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The news about this week’s passing of 72-year old Hall-of-Fame Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris caught me and most of the sports world totally off guard.
This Saturday, the Pittsburgh Steelers are set to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the greatest (or certainly one of the top five) plays in NFL history. On December 23, 1972, Pittsburgh running back Franco Harris scored the winning touchdown against the Oakland Raiders in a playoff game with just seconds remaining.
It is still of the most remarkable plays you will ever see.
A much saner version of the NFL existed in 1972. After a 14-game regular season, the league’s playoffs had begun in late December. Pittsburgh finished the 1972 season at 11-3 and their opponent, the Oakland Raiders, came into Steel City with an impressive 10-3-1 mark.
This game marked the Steelers’ first playoff game appearance since the year 1947!
Founded in 1933, the Pittsburgh NFL team played football as the Pittsburgh Pirates (yes, the same name as the local baseball team).
In 1940, they changed the football team’s nickname to “Steelers”.
The NFL’s Pirates/Steelers never reached the football playoffs from 1933 until 1947. They would lose their one and only playoff game appearance to the Philadelphia Eagles by a 21-0 score.
From 1947 until 1972, the Pittsburgh Steelers were the sad sacks of the NFL. For 25 straight years, this football team was simply not very good. Though their beloved football team failed to qualify for the playoffs, the loyal fans in Steel City stuck with their team (much like New Orleans Saints fans did from their inception in 1967 until the team’s first playoff game in 1987).
The fortunes of the Pittsburgh Steelers started to change beginning in 1969. Despite a woeful 1-13 record, the Steelers had a new smart young coach in Chuck Noll. The team’s 1969 draft included defensive tackle “Mean” Joe Greene, his bookend DE counterpart L.C. Greenwood, and offensive tackle Jon Kolb.
By 1970, the Steelers moved into Three Rivers Stadium which was constructed for the city’s baseball Pirates and football Steelers to share.
That same year, the team selected Louisiana Tech quarterback Terry Bradshaw with the #1 overall NFL draft pick and later added talented defensive back Mel Blount.
The 1971 draft brought linebacker Jack Ham, defensive end Dwight White, offensive tackle Larry Brown, and defensive back Mike Wagner. In 1972, Penn State running back Franco Harris was taken with the team’s #1 pick while defensive end Steve Furness was selected later in the draft.
Pittsburgh’s incredible use of the NFL draft laid the foundation for a decade of excellence.
In 1972, Franco Harris’ rookie year became the Steelers’ first winning season since 1963. Harris ran for 1,055 yards in fourteen regular season games and averaged an incredible 5.6 yards per carry that year. He won the NFL Rookie of the Year award. His running helped to take pressure off Terry Bradshaw’s passing as the quarterback’s interceptions fell from 22 in 1971 to just 12 the following season.
The Pittsburgh Steelers improved from a 6-8 record in 1971 to 11-3 in Harris’ first year in 1972.
The talented running back sported an easy smile which helped to make him even more popular with the fans. Bradshaw recently filmed a video with Franco Harris and said, “I was telling him he never could block and that he had the worst hands in the business. But Franco Harris was truly a great guy – always positive, always with a smile on his face.”
Franco Harris (whose father married an Italian woman while he was stationed in Italy during World War II) quickly developed a large following among Pittsburgh’s Italian-American football fans.
“Franco’s Italian Army” was born.
Legendary singer Frank Sinatra dubbed himself Brigadier General of Franco’s Italian Army. Hundreds of Pittsburgh Steelers fans in Franco’s “Army” wore green military-styled helmets to the team’s home games with his number 32 on the side of it.
As the 1972 Steelers reached the NFL playoffs for the first time in 25 years, the city (along with much of America) was falling in love with this team’s turnaround story and success.
The black and gold Steelers fans had waited for a generation to finally host an NFL playoff game. The AFC West champion Oakland Raiders were the opponent. A perennial playoff contender, the 1972 Raiders featured future NFL Hall-of-Famers such as quarterback Ken Stabler, wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff, defensive back Willie Brown and the team’s head coach, John Madden.
Pittsburgh’s fans were fired-up and on-edge for their first home playoff game.
On December 23, 1972, the Steelers trailed Oakland in that very tense game by a 7-6 score late in the fourth quarter in Pittsburgh. The Steelers were down to 22 seconds left on the clock and a 4th down play at their own 40 yard line. Needing to get at least thirty yards downfield in order to attempt a game-winning field goal, quarterback Terry Bradshaw dropped back to pass. He avoided a few tacklers, bounced around in the pocket, and launched a 25-yard pass downfield toward Steelers running back, John “Frenchy” Fuqua.
