Sam HuffThe Giants’ HallThis is FameHe was a middle linebacker and became the face of professional football. His feats were celebrated in the national media when the N.F.L. As a major league baseball player, he began to compete with the NFL. America’s No. 1 sport, died SaturdayIn Winchester, Va. HeIt was 87.
HisHis daughter confirmed his death at a hospital. Catherine Huff MyersWho said it? HuffHe was diagnosed with dementia in 2013.
PlayingFor the Giants in their glory years of the late 1950s and early ’60s, HuffThe following came out of the West VirginiaAn anchor defense that used coal country to anchor it gained the kind renown previously reserved for strong-armed quarterbacks, and elusive runners.
HeParticipated in six N.F.L. In his eight seasons as a player with the team, he was a part of six N.F.L. championships. Giants. HeThree times named to all-league team and played in five Pro Bowls.
Huff was remembered for his head-on duels with two of the game’s greatest fullbacks — the Cleveland Browns’ Jim BrownThe Green Bay Packers’ Jim Taylor — but he also had 30 career interceptions. HeInducted into the Pro Football HallThis is Fame1982
Yankee StadiumThe Giants’ home at the time, reverberated to chants of “DEE-fense” and “Huff, Huff, Huff” in the late 1950s as one of the N.F.L.’s oldest teams became a glamorous franchise, vying with the baseball YankeesMedia acclaim in America’s communications capital.
HuffHe was the epitome for the tough-and-tough football star.
On Nov. 30, 1959 — almost a year after the thrilling sudden-death N.F.L. title game between the Giants Baltimore Colts had launched pro football’s ascendancy — TimeMagazine published a portrait of HuffOn its cover. He was the focus of “A Man’s Game,” an article in that issue about pro football.
Huff’s fearsome aura was sealed on Oct. 30, 1960 Walter Cronkite narrated the CBS documentary “The Violent WorldThis is Sam Huff,” part of the series “The Twentieth Century.”
A transmitter and microphone were placed on the device. Huff’s shoulder pads for an exhibition game against the Chicago BearsIn TorontoThe previous August.
ViewersHeard and saw HuffCalling signals in a huddle, then threatening a BearsHe thought he was taking liberties with the receiver. “You do that again, you’ll get a broken nose,” Huff warned. “Don’t hit me on the chin with your elbow. I’m not going to warn you no more.”
Burton BenjaminThe documentary’s producer, later recalled in an article for The New York Times that the “violent world” reference “quickly became a partThis is the football lexicon.”
As Frank Gifford, the Giants’ Hall of Fame running back and receiver, put it in his memoir “The Whole Ten Yards,” Huff became “a household name.”
Robert Lee Huff — he could not recall how he came to be called Sam — was born on Oct. 4, 1934 Morgantown, W.Va., the son a coal miner. HeGrowing up in a mining camp, he was known as Number Nine, outside Farmington, W.Va.
HuffThis was an All-Americanat West Virginia University, a 6-foot-1-inch, 220-pound guard and tackle for both offense and defense. The GiantsHe was selected in round three of the 1956 N.F.L. draft.
AsA rookie. HuffPlayed in the Giants’ 47-7 victory over the Bears1956 N.F.L. championship game, and he became a key figure in the 4-3 alignment — four down linemen and three linebackers — installed by the Giants’ defensive coordinator, Tom Landry. ReplacingThe 5-2 scheme is commonly used. HuffAt the heart of all the action.
“Before, I always had my head down, looking right into the center’s helmet,” Huff recalled in his memoir “Tough Stuff” (1988, with Leonard Shapiro). “NowStanding up, I was able to see everything. I have always had exceptional peripheral vision. It’s one of the reasons I was so perfectly suited for the position.”
The Giants’ outstanding defensive linemen — Roosevelt Grier Dick ModzelewskiTake a look at the tackle Andy Robustelli Jim Katcavage at end — kept blockers away from HuffHe was able to stop running plays. AndHe moved towards the sidelines or leaned back to stop passes. This was in addition to the outstanding defensive backs Emlen Tunnell, Jim Patton Dick Nolan.
Huff “almost single-handedly influenced the first chants of ‘Defense, Defense’ in Yankee Stadium,” John K. MaraThe Giants’ president and chief executive, said in a statement on Saturday.
Following1956 was their championship season. GiantsThey won five division titles between 1958-63, but lost the championship game each year.
The GiantsThey decided to reshape a team that had won a third consecutive division title in 1963. TheyTrade HuffTo WashingtonFor Dick James, a smallish running back Andy Stynchula, a defensive end.
HuffHe was shocked and angered and the two players were taken by the GiantsThey were not impressed. AsThe Giants’ aging stars departed, the team descended into mediocrity. HuffGained retribution Washington’s 72-41 victory over the GiantsIn November 1966, which he once called “the one game I wanted the most.”
HePlayed for WashingtonFrom 1964 to 1967, he retired but returned for one final season as a linebacker coach and player. Vince LombardiNamed Washington’s head coach in 1969.
HuffLater, he became a long-time radio broadcaster. WashingtonMarketing executive and games for the MarriottHotel and resort chain HeYou can also breed thoroughbred horses.
BesidesHis daughter, CatherineHis partner is his survivor. Carol Holden; a boy, Joseph; his ex-wife, Mary Helen Fletcher HuffThe family stated that they have three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Another son, Robert JrIn 2018,., died. Huff’s marriage ended in divorce in the late 1980s.
For anyone unfamiliar with “The Violent WorldThis is Sam Huff,” the man in the middleThis is the Giants’ awesome defense underlined his credo in a 2002 interview for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“I never let up on anybody,” Huff said. “I don’t think I ever quit on a play. IfYou had the football. I was going to hit your head with it. That’s the way the game should be played.”
Michael LevensonContributed reporting
Source: NY Times
