Johnny Unitas - An Unlikely Hero

By then, Unitas's reputation as "the Golden Arm" was sealed, and along the way he gained other epithets, including "Mr. Quarterback" and "Johnny U." Still, he seemed an unlikely hero. Teammate Alex Hawkins, who many years later recalled his first encounter with the new quarterback, described him thus in Sports Ilustrated: "Here was a total mystery. [Unitas] was from Pennsylvania, but he looked so much like a Mississippi farmhand that I looked around for a mule. He had stooped shoulders, a chicken breast, thin bowed legs, and long dangling arms with crooked, mangled fingers." And though today the name Johnny Unitas could not sound more perfect for a star quarterback, at the time it seemed embarrassingly ethnic in a sport that had theretofore been dominated by western Europeans.

True to his hardworking immigrant heritage, Unitas developed a reputation for his ability to withstand pain, as exemplified by the injured quarterback's performance in the 1958 championship game. Speaking to Sports Illustrated, Merlin Olsen later said of Unitas, against whom he played for the Los Angeles Rams, "I often heard that sometimes he'd hold the ball one count longer than he had to just so he could take the hit and laugh in your face." When Unitas retired, he wore the crooked index finger on his passing hand as a badge of honor.