Ernie Accorsi

Hear it here!

 

Tough weekend.

I lost my friend who I knew for 56 years.
Football aficionados will remember Ernie Accorsi as an iconic General Manager who drafted quarterback Eli Manning and built the rosters of two New York Giants Super Bowl champions.
I’ll remember him as a friend who was the brother I never had.

It started in 1970 when I was told to seek out the Public Relations Director of the Baltimore Colts. Ernie was that man. I wanted to take my father to the Super Bowl between the Colts and the Dallas Cowboys at the Orange Bowl in Miami, and I needed to buy a couple of tickets. Accorsi delivered.

A couple of years later, doing sports on the newscasts in Boston I made the decision to devote my future to play-by-play. There was an opening for the six Colts pre-season games and to my astonishment, Ernie, who was to pick the announcer, said he wouldn’t hire me under any circumstances.

He had seen some of my broadcasts which included critical commentaries. He rejected me because the Colts were rebuilding and the last thing he needed was a pre-season broadcaster who was critical of a team they were intent on promoting.

Ultimately, I called him to try to convince him I was no longer happy being negative, and that I was eager to go in another direction. He relented and when I began my tenure with the Colts we became fast friends.

We had a million similarities. We both relished the history of sports, possessed sharp memories, and had identical experiences growing up rooting for our teams. He could recall games played decades ago, quotes from coaches, game situations, and precise final scores.

When we both worked in New York, we would regularly have dinner at our favorite restaurants and enjoy a cocktail and good steaks. His goal was to be a General Manager of a team, and he did just that in Baltimore, Cleveland, and New York. Sliding from a public relations post to building teams was not unusual. Pete Rozelle, the greatest Commissioner the NFL ever had was the PR director for the LA Rams before running the league.

Ernie was a true man of principle.

In 1983 Future Hall of Famer John Elway refused to play for the Colts. Owner Bob Irsay ordered Ernie, now the Colts GM, not to draft Elway. Ernie drafted him anyway against Irsay’s wishes.  Elway was then traded to Denver. There was no way the record would show that Ernie passing on drafting such a great prospect. Ernie would not survive this. And he didn’t care.

His next GM role was with the Browns, where he was the first to hire Bill Belichick as a head coach.

In 1994 he was interviewing for jobs for his next role, and I was in Norway broadcasting speedskating at the Winter Olympics.  It was my last assignment for CBS.  I was not yet assured I would land with Fox Sports, the newest network on the scene, for NFL play-by-play.

We talked by phone country-to-country nearly every day.

Soon after I signed with Fox, and Ernie became assistant general manager for the Giants, then general manager four years later.

In an ironic twist, Accorsi got the franchise quarterback he desperately needed in 2004, after Eli Manning refused to go to the Chargers who had the #1 pick in the draft. The Giants were to choose #4, and this time, unlike the John Elway experience back in 1983, Ernie made the trade for Manning after some complicated maneuvering with the Chargers. That was Accorsi’s finest moment.

That was the move that extended the Giants string of successes that resulted in the two Super Bowls.

How proud I was when my best friend was inducted into the New York Giants Ring of Honor in 2016 at Giants Stadium when he was saluted along with Tom Coughlin, the head coach he hired, and a star defensive player he drafted, Justin Tuck.

Among the best moments we had was a golf trip to Ireland where I admired the great skills of my friend who earlier in his life received an Arnold Palmer golf scholarship at Wake Forest. He never played on the varsity but was a superb player and won many local tournaments.

The trip was a singular thing, but our hundreds of phone conversations and get togethers provided me memories of a lifetime.

Were they usually about sports?

Hardly.

They were about cocktails and food.

For example…

“Definitely staying home. Haven’t made a final decision on the menu yet. Spaghetti or gnocchi and meatball the leader in the clubhouse. chicken cutlets a few strokes behind. How about your plans?”

“Tomorrow is a Holy Day (has nothing to do with New Year’s Day) so I’II go to Mass tonight. In NY l always went to Lusardi’s for an early dinner at the Bar after Mass but here I’II come home and have a spaghetti and meatballs dinner that Michael made for me (he has mastered my mother’s spaghetti sauce. He learned it from her) Are you in Arizona?”

On his love for Lebanon Baloney…
“She’s from the Seltzer Lebanon Baloney family? I have a packet of it in my refrigerator at all times and I will not buy anything but the Seltzer brand. I go to the factory in Palmyra to buy it”

On our many dinners in New York…
“The best. They were a celebration. They should’ve been videotaped when we were bartering over steak sizes and who got the largest portions. They were ‘Seinfeld’ episodes!”

We would also talk about how much we relished our early days of intensely following sports.

We never ever said we wished nothing had changed. We simply appreciated the 50’s (he was a year older) and recognized the way things were now.

He grew up in Hershey, PA, I grew up in Queens, NY. He followed the Philadelphia A’s, I was riveted in the happenings of the New York Giants.

We simply had a feel for the sports world.

The last few years Jamie and I would have dinner with Ernie in Hershey on our way to the River for the summer, and then on our return home.

We couldn’t do it on our way up this year. But, planned to see him heading south in about two weeks.

We learned last week that it wouldn’t happen.

My great friend is gone at 84. He had a sensational life.

To say I will miss him would be the greatest understatement I can make.