Accorsi

Baltimore's newest NFL booster has a background uniquely suited to his new job.Along with his considerable other experience in the game, Ernie Accorsi, the new special adviser to the Maryland Stadium Authority for NFL expansion, worked in the NFL's headquarters the last time the league expanded."

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - "There's got to be a story behind that tie," someone told Ernie Accorsi Sunday before the New York Giants strangled the Minnesota Vikings, on their way to the Super Bowl. It wasn't the loud ensemble of color - green, red, a touch of navy blue - as much as it was the little golfers set vertically, nearly down to the belt. "Not the most beautiful tie," Accorsi said, and, granted, not what a football vice president and general manager customarily wears to a conference title game.

Ernie Accorsi is coming home.Accorsi, the last general manager of the Baltimore Colts, resigned yesterday as executive vice president of football operations of the Cleveland Browns.Accorsi plans to return to Baltimore -- though a native of Hershey, Pa., he has lived much of his life here -- while he looks for another job, and one that would have to be at the top of his list would be running an NFL expansion team in Baltimore."I don't want to make it seem like I'm campaigning for the job, but obviously I'm open to any possibility, including caddying at Caves Valley Country Club.

Now, it's Ernie Accorsi moving to center stage, there in the middle of the spotlight. Not to dance, sing, blow a trumpet or otherwise entertain, but to perform in a more pressurized and specialized capacity. He has assumed control as general manager of one of the high-profile and most demanding of all sports franchises -- the New York Giants. He's fully equipped to handle what's required but, to be forewarned, it won't be easy.The Giants under George Young, the general manager who departs for a position as the senior vice president of football operations in the NFL office, established an almost 20-year reputation for success that promises to be difficult to replicate.

His stay with the Baltimore Orioles has been brief -- only a half-season. But now Ernie Accorsi is about to move on to a position of high executive responsibility with the New York Giants, an organization that traditionally has made few changes within its front office.A job of assistant to general manager George Young has been offered Accorsi and he'll accept within the next 24 hours. His appointment will mean a return to the familiar territory of the National Football League.Although he was with the Orioles for only four months, the experience provided Accorsi with an insightful view of the "grand ol' game."

So far, the Baltimore effort to join the Canadian Football League has been moving with deliberate restraint. Call it controlled enthusiasm. However, the present mode has a game plan that will soon change.Even Tom Matte, a rah-rah-rah, sis-boom-bah personality, is doing all he can to prevent spinning off into orbit. But Matte says this is only temporary. Any day now he will go public and turn into a skyrocket of enthusiasm. Matte, one of the Baltimore Colts' glorious heroes of yesteryear, is identified with the franchise that has made application to join the CFL.Now comes information that another Colt, a former general manager, Ernie Accorsi, may become a special consultant to owner Jim Speros on a temporary basis.

There's only one person in the state of Maryland who knows the people in the National Football League really well.His name is not Schaefer. Neither is it Belgrad or DeVito. It's Accorsi -- Ernie Accorsi, who worked in the league for 24 years and is now part of the effort to give Baltimore the ball.By now Gov. Schaefer and Herb Belgrad and Matt DeVito have gotten to know the NFL brass and ownership better than they ever dreamed they would.But Accorsi knows them on a much different level. He has been general manager of two teams (Browns and Colts)

Although Baltimore may appear to be getting lost in the crowd in its efforts to land a National Football League franchise as the owners open their meetings in Hawaii, one NFL executive who knows the league and this market is upbeat about the city's chances.That's Ernie Accorsi, former general manager of the Baltimore Colts, now owner Art Modell's right-hand man with the Cleveland Browns."There's a lot of support among the owners for Baltimore," says Accorsi. "The city has three things going for it: the Colt tradition, the new baseball park under construction, and Herb Belgrad."

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- You can take the general manager out of Baltimore, but you can't take the Baltimore out of the general manager.As George Young ended his 19-year run as New York Giants general manager to become a senior vice president in the NFL office, his Baltimore roots were fondly remembered yesterday.As Young, 67, officially announced his resignation, there was so much reminiscing about Baltimore that Barry Levinson, once Young's student when he was a high school teacher and coach in Baltimore, would have had enough material to film a sequel to "Diner."

It was simultaneously endearing and appalling, this idea of requiring a potential mate to pass a test of football trivia as a condition of matrimony. The concept forms a climactic scene in the movie Diner, when a character solemnly submits his fiancee to a rigorous exam on Baltimore Colts history. The bit delightfully conveyed the struggle between maturity and immaturity that is the crux of the film. It is one of the most memorable scenes in the movie, which was released 20 years ago and made pop culture heroes out of a clique of Forest Park High School grads upon whom the film was loosely based.