the Polo Grounds, became the NFL’s glamour franchise. Until the baseball Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958, there never was a reference to the other team without an identifying label, meaning commentators would call them “The New York Football Giants”, or, because of the colour of their jerseys, the “Big Blue”. -NFL Football-

Wellington Mara graduated from Fordham University in 1937, worked with the team, became a Naval officer in World War II and then returned to the Giants. They were his only business. -NFL Football-

When in the 1970s the Giants sank to the depths, critics were everywhere. A private plane flew over Giants Stadium, to which they moved in 1976, with a banner reading “15 Years of Lousy Football – We’ve Had Enough”. -NFL Football-

Recalling the bad years, Mara said in 2001: “People said we were cheap and didn’t care if we won, because all our games were sold out. That got under my skin. We weren’t cheap. We were just stupid. We made a lot of poor personnel decisions.’’ -NFL Football-

But the team got smart in a hurry, winning Super Bowls in 1986 and 1990. And others were pleased for Mara. “He was the conscience of the NFL,’’ said Art Modell, longtime owner of the Cleveland Browns, who became the Baltimore Ravens. Philadelphia Eagles’ owner Jeffrey Lurie said of Mara: “He wanted other owners to love the game, because he loved it so much.’’ -NFL Football-

Last Sunday, near death, Mara, according to a grandson, awoke in his bed at home in Rye, New York in time to see Eli Manning throw a last-second touchdown pass that enabled the Giants to upset the Denver Broncos. One last and lasting victory. -NFL Football-

30 October 2005