It's time for another episode of TATS from the Past podcast.
Matt Smith pleased to be joined by one of.
The all time great Patriots, former tight end, Rus Francis, all the way up from Connecticut. Thank you for coming up here and really appreciate your time.
Great to see you.
It's great to see you, Matt.
Thank you for having me so for the new a fight Patriot fans who might only think of tight ends and Rob Gronkowski. I don't know how accurate this is, but Russ Francis was Rob Gronkowski before Gronk averaging you know, sometimes seventeen yards a catch famously known or coined the phrase by all world announcer Howard Cosel, Russ was the
all worlds tight end. If you're watching Monday Night Football and listen to the halftime highlights, that's how Cosel called Russ Francis on two of the great pre craft Patriot teams of all time, nineteen seventy six and nineteen seventy eight.
Unfortunately they never got a cheat to win it all. Rush.
Before we start talking about your football career and everything, I know you're living in Connecticut. Why don't you tell what Patriot fans know what's you're up to these days.
Well, first of all, you mentioned Brook Gronkowski. Rob what a monster he is. I mean, there's a guy that can do everything. So I just wanted another Patriot tight end, which I'm very, very proud to tell people about. From time to time, I'm in Hawaii. Part of the time, I'm in Oregon. Family got a place in Cody, Wyoming, and as you mentioned, in Connecticut. So I'm still traveling. I still love to do that, visit family, visit friends,
and I run into fans all over the place. Not just Patriots fans or forty nine er fans because of the time I spent there, but NFL fans, sports fans, Red Sox fans, which is one of my favorite things to do, go to Fenway. So it's a pleasure. I mean to be here at Jillette Stadium. I feel like I just walked in on my first day after being drafted.
Do you think rush when you look back at you know, your kind of unassuming origin into the game of football. Did you become a football player by accident?
Almost?
You know, it wasn't like you grew up as a kid and we're looking at you know, old black and white tape or anything. And you know, one day I'm going to be a football player. It just sort of happened. Why don't you, you know, help educate fans as to how the origins of Russ Francis football player came to be.
Well, my mother was a nurse number one. She had five boys and a girl, and the boys were not going to play youth football or any of that stuff. She was way ahead of her time with brain injury and that type of thing, orthopedic injuries. So it wasn't until high school when she said, when your bones stopped growing or they're close to stop growing. And my oldest brother, Bill, who's almost three years older, he loved football, so he
kind of dragged me into it. I really didn't want to play, you know, I'd rather be at the beach surfing, I mean, just or sailing or something anything but football.
Because you're growing up in I should we should remind people what state are you from?
From the Hawaiian Islands? Yes, so I came from a real different background and come to New England where they're very very very serious about their sports, and they were very very serious about their patriots. And I didn't know anything. My teammates wanted nothing to do with me because I only played one year my junior year in football, didn't play my senior year, and all of a sudden, I'm here on the practice field. Luckily my teammate that Ray
Perkins put me in with a training camp. And then on the road is Darryl Stingley, God rest his soul, and Daryl taught me how to read coverages, run routes, and Perk made sure that he did. We did it before practice, we did it after practice. So I was very,
very fortunate. I think the number one thing when you ask of how do you develop becoming a football player, starting as a rookie with Steve Grogan also starting as a rookie, you have to have people all around you like my coach, Ray Perkins and Red Miller on the line, Ray's receivers and Raymond Barry's receivers, Chuck Fairbanks, Ron Earhart offensive coordinator. Such a great group of guys you can't
help but learn. I'm a self taught incompetent, so I looked to the highest level I can find if somebody knows something, and then I started drilling them, how do you do this? How do you do that?
So University of Oregon recruited you in Hawaii to throw the javelin, is that correct?
Well, actually, the University of Oregon canceled their baseball program due to Title nine. So I was going to go play baseball at the University of Oregon. Middle of my senior year in Hawaii, my parents tell me my brother's going away to college with his girlfriend. I've got to go back to the ranch in Oregon. So I'm going to finish high school there my second year. Javelins are illegal in Hawaii, as they are in many states spears, so I'd never seen one guy goes walking by after
the basketball season. I'd just gotten there. I threw it. It shattered in the parking lot because I thought I could reach the grass a little over confident, and the said, listen, you can either pay me one hundred and fifty two dollars or join the track team. Since the baseball team was not my guys, I said, okay, fine. So because of this coach, who's one of the top track and field coaches in the United States, at a small school, Pleasant Hill in Oregon of four hundred and eighty kids,
I set the national record three times. He was a job and thrower himself. So we started by just hitting paper. I said, can I throw it down the field? Note? Just through the point, through the point, through the point. Having people like that in your life, all across the board of your life is how anybody succeeds. You don't do it. A small part of it really is you pep oh. You're a good athlete, You're this, you're that, You're big, you're strong, and you're faster. None of that
counts if you don't start putting all the information. If they're not willing to give it to you, it's game over.
Who was your roommate at the University of Oregon that was also on the track team.
When I first got to the University of Oregon The coach Bill Barman, who ended up becoming the nineteen seventy two this is nineteen seventy one, nineteen seventy two Olympic track and field coach for the United States in Munich, Germany. Many people remember the sort of disaster that that was.
The guy that he put me in as a roommate on the road, came up to me the first day of practice, ran around the little guy running around the track, running around the track, running around the going up downstairs, and I'm trying to learn how to throw the javelin some more. He comes over. He goes, here, let me show you how to throw that. He's about five eight five seven, about one hundred and twenty pounds left handed, and he grabbed it. He threw it, kind of threw
it sideways. He goes, oh, I used to throw it better in high school. He says, you got to get that left foot down better. And I said, who are you? He goes, My name's pre I said, didn't your mother like you? That old story? And he says Steve Prefontaine, like I was supposed to know. Well, he was well known around the world at that point. I said, nice to meet you, pre So let me finish throwing the javelin. So I didn't know it, but he had gone to
the coach. The coach had talked said this guy needs a seasoned member of the team as his roommate to help him out because he's he's got issues me. And he was right. I was lost. I mean, I I did you know I'm twenty miles twenty five miles from the ranch and didn't know anybody in town and pre introduced me to everybody. He became a dear, dear friend.
So you played one year of collegiate football at the University of Oregon. Great, you know, good conference, top talent, and you were drafted sixteenth overall in the first round by the New England Patriots. Was that Steinberg who was a GM back then? Yes, and tell the story like, well, he was not a personnellity right when you were found when you found out you were drafted, did you think they had reinstituted the Armed Services draft?
Like you didn't even know what the NFL draft was.
