Word: tarkenton
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...innocent face is seamed now, although the eyes remain as ingenuous as ever. The preacher's son from Georgia chews tobacco and affects barracks language-acceptable, almost required vices in an old pro. The once idyllic Tarkenton marriage faltered this season when Wife Elaine moved to Atlanta with their three children. He is a millionaire several times over, a self-made corporate presence who teaches industrial motivation to some of the largest firms in the U.S. So often do interviewers seek him out for his incisive football mind and for his sophisticated, glib delivery (still tinged with a Southern...
...Tarkenton's extraordinary records, his longevity and hardiness-he has missed but one game because of injury-his utter command of the 100-yd.-long environment of football and his success outside the game would seem to leave him with few challenges. But there remains a restlessness in him, a relentless drive. "The problem I have with life," Tarkenton has written in his autobiography, "is that I have more things I want to do than I have time to do. I'm talking about a deep involvement. You can get it on the football field, of course...
Still, the matter of lodge membership rankles. Always there is the implication that without it, a man of his talent is unfinished, his gifts somehow flawed. Says Tarkenton: "Of course it bothers me not to have played for a Super Bowl champion. But a failure? Lord no. I have played with and against the best players in football since 1961 and I have to believe I belong with the best quarterbacks ever. I don't give a damn about artistry or how much velocity my pass develops or how many tight ends I can knock through a brick wall...
...Athletes and actors are interchangeable on commercials. O.J. Simpson earns $1 million for telling us what car to rent; Rex Harrison earns $ 1 million for telling us what car to buy. Our old preoccupation with what Clark Gable was paid at Metro has been replaced by speculation on Francis Tarkenton's net worth. Most significant, where the athlete once was an individual, scratching and drinking across a brevity of fame, the successful athlete today is both a person and a property. He moves not only in locker rooms, but with lawyers, agents and accountants, even as Steve McQueen...
...Fran Tarkenton's near misses to Chuck Foreman caused something close to cardiac arrest for many there