Reflections on My Cousin, Frank Gifford

Gifford Family

THE GIFFORD CLAN: This is about half the total number of my Gifford cousins during Thanksgiving, circa 1947. Frank is standing to grandma’s right. I'm the little guy standing in front of her.

I have received condolences from friends and family all over the country since I learned of Frank Gifford’s passing on August 8, 2015. He was my first cousin on my mother’s side of the family and very influential in my career as an athlete, coach and health promotion professional. I think I am correct in saying Frank and I are the only two Gifford-related cousins out of 12 who completed college.

All of the national network TV programs treated Frank not only as one of the greatest football players of all time, but also reminded us of his skill as a first-class sportscaster on “Monday Night Football” and ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.”   

The New York Times featured his remarkable story and a photo from his heyday with New York Giants on its front page. It began: “Frank Gifford, a gleaming hero of sports and television in an era when such things were possible, moved seamlessly from stardom in the Giants offense to celebrity in the broadcast booth of ‘Monday Night Football’ died on Sunday at his home in Greenwich, Conn. He was 84.” 

The first and foremost message we learned from our Grandma Gifford was that Jesus Christ was our Lord and Savior. Next in the hierarchy of things that mattered came football.

From my earliest recollections, Frank was a family hero and inspiration. As a young football aspirant myself, he encouraged me to stay in school, study hard and perhaps some day compete with, or against, him in the NFL. Impossible? Well, we came darn close.

Growing up at the beach in Southern California, the first and foremost message we learned from our Grandma Gifford was that Jesus Christ was our Lord and Savior. Next in the hierarchy of things that mattered came football.

There are several Gifford-related cousins in the family photo above. But for some reason Frank took a particular interest in me. I had no idea what football was about, but I did understand Frank was the family hero.

Even as a grammar school kid attending Pier Ave. School in Hermosa Beach, Calif., Frank was recognized for his special athletic talents. Thanksgiving, Christmas or whenever the family gathered, Frank was usually present and sooner or later the conversation would focus on how well he was doing in sports — especially in football.

Of course, I wanted some of that family respect and adulation as well. So I did what many kids do. I studied his behavior, held his hand, sat as close to him as the situation would allow, and followed him everywhere possible.

By the fourth grade, I was trying to dress the way he did, too. He’d show me how low to wear my jeans and how to roll up my T- shirtsleeves to display my biceps. I styled my hair as he did. I studied his expressions and demeanor and even tried to duplicate his swagger. He took looking “cool” to a new level. Think about a cross between John Wayne and James Dean. (He taught me to cuss, too — but discreetly, especially when Grandma Gifford was around.) 

Most of the Gifford clan was in the oil business. More accurately, they were in the mud, blood, beer and filth of drilling-deep-in-the-ground-for-oil business. They called themselves “roughnecks,” and for good reasons. 

My father grew up in Redondo Beach and, after a somewhat disturbing adolescence, he went north to earn his “wealth” as a derrick man in the oil fields of the San Joaquin Valley. He met my mother, Rachel Gifford, in a bar in a little oil town called Taft.  It was my birthplace.

The Gifford clan moved around a great deal following the oil-drilling business, but my mom and dad returned to Redondo Beach, where dad found more stable work as a welder during WWII, and then as a commercial deep-sea diver.  

My mother was the youngest Gifford and therefore not that much older than her nephew, Frank. She was not known for conforming to the rigid Gifford family code of behavior, nor was she committed to the clan’s evangelical lifestyle. This made my mom and Frank best friends. In many ways, they were both a little rebellious, unless Grandma Gifford was in the area. 

Redondo Beach was an ideal location for a hotshot USC football star to visit his Aunt Rachel on weekends and chase the local beach babes (in off season).  My mom willingly supplied sufficient amounts of alcoholic beverages and floor space for one or more of his Trojan buddies to crash on off-season weekends. 

Frank showed early signs of greatness:  Style, stunning good looks, athleticism, and especially football skills. If you believe his obituaries, he was one of the most gifted all-around football players in history. He actually did try out for some Hollywood movie roles in the off-season. The USC campus was only a few miles from the movie studios and the home of the stars of stage and screen, Beverly Hills. 

By the time Frank left Bakersfield Junior College and headed to the University of Southern California, he was well already well known for his football prowess.

USC was a perfect match for a multi-talented kid from Bakersfield who could run, punt, pass, and kick field goals with speed, accuracy and agility — all wrapped up in movie-star good looks to boot.  

