Frank Gifford, Pro Football Hall of Famer and broadcaster, dies at 84

NFL Hall of Famer and sports journalist Frank Gifford died, his family announced on Sunday.

Gifford died at his home in Connecticut of natural causes a week before his 85th birthday, the family statement said.

“We rejoice within the extraordinary life he was privileged to reside, and we really feel grateful and blessed to have been liked by such a tremendous human being”, his household stated within the assertion.

He was the centerpiece of a Giants offense that went to five NFL title games in the 1950s and ’60s. Gifford’s biggest season may have been 1956, when he won the Most Valuable Player award of the NFL, and led the Giants to the NFL title over the Chicago Bears.

By the time of his Hall of Fame induction, Gifford’s broadcasting career was well-established. His wife, Kathie Lee Gifford, is a host for NBC’s “Today” program.

A flexible star on each offense and protection in an period when NFL gamers have been beginning to specialize, Gifford went on to a profitable second profession as a broadcaster on “Monday Night time Soccer”.

It’s not often that the passing of a “celebrity” (which Gifford hated the term, as he was way too laid back and cool for that moniker) brings a wave of emotion over me, as these are people I’m generally detached from and have no reason to show anything more than a human bare minimum of sympathy for those who we do not know.

Gifford was inducted into the USC Hall of Fame in 1994 and later served as master of ceremonies for the event.

Seven years after leaving football, Gifford began his rise to prominence in 1971 by replacing ABC Sports’ Keith Jackson on the Monday Night Football broadcast team – where he would remain until 1997.

The famous Monday Night Football booth (l.to r.): Howard Cosell, Don Meredith and Gifford.

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Before Kathie Lee Gifford thanked friends and fans on Twitter for support, a number of her colleagues, including Hoda Kotb, Al Roker, and Carson Daly, expressed their deepest condolences through social media. Gifford fumbled twice early in the 1958 NFL championship game, both of which led to Baltimore Colts touchdowns, and later came up short on a critical third down. Gifford, memorably, was the one who urged Cosell to announce the news that was to shake the world during a 1980 game. “I fumbled going out [of the end zone] and I fumbled going in”.

“He was my hero as a kid”, Giants owner John Mara said. Bednarik was pictured standing over the unconscious Gifford, pumping his fist in a celebration thought by many to be excessive. Gifford was in the hospital for 10 days and away from football and away from the Giants for a year.

Born August 16, 1930, in Santa Monica, Calif., Frank Newton Gifford was the son of an itinerant oil worker. Growing up in Depression-era California, he estimated he moved 47 times before entering high school, occasionally sleeping in parks or the family vehicle and eating dog food. His 5,434 yards receiving have been a Giants report for 39 years, till Amani Toomer surpassed him in 2003. His No. 16, was retired by the team in 2000.