PITTSBURGH — The ball flapped in the air and all but one of the 22 players on the lawn of Three Rivers Stadium essentially stood still on that cold December day 50 years ago.
Franco Harris never did.
The Pittsburgh Steelers running back pressed on, the instincts that carried him through his life on and off the field during his Hall of Fame career taking over, changing the perception of a dying franchise and a faltering region in the process.
The Steelers rarely won before his arrival in 1972. The moment his toe grip, eternally known as “Flawless Reception” entered the lexicon, they rarely lost.
Harris, whose heads-up game was the most iconic game in NFL history, has died. He was 72 years old. Harris’ son Dok told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his father died overnight. No cause of death was given.
His death comes two days before the 50th anniversary of the play that started the jolt that helped transform the Also-Rans Steelers into the NFL’s elite and three days before Pittsburgh ranked his No. 32 during a ceremony Halftime is scheduled to retire game against the Las Vegas Raiders. Harris was busy conducting media interviews Monday leading up to the celebration to talk about a moment he’s forever linked with.
“It’s difficult to find the appropriate words to describe Franco Harris’ impact on the Pittsburgh Steelers, his teammates, the city of Pittsburgh and the Steelers nation,” team president Art Rooney II said in a statement. “From his rookie season, which included the Immaculate Reception, Franco continued to bring joy to people on and off the field for the next 50 years. He never stopped giving back in so many ways. He touched so many and was loved by so many.”
Even in retirement, Harris remained a community fixture and a team whose standard of excellence began with a little New Jersey boy who saw the ball in the air and kept running. It wasn’t uncommon for Harris to drop by the Steelers practice facility to chat with players who weren’t even born before his fateful game.
“I just admire and love the man,” said coach Mike Tomlin. “There’s so much to learn from him, how he acted, how he took on the responsibility of being Franco for Steeler Nation, for this community… He took it all and did it with such grace and class and patience and time.” for the people.”
Harris rushed for 12,120 yards and won four Super Bowl rings with the Steelers in the 1970s, a dynasty that began in earnest when Harris decided in a last-second throw in a 1972 playoff game against Oakland during a throw by Pittsburgh quarterback Terry Bradshaw to keep running.
With Pittsburgh trailing 7-6 and fourth and tenth from his own 40-yard line and with 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Bradshaw drifted back and threw himself deep at running back Frenchy Fuqua. Fuqua and Oakland defenseman Jack Tatum collided, sending the ball back toward midfield toward Harris. The referees weren’t sure who deflected the pass; Reps were inconclusive.
While nearly everyone else on the field quit, Harris kept his legs agitated, snatched the ball inches off the turf near the Oakland 45, and then passed several stunned Raider defensemen to defeat the Steelers some four decades after founder Art Giving Rooney Sr. their first playoff win brought the fledgling NFL to western Pennsylvania.
“This game really represents our teams from the ’70s,” Harris said after Immaculate Reception was voted the greatest game of the league’s first 100 years in 2020.
Though the Raiders cried badly at the moment, as time went on they somewhat embraced their role in NFL lore. Oakland linebacker Phil Villapiano, who covered Harris in the play, even attended a celebration of the play’s 40th anniversary in 2012 when a small memorial commemorating the exact location of Harris’ catch was unveiled. Villapiano still plans to attend Saturday night’s shirt retirement ceremony for his former rival-turned-boyfriend and agrees with the mystery that still surrounds what actually happened on December 23, 1972 at 3:29 p.m .
“There are so many angles and so many things. No one will ever find out,” Villapiano said. “Let’s keep it going forever.”
While the Steelers fell to Miami in the AFC Championship the next week, Pittsburgh was on course to become the dominant team of the 1970s and win back-to-back Super Bowls, first after the 1974 and 1975 seasons and again after the 1978 and 1979 seasons.
And it all started with a game that changed the fortunes of a franchise and, in a way, a region.
“It’s hard to believe 50 years has passed, that’s a long time,” Harris said in September when the team announced it was retiring its number. “And to have it so alive, you know, it’s still exciting and exciting. It really says a lot. It means a lot.”
