Remembering John Mackey
What a terrific public sendoff for Baltimore Colts Hall of Famer John Mackey. The public memorial service that was held at the Cathredral of Mary Our Queen on North Calvert Street featured eulogies and readings by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith, Hall of Famer Floyd Little, teammate-turned-minister Joe Ehrmann as well as Mackey's wife (Sylvia) and son (Kevin).
It was pretty cool to hear Goodell (who we all agree is a huge upgrade over former commish Paul Tagliabue) applaud Mackey for his pioneering work as the first president of the NFL players union.
Here's a VIP partial guest list, though I'm sure I'm leaving a lot of people out: Art Donovan, Lenny Moore, Bill Curry, former union director Ed Garvey, Bruce Laird, Tom Matte, Toni Linhart, Sam Havrilak, Marty Domres, Maxie Baughan, Brig Owens and Don McCauley, among others. The Ravens were represented by owner Steve Bisciotti, president Dick Cass and another of the greatest tight ends to ever play the game – general manager Ozzie Newsome. Former NBA star and current Detroit mayor Dave Bing, who met Mackey when bother were at Syracuse, also was among the special guests in attendance.
If you hang around the Web site long enough, you'll be able to read my column on the memorial service, which will be posted soon. If not, drag yourself out of bed in the morning and read it in the Sunday print edition. Don't make me come over to your house and read it to you personally.
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Comments
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen is on North Charles St., not Calvert.
No need to come read it to me personally, that would be too scary. I still subscribe to the dead tree edition just so you won't have to do that... ;-)
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Pete's reply: My bad. I don't know how I made that mistake since I've been there many times and get off the beltway on Charles.
Posted by: PaulTowson | August 13, 2011 8:02 PM
Appreciate your covering the touching memorial service celebrating the life of our teammate and friend John Mackey. It's too bad, though, that the Sun relegated the story to just a few paragraphs. As noted, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said no one had a greater impact on the game than Mackey. With all due respect to the Orioles' fan who snagged a couple of baseballs at Oriole Park, surely John Mackey deserved more ink, given his impact on the NFL, the NFLPA, the Baltimore Colts, active players and a host of others on and off the field. It's unfortunate that the Sun felt his passing was old news while at the same time using "old" Colts' photos in ads selling the Sun's "archival" photos.
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Pete's reply: The Sun did a big package on Mackey's passing in early July and has written about him on countless occasions throughout his career and illness. I'm sorry my column was not considered enough of a tribute to him. I tried to capture the essense of the event and we had a photographer there and published many photos of the attendees and family members.
Posted by: Baltimore Colts Alumni | August 14, 2011 8:21 AM
Pete,
Interesting statement that Joe Erhmann was a teammate of John's, especially since Joe was drafted in 73 and John's last year with the Colt's was 71.
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Pete's reply: Bad choice of words on my part. I should have just said former Colt, but they all consider each other teammates.
Posted by: MWilson | August 15, 2011 6:57 AM