In A. E. Housman’s poem “To an Athlete Dying Young,” the fifth stanza ends with the line “And the name died before the man.” Housman speaks of those many athletes whose feats came and went and whose names disappeared in the dust of time. Not so with former Pittsburgh Steeler Franco Harris, who made arguably the most memorable play in football, a play known for a half century as “The Immaculate Reception” after the conception of Mary.
Franco’s name, frozen in acrylic beneath his bust in the football hall of fame, has outlasted the man; his deeds on the turf carried him to Canton and memorialization. And few football fans, even younger fans, can say they never saw a rerun of that famous catch. At the end of this week of Franco's death, his team, the Steelers removed by two generations of players, and their opponents, the Raiders, intend to play an anniversary game honoring that catch. Franco, needless to say, but voiced by many anyway, will not be there.
At his funeral, we will see an enactment of Housman’s line in the second stanza, “Today, the road all runners come,/Shoulder-high we bring you home.” Carried on the shoulders of teammates either actually or figuratively those many years ago at the end of a game he won in spectacular fashion, he will once again be carried “home.” And the town itself will become “a stiller town” now that he has reached the ultimate end zone.
Franco, in my personal experience, always seemed to care about people. When my daughter represented her parochial elementary school because she won the Readathon, Franco, who attended the award ceremony for all the Readathon winners, patiently posed with each child as parents, awed by him and proud of their children, snapped photos. Meeting him by chance in her adult life, she found him to be patient and friendly, as though nothing else was important save that chance meeting. My younger son had a similar experience after Franco came to our hometown for a football awards dinner. Recently, that same son met Franco at an event to which they both were invited, with Franco once again acting as though nothing was more important than that moment in time and space.
In posing over the years for those many pictures with fans and their children, Franco did in each encounter what so many have done over the past half century, stopped time by hitting “pause” on the video to see that catch. Anyone who has ever landed at the Pittsburgh airport has seen alongside a statue of George Washington and Nelly Bly the moment of the catch captured in the figure of Franco Harris with outstretched arms scooping up the ball before it hit the turf. Good company for Franco, George and Nelly. Franco, like the other two, has come to symbolize the area that harks back to Fort Duquesne/Fort Pitt, Fort Necessity, Braddock’s grave, and the confluence of rivers. Franco personifies the area now as much as the country’s founding father and a woman who was as much as surveyor of the human landscape as Washington was a geographical surveyor.
I find it interesting that Mary has become associated with football. At the end of close games, quarterbacks launch “Hail Mary” passes to the end zones in hopes of a miraculous catch, each successful one becoming an analog of Franco’s Immaculate Reception. But few of those miraculous catches carry their meaning beyond the fandom of a particular team. Franco’s catch seems to transcend all; it belongs to city, region, era, and league. It was the birth of a championship team. The Christmas Eve memorial game gives evidence of that. I don’t recall the league memorializing a single historical play with a special televised game. And that it comes on Christmas Eve…
Think about it for a moment. Mary, whose conception was deemed immaculate gave birth in a humble setting in what has become as enduring an event as humans have recorded in art, architecture, and culture. That moment is memorialized every year throughout the world. The celebration of that “miraculous” catch is primarily an American matter, but even international visitors who land at the airport can’t help but notice the statue of Franco.
Franco, the great teams he had in support, and that catch have become indicative of American sports legend. But I prefer to remember him as a public figure with genuine patience in a fast-paced world. Yes, the statue and Hall of Fame bust memorialize him; the repeated showing of that catch does so, also. And the fiftieth anniversary game will capture the memory for a new generation of fans and athletes as older fans watch in nostalgia. But I prefer to remember Franco as one posing for a picture with a little girl, speaking to young football players at a banquet in a small town, and stopping to talk during chance meetings with my children in their adulthood as though no other matters weighed on his schedule. When Franco was with people, he was truly with them, attentive and kind, patient always with fans who associated their lives with his team, that catch, and the subsequent years of football dominance.
And while it’s inevitable that Franco’s catch and life will probably not endure as long as Mary’s immaculate birth and her eventual delivering a baby in a stable, both his catch and life will last as long as people play American football, go to Canton’s Hall of Fame, or pass though Pittsburgh’s airport. To have a moment in one’s life depicted in a statue placed next to George Washington’s statue reveals the honor afforded to Franco by the people of Pittsburgh. Would that any one of us could be so honored for a momentary accomplishment and an excellent career, or for a life marked by patience for others.