Just as the football arrived, Oakland defensive back Jack Tatum (known for his aggressive – OK, dirty – play at times) blasted Fuqua from behind. The football careened backwards into the air and started to fall toward the ground.
Franco Harris was in the vicinity of the play as the ball started to fall toward the stadium’s artificial turf. He reached down near his shoe top, caught the football, and quickly started running toward the end zone. He outraced a couple of stunned Oakland defenders and scored what appeared to be the winning touchdown for Pittsburgh with just seconds remaining in the game.
More than 50,000 Pittsburgh fans in attendance went absolutely crazy. People jumped ten feet down onto the stadium surface to celebrate this incredible touchdown play. NBC television announcers Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis showed the national television audience a variety of video replays which seemed to confirm that a miraculous touchdown had just been scored by Pittsburgh to win the game.
Unlike today, the 1972 version of the NFL did not permit the referees to make a video review once the play ended.
So, the referees huddled – for an eternity. Nearly fifteen minutes passed. The game officials were attempting to determine whether the pass had been touched (even in the slightest way) by Pittsburgh’s Frenchy Fuqua prior to his teammate Franco Harris catching the deflected football.
If Frenchy Fuqua had touched the ball, a second Steelers player would not have been permitted to catch it. The pass would have been ruled incomplete. Since this was a fourth down play, the football would have gone over to the Raiders. With a 7-6 lead and just seconds remaining, Oakland would have secured a victory.
Some people (mostly Raiders fans) believe that the referees took such a long time to make a decision, because they were considering their own safety. The referees were witnessing a large crowd coming onto the field to celebrate an apparent Pittsburgh victory (and the city’s first ever playoff win). If the referees had chosen to reverse the touchdown call, they may have needed heavy police security to safely leave the field.
Pittsburgh fans call this play the “Immaculate Reception”. Oakland fans think Frenchy Fuqua did touch the ball, and Raider Nation refers to the play as the “Immaculate Deception”.
Afterwards, a group of physicists analyzed the play. They determined that it was the vicious hit of Oakland’s defensive player (Jack Tatum) which caused the ball to ricochet backwards toward Pittsburgh’s oncoming running back, Franco Harris. Advantage, Steelers!
Archived video evidence fails to definitively show any indication that Pittsburgh’s intended receiver, Frenchy Fuqua, ever touched the football on that play.
Fifty years later, Frenchy Fuqua still maintains that he did not touch the football on that play. He refuses to discuss the matter with anyone. His only comment has been, “I’ll never tell!”
The Steelers won the game 13-7. Ironically, the Miami Dolphins would beat Pittsburgh 21-17 the following week to win the AFC Championship.
That 1972 Miami Dolphins team beat Washington in the Super Bowl to finish with an unblemished 17-0 record. Since then, there has never been another team in the NFL to complete a perfect season in the Super Bowl era.
For Pittsburgh, the win over Oakland announced the arrival of a NEW Pittsburgh Steelers team. This team and its fans had a newfound confidence. Franco Harris said, “It was the start of something special for the rest of that decade”.
Franco Harris and his Pittsburgh Steelers teammates went on to win four Super Bowls in 1974, 1975, 1978, and 1979.
Pittsburgh won its first Super Bowl by downing the Minnesota Vikings 16-6. Franco Harris rushed for 156 yards and a touchdown as he was awarded the Super Bowl MVP after that victory.
Franco Harris played 12 years in the NFL. In addition to being part of four Super Bowl winners in Pittsburgh, he was named to the NFL All-Pro team nine times. His charitable work in Pittsburgh earned him the NFL “Man of the Year” award in 1976. In 1990, Franco Harris was inducted into the Pro Football Hall-of-Fame.
He was loved by his teammates and millions of football fans around the world.
This Saturday, the Pittsburgh Steelers will once again host the Oakland Raiders in the 50th anniversary of the “Immaculate Reception” game from 1972.
If you have the NFL Network, you will be able to watch this game at 7:15PM CST on Saturday (Christmas Eve). This year’s match-up of these two iconic teams is not for a playoff spot as both Pittsburgh and Oakland are a subpar 6-8 with a few games left in the season.
The #32 jersey of Franco Harris is scheduled to be retired by Pittsburgh at this game with several of his Steelers teammates expected to participate in the ceremony. It will be just the third number ever to be retired by the Pittsburgh Steelers organization.
That very special celebration of one of the most electrifying plays in NFL history has now taken a somber turn with the passing of the lovable legend that scored Pittsburgh’s winning touchdown, Franco Harris.
Millions of us Steelers fans are, quite literally, crying in our Terrible Towels after learning of his passing this week.
Rest in peace, #32!