George William Ratterman (November 12, 1926 – November 3, 2007) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player in the

All-America Football Conference The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League (NFL) from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the ...

and the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

Early life

He was born in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, where he graduated from St. Xavier High School in 1944. He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

from 1944 through 1946, primarily as a backup to

quarterbacks The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ameri ...

Frank Dancewicz Francis Joseph "Boley" Dancewicz ( ; October 3, 1924 – June 26, 1985) was an American football quarterback who played professionally in the National Football League. He was the first overall pick in the 1946 NFL Draft by the Boston Yanks. He ...

and

Johnny Lujack John Christopher Lujack (pronounced Lu' jack; born January 4, 1925) is a former American football quarterback and defensive back who won the 1947 Heisman Trophy; he is currently the oldest living recipient of the Heisman Trophy. Lujack played c ...

. He was the last of only four students in Notre Dame history to earn letters in four different sports (football, basketball, baseball, tennis). Legendary football coach

Frank Leahy Francis William Leahy (August 27, 1908 – June 21, 1973) was an American football player, coach, college athletics administrator, and professional sports executive. He served as the head football coach at Boston College from 1939 to 1940 and at ...

called him "the greatest all-around athlete in the history of Notre Dame."

Professional football career

He played professional football with the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...

of the AAFC from 1947 to 1949, when the league merged with the NFL. In his first year, 1947, at the age of 20, Ratterman threw 22 touchdown passes, setting a professional football rookie record that stood for more than fifty years until broken by Peyton Manning in 1998. He continued his career with the

New York Yanks The New York Yanks were an American football team that played in the National Football League under that name in the 1950 and 1951 seasons. Season by season overview 1949 The team began in 1944 as the Boston Yanks, owned by Kate Smith's manag ...

of the NFL in 1950 and 1951, the

Montreal Alouettes The Montreal Alouettes (Canadian French, French: Les Alouettes de Montréal) are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has folded and been revived twice. The Alouettes compete in the Canadian F ...

of the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

in 1951 and finished with the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

of the NFL from 1952 through 1956. He led the NFL in TD passes in 1950 while playing for New York. In 1956, he became the Browns' starting quarterback, succeeding

Otto Graham Otto Everett Graham Jr. (December 6, 1921 – December 17, 2003) was an American professional football player who was a quarterback for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL). Graha ...

, and was first player in the history of football to wear a radio receiver in his helmet, which allowed Cleveland Coach

Paul Brown Paul Eugene Brown (September 7, 1908 – August 5, 1991) was an American football coach and executive in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL). Brown was both the co-founder and first coach of the Clevela ...

to call plays using a microphone instead of sending in messenger players for each play. Ratterman was featured on the cover of ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'', October 8, 1956. A leg injury on October 21, 1956, ended his football career.

Post-playing career activities

General counsel for the American Football League Players Association

He earned his law degree in 1956 and was admitted to practice in

and

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. He acted as general counsel for the American Football League Players Association in the mid-1960s, when Jack Kemp was the president of the union.

Campaign for sheriff of Campbell County, Kentucky

On May 9, 1961, while campaigning as a candidate for sheriff of

Campbell County, Kentucky Campbell County is a county located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 93,076. Its county seats are Alexandria and Newport.chloral hydrate Chloral hydrate is a geminal diol with the formula . It is a colorless solid. It has limited use as a sedative and hypnotic pharmaceutical drug. It is also a useful laboratory chemical reagent and precursor. It is derived from chloral (trichl ...

and put in bed with

stripper A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at a bachelor party or other private event. M ...

April Flowers in an attempt to blackmail him and force him to drop from the race. The plot was uncovered, and publicity from the botched frame-up attempt catapulted him and his party to victory in the election. While sheriff, with cooperation from federal agents and personal interest of then-

U.S. Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...

, he was able to rid the county, and particularly the city of Newport, of gambling, prostitution and vice businesses that had dominated the area since the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. Ratterman was, coincidentally, one in a relatively long line of Buffalo professional football quarterbacks to have entered politics: 1920s quarterback

Tommy Hughitt Tommy Hughitt (born Ernest Fredrick Hughitt; December 27, 1892 – December 27, 1961) was a Canadian-American National Football League utility player, coach, referee and politician. He was also an All-American quarterback for the University ...

, and 1960s quarterbacks Jack Kemp and

Ed Rutkowski Edward John Anthony Rutkowski (born March 21, 1941) is a former American football player, and a former politician in Buffalo, New York. Rutkowski was a noted College football, college and professional American football player. A wide receiver, he ...

would also be elected to political positions; of them, only Ratterman did so for a constituency outside Buffalo.

''Confessions of a Gypsy Quarterback''

He is the author of a book, ''Confessions of a Gypsy Quarterback'', Coward-McCann, 1962, containing hilarious anecdotes of his experiences and hi-jinks in professional football. In the foreword,

Pro Football Hall of Fame The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coach ...

quarterback

says Ratterman was the "best natural clown and comic I ever saw in professional football." In one story, during a game while Ratterman was in a game for the Browns and stern Coach Brown was sending in the plays from the bench using his messenger guard system, Ratterman told the guard who came in with the play call to "go back and get another one" because Ratterman "didn't like that play." The guard, a rookie named Joe Skibinski, obediently turned to run back to the bench and Coach Brown before Ratterman and other players stopped him. He was an unsuccessful candidate for county judge and

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

in the 1960s.

Broadcasting career

He worked as a color commentator on TV and radio broadcasts of

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

and NFL football games for ABC-TV (1960–1964) and

NBC-TV The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

(1965–1973). He was frequently paired with

Jack Buck John Francis "Jack" Buck (August 21, 1924 – June 18, 2002) was an American sportscaster, best known for his work announcing Major League Baseball games of the St. Louis Cardinals. His play-by-play work earned him recognition from numerous hal ...

and

Charlie Jones Charles, Charlie, Charley or Chuck Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Chuck Jones (1912–2002), American animator, director, and producer * Charles Jones (c. 1889–1942), American actor better known as Buck Jones * Charles Jones (pho ...

on broadcast teams. He had the distinction of providing color analysis to Jim Simpson's play-by-play of Super Bowl I on Sunday, January 15, 1967 for the NBC Radio Network. During half-time of the first NFL-AFL Championship Game at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Ratterman interviewed Dallas Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith and San Diego Chargers wide receiver Lance Alworth about their thoughts on the game's first half.

Death

Ratterman died in

Centennial {{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation) A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years. Notable events Notable centennial events at ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, on November 3, 2007, from complications of

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. He and his wife of 59 years, Anne, had ten children.

References

External links

* ''databaseFootball:'
George Ratterman
* ''Professional Football Researchers Association:'
Mini-Bio: George Ratterman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ratterman, George 1926 births 2007 deaths Players of American football from Cincinnati American Football League announcers College football announcers American football quarterbacks Buffalo Bills announcers Buffalo Bills (AAFC) players Cleveland Browns players Kentucky sheriffs People from Campbell County, Kentucky National Football League announcers New York Yanks players Notre Dame Fighting Irish football players Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's basketball players Notre Dame Fighting Irish baseball players Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's tennis players Basketball players from Cincinnati Tennis players from Cincinnati St. Xavier High School (Ohio) alumni Neurological disease deaths in Colorado Deaths from Alzheimer's disease 20th-century American politicians Canadian football quarterbacks Montreal Alouettes players Catholics from Kentucky American men's basketball players