When Frank would visit us at 223 Ave. G, Redondo Beach — about a 45-minute drive in those days from USC — people from all over the neighborhood would suddenly have reason to stop by to say hello. He became our family pride and when he was at our house, I was his self-appointed sidekick. Talk about “hot stuff!”

Frank took a special interest in me and always took time to check out my passing, punting and catching skills. I became a neighborhood celebrity just by his showing up to see my mom and go to the beach. But my early athletic experience was tainted by everyone’s knowledge that we were first cousins. It was difficult because I didn’t share his football talents. If and when my name appeared in the local Daily Breeze newspaper, I was usually introduced as “... Dick Keelor, cousin of USC great Frank Gifford …”. 

On one hand, I liked the prestige and felt honored by the reference. I was even crowned with game jersey No. 16 — Frank’s number all through USC and in the NFL — when I played varsity quarterback at Redondo Union High School. When he left USC and joined the New York Giants, he ceremoniously presented me with his official number 16 USC game jersey.  I slept in it until it fell apart.

It didn’t take long at Redondo Union High School for me to realize I was no Frank Gifford. Playing quarterback was not part of my skill set. But for some reason, I persisted, eventually losing my starting job to a talented Seahawk sophomore. Talk about the shame of it. Frank Gifford’s cousin sitting on the bench? 

After high school, it took a wise and insightful junior college coach to sit me down and lay it out. El Camino College head coach Norm Verry, also a USC football alumnus, explained he knew how badly I wanted to be a quarterback, but our team was rich in QB talent.  When I realized he was about to ask me to change positions, I wondered to what. Running back? A wide receiver, perhaps, who’d dive for an impossible one-handed catch in the end zone, scoring a game-winning touchdown? No, not really.  How about center?

Well, Verry was right on target. And thanks to some great coaches, a miracle working relationship with my teammates and the encouragement of family and friends, I was able to put on about 80 pounds of muscle. Several people thought I was on steroids. Not a drop. My best buddy and teammate, Lynn Hoyem, who later played for the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, and I earned every pound of muscle through sweat and pain and a high-calorie diet over a two-year period. 

To say my pro football career was brief is an understatement. But Frank was well aware of my accomplishments and would send me notes of encouragement, make an occasional phone call, and sometimes stop by the house during family occasions. 

After a successful college football and wrestling career at Long Beach State University — including winning the Pacific Coast collegiate 191-pound wrestling championship — the Rams signed me in 1961 as a 240-pound offensive guard. Later, I was with the Denver Broncos for a short time, too.  

To say my pro football career was brief is an understatement. But Frank was well aware of my accomplishments and would send me notes of encouragement, make an occasional phone call, and sometimes stop by the house during family occasions. 

The main thing is that I knew he understood I was doing my best to make it in the NFL and I wanted more than anything to play with — or against — him before he retired. In fact, I had a reoccurring dream: Frank would be running down the sidelines looking for the ball. I would lay off him just enough to encourage the quarterback to throw my sweet cousin the ball on a deep pattern in the end zone. Once the ball was in the air, I would close in, strip him of the ball and return it for a score. Then the family would have someone else to be proud of. 

About this time, the stars in heaven appeared to be lining up. The season before I signed with the Rams, Frank had famously suffered a serious concussion from a hard, high hit by the Philadelphia Eagles Chuck Bednarik. But Frank was staging a comeback and the Giants and the Rams were scheduled for an early pre-season game in 1961. Destiny was bringing us toe-to-toe in front of a sold out Los Angeles Coliseum. To say I was psyched? Words are insuffient. 

When we arrived at the stadium, players filed into the locker room and went to their lockers to suit up. Mine had a telegram on it. Me? A telegram? Yep, had my name on it. It read something like: 

Dickie:
Really sorry I can’t be there with you tonight. I retired for good yesterday. Have a good game, (but not too good). Go Giants.         Frank

Frank returned to football in 1962 but we never crossed paths on the field. And I don’t think either of us ever imagined the way we would eventually cross paths professionally off of it.  As I recollect it here, it does seem remarkable. 

After he finally retired from the Giants following the 1964 season, Frank was living in New York, and established himself as a highly successful sportscaster on “Monday Night Football.” Meanwhile, I was exploring coaching options in Southern California, hoping to make it to a major university program. How does that work? Let me explain:

I was doing well as line coach at Long Beach Poly High School. We produced some world-class talent including Earl “the Pearl” McCullough” (Rookie of the Year for the Detroit Lions, Gene Washington (San Francisco 49ers) and Jeff Smith (N.Y. Giants), among others. It was, arguably, the best high school program in the country.

