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Here's a good article. RIP Alex Karras

Quote:

On April 17, Rozelle announced that he was suspending Karras and Green Bay’s star halfback, Paul Hornung, indefinitely. He also fined five of Karras’s teammates for betting on the 1962 championship game between the Packers and the Giants.

In the immediate aftermath, Hornung appeared genuinely contrite. Typically, Karras expressed no such sentiment, then or ever. “I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of,” he said, “and I’m not guilty of anything.” (Michael MacCambridge, “America’s Game,” Anchor Books, 2005, p. 178). Hornung and Karras were reinstated before the start of the 1964 season.

The news media and the public generally reacted favorably to Rozelle’s decision. As Jim Murray wrote in The Los Angeles Times: “Rozelle had to protect the game rather than the players. He had to show the owners, the players — and the public — that pro football was a big boy now, a public trust that the public could trust.” (MacCambridge, p. 178-179)

Sometime in the mid-60s, before a game, Karras, as a defensive captain, went to the center of the field for the coin toss. “Captain Karras,” said the referee, “while I flip this coin, would you please call it heads or tails.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Karras. “I am not permitted to gamble.”

http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2...otball-player/

Alex sings for Howard Cosell