Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris stands next to a statute of himself at Pittsburgh International Airport, on Sept. 12, 2019.Nate Guidry/The Associated Press
Franco Harris, the Hall of Fame running back whose heads-up thinking authored the “Immaculate Reception,” considered the most iconic play in NFL history, has died. He was 72.
Mr. Harris’ son, Dok, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that his father died overnight. No cause of death was given.
His death comes two days before the 50th anniversary of the play that provided the jolt that helped transform the Steelers from also-rans into the NFL’s elite and three days before Pittsburgh is scheduled to retire his No. 32 during a ceremony at halftime of its game against the Las Vegas Raiders. Mr. Harris had been busy in the run-up to the celebration, doing media interviews on Monday to talk about a moment to which he is forever linked.
“It is difficult to find the appropriate words to describe Franco Harris’ impact on the Pittsburgh Steelers, his teammates, the City of Pittsburgh and Steelers Nation,” team President Art Rooney II said in a statement. “From his rookie season, which included the Immaculate Reception, through the next 50 years, Franco brought joy to people on and off the field. He never stopped giving back in so many ways. He touched so many, and he was loved by so many.”
Even in retirement, Mr. Harris remained a fixture in the community and a team whose standard of excellence began with a young kid from New Jersey who saw the ball in the air and kept on running. It wasn’t uncommon for Mr. Harris to stop by the Steelers’ practice facility to chat with players who weren’t even born before his fateful play.
“I just admire and love the man,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “There’s so much to be learned from him in terms of how he conducted himself, how he embraced the responsibilities of being Franco for Steeler Nation, for this community … He embraced it all and did it with such grace and class and patience and time for people.”
Mr. Harris ran for 12,120 yards and won four Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s, a dynasty that began in earnest when Mr. Harris decided to keep running during a last-second heave by Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw in a playoff game against Oakland in 1972.
With Pittsburgh trailing 7-6 and facing fourth-and-10 from its own 40-yard line and 22 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Mr. Bradshaw drifted back and threw deep to running back Frenchy Fuqua. Fuqua and Oakland defensive back Jack Tatum collided, sending the ball careening back toward midfield in the direction of Mr. Harris. Game officials weren’t sure who deflected the pass; replays were inconclusive.
While nearly everyone else on the field stopped, Mr. Harris kept his legs churning, snatching the ball just inches above the Three Rivers Stadium turf near the Oakland 45, then outracing several stunned Raider defenders to give the Steelers their first playoff victory in the franchise’s four-decade history.
“That play really represents our teams of the ‘70s,” Mr. Harris said after the “Immaculate Reception” was voted the greatest play in NFL history during the league’s 100th anniversary season in 2020.
Though the Raiders cried foul in the moment, over time they somewhat embraced their role in NFL lore. Oakland linebacker Phil Villapiano, who was covering Mr. Harris on the play, even attended a 40th-anniversary celebration of the play in 2012, when a small monument commemorating the exact location of Mr. Harris’ history-altering catch was unveiled. Mr. Villapiano still plans to attend Saturday night’s jersey retirement ceremony for his former rival-turned-friend, and is just fine with the mystery that still surrounds what actually happened at 3:29 p.m. on Dec. 23, 1972.
“There’s so many angles and so many things. Nobody will ever figure that out,” Mr. Villapiano said. “Let’s let it go on forever.”
While the Steelers fell the next week to Miami in the AFC championship, Pittsburgh was on its way to becoming the dominant team of the 1970s, twice winning back-to-back Super Bowls, first after the 1974 and 1975 seasons and again after the 1978 and 1979 seasons.
And it all began with a play that shifted the fortunes of a franchise and, in some ways, a region.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been 50 years, that’s a long time,” Mr. Harris said in September when the team announced it would retire his number. “And to have it so alive, you know, is still thrilling and exciting. It really says a lot. It means a lot.”
Mr. Harris, the 6-foot-2, 230-pound workhorse from Penn State, found himself in the centre of it all. He churned for a then-record 158 yards rushing and a touchdown in Pittsburgh’s 16-6 victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IX on his way to winning the game’s Most Valuable Player award. He scored at least once in three of the four Super Bowls he played in, and his 354 career yards rushing on the NFL’s biggest stage remains a record nearly four decades after his retirement.
“One of the kindest, gentlest men I have ever known,” Hall of Famer Tony Dungy, a teammate of Harris’ in Pittsburgh in the late 1970s, posted on Twitter. “He was a great person & great teammate. Hall of Fame player but so much more than that. A tremendous role model for me!”
