Writing a book is long, hard, and extremely difficult work. It requires deep concentration and a sense of well-being to succeed. It was only thanks to the encouragement and support from my family and friends that I was able to achieve my objective with this project.
The first person I should thank is my agent, Emily Williamson. Her faith and enthusiasm for my work and her advocacy meant a great deal to me, as did her judgment. She is a first-rate literary professional who became my friend and confidante as well as my agent. Her husband, Greg, is also owed my thanks, as he pulled my manuscript from a pile and passionately advocated for it to his wife.
Of course, the University of Nebraska Press and its team of editors and marketers are at the top of my list, too. I owe the biggest gratitude to Robert Taylor, the acquisitions editor who has shepherded my manuscript and handled it with so much sensitivity to my vision. My copyeditor, Annette Wenda, was pleasant and thorough and completely dedicated to the task of polish, and I can’t thank her enough. Sara Springsteen and Anna Weir were also exceptional people who enhanced my experience.
My children, Max and Iliana, were the people I worked for and the people I hoped to please. They are both readers and writers. When my son was just a few days old, back in 2002, he sat on my lap and we watched the Ravens versus the Steelers in a postseason game together. It was one of the happiest memories of my life: watching football for the first time with my very own son. A few weeks after that I wrapped his little infant body in a blanket, and he braved the January air to go to a pub with me and watch the Super Bowl, which he did strapped into a rocking car seat sitting on the bar. No one carded him. My daughter has endured more football than she ever hoped to just to be near me. She is the most wonderful girl in the world, and I love her more than anything.
Two other special people who made this project possible are my sister, Juliet Gilden, and my friend Gerry Frank. Both were there to help me in a way that few friends are. They called to check on me and made sure I stayed afloat mentally, physically, and financially while I wrote. Some guys have no use for their friends’ wives, but Gerry’s wife, Margie, is a special kind of person. She was patient and kind to me also, especially in sharing her husband with me when I needed him.
The main source of literary advice for this project came from Michael Olesker, a man who could only be described as a Baltimore treasure. A very fine journalist and author, Olesker is to Baltimore what Jimmy Breslin was to New York or Mike Royko and Studs Terkel were to Chicago. His unique writing voice, an eloquent English with Yiddish inflections, has intrigued me since I was a child reader of the Baltimore Sun. His heart is always in the right place, and he has a genuine care and concern for the people of his hometown. His zeal for football and the old Colts and his brilliant storytelling ability are not the least of his many fine qualities.
My friends Larry Lichtenauer and Beth Blankman Keyser made the book possible in their own ways. Larry also wrote a book, an inventive novel about ice hockey and wish fulfillment aimed at ten- to fourteen-year-olds. Larry gave me a brotherly voice to talk to when I needed one. Beth, a professional librarian, first with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and then later with the state of Maryland, is my old school friend from Chestertown, where we both went to Washington College. She took a shine to my project early on and gave me invaluable assistance in so many ways, I can’t list them all. Suffice to say that she has a feel for literature and the business of literature. Every writer should be lucky enough to know someone like Beth.
Barry Gogel is a lawyer and also a very fine writer. He read my contracts for me and gave me valuable business advice. He also happens to be my drinking buddy. He is always up to meet me at one of our favorite local watering holes, where we sit, eat, drink, and talk endlessly about baseball and football and our sons.
Amir Kahn is my auto mechanic and also my friend of nearly twenty years. Knowing I was writing a book, he did everything he could to keep my car going without putting me in the poorhouse. He also lent me his home in Miami, which served as my home base as I conducted my many Florida-based interviews. He’s one of the nicest and most decent men I have ever known.
Dika Seltzer is an elegant woman and a psychotherapist in the Towson area. She met me for dinner several times a month to discuss my book and to assure me it would be completed someday. If I called her with any problem, she always answered the phone.
My old friend and high school football teammate Evan Davis talked to me endlessly about my ideas and about our mutual passion for professional football. Bob Morrow is also one of my oldest friends and was always there for me. He regularly called me to check in on the progress of this book and to help me through any and every problem. My good friend Dr. Joseph Layug, brother of my buddy Tommy Layug, explained the complex medical issues described in this book to me.
The very first person (besides Jan Unitas) to assist me in this project was Denise Purgold. She helped me arrange travel plans to Atlanta and was a good friend to me throughout the long process.
Jan Unitas, Johnny U and Dorothy’s eldest child, is a very special friend of mine. She acted as a source for this book and provided me my first Colts interview when she asked Raymond Berry to speak to me. Jane Morrall and Mary Anne Shula were also very helpful in assisting me in getting to the heart of the matters I wanted to know and understand. Coach Shula was extremely generous with his time and attention and forthrightly answered some questions that must have been uncomfortable for him.
I wanted to say a special thanks to all of the football players and coaches of the Baltimore Colts: Charley Winner, Dick Bielski, Bobby Boyd, Bill Curry, Dan Sullivan, Tom Matte, Jimmy Orr, Earl Morrall, Jane Morrall, Dr. Sam Havrilak, Jim O’Brien, and Pert Mutscheller.
The great journalist and author Gay Talese made time for me to tell me everything I wanted to know about the ’60s, the sexual revolution, men’s fashion, sports, and his friend David Halberstam. John Unitas’s friend Richard Sammis, the beloved car dealer known to everybody in Baltimore as “Mr. Nobody,” told me all about the man he knew. John Ziemann, the leader of the marching band and also a Unitas confidant, is a walking encyclopedia of Baltimore football information. He shared it all with me, as he gave me the green light to call him any time of night or day. John is a real gentleman.
The Colts’ enemies also provided me with their perspectives: Frank Ryan and Gary Collins from the Cleveland Browns and Joe Namath from the New York Jets.
The Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore provided me invaluable one-of-a-kind information. Much of this manuscript was written in Elkton, Maryland, at the Cecil County Public Library, one of my favorite work spaces.
Waitresses and bartenders were my staunch allies in the project, as I worked quite often at the Bagel Works in Timonium, Maryland, owned by members of the Bielski family. Waitresses Lita Thepsuwan and Sharon Brown and their manager, Jenny Young, became an everyday familial presence in my life. At the La Cakerie Bakery on Allegheny Avenue in Towson, owner Jason Hisely and manager Ciera Stewart let me hang out and write all day long.
If I look good in the author photo, it is only due to the miraculous efforts of Steve Belkowitz, a Philadelphia-based photographer. Steve and I have been friends so long, I was an invited guest at his bar mitzvah. My favorite barber in the world, Judy Durank, also did what she could to keep a sinking ship afloat.
Finally, I want to thank the great journalists of the 1960s. John Steadman offered me the catalyst for this book when I was fifteen years old. No one knew the Colts better than he did. His writing and insight provided me valuable information. The Colts’ beat writer for the Sun was Cameron Snyder. Snyder was a fun writer and good storyteller who had a talent for the offbeat anecdote. Bob Maisel, Bill Tanton, Phil Jackman, and Alan Goldstein, all of the Sun or Evening Sun, were also great writers whose material yielded much. Dave Anderson and William N. Wallace of the New York Times were also particularly helpful, as was the greatest sports journalist of them all, Red Smith.