Right, My brother comes down from the ranch house. I'm in the snow feeding cattle. We had a bunch of cattle. We worked two other ranches, so you had a busy day feeding cattle every day, hauling hay in the summer. And this is January when the NFL used to hold the draft. Then he comes zimbling down and he's the responsible when became a policeman. My oldest brother Bill, and he says, hey, you've been drafted. You got to get up to the phone. They're waiting for you. I said,
they can't do that again. They get they had the lottery back. Then he goes, no, you idiot, it's the NFL. I go tell him, I'm I'm playing. I've been drafted in the fall. This is January by the Kansas City Royals to pitch way down. I think it was ninth round or something like that, maybe even farther down. But I wanted to play baseball so bad, so I said, no, just tell him I'm I'm not going to play. He goes, you tell him? So I said, well, tell him. It's
going to be two hours before I'm through feeding. I got to go back to the bar and get Hay and all that stuff go there, and then phone's hanging swinging. I said, Bill, what's going on with the phone? He said, they're still waiting, and I don't think the coach, his name is Chuck Fairbanks, is very happy. Oh, I'm just come over from Hawaii. She just walked by to see
what's happening with her boys just keep on going. She wasn't sure what was going on that it was a football team, because she would have said, let me talk to him. But I get there and it was Ernie Adams, who's been a fixed year here with the Newland Patriots since then. He and Nancy Meyer, two of my best friends and buddies, were all rookies together, and he said, yeah, Coach Fairbanks is pretty hot. He said, you might want to start out kind of slow, or you just tell
him pleasure meeting you, Ernie. My mother's working on her boys. I said, please just tell him. We don't need to talk. I'm not gonna I'm gonna play baseball because you're gonna have tell him yourself. And he was kind of like this anyway, So Chuck came on and he says, you're on a plane tonight to Boston. I said, you know, I really can't do that, Coach. I've got a feed cattle. I've got class, summer classes and graduate early at the University of Oregon pre med. And my mother goes walking by.
He said, is your mother home? Put mom on the phone. She is, yes, Coach, yes, I understand them. Okay, fine, I'll tell him, but it's up to him. It's his decision. He'll call you back. Click. She said, listen, my recommendation is that you get to go first class tonight, get into Boston tomorrow morning, meet with the coach, let him have his say, then tell him whatever you want. To say that you're either going to play or you're not going to play, but do it in person.
That's really good advice, by the way.
And I said, and that's how mom was with the boys. I said, Mom, I got a feed cattle, I got classes and ever there. She goes, Bill, Billy, you're taking Russell's cattle. I don't know what he could do for your classes. Maybe he can sit in for you. But you need to go, I said, Mom, I just I don't have time. She goes. You know what's at Boston because she knew her son all of her Since I said no, she goes, and you'll get to see it. I said, no, what Fenway Park, the Green Monster. Oh,
that's right, the Red Sox. You think I'll really be able to see the Red Sox? Ernie drove me over to the Fenway Whenever when you picked me.
Up the next day, When you look back at that Russ and you think about it, like it sounds like a kid.
Who football wasn't a priority to you. You had other things going on in your life.
Here comes this surprise phone call that you have no idea really what it means or anything like that. How when you look back at that and how that was a defining moment in your life for taking a turn that you really didn't know what you're getting into.
By saying, you know what, I'm going to hop in the planet and go to Boston and see what happens.
Do you ever look back at that and reminisce about, like, you know how.
Important that moment was in your life?
Well, my mother, my grandmother, my father, grandfather, our whole family. It was all about making your own decisions. So she's gonna give you some advice, and she's going to give you some backup reasons or ideas or thoughts. Then you get to think about it mulled over, and then you make the decision. I came really close to just say no,
I'm just gonna stick with baseball, you know. Plus I'd been accepted by a couple of colleges to VET school here in the Northeast, So I came really really close to saying no, I'm not going to I'm going to go spring practice for baseball. And I never would have done much. I don't think in baseball as a pitcher, and I could throw really fast, especially after throwing the javelin. I had no idea where he's gone football and baseball too, is more of a team. They're going to deal with
the top players they have. They'll develop you as they can. Either you can or you can't. In football with Ray Perkins, it was every day working with me catching the ball. Raymond Barry saying, those threads that come to the point of the ball, what do you see with those threads? I said, I see threads, Coach, when he throw me the ball. He was very, very cerebral kind of coach, and he said, keep looking, throw me the tight spiral. So finally, one moment it hit me and these are
the people I get to work with. And I'd already played three years in the league, and I was doing pretty well, Pro Bowl and everything else. I drop a pass every now and then I went to almost zero drops when he saw said, look at the threads coming together at the point of the ball. It forms a black dot when you turn your head around. And Steve Grogan has just throwing that ball, or Joe Montana in this case, and it's already on its way and you have to pick it up. If you pick up that football,
you'll go right to your hands. You just can't get to it. If you pick up that dot, you can stop it. And I went son of a Gun coach Jam Fingers later, but finally, that's the kind of coaching. I had. Teammates like Daryl Stingley, you know, John Hannah, Leon Gray Shelby, Jordan I God rest his soul, Steve Nelson, the guy, Steve King, Steve's able, the three, Steve A. Darrow's I call him the linebackers for the Patriots. They were so good at detail stuff and getting better every
single day. Then you go with the kuy like Bill Walsh where they wrote the book they called me genius. Well that was for a reason. The West Coast offense and Joe Montana and all those guys that were on that team, Roger Craigan. It was an honor and a privilege. The chance to do broadcasting. We were talking earlier with al Michaels and how great he is. I got a chance to do college football games with al Michaels.
We'll get to that.
One of my heroes, right, And I just say that based on these are people that walked into my life. I had no idea they were coming. I'm a self taught incompetence, so I'm here to learn I learned that from my flat instructors, and I learned that from my parents.
So here you come as a first round draft pick, sixteenth overall the draft. You're coming to an area you don't know, you don't know any of your teammates or anything like that. I think you've said to me off camera that you know, there's a little bit of a bullseye on your back.
What was it?
Was it?
You know, not that it wasn't a welcoming environment or a nurturing environment. Certainly the coaches, it was important for them to see you develop and develop well. But as this hot shot first round pick with a bunch of veterans, was it a difficult transition to transition into pro football?
Oh? Absolutely. I mean Tommy Nevill who was the starting right tackle at the time before Shelby Jordan the next year or to Tommy's towards the end of his career, A really honorable guy, you know, from Alabama. I think Alabama Arkansas. I can never hogle get upset if I said Arkansas. So I started doing it on purpose. John Hannah from Alabama. John, he came up to me the first day of practice. He goes, listen, my name is Tommy Neville. I'm the right tackle. You would be playing
tight end next to me from time to time. I just want you to know I'm rooting for the veteran Bob Windsor. Don't come to me with any questions about how to run your plays, or how to block or anything else. You either figure it out or you're out of here. That was my welcome.
Now.
I've always admired Tommy Nevill because he told me exactly how it was. First day, straight shooter. He straight shooter, and you have to make the adjustment. I think, knowing Tommy later and talking to him after he retired, he said, I wanted to see what you were made at him. He said, so you kept coming back. He said that was all right. And Bob Windsor got hurt so before the season, and Bob Allens got hurt the second string guy.
So I'm starting as a rookie. The guys are going, oh my goodness, you know so and two games later, Jim Plunker goes down. So Steve Grogan comes in and said, what do we do? He goes, if I do this because I don't know the plays. When he calls him in the huddle, just run straight, just run down. Then that's where I got the yard is my first year, and they kept throwing to me, deep, was it lonely?
Rush a little bit.
