He was the most glamorous player on one of the most glamorous teams we have ever had in New York City, the football Giants of the 1950s and 1960s. But Frank Gifford, who died Sunday at the age of 84, was so much more than that, one of the great, lasting stars sports has ever produced in this country, going from his Giant teams and his football Sundays at the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium to the most famous “Monday Night Football” team of them all.
“Frank was the guy other guys wanted to be,” his old teammate, Pat Summerall, who became a huge television star himself, told me one night.