Harris, a 6-foot-2, 230-pound workhorse from Penn State, found himself at the center of it all. In Pittsburgh’s 16-6 win over Minnesota in Super Bowl IX, he drove for a then-record 158 rushing yards and one touchdown on his way to winning the Most Valuable Player Award. He’s netted at least once in three of the four Super Bowls he’s played in, and his 354 career yards on the NFL’s biggest stage remains a record nearly four decades after his retirement.
“One of the kindest, gentlest men I’ve ever known,” Hall of Famer Tony Dungy, a teammate of Harris in Pittsburgh in the late 1970s, tweeted. “He was a great person and a great teammate. Hall of Famer, but so much more than that. A great role model for me!”
Born on March 7, 1950 in Fort Dix, New Jersey, Harris played at Penn State where his primary role was opening holes for fellow backfielder Lydell Mitchell. The Steelers saw enough in Harris in the final stages of a rebuild led by Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll to make him the 13th overall pick in the 1972 draft.
“When (Noll) drafted Franco Harris, he gave heart to the offense, he gave her discipline, he gave her desire, he gave her an opportunity to win a championship in Pittsburgh,” Hall of Fame wide receiver Lynn Swann said. about his frequent roommate on team road trips.
Harris’ impact was immediate. He won the NFL’s Rookie of the Year Award in 1972 after setting a then-team rookie record with 1,055 yards and 10 touchdowns as the Steelers made their second postseason.
The city’s large Italian-American population immediately embraced Harris, led by two local businessmen who formed what became known as “Franco’s Italian Army,” a nod to Harris’ roots as the son of an African-American father and Italian mother.
Although the “Immaculate Reception” made Harris a star, he usually preferred to let his game do the talking rather than his mouth. On a team that included the likes of Bradshaw, defensive tackle Joe Greene and linebacker Jack Lambert, the extremely quiet Harris spent 12 seasons as the engine that helped Pittsburgh’s offense break through.
He rushed for 1,000 yards eight times in a season, including five times during a 14-game streak. He amassed another 1,556 rushing yards and 16 rushing touchdowns in the playoffs, both second all-time behind Emmitt Smith.
Despite his gaudy numbers, Harris emphasized that he was just a cog in an extraordinary machine that was redefining greatness.
“You see, during that time, every player brought their own little piece to help make that wonderful decade a reality,” Harris said during his Hall of Fame speech in 1990. “Every player had their strengths and weaknesses, each their own Mindset, everyone their own method, just everyone, everyone had their own. But then it was amazing, everything came together and stayed together to make the best team ever.”
Harris also made a habit of sticking up for his teammates. When Bradshaw scored an illegal late hit from Dallas linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson in the second half of their Super Bowl meeting after the 1978 season, Harris basically demanded that Bradshaw give him the ball on the next game. All Harris did was sprint up the middle 22 yards — right past Henderson — for a touchdown that gave the Steelers an 11-point lead they wouldn’t give up en route to their third championship in six years.
Despite all his accomplishments, his time at Pittsburgh came to a bitter end when the Steelers cut him after he held out in training camp ahead of the 1984 season. Noll, who had leaned so heavily on Harris for so long, famously responded, “Franco who?” when asked about Harris’ absence from the team’s camp.
Harris signed with Seattle and rushed for just 170 yards in eight games before being released midseason. He retired as the NFL’s third all-time leading rusher behind Walter Payton and Jim Brown.
“I don’t even think about it (anymore),” Harris said in 2006. “I’m still black and gold.”
Harris stayed in Pittsburgh after his retirement, opened a bakery, and was heavily involved with several charities, including serving as chairman of the Pittsburgh Promise, which provides college scholarships to Pittsburgh Public School students.
“I think everyone knows Franco, not just for the work he’s done on the field but off the field,” Steelers defenseman Cam Heyward said Wednesday. “I think he was there to make a difference and was involved in whatever he could.”
Harris is survived by his wife, Dana Dokmanovich, and son, Doc.
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AP Pro Football Writer Josh Dubow from San Francisco contributed to this report.
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