It wasn't lonely from the standpoint of I've learned to be comfortable in my own skin, with my own company, kept myself busy, and then in the off season, I went home. I flew the airplane back to Oregon, hopped another commercial plane to Hawaii, and started a charter service, the state's first civilian or ambulance service in a helicopter service in Hawaii. No, I wasn't lonely.
I had my airplanes, so and those airplanes came into play. As an NFL player, you know back in the day when you started training camp in July and you had training camp for nine weeks, and it was real training camp, not like what the players are accustomed to today. Two days and you were telling me that there were sometimes were three days early on, but let's focus on the two days practice. In the morning, you'd hop in the plane and go to the vineyard for lunch.
Yeah, yeah, I did. I went to the vineyard for lunch because it was a college environment Brian College. The food wasn't that great. And my mother and grandmother were great cooks, so I was told that there were great restaurants on the islands. I grew up on an island, so I gravitated towards the island. So I kept my little airplanes that I bought with my bone at signing bones the beach grafts Sierra, and flew to the vineyard, flew to Nantucket, and with every one in a while
player would say, hey, can I come with you? Well, we're supposed to be eating lunch with the team, socializing, but I didn't get along with that. I didn't get along. I didn't know anybody. And then you're supposed to go take a nap and rest up and get ready for
the three o'clock practice. Well, I'll go to the vineyard, just have a nibble of this or some really good or some lobster or whatever, go walk on the beach and then fly back, fly back to and get no nap, don't need a nap, and go in to get dressed and go to practice.
That would be unusual today, had to have been unusual yesterday. Did you get the sense that you were maybe developing this? You know, I don't know you're a nonconformist. You know, I'm going to follow you rules. I'm not going to break any rules or anything. But you know what, there's certain things that I want to do, you know, and as long as I'm not hurting anybody or breaking any team rules.
Or anything like that, I'm going to do it. Did you get a quizzical look?
And then maybe some other players saying, hey, that's pretty cool to your point?
Can I come with you for lunch?
There was their team, their game, their rules, and I followed them for the most part. They want me to tape ankles, I wouldn't do that. They want me to lift weights. I didn't do that. I was a little precocious because my mother had totter boys. I developed. If you tape an ankle too tight, you restrict a blood flow, range of motion. It becomes like a cast a new atrophy. You actually weaken the ankle. Go run on the sand, Go run knee deep in the water, which I did
in the off season. Lifting weights, muscle becomes greater than the ten and it takes the ten and right off the bone. They must supposed to tear first, So I said, guys, I just so I guess in that way, I was
kind of a handful. But I aside from that, my mother taught us to live our lives our own way, and make our own decisions and judge, listen to good ideas, and even criticism, constructive criticism, consider it because we are all self taught in competence, learn the right way to do something if you really have joy and passion like I did for flying. They called me in mister Sullivan, Billy Sullivan, Chuck Fairbanks, Peter had Hazy, the general manager
of my rookie year. When they found out I was flying. This is before taking the guys, this is when we're going to Amherst for summer camp. They found out I was flying down out of Norwood. They said, you have an airplane here that you flew back from Oregon and you're flying it on your days off on Tuesday up to LLBean and you can't do that. In the standard player contract it says if you get hurt, you know, if you can't play, your insurance isn't covered, and you don't,
you stop getting paid. I said, first of all, in airplanes, since there's a crush, there aren't any injuries. So but I understand what you're saying. So I apologize and I'll clean out my locker and they said what I said, Well, he just fired me. I thought they'd fired me because they were adamant Chuck Fairbanks was was this pretty steady guy. Loved him, you know, great coach miss him as well, along with the other guys. But I thought they just
fired me. So I learned a very important lesson. I said, I'll get my locker cleaned out and everything else. They thought I was, I'll just take the airplane and go, which wasn't what I meant. I hadn't. I had embarrassed them. I had done the wrong thing. I felt bad about it. I really did, so I was gonna pick up and go. They said, okay, wait a second, just don't talk to the press about it. Just don't do this and don't
do that. So pretty soon I learned, if you're playing hard enough and you're learning quick enough, there's just about anything that you want to do within reason. And I wasn't doing anything. I didn't go out drinking at night. I wasn't running around with girls. I wasn't, you know. My girlfriend from high school was my girlfriend. I was focused on being the best football player I possibly could rape her made sure that instead of Red Miller. So
I'm honored to say that I gave everything. I hadn't continued and any time I've ever done anything with the New England Patriots. That's why I came back to see Pete Brock when he retired as the alumni president. He's been so much to us guys over the years and the fans of running that whole organization. I couldn't let them have the big party without me to say so long to Pete, and he's going to, like the rest of us, We'll be back.
Can you imagine if there was a player of your magnitude today in this social media world that we live in that was flying a plane. I mean, they don't have two days, so that couldn't happen, but it would cause such a stir And if you can look back on it and say, wow, I was able to do that. Maybe to the point that you were saying about your parents, and your mom lived the life that you want to live. Be respectful, don't you know You're not going to commit
crimes or anything like that, but live your life. Maybe it was a simple a time back then where you were allowed to do that, and it's.
Just it's unimaginable.
It's something like that would ever be able to be allowed today.
You know, even back then, no social media, right, no Internet. Somebody saw me having lunch in Hawaii with Priscilla Presley. Now all of a sudden, it's on the Hollywood side of the pond, as they say, the Pacific Priscilla Presley is dating younger NFL player Res Francis. We had a mutual friend that was one of my charter customers who was at the table, woman named Marge Garamhausen. Never forget her.
She and Priscilla were good friends. But Priscilla was very sitting right next to me very soon, and she'd put her hand on my hand, and well, that's so funny, that's so nice. You're gonna teach her how to surf and all that type of stuff, because Marge asked me to. So. Even the quote unquote celebrities of the day, Bill Lee Spaceman, I just talked to him the other day. He was the guy that said to me at Daisy Buchanans, I said, how do you guys get away from people just arguing
with you? I said, I don't mind the fans coming up to you. I'll sit until the last autograph is signed. I still do it. I get a couple hundred requests a month. Every single one of them is signed and sent back. How do you how do you guys do it? He says rest He said, just live your life. He said, stop stop winding about it. This is Spaceman. He's just a great guy.
There's a guy who lived his life.
He's still seventy seven. He just told me the other day he struck out a forty five year old with two curves and fastball. It's unbelievable, said, it works every time.
He's believable, fast pitch right, seventy seven, unbelievable.
One of my heroes.
So, a dormant NFL franchise in the mid seventies, all of a sudden, Nick Knights, that's seventy sixteen, captures the region by storm. You beat the defending champions Steelers in Pittsburgh. You beat the bag out of the Raiders here in Foxborough. You should have beaten the Raiders in the playoff game.
We all know that.
You know at that point in time, what we're thinking about the NFL and the new England pay at that point.