For a variety of reasons, the athletic director of Beverly Hills High School, Walt Puffer, invited me to consider the head football coaching job there. He was a friend of mine from the L.A. County Lifeguards so, out of courtesy, I agreed to an interview.

Why would I leave a powerhouse like LB Poly? Well, let’s start with glamour, salary and great facilities. Most of all, the Beverly Hills principal promised I could bring my best coaching buddy from Poly, one of the top coaches and leaders in secondary education in California history, Ben Bushman.

Over the years, Frank and I had stayed in touch and, on occasion, he would offer encouraging words about my coaching aspirations. When I took the Beverly Hills job, he had fun pretending to give me tips. Like a lot of people during those early days, Frank thought Beverly Hills and football went together like the oil fields and movie stars. One of my LB Poly coaching buddies called it “a football coach’s graveyard.”

To make a long story short, I added a couple of additional top assistant coaches to the Beverly Hills Norman football staff and introduced a highly disciplined weight-training program. The Normans began to kick ass. No more Johnny Carson jokes about Beverly Hills football. After about three seasons, we won the league championship and I was voted Los Angeles Times Coach of the Year. The same year, Beverly Hills High School won league championships in almost all of its varsity sports including a California Interscholastic Federation basketball championship, led by coach Chuck Reilly.

This success eventually led me to the White House and an Oval Office meeting with President Richard Nixon and Apollo 13 commander James Lovell, who was then the chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. 

This success eventually led me to the White House and an Oval Office meeting with President Richard Nixon and Apollo 13 commander James Lovell, who was then the chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.  Three months later, I was offered a position as Director of Program Development for the President’s Council. Headquarters: Washington, D.C. 

I hated to leave Beverly Hills and coaching but “Potomac Fever” is no joke. Besides, I would report to one of the greatest leaders in my profession, the profoundly insightful C. Carson “Casey” Conrad. I later learned that it was Casey who recommended me to the White House Domestic Council for consideration. He knew me previously for my work in the California High School Coaches Association and the fight to maintain California’s daily physical education requirement. 

When Frank learned that I had moved to D.C., he called and invited me to sit in the booth with ex-Cowboy quarterback “Dandy” Don Meredith, and the bombastic sportscaster Howard Cosell. What an experience! I was Frank’s guest on several Monday night games and Meredith soon began to treat me like an old friend. Cosell, on the other hand, was far less social.

“You again?” he would sneer. “Need money to buy a ticket? Next time ask me.”  

Frank would just look at me, smile and wink.

As Director of Program Development for the President’s Council, I was often asked to speak to various groups and, on occasion, to do live network TV interviews. But when the White House Domestic Council asked me to represent President Gerald Ford at the grand opening of the Amateur Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma, I was amazed. 

President Ford actually did a little wrestling at the University of Michigan, but he had a scheduling conflict. The White House Domestic Council turned to Conrad, who assigned me to the event. 

What a thrill for a former amateur wrestler, coach and fan to represent the President of the United States at the grand opening of the Amateur Wrestling Hall of Fame! This was truly a historic event, and I was pumped. I could hardly believe this little beach boy from Redondo was going to be seated next to the greatest wrestlers and coaches of all time: Dan Hodge, Dan Gable, Myron Roderick, Hugh Perry and Tommy Evans, among 50 others.

As I walked toward the Hall of Fame pre-dinner reception, I saw some friends and former wrestling competitors among many of the other past and current stars in the sport. Personally, I was feeling self-important, all decked out in my standard Council uniform: Dark blue blazer with the impressive PCPFS gold-threaded logo on the left chest, council cuff links, grey military slacks, etc.

As the crowd moved toward the head table, flash bulbs were firing off and bright TV lights were focused on an obviously important person of interest. People were asking for his autographs. This must be a special guest, I surmised. “Hmmm, one of the inductees?” I thought. “Perhaps a movie star, or the governor?”

Nope, wait a minute! It was the amateur-wrestling analyst for ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” Frank Newton Gifford! 

Yep, my sweet cousin, Frank Gifford, was not only master of ceremony; he was being inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame himself for his “expert coverage of intercollegiate wrestling.”

“Yeah,” I thought, “but get this cuz: You are going to introduce your little cousin, who will be delivering remarks on behalf of the President of the United States!”

We sat at the head table next to each other, occasionally trading smiles and elbow jabs.  After I finished my remarks, Frank leaned over and whispered, “Grandma would be proud.”

© Health Designs International, 2017