E-GIANTS
Dave Klein was the Giants' beat writer
for The Star-Ledger from 1961 to 1995.
He is the author of 26 books and he is one of
only five sportswriters to have covered all the Super Bowls.
Dave has allowed TEAM GIANTS to reprint some of his articles.

By DAVE KLEIN
I have covered the New York Giants, man and boy, since 1961.It has always been a privilege and a pleasure, and much of that feeling comes from my friendship with Mr. Wellington Mara.

He died yesterday at the age of 89, and no one who knew him will ever be the same.Neither will his beloved NFL, to which he gave so much and to which he added so much.

I met Mr. Mara in July of 1961, having just been assigned to cover the team for The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger. I was 21 years old and not just a little intimidated. I drove up to Fairfield, Conn., found the right building and entered. The first person I saw was Dick Lynch.

The second was Wellington Mara.

He walked up to me and extended his hand. "Hi, you must be the new guy from The Star-Ledger," he said. "I'm Wellington Mara."

Through all the years since, he has been a friend. He inquired about my growing family. He sent a Mass card when my father died. He was always there, with a sort of embarrassed little grin on his face, when I would walk up to him to shake his hand.

When I first met him, his older brother Jack was still alive, and Jack was the other half of the Giants' ownership in those years. Jack also had a more business-like, conservative approach to the team. Well would take a chance; Jack would take a pass.

In 1961, the Giants made a trade for quarterback Y.A. Tittle. Actually, the correct sentence is Wellington Mara made a trade for quarterback Y.A. Tittle. He made all the trades in those years, and he made all the draft choices, and he hired and fired all the coaches.

The Tittle trade was a burst of genius. He sent a second-year guard named Lou Cordileone to the San Francisco 49ers in return for this Hall of Fame quarterback, and he summoned Cordileone into his temporary office in Salem, Ore. (where the team was in training camp for two weeks while on the West Coast).

"Lou," he said, "we have traded you to the 49ers for Y.A. Tittle."

Well loved to tell the rest of the story. "He looked at me for a long moment and then he said: 'Just me?'"

Well brought Del Shofner to the Giants. And Andy Robustelli. And Charley Conerly. And Joe Walton. He drafted Frank Gifford and Kyle Rote and Sam Huff and Rosey Brown.

When Tittle came to the team, Conerly was still there. When Y.A. got the chance to play, and did so spectacularly well, I reacted the way any other mindless 21-year-old might. I asked, in print, why the Giants were holding on to Conerly, an old man. "They are paying him a lot of money to be the ball holder for field goals and extra points," I wrote in The Star-Ledger.

The next day, at Yankee Stadium, Well came over to me. "My brother Jack is looking for you," he said. "He is very upset at what you wrote this morning. So am I. It wasn't fair, but you don’t know Charley. Just remember that Jack's bark is a lot worse than his bite. He'll get over it."

Jack found me. "That was a cheap shot," he said, "but I suppose my brother has already spoken to you," he said.

I said that he had.

"Then I guess I don’t have to yell at you, too," Jack said. "I am sure Well did that already."

I said that he had.

When Jack died in the summer of 1965, the Giants were in training camp at Fordham University. When the team was told, I vividly remember seeing Emlen Tunnell sitting on the grass field, sobbing. And I think I remember seeing Robustelli punch a massive tree on the fringe of the practice field.

There are so many memories and flashes of Wellington Mara. As I said before, he was simply part of the Giants. He was the Giants. His son John, now the team's Executive Vice President and COO, was a seven- or eight-year-old ball boy at training camp when I first saw him. He has turned into the kind of man Wellington respected, honest and fair in all his dealings.

Well was a man who saw the future and did not hesitate to push for controversial changes. He advocated the television revenue sharing agreement when many owners, considerably more short-sighted and greedy, fought him tooth and nail. He was right.

He campaigned for the job of Commissioner of the NFL to go to a young guy in the public relations department of the Los Angeles Rams, a guy with no administrative experience. He lobbied hard, and the voting went into a fourth ballot before Wellington got his man -- Pete Rozelle.

Last Sunday, when the Giants mounted that miraculous comeback and scored twice in the fourth quarter to beat Denver, 24-23, the young and marvelous quarterback, Eli Manning, during his post-game interview session, said this: "I spoke to one of his grandsons [Connor] today, and he said at the end of the game Mr. Mara woke up and saw us win and had a little smile on his face and then he went back to sleep." That was the only last-sight he would have wanted, to see his beloved Giants win a game.

Over the years, hundreds of fans have mentioned that they met Wellington Mara and were enormously impressed with his genuine delight at shaking their hands. At training camp, outside the stadium, on the golf course, in restaurants and public places, they all went to him and he responded warmly to all of them.

One year a subscriber wrote to E-GIANTS to say his best friend was dying and that his hero had been Wellington Mara. He inquired whether I could intercede on his friend’s behalf for a note from the man.

I did. The letter, written in two full sheets of stationary, arrived within days in the man’s hospital room. His wife said he was overjoyed, incredulous, and he asked her to frame it. She did that day. The next day he died, and the framed, hand-written letter stood on his coffin during the funeral. It went inside the coffin when he was interred.

Thousands and thousands of people will miss you, Well. Thousands of famous people, sports celebrities, will miss you and will attend your funeral services. This is as it should be. But there will be thousands and thousands of others who met you, who never met you, who will miss you just as much. You were the Giants. You may count me among those, just another guy who will miss you greatly.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Mara. Rest in Peace.

Check out Dave's website at E-GIANTS where you can subscribe to his newsletters which run much more frequently than what is available here.
- Team Giants

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