The most appropriate memorial to Franco is for each of us to freeze the moment of every encounter, to be with the person next to us as though there is nothing more important or pressing. Make every encounter a Franco encounter.
Franco’s name, frozen in acrylic beneath his bust in the football hall of fame, has outlasted the man; his deeds on the turf carried him to Canton and memorialization. And few football fans, even younger fans, can say they never saw a rerun of that famous catch. At the end of this week of Franco's death, his team, the Steelers removed by two generations of players, and their opponents, the Raiders, intend to play an anniversary game honoring that catch. Franco, needless to say, but voiced by many anyway, will not be there.
At his funeral, we will see an enactment of Housman’s line in the second stanza, “Today, the road all runners come,/Shoulder-high we bring you home.” Carried on the shoulders of teammates either actually or figuratively those many years ago at the end of a game he won in spectacular fashion, he will once again be carried “home.” And the town itself will become “a stiller town” now that he has reached the ultimate end zone.
Franco, in my personal experience, always seemed to care about people. When my daughter represented her parochial elementary school because she won the Readathon, Franco, who attended the award ceremony for all the Readathon winners, patiently posed with each child as parents, awed by him and proud of their children, snapped photos. Meeting him by chance in her adult life, she found him to be patient and friendly, as though nothing else was important save that chance meeting. My younger son had a similar experience after Franco came to our hometown for a football awards dinner. Recently, that same son met Franco at an event to which they both were invited, with Franco once again acting as though nothing was more important than that moment in time and space.
In posing over the years for those many pictures with fans and their children, Franco did in each encounter what so many have done over the past half century, stopped time by hitting “pause” on the video to see that catch. Anyone who has ever landed at the Pittsburgh airport has seen alongside a statue of George Washington and Nelly Bly the moment of the catch captured in the figure of Franco Harris with outstretched arms scooping up the ball before it hit the turf. Good company for Franco, George and Nelly. Franco, like the other two, has come to symbolize the area that harks back to Fort Duquesne/Fort Pitt, Fort Necessity, Braddock’s grave, and the confluence of rivers. Franco personifies the area now as much as the country’s founding father and a woman who was as much as surveyor of the human landscape as Washington was a geographical surveyor.
I find it interesting that Mary has become associated with football. At the end of close games, quarterbacks launch “Hail Mary” passes to the end zones in hopes of a miraculous catch, each successful one becoming an analog of Franco’s Immaculate Reception. But few of those miraculous catches carry their meaning beyond the fandom of a particular team. Franco’s catch seems to transcend all; it belongs to city, region, era, and league. It was the birth of a championship team. The Christmas Eve memorial game gives evidence of that. I don’t recall the league memorializing a single historical play with a special televised game. And that it comes on Christmas Eve…
Think about it for a moment. Mary, whose conception was deemed immaculate gave birth in a humble setting in what has become as enduring an event as humans have recorded in art, architecture, and culture. That moment is memorialized every year throughout the world. The celebration of that “miraculous” catch is primarily an American matter, but even international visitors who land at the airport can’t help but notice the statue of Franco.
Franco, the great teams he had in support, and that catch have become indicative of American sports legend. But I prefer to remember him as a public figure with genuine patience in a fast-paced world. Yes, the statue and Hall of Fame bust memorialize him; the repeated showing of that catch does so, also. And the fiftieth anniversary game will capture the memory for a new generation of fans and athletes as older fans watch in nostalgia. But I prefer to remember Franco as one posing for a picture with a little girl, speaking to young football players at a banquet in a small town, and stopping to talk during chance meetings with my children in their adulthood as though no other matters weighed on his schedule. When Franco was with people, he was truly with them, attentive and kind, patient always with fans who associated their lives with his team, that catch, and the subsequent years of football dominance.
And while it’s inevitable that Franco’s catch and life will probably not endure as long as Mary’s immaculate birth and her eventual delivering a baby in a stable, both his catch and life will last as long as people play American football, go to Canton’s Hall of Fame, or pass though Pittsburgh’s airport. To have a moment in one’s life depicted in a statue placed next to George Washington’s statue reveals the honor afforded to Franco by the people of Pittsburgh. Would that any one of us could be so honored for a momentary accomplishment and an excellent career, or for a life marked by patience for others.
The most appropriate memorial to Franco is for each of us to freeze the moment of every encounter, to be with the person next to us as though there is nothing more important or pressing. Make every encounter a Franco encounter.
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