Bill Lubinger, The Plain Dealer
In 1967, Danny Abramowicz emerged out
of Steubenville, Ohio and Xavier University to become one of the
most unlikely receiving stars in the NFL for the expansion New
Orleans Saints. Today, Abramowicz still lives in Steubenville and is
rooting for his old team in the Super Bowl. “The Saints winning
the Super Bowl would put the finishing touches on it for the fans,”
he said. “The people have been through thick and thin, and with
[Hurricane] Katrina and all that on top of this ..."
STEUBENVILLE, Ohio -- He was the football player nobody really
wanted, not even the expansion team that chose him in the 17th and
final round of the 1967 NFL draft.
The kid was too slow. Didn't play at one of those big-time
football schools. Didn't have a name that echoed easily across the
stadium air on a fall Sunday afternoon. But he overcame his own
physical shortcomings and season after season of losing football to
be remembered as one of the best to ever play for the New Orleans
Saints.
When the Saints take the field Sunday against the Indianapolis
Colts in their first Super Bowl ever, it will be for guys like
Danny
Abramowicz.
Times Picayune
In the creative style of the day, a newspaper
photographer cropped Abramowicz in this photo to generate a
sensation of speed. But that was never Abramowicz's strength during
his NFL career.
Far from the sun and spotlight of South Beach, one of the
original New Orleans Saints will be at home on a quiet cul-de-sac in
the shrinking Ohio steel town where he grew up, watching with his
90-year-old father and the high school sweetheart he married 43
years ago.
"They'll probably get more exposure in these two weeks than
in the whole history of the franchise," said Abramowicz, now 64
and deeply involved in his Catholic ministry through speaking
engagements and "Crossing the Goal," which airs on cable's
Catholic network, EWTN.
Super Bowl? Abramowicz never even played on a winning team in six
frustrating seasons in New Orleans, a city whose grit and resilience
he shared to battle his way from afterthought to All-Pro. He endured
more losing as a Saints radio analyst and as offensive coordinator
under head coach Mike Ditka.
So, sure, the 44th Super Bowl is special because his old team
finally made it.
What a release! "The Saints winning the Super Bowl would put the finishing
touches on it for the fans," he said. "The fans have been
loyal through all these years. They went through the bag-heads and
the 'Ain'ts' and all that stuff. ... The people have been through
thick and thin, and with [Hurricane] Katrina and all that on top of
this ..." And so has he.
Abramowicz -- pronounced Abram-OH-vich in his native Polish --
excelled in three sports at Steubenville Catholic Central, at a time
when it seemed the Ohio River rolled past little more than billowing
steel mills, churches and football fields. But quick moves and sure
hands don't overcome covering 40 yards in a sluggish 4.8 seconds.
Only Xavier offered him a football scholarship, so he accepted and
headed to Cincinnati when racial strife and the Vietnam War had the
country in tatters.
He set records at Xavier, which later dropped football, and is in
the school's sports Hall of Fame. But his football-playing days
probably would have ended right there if not for the NFL looking to
grow.
New Orleans was granted the league's 16th franchise and scheduled
to begin play in 1967. The Saints had to sew a roster together from
scraps and draft choices, setting their fate for years to come.
"Most of their players were coming in as castoffs from other
teams, so it was a slow go," said Joe Horrigan, spokesman for
the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, about 90 minutes northwest
of here.
In the 17th and final round of the college draft, New Orleans
picked a wide receiver with name that was hard to pronounce.
Abramowicz, a fireman's son who grew up a Pittsburgh Steelers fan
and had only been to one NFL game in his life to that point, said
the Saints never even called to tell him. He found out from another
team's scout. He wasn't even invited to mini-camp.
"It made me work harder," he said. "I learned from
my father and from the people here that you never give up, fight
like hell, and that's what happened."
An eyelash from being cut that first NFL summer, he demanded head
coach Tom Fears give him a fair shot, as he was promised at the
start of summer camp. "I'm not leaving," he told Fears after being instructed
to turn in his playbook. "You haven't even given me a chance."
"You're serious, aren't you?" the coach said. Fears
agreed to give him more time, although it was little more than lip
service. Billy Kilmer, the Saints' first quarterback, said he was told
before the team headed to Portland, Ore., for a preseason game
against San Francisco that Abramowicz was going to be cut after the
game. Kilmer relayed the bad news to Abramowicz and then promised to
throw him as many passes as he could that night.
Times Picayune
Danny Abramowicz couldn't hold onto this pass against
the Philadelphia Eagles at New Orleans' old Tulane Stadium. But he
averaged 51 receptions in his six full seasons with the Saints, who
never won more than five games in any of those campaigns.
"He caught every ball -- on the ground, out of reach,
everything," recalled Kilmer, who lives in Ft. Lauderdale.
"That's how he made the team, on pure guts. He played so good
they couldn't cut him."
The Saints lost their first seven games before finally beating
Philadelphia, 31-24, as former Browns kick returner Walter "The
Flea" Roberts caught three touchdowns.
As for Abramowicz, he didn't crack the lineup until the seventh
game of the season, when a starter got hurt. He caught 12 passes
that day and stuck with the first team.
Abramowicz, who signed for $17,000 and earned no more than
$64,000 in a season when he played, wound up leading the team in
catches in 1967, led the league in catches two years later and set
an NFL record for most consecutive games with a reception, long
since broken.
He retired 35 years ago after two seasons with San Francisco and
a brief stop in Buffalo, but still stands third on the Saints'
all-time list in receptions, touchdown catches and yards. The
accomplishments are more significant given that he played in an era
when quarterbacks didn't throw as much and defensive backs could all
but maul a receiver.
When the Saints launched a Hall of Fame, he was at the head of
the first class in 1988 -- inducted with Archie Manning, father of
Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. He still remembers holding little
Peyton and his baby brother Eli on his lap, back when he and their
Dad were teammates.
Abramowicz is lifelong friends with the Mannings. He made Colts
offensive coordinator Tom Moore one of his first hires when he ran
the Saints offense for Ditka from 1997 to 2000. But come Super Bowl
Sunday, his loyalty is without question.
"I'd like to see Peyton have a good game and the Saints win
with a field goal at the end. [Then] the monkey's off everyone's
back down there," said Abramowicz, who would often troll the
backwaters of the bayou for redfish with jazz trumpeter Al Hirt, a
Saints minority owner at the time.
Abramowicz, who has three grown children and four grandsons, got
caught up in the New Orleans nightlife and developed an alcohol
problem that almost wrecked his life. When he finally got help in
1981, recovery locked him into his family and his faith.
Abramowicz and his wife, Claudia, lived on the north shore of
Lake Pontchartrain until Katrina chased them out to Memphis and,
almost three years ago, back to Steubenville -- birthplace of Dean
Martin -- to care for their elderly fathers.
The sunroom off the back of their house on a hill is where
they'll be glued to their television Sunday, watching the Saints
make new history while remembering the old.
The Saints were 3-11 that inaugural year, ending on a high note
by crushing the Redskins, 30-14, as Abramowicz caught seven passes
for 144 yards and two touchdowns. When the team returned from Washington, they were greeted at the
airport by about 3,000 cheering fans. Hirt threw a big party on the
French Quarter that night, blowing his horn well into the next
morning. All for a 3-11 team.
"I always said that if we ever won the Super Bowl,"
Kilmer said, "they'd have Mardi Gras here the rest of our
lives."
