General Manager Says All Is Calm in the Eye of New York Hurricane

It’s called the House of Mara, and it’s a house divided, and in New York they’re wondering if a Super Bowl win would resolve the differences between the feuding owners of the New York Giants.

Said Sidney Zion of the New York Times: “Insiders say even a victory in Pasadena wouldn’t bring Wellington Mara and his nephew Tim to a double Super Bowl ring ceremony. An odd piece of objective evidence seems to support this prognosis. Wellington Mara had a Venetian blind installed between his luxury suite at Giants Stadium and Tim’s. Tim then covered his side of the area with a wood panel. But the Venetian blind stays.”

General Manager George Young, asked how he operates in such an atmosphere, said: “I taught history and political science in a public school in Baltimore. And I coached a football team in a Catholic school in Baltimore--against the public school I was teaching in. So why should I worry about being in the middle?

“Anyway, both of the Maras are my friends. I have no problem here. Hell, I worked for Joe Robbie in Miami and Carroll Rosenbloom in Baltimore. Next to them, these guys are choirboys.”

Add Giants: They’ll be going for their third win of the season over the Washington Redskins today, but history gives them only a 50-50 chance of succeeding. Twelve times in NFL and AFL playoff history, teams have gone for a sweep, winning six and losing six.

One team that failed was the New York Giants in 1943--and it was against the Washington Redskins. After beating the Redskins, 14-10 and 31-7 in the regular season, they lost in an Eastern Division playoff as Sammy Baugh led Washington to a 28-0 victory.

Most recently, the Raiders broke up a sweep when they beat Seattle, 30-14, in the 1983 playoffs after two regular-season losses to the Seahawks. The Raiders then beat Washington, 38-9, in the Super Bowl.

Trivia Time: What are the real first names of Mickey Cochrane, Mickey Vernon and Mickey Mantle? (Answer below.)

Wait a Minute: After Boston College Coach Jack Bicknell turned down the Arizona job, Wildcat assistant athletic director Bob Bockrath told the Associated Press: “He was impressed with the school and the city but felt too out of place and too far from his Massachusetts roots.”

Is this the same guy they call Cowboy Jack Bicknell?

Wrote William Gildea of the Washington Post in a feature on Bicknell last year: “He wears jeans and cowboy boots, plays guitar, drives a truck and owns a horse called Face. He comes from just west of Manhattan, all right. But not Manhattan, Kan., Manhattan as in New York. He’s of all things, a north Jersey, city-streets cowboy.”

Former heavyweight contender Randall (Tex) Cobb, back from Yugoslavia where he worked in a film with Telly Savalas, said: “He’s class act, about 10 steps ahead of other professional actors.”

Cobb had only one complaint about his stay in Zagreb.

“I got billed for $4,000 in telephone calls.” he said. “There were numbers I never called, and some numbers I called that I got billed for six times. We complained. Then they said they realized there was a mistake. They gave me back 32 cents.”

Trivia Answer: Gordon Cochrane, James Vernon, Mickey Mantle.

Quotebook

Phil McConkey of the New York Giants, a five-year Navy veteran, on the pressure of today’s game: “If you think this is tough, try landing a helicopter on a destroyer in a stormy sea. That is pressure.”