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Exploring the Legends of 1974: A Gridiron Retrospective · Sports History Network

• 0:47
  It's sudden death overtime at Lambeau Field.
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  And the snapper snaps the ball back to the holder.
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  The kicker goes to kick it, he boots it.
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  But a defensive hall of Fame end rushes in and blocks the kick.
• 0:58
  That tie game looks like it is over, but not for this kicker who had a remarkable play come up.
• 1:04
  As part of what we're going to be talking about today here on our Gridiron timeline going back to 1974 and beyond, I'm Darren Hayes, pigskindispatch.com your portal to positive football history.
• 1:14
  And our Gridiron timeline series is one that goes back in time and captures some of these legendary events and players and really rekindles those memories of them.
• 1:24
  And we're going to go back to some cards that I got recently from the 1974 season that talk about some star centers and some star kickers from that season and some stories about their football career that I'd love
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  to share with you today.
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  So our first one that we're going to be talking about is our feature story.
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  Chester Markle was one of the leading scorers of the NFL along with Roy Jarella, shown on this tops card from 1975's series, but covering the 1974 season.
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  Now, Chester Markle we'll talk about first.
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  His football career produced two of the most memorable story arcs in packers history, an improbable discovery that led to NFL stardom and one of the most bizarre walk off touchdowns ever seen on an NFL field.
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  Now, Marco emigrated from Poland to Michigan as a teenager and really couldn't speak any English at all.
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  And while kicking soccer balls in gym class at Imlay City High School, football coaches noticed his unusual soccer style, technique and raw power.
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  Now, he played in the NAIA football at Hillsdale College, where his powerful right leg and distinctive look, thick glasses and curly hair caught the attention of NFL scouts.
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  The packers ended up drafting him in the second round of the 1972 NFL Draft, which was really uncommon, especially back in that era of a kicker going in the second round when you had 20 rounds going on at
• 2:53
  any time.
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  But that was because Marco was especially talented in this soccer style thing, which is our sort of our theme today, was just coming on with kickers like Markle.
• 3:05
  And as an offensive rookie in 1972, he led the entire league in scoring with 128 points.
• 3:13
  Well, he also was one of the leaders here in our 1974 season, shown on a card of the NFC scoring leader having those 90 some points that he scored there.
• 3:25
  Marco's most famous moment though came in the 1980 season opener against a rival Chicago Bears at Lambeau Field.
• 3:32
  A big, big rivalry.
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  Packers, Bears it goes, it's a six all tie at the end of regulation, goes into overtime, but it, it's a slug fest, you know.
• 3:43
  Six minutes into that sudden death overtime, Marco lined up for a 25 yard game winning field goal and the Bears hall of Fame defensive tackle Alan Page surged through the line and cleanly blocked the kick.
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  Instead of deflecting away, the football ricocheted straight back into Markle's chest.
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  Now before the Bears defense realized what happened, the bespeckled kicker secured the ball,.
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  Swept around the left end and ran into the end zone for a 25.
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  Yard walk off touchdown.
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  The packers won that game 12, 6 and head coach Bart Starr called the.
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  Play the most dramatic victory he had ever witnessed.
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  The ball from that play remains on display in the Green Bay packers hall of Fame.
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  Amazing story there.
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  But he wasn't the only scoring leader.
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  That year in the afc.
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  Taylor.
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  The Pittsburgh Steelers had a kicker with some stories of his own, Roy Jarella.
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  You know, he's.
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  His 1970s football lore goes way beyond what we can tell you today, but.
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  He's a two time super bowl champion.
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  But one of those super bowls, Super Bowl 10, he ended up igniting the Steelers into victory for that second Lombardi Trophy for that franchise.
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  Jarella's most famous play came in that Super Bowl 10 against the Dallas Cowboys.
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  One of the greatest Super Bowls of all time.
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  Battling crack ribs sustained earlier while making attack on kickoff coverage, Jarell up in the third quarter and hooked a 33 yard field goal wide left.
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  With Dallas leading 10 to 7 would have tied the game of the Cowboys.
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  Cliff Harris ran over and mockingly patting Jarella on the helmet, thanking him for the miss.
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  Now middle linebacker Jack Lambert immediately charged in, grabbed Harrison, slammed him to the turf, and when the referee threatened Lambert with an ejection, Lambert famously barked that Harris shouldn't be taunting his kicker.
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  The the altercation galvanized the Steelers sideline, sparking a 14 point fourth quarter rally to secure a 2117 Super bowl victory for the Steelers intersecond championship.
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  Now Jarella in the 1970s was sort of an icon at Three River Stadium.
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  The 1970s explosion of personalized Steelers fan clubs such as Franco's Italian army and Doak's Derelicts and a group of Pittsburgh teenagers created the Jarella's gorillas.
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  Dressed in full gorilla suits and masks, they hung massive banners from the upper deck of Three River Stadium and pounded their chest whenever Jarella trotted out for a kick.
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  When the fans approached Jarella with the concept, he humbly suggested they choose the football future hall of Famers like Terry Bradshaw or Mean Joe Green instead.
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  The founders refused, telling them that they were going to make him a star because how they loved him to kick.
