Pat Summerall’s Passing Feels Like Losing a Member of Our Football Family

April 16, 2013   ·   Dan Levy   ·   Jump to comments

"Feels like we lost football's grandpa." 
That line came from the Twitter feed of Sarah Sprague, football foodie and diehard NFL fan. There's really no better way to explain the feeling of millions of football fans after hearing of the passing of Pat Summerall.
My generation never knew Summerall as a player. As a kid, I didn't even know Summerall was an NFL player until one Thanksgiving when his booth partner, John Madden, made a quip about Summerall being able to hit a big kick one of the teams was about to attempt. 
Funny joke, I thought. Madden was always the guy to crack wise in the booth and Summerall was the perfect foil—serious and stern from whistle to whistle.
Of course, I soon found out that Summerall actually could have hit the kick, an adept placekicker in his day who not only made the transition to the television booth, but became the signature play-by-play man of his time.
When you think about it in historical context, Summerall's ...

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