Franco Harris, a Steelers Hall of Fame dies at 72
“That play really represents our teams of the ’70s,” Harris said after the play was voted the greatest in NFL history during the league’s 100th anniversary season in 2020.
Franco Harris, the Hall of Fame running back whose foresight inspired The Immaculate Reception, widely regarded as the most iconic play in NFL history, has died. He was 72.
Dok Harris, Harris’ son, told The Associated Press that his father died overnight. There was no mention of a cause of death.
His passing comes two days before the 50th anniversary of the play that catapulted the Steelers from obscurity to the NFL’s elite, and three days before Pittsburgh is set to retire his No. 32 at a halftime ceremony against the Las Vegas Raiders.
“We have lost an incredible football player, an incredible ambassador to the Hall and most importantly, we have lost one of the finest gentlemen anyone will ever meet,” Pro Football Hall of Fame president Jim Porter said in a statement. “Franco not only impacted the game of football, but he also affected the lives of many, many people in profoundly positive ways.”
Harris rushed for 12,120 yards and four Super Bowl championships with the Pittsburgh Steelers during the 1970s, a dynasty that began when Harris elected to keep going during a last-second heave by Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw in a playoff game against Oakland in 1972.
With Pittsburgh behind 7-6 and facing fourth-and-10 from their own 40-yard line with 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Bradshaw drew back and hit running back Frenchy Fuqua for a touchdown. Fuqua collided with Oakland defensive back Jack Tatum, sending the ball careening back toward midfield and toward Harris.
While practically everyone else on the field came to a halt, Harris kept his legs moving, snagging the ball just inches above the Three Rivers Stadium turf near the Oakland 45 then outracing several stunned Raider defenders to give the Steelers their first playoff victory in the franchise’s four-decade history.
“That play really represents our teams of the ’70s,” Harris said after the ”Immaculate Reception” was voted the greatest play in NFL history during the league’s 100th anniversary season in 2020.
While the Steelers fell the next week to Miami in the AFC Championship, Pittsburgh was on its way to becoming the dominant team of the 1970s, twice winning back-to-back Super Bowls, first after the 1974 and 1975 seasons and again after the 1978 and 1979 seasons.
And it all began with a play that shifted the fortunes of a franchise and, in some ways, a region.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been 50 years, that’s a long time,” Harris said in September when the team announced it would retire his number. “And to have it so alive, you know, is still thrilling and exciting. It really says a lot. It means a lot.”
Harris, a 6-foot-2, 230-pound Penn State workhorse, found himself in the middle of it all. He rushed for 158 yards and a score in Pittsburgh’s 16-6 victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IX, earning him the game’s Most Valuable Player title. He scored at least once in three of his four Super Bowl appearances, and his 354 career yards rushing on the NFL’s grandest stage still stands as a record nearly four decades later.
“One of the kindest, gentlest men I have ever known,” Hall of Famer Tony Dungy, a teammate of Harris’ in Pittsburgh in the late 1970s, posted on Twitter. “He was a great person & great teammate. Hall of Fame player but so much more than that. A tremendous role model for me!”
Harris, who was born on March 7, 1950, in Fort Dix, New Jersey, attended Penn State, where his major role was to make holes for backfield mate Lydell Mitchell. The Steelers are in the last phases of a reconstruction overseen by Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll, who saw enough in Harris to make him the 13th overall pick in the 1972 draft.
“When (Noll) drafted Franco Harris, he gave the offense heart, he gave it discipline, he gave it desire, he gave it the ability to win a championship in Pittsburgh,” Steelers Hall of Fame wide receiver Lynn Swann said of his frequent roommate on team road trips.
Following his retirement, Harris stayed in Pittsburgh, opening a bakery and being extensively involved in various organizations, including acting as chairman of “Pittsburgh Promise,” which grants college scholarships to Pittsburgh Public School kids.
On Tuesday, before Harris died, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin reflected on Harris’ legacy, calling it “an honour to be in proximity to it, to know the man involved.”