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  And at one point famous announcer for the Steelers, Myron Cope encouraged the group to yell and hoot and holler and do all kinds of fun antics when the opposing kicker of the Steelers was up to kick.
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  And they did that and followed the lead of Myron Cope, who was a founder of the Terrible Towel.
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  Now he was born in Alberta, was Jarella and raised at Powell River, British Columbia.
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  Jarella grew up playing soccer alongside his brothers Ted and Metro.
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  And when Roy moved to Hawaii for high school and later attended New Mexico State, he primarily played as a defensive back and a conventional punter.
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  His older brother Ted, then kicking for the CFL's BC Lions, wrote Roy a letter urging him to experiment with the emerging soccer style approach, kicking with the instep rather than a straight toe.
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  Roy adopted the technique in college and becoming New Mexico State's first soccer style kicker.
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  The transition propelled him into the AFL NFL Draft in 1969 and ultimately made him the first Canadian born player to to win a Super bowl ring with the Steelers in Super Bowl 9 over the Vikings.
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  But he was an AFL player first with those Houston Oilers which he would play twice a year against.
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  Once the AFL and NFL finally merged and the Steelers went over to the AFL teams and they played in the AFL Center AFC Central back then and now the Oilers are the Tennessee Titans and playing in the South.
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  Now we had some great Centers from that 1974 season, some long tenured guys, but these were the all pro centers that were back in that, that era and we had you know, two really long tenure guys that were
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  Ironmen Jeff Van Note and Jack Rudnay.
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  Now Van Note at the time was playing for the Atlanta Falcons, Rudnay playing for the Kansas City Chiefs in the 74 season and Vano played running back and defensive end at the University of Kentucky when he entered the
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  1969 NFL Draft and was an unheard of heralded 11th round pick, 262nd overall, projected as a linebacker coming in in the league and when he arrived in Atlanta, the fiery coach, Norm Van Brocklin, yeah, the quarterback of the
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  Rams and the Eagles and took the Eagles to a championship and and the Rams looked at his build and immediately ordered him to move to offensive center, a position Vienno had never played at any level.
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  He spent part of his rookie year cutting his teeth in the minor league Alabama Huntsville Hawks of the Continental Football League before taking over as Atlanta starter in 1970.
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  He went on to earn six Pro bowl nods, 74, 75, 79, 80, 81, 82 and two All Pro selections, including the 1974 one you see on the card of today.
• 9:02
  Now worn down after 246 career games and 18 grueling seasons in the trenches, which is amazing for an NFL lineman, Vienno announced his retirement at the end of the 1986 campaign.
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  During his final home game at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium on December 14, 1986, the franchise honored his legendary tenure by presenting him with a restored red 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible, matching his iconic number 57 jersey.
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  Now, across his 18 seasons in Atlanta, Van Note snapped the ball to 14 different starting quarterbacks.
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  He played under six different head coaches and served as a lone constant anchor for an offensive line navigating constant turnover to through the 1970s and mid-1980s.
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  Jack Rudnay, that Kansas City Chiefs guy center, was almost equally tenured.
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  He was a fourth round pick in the 1969 AFL Draft by Hank Stramp's Kansas City Chiefs and Rudnay was slated to bolster the offensive line.
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  But before training camp he suffered a severe back injury while playing in a 1969 Chicago College all Star game against the NFL champion Baltimore Colts.
• 10:12
  Sidelined for the entire 1969 season in and on injured reserve, Rudna watched his teammates win Super Bowl 4 and by the time he was healthy enough to make his on field debut in 1970, the AFL NFL merger had
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  taken full effect.
• 10:26
  He is part of a rare group drafted by an AFL franchise and earning a Super bowl ring with an AFL champion that he never took a single regular season snap or postseason snap in the American Football League.
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  Now throughout the 1970s, Redne had to snap the ball in practice to teammates.
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  Curly Culp, an NCAA heavyweight wrestling champ, one of the most physically dominant nose tackles in pro football history.
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  As hall of Fame quarterback Lynn Dawson famously recalled, Rudner used to advocate that every center in the NFL should be forced to spend a week in practice going up against Culp and to understand the true leverage and power
• 11:02
  that is needed to defend off a fend off a defender like Culp was now.
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  Rodney credited those grueling practices with making him game days ready against opposing defensive tackles feel manageable by comparison.
• 11:16
  Now, despite starting his pro career on the injury list with a damaged back, Rodney developed into one of the most durable runs in Chief's history from 1970 through the end of the decade.
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  He reeled off 144 consecutive regular season games played, became the offensive anchor during the transition from Stram's championship veterans to the rebuilding rosters of the late 1970s, earning four straight P Bowl nods, 73 through 76.
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  An induction into the Chiefs hall of Fame in 1994.
• 11:44
  Those are truly some great champions, some great legends of the game, and they really had some peak moments in the 1974 season that we covered here on our Gridiron timeline.
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  Check out our gridiron timeline@pigskindispatch.com under timeline and as well as many of the other things, we have our our featured games and many hall of Fame legends and legends of the games bios that you can enjoy too, well
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  as some great stories, YouTube videos and podcasts just like you're checking out here.
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  Check out the show notes for more.
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  Until next time, everybody have a great Gridiron day.