Born in Fort Dix, New Jersey, on March 7, 1950, Mr. Harris played collegiately at Penn State, where his primary job was to open holes for backfield mate Lydell Mitchell. The Steelers, in the final stages of a rebuild led by Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll, saw enough in Mr. Harris to make him the 13th overall pick in the 1972 draft.
“When [Mr. Noll] drafted Franco Harris, he gave the offence heart, he gave it discipline, he gave it desire, he gave it the ability to win a championship in Pittsburgh,” Steelers Hall of Fame wide receiver Lynn Swann said of his frequent roommate on team road trips.
Mr. Harris’ impact was immediate. He won the NFL’s Rookie of the Year award in 1972 after rushing for a then-team-rookie record 1,055 yards and 10 touchdowns as the Steelers reached the postseason for just the second time in franchise history.
The city’s large Italian-American population embraced Mr. Harris immediately, led by two local businessmen who founded what became known as “Franco’s Italian Army,” a nod to Mr. Harris’ roots as the son of an African-American father and an Italian mother.
The “Immaculate Reception” made Mr. Harris a star, though he typically preferred to let his play and not his mouth do the talking. On a team that featured big personalities in Mr. Bradshaw, defensive tackle Joe Greene and linebacker Jack Lambert among others, the intensely quiet Mr. Harris spent 12 seasons as the engine that helped Pittsburgh’s offence go.
Eight times he topped 1,000 yards rushing in a season, including five times while playing a 14-game schedule. He piled up an additional 1,556 yards rushing and 16 rushing touchdowns in the playoffs, both second all-time behind Emmitt Smith.
Despite his gaudy numbers, Mr. Harris stressed that he was just one cog in an extraordinary machine that redefined greatness.
“You see, during that era, each player brought their own little piece with them to make that wonderful decade happen,” Mr. Harris said during his Hall of Fame speech in 1990. “Each player had their strengths and weaknesses, each their own thinking, each their own method, just each, each had their own. But then it was amazing, it all came together, and it stayed together to forge the greatest team of all times.”
Mr. Harris also made it a habit to stick up for his teammates. When Mr. Bradshaw took what Mr. Harris felt was an illegal late hit from Dallas linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson in the second half of their meeting in the Super Bowl following the 1978 season, Mr. Harris basically demanded that Mr. Bradshaw give him the ball on the next play. All Mr. Harris did was sprint up the middle 22 yards – right by Mr. Henderson – for a touchdown that gave the Steelers an 11-point lead they would not relinquish on their way to their third championship in six years.
Despite all of his success, his time in Pittsburgh ended acrimoniously when the Steelers cut him after he held out during training camp before the 1984 season. Mr. Noll, who leaned on Mr. Harris so heavily for so long, famously answered “Franco who?” when asked about Mr. Harris’ absence from the team’s camp at Saint Vincent College.
Mr. Harris signed with Seattle, running for just 170 yards in eight games before being released in midseason. He retired as the NFL’s third all-time leading rusher behind Walter Payton and Jim Brown.
“I don’t even think about that [any more],” Mr. Harris said in 2006. “I’m still black and gold.”
Mr. Harris remained in Pittsburgh following his retirement, opening a bakery and becoming heavily involved in several charities, including serving as the chairman of Pittsburgh Promise, which provides college scholarship opportunities for Pittsburgh Public School students.
“I think everybody knows Franco, not just for the work he did on the field but off the field,” Steelers defensive lineman and co-captain Cam Heyward said Wednesday. “I think he was there making change, being involved in everything he could.”
Mr. Harris leaves his wife, Dana Dokmanovich, and son Dok.
MONTREAL – On a night when New York’s top line was missing in action, the bit players grabbed the spotlight and led the Rangers to a commanding 7-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens.
“That’s the kind of team we have,” said Filip Chytil, who led the Rangers with a pair of power-play goals Tuesday. “The guys on the top line had chances but when they don’t score we have three other lines to pick up the slack.”
The Rangers’ dominance was reflected in the amount of time they spent in the Canadiens zone and their 45-23 edge in shots.
“If you’ve watched us practice, you know that’s something we work on all the time,” said Chytil. “When we get the puck, we want to hold on to it.”
The Rangers grabbed a 2-0 lead on goals by Mika Zibanejad at the 56-second mark and Jonny Brodzinski at 2:05, but it was Montreal which pressed the play in the first minute.
