Joseph Don "Dandy Don" Meredith (April 10, 1938 – December 5, 2010)
A moment of silence for a fine fellow.
Don Meredith was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys from 1960-1968. He was quite successful and much loved. In one game the Cowboys were 4 or 5 points behind and it was near the end of the game. He was facing a 1st down and 45 yards to go. Incredibly, he threw three consecutive 15 yard passes, made the first down, the touchdown, and they won the game.
Afterward a reporter talked to him about that sequence and then asked
“Don did you know at that point that it was 1st and 45?”
With what I thought was admirable restraint Meredith replied,
“I try to stay as close to the game as I can.”
.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
5 hours ago
Here's a funny Don Meredith story...
ReplyDeleteApparently sometime after Frank Gifford had married a much younger Kathy Lee and she was pregnant with their first child together, Frank told his buddy Dandy Don the good news. As Gifford tells it, Meredith looked at him askance and said, "Frank, I'm gonna get the sumbitch who did that to Kathy Lee."
A few years later, Kathy Lee was pregnant with her second child with Frank Gifford, so again Gifford told Meredith the news. Meredith's curt reply: "Damn, I must have got the wrong sumbitch."
Very nice.
ReplyDeleteHe was a fine feller.
Indirectly Don contributed to increasing my vocabulary. During a game being announced by Don and Howard, Howard commentated that the QB had thrown to his “tertiary” receiver. Don, playing off Howard’s use of a stilted word replied. “When I played the game we did not have “tertiary” receivers”. I think of Don every time I use the word.
ReplyDeleteOne of Don’s favorite phrases “Turn out the lights…..” seems horribly inappropriate this morning. It would be too cute to suggest retiring the phrase so I am simply not going to use it anymore.
So Tom you'll appreciate this. At halftime on MNF last night they did an in memoriam for Dandy Don. They closed with him crooning "Turn out the lights, the party's over..." at the end of some MNF game years ago. It was pretty touching. In a later interview, Frank Gifford (for years he was Dandy Don's buddy in the booth calling MNF games) got a little choked up, so he ended simply by saying "I'm gonna miss him."
ReplyDeleteHe was also on "in memoriam" on ABC's This Week, singing that song.
ReplyDelete