THE YEAR OF THE OLD SPORT : For Falcon Center Jeff Van Note, 18 Years Is Enough : In the Sport of Pro Football, Where Bodies Suffer Badly, He Was Truly a Rare Survivor

Gray has recently overtaken black as the dominant color of Jeff Van Note’s hair. The scar-to-wrinkle ratio on his face also is starting to even out, and Van Note often found that it took his 40-year-old body until Friday to recover from a game played the previous Sunday.

But Van Note, the National Football League’s oldest active player, didn’t need to look in a mirror to know that retirement might be a good idea. All the Atlanta Falcon center had to do this season was look to the practice field, where a strapping 25-year-old named Wayne Radloff was chopping down defensive tackles with energy and vitality.

What Van Note saw was an image of himself, give or take 15 years. And so, after the Falcons’ last game, he retired.

“I doubt if anyone will want me at 41,” he said. “You’d have to examine the intelligence of the coaching staff if they did.”

For 18 seasons, Van Note has felt wanted by the Falcons. Until being replaced by Radloff as starting center this season, he started 225 of the Falcons’ last 230 games. He was voted into six Pro Bowls. Van Note will leave the game ranking sixth in the NFL for career games played with 246. Among offensive lineman, Van Note is the all-time leader.

Only Jim Marshall, who played 270 of his 282 NFL games with the Minnesota Vikings, has appeared in more games with the same team. George Blanda, the overall leader with 340, split up his 27-year career among four teams. After Blanda and Marshall, the all-time list has quarterback Earl Morrall in third place at 265 and kicker Jan Stenerud fourth at 263.

NFL linemen usually are heralded for longevity if they make it into their 30s without having their bones creak when they walk. Considering that the average NFL career lasts just four seasons, Van Note has amazingly endured what amounts to four full careers. More impressive, he still walks without a limp and has most of his own teeth.

To put Van Note’s longevity in perspective, he outlasted the American Football League, the World Football League and the United States Football League, not to mention 38 other offensive linemen the Falcons have drafted since 1969.

Several times over the years, the Falcons have put another player in a position to beat out Van Note. In 1972, the club signed a free agent named Ted Fritsch, who failed to dislodge Van Note and is now a Falcon assistant coach. In 1974, Atlanta drafted center Paul Ryczek, who is now Van Note’s stockbroker. In 1981, they brought in highly regarded center John Scully from Notre Dame, but Van Note pushed him over to guard.

Radloff, a USFL refugee, tried to nudge out Van Note last season as a rookie, but was temporarily rebuffed.

“When I’m finished playing, I can look back and be proud that I played a long time,” Van Note said, during a midseason interview. “I played in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, and I saw all the changes and all the great players. That will probably only mean something to me, not anyone else.”

Van Note said his secret for longevity was that he stayed injury-free and made a practice of staying in shape year-round, which wasn’t standard procedure in the old days. The only serious injury Van Note suffered was to his knee 10 years ago. He missed four games.

“Injuries are something you have no control over,” Van Note said. “But I’ve always liked to train. The only way to do it is year-round. You can’t end the season, then not train for three months and then get back into shape before training camp.

“The only way to do it is to take two weeks off, then start up again. But when you get old like me, you train differently. Even when I quit, I’ll always train. But then it will be to train down (lose weight), not bulk up.”

No matter how much Van Note trains, he cannot halt the aging process. Nor can he prevent the wear and tear to which all linemen are subjected.

Traditionally, centers have one of the longest life spans of any position in professional football. But that is changing now because the game has changed. The popularity of the three-man defensive line means that the center now has to deal with a nose tackle directly opposite him, rather than merely being pitted against a linebacker.

Another change is that linemen aren’t as plodding as before.

“It’s muscle and speed now, as opposed to just quickness,” Van Note said. “Athletes are much stronger now, and it’s more competitive because salaries are larger. The hitting really takes its toll on me. Shoulders. Elbows. Wrists. Fingers. You feel it everywhere. As the season goes on, you really feel run down. When I was younger, recovery was so much quicker. But I keep working. This is the best thing I’ve ever done. I make a good living at it.”

Van Note also has acquired a lot of memories.

An 11th-round draft choice in 1969 out of Kentucky, Van Note wasn’t given much of a chance to make the Falcons that season. They had, after all, brought eight centers to camp. Van Note, in fact, didn’t give himself much of a chance after his first practice, when Falcon linebacker Tommy Nobis decked him.

After Van Note’s first NFL game in 1969, then-Falcon Coach Norm Van Brocklin decided to keep him on the roster, but send him to a semi-pro team in Huntsville, Ala. There, Van Note received $3,000, a lot of experience and a uniform that he says looked like a Halloween costume.

“There were about 30 teams in this league,” he said. “We used to take bus trips to Little Rock and Omaha. We would take parachute planes, where you’d bring all your equipment on board and sit by the plane doors. They would throw all the jocks and socks on the floor, so if you didn’t get there early you didn’t get a jock . . . (But) I learned a lot there.”

He was back in Atlanta the next season and hasn’t missed much playing time since then.

Said ex-Falcon Coach Dan Henning: “To play the position that he plays and do it for 17 years, it’s phenomenal. There’s only been one or two linemen of any kind that have played anywhere near that long. And he’s in there every down. It’s not like a defensive lineman that moves in or out depending on the play.”

Van Note says he has never lost the desire to play every down. But there have been moments in which it has wavered.

The Falcons have mostly been a losing team during the Van Note era. Management and ownership have come and gone. He has played for five head coaches and at least nine quarterbacks in that span.

“There have been a lot of disappointments over the years, games and titles we felt we could have won--and didn’t,” Van Note said. “But none of that ever dulled my love for the game. I’ve talked to some guys who think they left the game too soon. But I’ve gotten about every ounce out of this body that I could. It’s breaking down. I haven’t been playing very well for awhile.”

There is one change that Van Note will find especially difficult to handle. That, of course, will be his change of careers. Van Note, whose salary has gone from the $3,000 to $300,000 this season, has invested well. And he may be one of the few active NFL players who has already started collecting deferred money from earlier in his career.

“I think Jeff has finally had enough,” Pete Van Note, Jeff’s father, said. “He’s served his time.”

Van Note, though, says he needs something to challenge him and occupy his time now that he has retired.

“I’m really not sure what I’m going to do,” he said. “I like being productive. But I don’t really know what I’m going to do. I guess I’m not a good example of career planning. I’ve always liked doing what I am now.”

If only his body could agree.