“I thought we had a good start but they turned it around on us,” said Montreal coach Martin St. Louis.
Lane Hutson controlled the puck off the opening faceoff and had two early shots, both of which were blocked by New York’s Jacob Trouba.
“That was huge for us,” said Rangers coach Peter Laviolette. “We know (Trouba) can generate offence but he can come up with those big defensive plays.”
Montreal goalie Sam Montembeault exited at 11:05 of the first period after giving up four goals on 10 shots. Zibanejad, Brodzinski, Chytil and Reilly Smith all scored on the Habs’ starter.
His replacement, Cayden Primeau, stopped 33 of 35 shots, giving up goals to Braden Schneider, Kaapo Kakko and Chytil.
Nick Suzuki scored both of the Montreal goals, his first strikes of the season
“It didn’t really feel like a 7-2 game until the end there when you look up at the scoreboard,” Suzuki said. “But we obviously keep digging ourselves these holes, and against a good team like that, our details early on have to be really sharp. And we were definitely a little sleepy coming out and they jumped on us.”
Hutson led the Canadiens in ice time with 24:10 but this wasn’t one of his better games. Smith scored on a breakaway after taking the puck off Hutson’s stick and the rookie was minus-4 for the night.
After Tuesday’s morning practice, the Canadiens announced forward Juraj Slafkovsky will miss at least a week with an upper-body injury. Defenceman Kaiden Guhle missed a second consecutive game with an upper-body injury but the team said it isn’t a long-term ailment.
The injury situation didn’t get any better after Trouba flattened Justin Barron at 7:11 of the third period. Barron didn’t return to the ice but there was no immediate word on his condition.
The Rangers welcomed back defenceman Ryan Lindgren, who made his season debut after missing five games with a jaw injury.
Before the game, 14 players from the Canadiens’ team that won four consecutive Stanley Cups between 1976 and 1979 were introduced at the Bell Centre. Among them were Hockey Hall of Fame members Yvan Cournoyer, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, Bob Gainey and Ken Dryden.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2024.
TOKYO – Canadians Leylah Fernandez and Bianca Andreescu have both moved on to the quarterfinals at the Toray Pan Pacific Open.
Fernandez advanced after downing Varvara Gracheva 6-0, 3-6, 7-5 on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old from Laval, Que., fired three aces and converted 5-of-11 break points during the two-hour 15-minute match. Gracheva, of France, battled back in the second set, winning 72.2 per cent of her first-serve points, before Fernandez rallied in the third set.
Andreescu, from Mississauga, Ont., advanced after Beatriz Haddad Maia retired due to a back injury while trailing 3-0 in the first set. Haddad Maia, the No. 2 seed, appeared to be in pain from the second game onward and took a medical timeout before exiting the match.
In the quarterfinals, Fernandez takes on the winner of a matchup between the tournament’s top seed, Qinwen Zheng of China, and Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima, while Andreescu faces either Katie Boulter or Kyoka Okamura.
In women’s doubles action, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and her partner Erin Routliffe were up 6-3, 1-2 on Japanese pair Nao Hibino and Miyu Kato when their match was suspended.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.
Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball has sold at auction for nearly $4.4 million, a record high price not just for a baseball, but for any ball in any sport, the auctioneer said Wednesday.
“We received bids from around the world, a testament to the significance of this iconic collectible and Ohtani’s impact on sports, and I’m thrilled for the winning bidder,” Ken Goldin, the founder and CEO of auctioneer Goldin Auctions said in a statement.
The auction opened on Sept. 27 with a starting bid of $500,000 and closed just after midnight on Wednesday. The auctioneer said it could not disclose any information about the winning bidder.
The auction has been overshadowed by the litigation over ownership of the ball. Christian Zacek walked out of Miami’s LoanDepot Park with the ball after gaining possession in the left-field stands. Max Matus and Joseph Davidov each claim in separate lawsuits that they grabbed the ball first.
All the parties involved in the litigation agreed that the auction should continue.
Matus’ lawsuit claims that the Florida resident — who was celebrating his 18th birthday — gained possession of the Ohtani ball before Zacek took it away. Davidov claims in his suit that he was able to “firmly and completely grab the ball in his left hand while it was on the ground, successfully obtaining possession of the 50/50 ball.”
Ohtani and the Dodgers are preparing for Game 1 of the World Series scheduled for Friday night.
