George Young was a classic football man

By Joel Buchsbaum, Contributing editor
Dec. 10, 2001

Young was brought in to run the New York Giants when the two owners, who were equal sharers — Wellington Mara and Tim Mara — could not agree on anything, let alone who was going to run their team. The team had been in a state of disarray since the 1960 preseason, and finally Pete Rozelle stepped in and told both Maras he’d put someone in charge and they’d give that person the power to run the team.

That person in 1979 was George Young. Young, in his first draft, shocked everyone in the NFL by taking unknown QB Phil Simms of Morehead State in Kentucky. Simms was not even a first-team All-Conference quarterback his senior year in college. But Young knew Simms had the toughness, the intangibles and the arm strength to be a great NFL quarterback and felt he was better than Jack Thompson and Steve Fuller, the highly regarded Clemson quarterback.

When I called Young after the draft and asked him about taking Simms, he said, "Joel, let me put it to you this way. You can never listen to the media. You have to go with your own convictions. The bottom line is gonna be, three years from now, if I have this team in the playoffs, I’m gonna have a job. If I don’t, regardless of how popular all my draft picks are, I’m probably out of work."

Simms had the Giants in the playoffs, thanks in large part to another draft pick, Lawrence Taylor. Many people forget Taylor was not the media’s or fans’ first choice when the Giants took him. The fans wanted the more publicized Hugh Green.

When Young first joined the Giants, all the fans asked for was to just get the team into the playoffs once, after the long drought since 1963. After he won two Super Bowls and got the Giants into the playoffs multiple times, the fans were never quite satisfied with Young, and the same held for many members of the New York media.

However, everyone who came in contact with Young always seemed to respect him. After retiring from the Giants and leaving the team in good hands to his trusted aide, Ernie Accorsi, Young went to work at the NFL offices, where he also did yeoman’s work.

Before coming to the Giants, Young had been a schoolteacher, coach, and then a scout for the Baltimore Colts. Later, he went to Miami and worked as the pro personnel director under Don Shula to build, along with Bobby Beathard, a great Dolphins championship team.

If anyone ever deserved to be in the Hall of Fame, it’s George Young. Forget about all those longtime owners who did almost nothing for the game. George Young contributed so much to this game and so much to this sport that it’s just unconscionable that he’s not in the Hall of Fame. It’s a shame he did not go in while he was still alive, but it will still be a shame if he is not chosen to go in now.

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