In time, R was, well, first of all, every one of us has moments in our lives that will never forget, good, bad, indifferent or puzzled by it whatever. That first year, my rookie year, when I was really all by myself, and you know, guys tried, you know, Steve's able was tried to approach me. We had a little fight on the field and then he said, well this isn't right. And he was a senior guy, so you know he's helping
me calm down and everything else. But one of the things that you'll you never forget are you're being sort of outcast, and then people get to know who you are. Howard Cosell is calling you all world. You're doing ABC Superstar Competition and setting the record, by the way, which stood for years in the pool until Greg LUGAINUS and Olympian beat it. Craig messed up my whole thing. You
can't remember, You can't forget those things. But if you think about how damaging the first year was three and eleven, how hurtful that was. The fans were, I felt so bad. They're coming to the stadium and we lost again, and we lost again. We lost eleven times, they would still be out there getting an autograph at the end, but the line was smaller, and I just felt our job
is to win. So we got together and Coach Fairbah's got Mike Haynes and Tim Fox the next year and everything else, and Stanley Morgan came back early from Tennessee and Steve Grogan from Kansas, and we got there early before camp and we start, we're not gonna let this happen again. Well, it takes every single person, not just one guy standing up and putting his hands on his hips.
Let's go break the gates. Men. It was everybody working together, and we went eleven and three, the largest, quickest, biggest turnaround in NFL history, and went on to play the Raiders, and we should have won that game. It's the only game I played. And I would say this, I've been saying it for years that I'm absolutely possibly sure that somebody got to somebody, and I won't talk about payoffs or anything else. There were too many calls in that game,
not just the Ben Drive callers. There's three or four major calls where they would turn away and look when you looked at the official just kind of like like this, and Ben was one of those one of those plays with me holding the ball, hits me in the chest
and Villa Piano's got his arms around me. I got Villa Piano back when he came to the Pro Bowl, he and his wife, and they wanted to fly to Maui, and I had the charter service, and I took him up in the single engine airplane because I wanted us to be nice and cozy in the cockpit, because I had this already thought out and planned. Get mid the fa listen to stuff like that.
I don't know.
This is nineteen seventy six. I think it was seventy five, No seventy six, so seventy seven beginning of seventy seven, if they want to check the records. So we're going between Maui, Molokai and Lanai, from Oahu to Maui. He and his wife were taking there for nothing. They were there for the Pro Bowl. This is the guy that helped me and helped us lose that game. They go
on to win the Super Bowl. So I said, look at I tipped the wing just a little bit like this to look at Lennai, which is right down there. Moloke's there I'm always right there. I said, look at that, Phil, and he went to do it, and I grabbed the handle of the door and opened it up, and I kicked the opposite rudder to take the wind away from the door. The door flew open, and I undid a seatbelt, and he thought that he'd be able to go right out the door. Well, he came close, but I kicked it.
I was just started to kick the plane back when Patty, his wife, came over the top with nails and everything. You're trying to kill my husband. The planes going like this all over the place. I finally slammed the door. I said, I just playing, I'm just kidding, just having a good time. He didn't think that was funny. But we're still good friends. I think aren't.
Well, so I could see. And I don't proclaim to know you or John. And I'm just using him particularly as an example. But this free spirit, this I'm going to live my life. I've got a lot of talent and I want to get to something following that up. But a guy like John Hannah farm raised you also, you know raised you know, did a lot of work and everything like that. He's a no nonsense kind of
a guy one of those personalities on a team. Mesh, do you feel like you need to prove something to a John Hannah type who's not in an airplane dipping and bobbing and weaving and.
Doing things like that, or flying back or jumping out of planes.
Even from that matter, I always wanted to take him up and push him on an airplane.
How does that, sorry, John?
How does that sort of job where you can gain his respect, you gain his and you just we're different people, but we do have the same goal in mind because we want to win well.
First of all, John Hannah is the greatest offensive lineman ever played, bar none. Now I'm talking about practice, end games. I'm talking about longevity, being able to play as hard as he played every single down. I pay you the guys that are us from in practice because it's full speed every day. I'm doing half speed with the linebackers because you work on footwork. He didn't need work on footwork.
It was all natural to take that two hundred and eighty two and ninety pound body and swivel from a stance down by the ground and be to the outside before the fullback can get there. Sam Cunningham that's a real quick and miss the center, missed the quarterback, and miss everybody else the footwork that it takes. And then to take that linebacker and take him to the sideline or take him, knock him down, go on for the safety. John Hannah is a freaking nature and he said one time,
and we are very, very different. I love to live life, but when I step across the line, the sideline or the end line, I'm a different person. I'll go and run and hit the sled and do the stairs and all that stuff. And it may look like I'm having fun, which it is. But if I'm on there to practice and play, all that stuff went away. And John didn't know how deep and serious all of that was. He wears that on his face and his body and everything else.
You don't see it me, but line up across from me and try and beat me at the line of scrimmage or cover me in a play, and you'll find out. John made the mistake of saying to the Boston Globe, somebody probably willn't have gun. And somebody, you know, Russ Francis has more talent in his body one percent of his body than the rest of us. If he could learn how to use that talent, he'd be a great player. Well, John didn't know at the time, was I was dead
serious everything single time. I may be smiling, but I'm gonna put you on your back. And so that started to happen. So it took a couple of seasons, even after the seventy sixth seasons, for John Hannah to come up and kind of slap me on the back, says, Okay, you've made the team their team.
Do you feel validated at that point? Does that?
Uh, validation from a guy like John Hanness, who you obviously respect and was already a great pro and everything like that.
What does that mean to you when you get that?
Well, first of all, in our family, we were taught by our parents and our grandparents and everything else to understand what we can and can't do and work to get better. Just because somebody's better doesn't mean that at some point in time you're not going to be as good or better. So focus on yourself, don't worry about everybody else. So whether John thought I was a really good player or not never cross my mind. The fact that he was saying something in public, say it to
my face. That was what got my no. So I went straight to him face to face. I said, don't ever do that again, mister Hannah, you know, and I respected him, so for him to come up and pat you on the back later and everything else, I already knew that I passed that point. I didn't need anybody to I've never needed a slap on the back. I did appreciate being his teammate because being accepted as his teammate, now I can be part of this group. And I've
been on teams before. That really really did well because everybody understood their roles and their responsibilities and they carried them out and they didn't try to do your job for you. As Bill Walls said, find your highest and best use focus on that. When he told me he wanted to pull me out of retirement, and he said, you're not going to throw the ball like you do in New England, I had a forty five yard pass to Dwight Clark. However, with the forty nine ers, we
have a quarterback. His name is Joe. You're not going to run with the ball. We have a running back named Wende Tyler and Roger Craig. He said, you can block her in the running play and run pass patterns and catch the ball and hopefully score points for us. I was just a tight end on the team. I was Joe Montana. I wasn't Steve Grogan. I understood my role. I wasn't John Hannah. I couldn't do what John Hannah did,
and John Hannah couldn't do what I did. So that's where the coaches like Coach Fairbanks and Coach Walls, and the assistant coach is Ray Perkins, Raymond Barry all the guy Denny Green over in San Francisco, they put that chemistry and that talent together and then they develop it more because it's so much stronger as a team. And all of a sudden, we're looking at a season, a year where we only lost one game, and that was because they called back a kick by Ray Wershing and
he missed the second one. We had to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers and went on to beat Miami in the Super Bowl. Super Bowl nineteen. Yeah, John, I see John Hannah today, So we move fast forward all the way from those days to this day. I have the most respect for him because of the way he's lived his life exactly the way he wanted to his family is tight and he's still he's doing everything for his family he can do, and so is everybody in his family.
He comes up here because he loves the fans, he loves his teammates, he loves the time that he spent here. But he's not going to leave a crop that needs to be brought in or something. You have to schedule it for you. Absolutely, I have the utmost respect for John Hannah and all those guys that I played with.
As a twenty something year old kid. You mentioned ABC Superstars and there's probably people listening to this have no idea what that is. And ABC back in the day would gather the best athletes from respective sports Reggie Jackson in baseball, Lynn Swan and football, yourself in football, and you'd compete against each other and.
To Cathlian type items.
Right, here's a twenty something year old kid who's being called all world tight end by Howard Kosel, who's being invited to go on ABC's Superstars.
Is your mind blown a little bit by this?
Who's a guy who's not a football player, and you know it comes from a simpler life maybe in Oregon and a little bit hawide that all of this notoriety is coming in away.
Well, I didn't watch much TV growing up, certainly sports, certainly never football because that was never live until after I started playing. But Howard Cosell coined the all world phrase my rookie year when I caught it, like a forty yard pass in Miami on a Monday night game. Well, I've been catching I think I averaged over eighteen yards
as a rookie. And what he didn't know, and I told his wife when they asked me to speak of his services after he'd passed that the only reason I didn't tell Howard why I was catching such long passes is because I called him up when he started calling me all world, because my teammates started trying to beat me up in practice and roll me over, need me in the ribs and everything else. The guy's on the field playing against saying all world my ass.
Right, that can be. It's a blessing and curse and.
They're coming after me, right, So I said, mister Cossell, I'm really honored if you could, because I finally got him after like four phone calls. And this is before I started working for ABC. My rookie year. Here's a rookie calling Howard Cosell. I still didn't really understand the importance of all these people. I'd never heard of him before. So you asked me earlier about how to deal with that. I didn't know any better, So I just lived my life.
I said, mister Cosell, thank you for taking my call. I was such an honor for you to even mention my name on a Monday night game. I said, I have a big, big favor to ask of you, and he says number eighty one. He said, Oh world, He said, what can I do for you today? Oh god, I'm just stumbling and they'll go ahead anything eighty one. Come on, it's so good to hear. Thank you for calling. I'm sorry I missed your other calls. I've been busy with Frank and the gift and everything and this and that
and on and on. I said, mister Cossel, could you please stop calling me all world? They're killing me out there, my teammates and the other guys. Do you notice any silence right now? There was silence, and all of a sudden, that booming voice were eighty one. Listen up and listen close, get tough or get out click so missus Cosel at
his service. They asked me, Billy Crystal, myself and Frank the Ford right to speak at it because we had become baby sat their grandchildren, Justin and Jared, who I think we're in ESPN now at the pools when we played in Miami and everything else. Got to know him pretty well. Heather, their mother sweek out. Emmy was just a sweetheart, I can do do everything kind of wife and mother. I said, I got to tell you the story, I said, never got a chance to tell it the
story to Howard because I was afraid. And she goes, what I said, you know that all world things that he he kept calling. She goes, oh, he just thought you were a great player. She's given me the same thing. And I said, well, the truth of the matter is I didn't know how to read coverages or run past prays.
So here's the truth. I'm pouring it out. I didn't want to do this, especially it's at his services, I said, but I kind of felt like, well, Howard's here, we're all here together, right, So but I called him up and asked him to not call me all world, and he slammed me down and said get tough for get out. So I wasn't gonna tell him. It's because Steve just told me to go straight. I didn't know how to run. It wasn't because I was a great player. It's because
I had speed. Steve had an arm. We had Randy Vatah, Stanley Morgan. You know, a bunch of greatsus Steve Burke, great receiver from Arkansas, and this kid who didn't know anything about football. So I'm looking good because of all of them. And a great offensive line. So you know, once Shelby Jordan and all the other guys got together that nineteen seventy eight team you're talking about, we ran over people.
Held a rushing record until just a couple of years ago in Ravens that reconstruct for forty something years ago.
Something. We're very, very proud of it. And the one thing that the Craft family, by the way, on a couple of these alumni weekends when we come in for games, had made a real They've given us an opportunity to highlight some of the film when they show it to the fans. They're up in the club boxes and everything else. Sometimes on the screen of those teams with John Hannah coming around and Sam Cunningham. He was always fast enough
and good enough for passes and everything else. When you send him out there first two hundred and forty five pounds, he ran a four or five forty. He just blow through people. There goes John, there goes I'm looking for people to block. I don't have to write.
And you mentioned receivers and you were remiss to not ask you about Darryl Stingley, who you said you roomed with in your rookie year and when he got hurt. I mean I remember watching it as a kid. It was devastating to everybody in New England. He's paralyzed, paralyzed for life. And you took a stand Russ. That probably changed your life in a lot of different ways because ownership at the time it said that they were going to pick up all his medical bills.
Of course that's the right thing to do, and then they rescinded the offer. What did that? What did that mean and do to you in that situation?
Well, yeah, Darrow was my roommate on the road and in training camp for three seasons before he got hurt. My third year be his sixth year. He really took a lot of time. I didn't pick things up that fast. I hadn't played youth football. I hadn't played but a couple years of high school. Because my brother was a captain. I didn't play very well, didn't play much one year in college. I was so far behind the curve and Darrow was so patient. And I was a player representative
at that time. Darrow was the first guy to tell me as a rookie. He said, the team's just met and voted. I said, voted on what? And why didn't they let me know that there was a meeting. Well, Russ, you're not really their favorite guy, I said, but they did vote you to be the player representative, their union rep essentially the NFL Player Association represented. Wow, I'm like a little kid up in Hawaii. Right.
It was like a penance, probably right to give it to somebody that you know.
Oh fantastic, right, I said, Well, that's an honor, he says, Russ. The reason they voted you is that guy's normally fired by management. You said, you're kidding, and he goes, no, I'm not kidding. He was. He talked straight to me. Daryl's from Chicago. He was everything was straight and just a really really smart guy and how things worked and
everything else, and so I became the player rep. And when he got hurt, the league covers a career ending injury three and sixty five days, and the team's supposed to pick up and they probably can contribute some too, like all the other teams. After that year's up, the team then has to take over. On the three hundred and sixty sixth day, Jack Sans, Darryl's attorney in Boston called me up, told me they just canceled his medical coverage. They're not going to provide medical coverage. So I sued
the team and the league. So we found in favor of the lawsuit found in favor of Darryl. Middle of the nineteen eighty season. I finished the season and then I.
Retired because you were so upset about this.
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna stay in. I did stay in to see the lawsuit through and to push it and what do we need to do? What do we need to do? What do I know? I'm a football player, But I had great guys working with me. You know, Peter had Hazy us now with the league office and everything else, who knew Darryl well as also and the
Rooney family doing the best they can. So as soon as that season's are with, I want to a long motorcycle ride which we used to do in Misco Gill, Klahoma, jump out airplanes, ride down to Colleen, Texas, visit our friends down at Fort Hood, and then ship back to the or run back to the West Coast. By the time I got to the West Coast went back to why, I called mister Sullivan up. I said, I'm coming over in two days. I'd like to meet with you. And I met with mister Sullivan and I said, I'm sorry,
I'm not playing anymore, and I retired. I didn't say anything about it at the time because I didn't want any reflection on the team or really mister Sullivan.
So so you're retired. Was that an easy decision for you? And I think the thing that Patriot fans will find interesting. Before you know, somebody convinced you to come back and play. Who called you with a job opportunity when you retired?
Nobody called me. Well, there were some calls after I retired. I don't remember who they were, but I do remember.
Was there an opportunity in broadcasting for you?
It was towards the end, I was still doing ESPN and ABC wide World of Sports broadcasting from time to time, so I got to do the Pro Bowl. Well, the forty nine ers had just won their first Super Bowl the nineteen eighty one season, the one that I was out of, so the championship coaching staff gets to coach the AFC or NFC side. Bill Walshston his team was coaching the NFC All Pros in Hawaii at the Pro Bowl because a group of us got the player meetings
all that happen in Hawaii. Then we started bringing the owners meetings to Hawaii and ge whiz. Then the Pro Bowl showed up in Hawaii, and then we did a contract that five year with a five year option with the NFL Management Council and owners that I'm still very proud of that we did and held that for ten years. So I'm interviewing Bill Walsh as the Super Bowl coach
for ABC Sports. So after we're done, he says, you know that I went to college with your high school basketball coach and really my surrogate father's second father in middle school, high school my basketball coach, and then afterwards teaching us how to throw a net. And he was one of the few one hundred percent of Hawaiians left, and he just turned ninety last September and still walking the beaches, fishing and everything else. Merv Lopes is his name.
He and Bill Walsh were inseparable at santas A State. I didn't know that they were playing tennis. I knew they were playing tennis together. Bill would come over and play tennis with Merv, but I didn't realize until I started putting together. When I started playing with Bill, the coaching styles they're very, very similar, the way that they
work with players. So Bill's coming to me and he said, hey, listen, we're gonna have dinner tonight, coach and me and you at the beautiful Hilton Hawaiian Hotel, not the new Hilton Hawaiian, the Kohala, the big hotel by Diamond Head. And so I turned to my coaches were walking away. I said, what's that all about. He goes, he's going to offer you a job at the forty nine ers. He said, tell him to save his money. I'm not coming back.
I'm having a great time with ABC, skydiving in France, surfing in Morocco, you know, And he said, just listen rush. Just listen. So he did. He asked me to come back and play and I said no. He asked me again. I said no. He uped the price. I said, I'm not negotiating. Up the price again. I said I'm not. Still not negotiating. He said, this is my last offer. He says, more than any other tight end of the league.
I said, well, that's why I was getting paid before I left, more than any other tight end of the league, So that doesn't mean anything to me. ABC's paying me more more than that. And he said, just remember this one thing. It's the only chance in your life you can be able to work with a group of people that work to get better every single day, from Ronnie Lot to Joe Montana, Roger to all these great players. ABC. You have a great crew and everything else, but you're
just kind of by yourself. It's just you're doing this, you're doing that. You're the co host, you're the host. He said, this is the only chance you'll get. And like two or three months later, I called him back up. I said, all right, this is the number. These are the conditions. I don't want any roommates in training camp. But you know I don't want any roommates on the road. I'm here to play football. I don't, so I had all my conditions, he says, done this, say negotiation? So
I couldn't you know? We went there and I played eight more years, six with him and two more here. So I wanted to come back and finish with Raymond Barry, who I had the utmost respect for and is one another one of my heroes.
We'm going to follow up on San Francisco in a minute, but I want to go back to the broadcasting part because I think they, maybe as I remember it, or maybe it's misremembered, you're retired tension of playing football and didn't co sell.
How was your entree into ABC?
I know you were doing the Superstars, so they saw that you were glib and personable and things like that, but your opportunity to do college football games? Did Howard help broke her that with you to get you into the announcing moove? How did that start happen when you first retired from New England.
Cross, I come back from a season here and excuse me from my retirement, miss talking to I flew all the way over. I wanted to do it in person. Mother had taught us the boys to if you're going to do it, do it in person. So I'm flying back to San Francisco. From San Francisco to Hawaii, Boston, San Francisco NonStop. And then so my chief pilot picks me up. And he's a character. He's a former submarine sailor, so lack of oxygen for days and weeks at a
time has certainly affected his brain. And he said, heck of a pilot, skydiving buddy of mine motorcycle. He's one of the guys. Every year we went across country claw the kid boy skyguide. I won't give his real name, but that was his moniker that he put on himself. So he picks me up at the airport Honolulu and he says, hey, listen, you got to call Howard cosseell back. He just called for a little while ago. He said, no matter what time, day or night, is it six
hour difference. He wants a phone call as soon as you land. I don't have a cell phone, so I said, you have to wait till we get to the house, which is an hour away on the north shore. I had a house on the beach, and he goes, he's not going to be happy, I said, Claw. Howard Cosell did not call me. We're friends, yes, but he's getting ready to go into the football season and everything else.
There's nothing he wants to talk to me about. He said, Russ, he called you, and now it's a serious claw face. So I called him up as like Midnight number eighty one. It just it just always wring in my head. What a wonderful guy he was. It's what a fantastic talent he was, but what a genuine human being he was. He said, it's six o'clock your time. I said, I know. I'm on the North Shore. The ways are breaking. Can't
wait till tomorrow? He says. You need to get on a plane tonight, fly to San Francisco and take the all night and then pick up the seven o'clock in the morning and get here by ten o'clock or whatever. So get where, said New York City. The limit will pick you up. You've got a meeting tomorrow with who ran it? Ruin rune Arlidge running everything, and John Martin was running sports. That's what it was, he said, Rune Arledge and John Martin and myself. I said, come on,
quit kidding around he goes, no, I'm serious. They want you. I've asked them to consider you to work as Al Michaels Keith Jackson and do a lot of you sky dive, you surf, you do all these things. It's perfect. That was Howard. Howard got me started into broadcasting. It's one thing to be receiving as we are now. You're thinking of everything that could work. The reporters are thinking of everything they want to get answers to. But when you're hosting and having to do the show. Howard brought me
into New York. I came in the next week, Don Meredith, Frank Gifford, all those guys were there. I'm reading learn how to read teleproductor for the first time, this and over here, this over here, over here, cards over here.
But what's fascinating Russ is here. You are.
So Howard gives it this opportunity, and as a neophyte as far as broadcasting is concerned, you're going to do a college football package and the two announcers that you're going to do with is young Russ Francis, who hasn't done any games. You get to work with Hall of Fame Keith Jackson and Will be in the Hall of Fame.
He's probably in a thousand of them already.
Al Michaels like, that's that's a small world when I think about that.
You know what I think of when I think of those two guys and that great opportunity that Howard gave me and Ruin gave me, and John Martin did and Keith had to agree, as did al Michaels, that you don't just assign a guide to those guys. My favorite memory is meeting al in one of the early college games in Washington Seattle, and I'd flown my little plane up from Eugene Orton because I'd already flown to the West coast, and I said, come on, hop In, I'll
fly We're doing the Cougar game in Pullman. I said, I'll fly over to Pullman. Found out all al Michael's hates to fly, said don't ever mention that again. Okay, don't ask me how I got anywhere or did anything. I just you want to fly to the games, you just do yourself.
But that's before al Michaels was al Michaels.
Al Michaels was on the rise as a young announcer at ABC who hadn't you know, do you believe in miracles?
Hadn't necessary?
Maybe that had just happened, right, Yeah, yeah it did. But Keith Jackson was hand picking guys. Nobody had a memory like al Michaels. Nobody had the enthusiasm and the passion when he's going to tell his story what happened twenty years ago for you know Hallis with the Cleveland Browns or Bill Walsh as an assistant to Hallis and then worked his way up to becoming a Super Bowl Channe. Nobody does that any better than than al Michaels. He just has a memory for detail. And Keith Jackson was
the guy that and probably Howard Gozell. Those guys kind of picked and choose, you know, Howard picked Don Meredith and Frank Gifford and put those guys together. That was Monday. That football is all Howard's I did.
Sure? Did you have fun doing it?
Oh? I loved it. I loved it because I could just say what I had to say, really short, succinct, and those guys could go and then they'd asked me, really they knew the game. They could have said, why that guy blitzed one the other time, he didn't because the left guard was pulling and coming right at him. They could have done all of that, but they said, why did that play? How did it develop so quickly? Well, Keith,
you know? And Keith said, just mellow your because I'm a little bit higher pitched back then, he said, just mellow your your voice out a little bit. I said, because he's got that whoa mellye type of thing and it's just beautiful and it resonates. And said, how do I do that? How do I get because I am naive and I on one side of me is and the rest of it's don't get in my way because I'm coming. I'm going to figure this out real fast.
The only way I want to figure it out, being the self taught and competent is the actor asked the master. Mastard said, so, how do I mellow my voice out and get it strong like yours? He looked at me. I'll never forget. We're sitting in the booth getting ready to do a game whiskey hmm, lots of whiskey. And those are the memories of he and Al that I have and Bobyatty and I did skiing Men's Pro Skey tour free ESPN. We did every weekend. He was a
fun guy, but a professional he did. I recommend to Mike Pearl, who's producer at ABC, one of the best ever to do the National Skydiving Championships. I jump out of the plane with the teams that were competing and have a skull mic on and call it in the air. Who's ever done that before? Nobody's done it before. So uh, you know Al Michael's and all those guys would play off of all of those different things that you did that separated you from everybody else. But they taught me
how to prepare for it. They taught me how to set the teams up, to interview who the best jumpers were and everything else.
So let's go back to San franciscing and this negotiation that you had with Walsh.
Walsh finally wears you down.
You come to the decision I'm going to play, and you play for those that great organization. You know the Super Bowl it was Montana versus a young Dan Marino.
You win a super Bowl, there's so.
Much of an emphasis on winning, and you a Super Bowl champion? How important was that in your career? Russ As you look back on it to have your career validated by winning a Super Bowl, being part, excuse me off a Super Bowl championship team.
Anybody who plays high school, college professional football wants to be in the last game, the championship game. And we've got close a couple of times here with the Patriots. So when we started out just beating everybody up with San Francisco, and we knew we had a good team. Eddie de Barbilo Junior, who was the owner of the team, his sister and her husband, John York and Denise York. They now own the team that he's relaxing in Florida. He brought on a guy named Bill Walsh, and he
brought on some great coaches. I I hesitate to say that it was just Bill Walsh or just Eddie de Bartelow, but they had to pick the chemistry and the talent on that team. You don't just find a Joe Montana coming out of Notre Dame and had an okay college career. I know he's going to be a Super Bowl, multiple Super Bowl champion. Bill Walsh is one of the smartest,
most decent. He since passed, hard working, find a way to get it right kind of guy and challenges you to do the same thing and give you all the tools and all the training and everything else to do it. He had Sam Wish as the quarterback coach. Sam would teach Joe Montana his drops and everything else. But then he taught receivers better ways to break on patters to get separation from the defender. To help the quarterback. He said, otherwise he's going to be watching that guy who's going
to cut be able to cut in front. You need to bend it back a little bit to keep your back to that guy. So it was everybody working in concert because of Bill Walsh. Eddie de Bardloa made a very very smart move. Bill lost. The first couple of seasons were horrible seventy nine, eighty, but then in eighty one he wins the Super Bowl, talks me out of retirement.
I come back in eighty two and there's a nine week strike and so then we put things back together eighty three and then eighty four we go to the super Bowl, and then they repeat after that. Bill Walsh and Adie de Bardela Junior were the driving forces behind that. If you have those two together, the ownership front office John McVay, who was a GM working with Eddie and Bill, part of that three man team. And then the coach
head coach, separating all the coaches. You can't don't bother my coach, as these are my coaches, guys like Sam Wisch and others. Danny Green comes a head coach too, Bob McKittrick offensive line coach. Just goes on and on and on. You don't have any choice but to win, and you know it, you see it coming and you start digging in. That doesn't mean you take more hours hitting the sled or or watching more film or anything else.
It's repetition. And that's the other thing with Bill. Repetition. Repetition, repetition. We'd run one play fifty times in one week because they Miami Dolphins have a way to look at make it look different, five, ten, fifteen different ways, which now we've seen them all. So when it happened, we just everybody makes your adjustments. The thing with Bill is when they call the player in the huddle, that may not be anything what you run with the lion of scrimmage.
If if somebody moves here, so we all change. There's no way to defend that.
So you get that taste in San Francisco, and as your football career winds down and you see you talk about how important the organizational structure was in San Francisco
and how that was instrumental to their success. When you look back at your former team here in New England and see that the foundation that the Crafts have built and along with Bill Belichick, does you do you get a sense like, oh, yeah, I know that culture is because I sort of grew up on you know, I got a taste of it in San Francisco and as it you know, as you see it developed here in New England, do you sense a little bit of a pride like I was there on the ground floor. I
wish we could have kicked the door open. We can damn close to kicking the door open. But look at what they've had now with that organizational structure.
The first thing I think about is how wonderful and great Robert Craft Bill Belichick are for the fans of New England. We came so close, We had a great run at it, so to speak, and we brought more fans on board because of it. You know, people are still writing and still asking for cards or photos or whatever.
But what Robert Craft has done from being the guy in the stadium watching the games as a young guy and then to become the owner and to do what he's done and find a guy like Bill Belichick, who by the way, was a big fan and devotee of Bill Walsh smartly, rightfully, So they're very similar in that they're unorthodox, They're going to find a way to beat you.
I had the greatest respect for Robert Kraft because he's put all of those people together, and then Bill Belichick the way that he's handled the coaching staff and the players. They're like a bunch of wild animals in the locker room. We have a pretty high level of intensity of passion. Sometimes we can hold it back, sometimes we can't. Sometimes we seem really really relaxed until you poke the bear and then part of your ear comes off or whatever.
