![]() On one level, they were horrified that these Non-Football Players were trying to move in on the “foot” part of the game. Traditionalists weren’t sure quite what to make of them. ![]() There were only three in pro ball, all in the NFL - the two Gogolak brothers, Pete (Giants) and Charlie (Redskins), and Yepremian. In 1966, you see, “sidewinders” were still very much a novelty. I’ve ever seen,” he said.Īnd a soccer-styler to boot (if you’ll pardon the expression). Even Wayne Walker, the Lions’ incumbent kicker, had to give him his due. Consider: NFL kickers converted a mere 55.7 percent of all field goal attempts that season. The next day he was in Detroit, leaving the coaches and players there just as slack-jawed.Īccording to one report, Yepremian made 19 of 20 tries from the 45-to-50 yards. Atlanta reportedly made him an offer, but he’d promised the Lions he’d work out for them before he signed with anybody. “He’s not a very big guy - 5-foot-8, 165 pounds - but he was knocking them consistently from 55 yards,” coach Norb Hecker said afterward. In Week 6 the Falcons, a first-year expansion team in need of almost everything, gave him a look - and were impressed. So Krikor wrote letters to several pro teams in hopes of getting him a tryout. Indiana and Butler expressed interest, but there was a hangup: Garo didn’t have a high school diploma - another casualty of the turmoil in Cyprus. Little Brother got so good so quickly that Big Brother convinced him to seek a college scholarship. Krikor would hold, and Garo, a weekend soccer player back home, would kick. In the summer of 1966, Garo went to visit him in Indianapolis, and for fun they’d head to a nearby field with a football. been an Un Known, in other words - if his older brother Krikor hadn’t come to this country to play college soccer. ![]() Yepremian might have spent the rest of his life in the U.K. (His Armenian ancestors had escaped to the Mediterranean island decades earlier, seeking refuge from Turkey’s genocidal lunacy.) Born in Cyprus, he’d fled with his family to London in the ’60s when the bullets began flying between the Turks and Greeks. Jim Murray, the Los Angeles Times jokester, thought Yepremian should, by all rights, have hailed from Ypsilanti (Mich.) Garo’s background was much more unusual than that, though. Alas, Garo is gone - struck down by cancer at 70 - and his death raises a question: Will pro football ever see a story like his again?īy that I mean: Will there ever be another player who plays in the first NFL game he’s ever seen - and sets a league record in his fifth?īut we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Not as melodious, perhaps, as Cassius Marcellus Clay, but resonant in its own Old World way. Garabed Sarko Yepremian was a grand old name. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |