Mourners said goodbye to John Unitas yesterday, evoking memories of a steely, Hall of Fame quarterback and a tender father who stayed close to his coal-shoveling roots.
Cardinal William H. Keeler said he found "sanctity" in the man who threw footballs as if they were missiles but never lost his human touch.
"He was the kind of man who would shake the hand of a homeless person and say to that person it was an honor to shake his hand," said Keeler, the archbishop of Baltimore, who celebrated the funeral Mass at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in North Baltimore.
Unitas, who led the Baltimore Colts to three championships in the 1958, 1959 and 1970 seasons, died Sept. 11 of a heart attack at 69.
Nearly 2,000 mourners, some of whom lined up hours before the 9:15 a.m. start of services, filled the Gothic cathedral, with its soaring, 90-foot-high ceiling.
Former Colts such as Art Donovan and Gino Marchetti filled the upper sanctuary. Unitas' wife, Sandra, other family members, the mayor and many VIPs sat in the front rows of the main seating area.
White mums and lilies, tied with blue ribbon, decorated the sanctuary, along with an oil painting of the player. The painting showed No. 19 from the rear, standing in his blue-and-white Colts uniform against a black background.
A tolling of church bells and a mournful bagpipe at 9:10 a.m. announced the arrival of Unitas' casket. Covered in flowers, it was borne by his six sons and trailed by his two daughters. Sunlight filtered through red, yellow and blue stained-glass windows, faintly lighting the gray limestone of the cathedral's grand interior.
One eulogy was delivered by Frank Gitschier, the man who, as an assistant football coach at the University of Louisville, recruited the player who would go on to be the school's most famous athlete. He recalled visiting a young Unitas at his home in Pittsburgh, where his widowed mother was raising four children and running the family's coal-delivery business.
"I made two promises to his mother: that he would attend Mass on Sunday and that he would graduate," said Gitschier, who, in 1979, delivered Unitas' introduction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
An unlikely prospect, Unitas at 6 feet tall, 138 pounds, was small for football, but he compensated with an incomparable toughness and a dedication to hard work, Gitschier said.