And I'm saying that metaphorically. But Robert Craft was a a an enormous gift to the fans of New England. The NFL itself, owners can be really, really difficult to deal with. He is a smart man. He's let's just do it right and we're gonna win. And he brought the people in to do that. And Bill Belichick, you know, God bless his soul. He's had some tough years, he's had some fantastic years. He's the type of guy that
he doesn't care what happened fifteen minutes ago. It's what are we going to do now to get better to win. I want to be his tight end coach. Tell him that because he is so good with young players and season players, and they're totally different makeups. The season guy, you've got to walk a little tenderly. And Bill's really good at saying, well, what do you think about it? A young guy, you could say, I'm not really considered
right now what you think. I need you to do this one released this way or that way, or we'll talk about what you think later on. He's really really good with that. So are as coaches.
Last one here for me, russ Is and we talked a lot about football, and you mentioned what a wonderful life you've had, and is from an outsider standpoint. I hear skydiving, I hear cattle farming, surfing, surfing pilot. Yes, you played professional football announcer ABC Superstars. You know, do you pinch yourself sometimes and go man? You know, this is what I wanted to do, and I've done it. I've done what I wanted to do in life.
You know. I do reflect sitting here with you looking out at the field. I ran a couple of what I used to call glides and I could still step it off. It was okay. You let me hit the sledge a little bit to put ice on my neck. I didn't hit that hard. It brings back a lot of fond memories and I am honored to have been part of that past. I know where my place is.
This is the twenty twenty three season football season. The team's getting ready for that's the focus and I'm all for it, and I'll be there in the stadium yelling and screaming along with everybody else. So it's been an honor. I look for the next thing. We're putting together, a possible company someplace in the East Coast that has to with airplanes. I'll be flying a lot anyway, and I still do fly a lot, but that's a challenge, so I'm looking to the next. I don't live much in
the past. I like to go back and visit, especially with my friends and my teammates. And now you you know, we'll be able to take some of this stuff that we get responses from because they've been watching you for years. You and I are in the same boat, except you're more You have a lot more exposure on a regular basis. And I truly am honored that you gave me this opportunity to speak.
Thank you, Matt, I appreciate that I like to you. I'm going to ask you one more and I mentioned Gronkowski.
Aloha Aloha, mahalo mahala, Yes, I mentioned Gronkowski.
Do you watch Do you look at a guy like Gronk who played for the team that you used to play for.
And I mean Marvel, bigger kid than you are.
I don't know if he was faster than you were at the time, different strengths, but a guy who you could put on the line and he'd knock a guy fifteen yards past, a true tight end and yes, you could say him up the scene and he could run by linebackers.
What did you think of him when you watched him play.
Russ Well, first of all, you said the one thing that separates him and I believe me, from most tight ends. You said, a complete tight end that would block and have the speed to get downfield and have the hands. He's got incredible a sense for the balls. Your head comes around right here and there's a little flash of brown.
And you get radius very high, like you could put the ball. Almost any plays with him.
Yeah, So one thing I would say about about Rob Gronkowski is there isn't anything you can't do on a football field that he decides to do. And that's the goal of every tight end. And I work with some young tight ends from time to time. They want to get a college scholarship or high school or a couple of young pro guys. Not in the coaching standpoint, but just technique because I had to learn from the very very beginning. I won't give you away one of my
secrets I learned that helps tight ends improve quicker. But to look at a Grondkowski, we're probably about the same speed. I was four or five forty. I think that's probably what Rob runs, four or five four six. We're both in that range. I waited. I played about they say it comes out in my car. That was two forty I played it two fifty five. Now, when I got here, I was about two forty five. I quickly became two fifty by hitting the sled. I never lifted weights. They
said you need to lift weights put on more weight. No, the muscle becomes stronger than the tendon and it rips the tendon, and the muscle is supposed to get first. So I'm not doing any of that. So I'm going to hit the sled instead, so that put on weight. So I ended up weighing about two hundred and fifty five pounds. If I hadn't done more running and more stairs, I probably would have gone to you know, sixty five to seventy,
because you do build up muscle hitting those sleds. But I didn't want to compromise my speed, so I stopped a two hundred and fifty two hundred and fifty five pounds. Rob was probably we're about the same height. I'm probably not as tall as I was when I started, nor will he be. He's about six six sixty seven six six. Yeah. Just a big guy all around, and when he hits, he explodes. That's his number one quality in the running game. And he has the want to to take that guy
fifteen yards. He's not just gonna hit him and the ball the guy goes by and he just lets him go, he's gonna bury him. And when he runs her route, he's so fluid for a big guy, he's like a ballerina out there. You know. Lin Swan used to take ballet lessons so that he could be quicker. And what a gifted receiver he was. I look at Rob Gronkowski and I marvel at what he can do. And I can't wait till the next play and the next play. Oh, now he's playing in Tampa bayh Is Brady there too? Oh?
Great to get to watch both of them. Yeah, I watch him and I do my Rob does a little bit early. Oh that's a little bit late. You could have done this. She could have done that. I'm sure he if he did. Look at any of my film in the days. Oh, you could have done better on that. Russ, you could have done better on that. One of the best of all time. And he will go into the.
Hall of Fame Off the field.
Did he have a little bit of Russ Francis in him? As well as maybe a free spirit? Because there's a guy who definitely bangs the drum to a different beat. He's not just like everybody else. And I don't know if you've seen that him as you maybe look at him from afar on social media and how he is.
He's a different cat. Yeah, well is similar to you. Tight ends are different to begin with. I mean the offensive line won't claim us. Yeah, we're going to look at film for the running game. They put you over in the side over here. The receivers, you're not really a receiver, so they're off running their little fancy little you know Darrell used to do. Stanley used to do these pair of weets. Try this, Russ. He's trying to work on my foot coordination. So we are pretty much
on our own and we're fine with that. That type of mentality is just who do I hit, where do I run the pattern? How do I get better? And all that type of stuff.
Rob I don't do social media, so I haven't seen him on social media. I could see where he is a real kick because he speaks his mind, got a great sense of humor, and you know, he's done comedy shows and everything else. There's nothing that he can't do. Gronk is a rare specimen, rare physical specimen. I wouldn't be surprised if you went back and played with Brady again this next coming season. And they could show up a week before and be ready to play.
Our guest has been Russ Francis. Russ has been truly an honor. Thank you so much for your time. It was great to see a great stories, great information, great career, great life.
Thank you very much, Matt, and I want to thank all the fans that watch your show, listen to your podcasts, and everything else for everything they've done for forty eight years. Nancy Meyer and I came in together. She's still with the team in the front office. Got to see her today, lover to death. Gave her a big hug. I want to give her another hug before I leave. But the fans have been fantastic. They are why we got to play. They were therefore us win or lose in the snow,
in the rain. They couldn't I couldn't have been. You talked about being privileged to meet these people, play with these people, and everything else, but the fans are there at the very top of the pyramid. Thank you very much. To thank you for downloading this podcast.
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