Raymond Berry

He has two NFL championship rings, a bronze bust that sits in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the gratitude of Baltimore Colts fans who saw him play. Today, before 900 students at a high school assembly in his hometown, Raymond Berry will receive a plaque acknowledging the accomplishments of the skinny, near-sighted kid from Paris, Texas. It's a stirring honor for Berry, 79, one of the greatest receivers of all time. He can guess the audience's reaction. "The kids will sit there, look at each other and say, 'Who the hell is this?

He has two NFL championship rings, a bronze bust that sits in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the gratitude of Baltimore Colts fans who saw him play. Today, before 900 students at a high school assembly in his hometown, Raymond Berry will receive a plaque acknowledging the accomplishments of the skinny, near-sighted kid from Paris, Texas. It's a stirring honor for Berry, 79, one of the greatest receivers of all time. He can guess the audience's reaction. "The kids will sit there, look at each other and say, 'Who the hell is this?

When the phone call came, asking if he would present the silver trophy at the Super Bowl in February, Raymond Berry took it for a prank. "You've got to be kidding," he told the caller. "Is this a joke?" Frank Supowitz, the NFL's senior vice president of events, assured Berry that the offer was legit. The league wanted the Baltimore Colts Hall of Fame receiver to take part in the post-game ceremonies, with the world watching, at Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis on Feb. 5. Berry said yes and hung up, agog.

Lenny Moore can hardly attend an NFL function without some gnarly old linebacker wagging his finger at the 78-year-old Baltimore Colts Hall of Fame running back and telling Moore something he already knows. "Lenny," the old-timer will say, "I had a bead on you so many times out there, I was going to knock the living hell out of you. But then I'd look up and, all of a sudden, here comes Jim Parker - and he'd get me first. " Moore will listen, smile and nod. Then he'll look skyward and thank the man upstairs - No. 77, the big lug with the horseshoe on his helmet - for running interference.

Raymond Berry can't fathom the odds. Who'd have thought that, the same year he was asked to present the Vince Lombardi Trophy, the two locales most dear to his heart would be playing on Sunday for a Super Bowl berth? That's Baltimore, the town Berry helped win two world championships as a Colts receiver, and New England, the club he later coached to the Super Bowl. Either the Ravens or Patriots will advance Sunday to the big game, giving Berry a rooting bias in Indianapolis two weeks hence.

Today we examine the year 1958 and what it was like in Baltimore and New York around the historic Dec. 28, 1958, game between the Colts and Giants. As the 50th anniversary approaches, we'll look at the game through the eyes of those who played in it and those who watched it at Yankee Stadium. In addition to The Baltimore Sun's coverage the next week, there will be events in Baltimore commemorating the game: Tuesday The Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards is opening an exhibit honoring Baltimore's first football champions, the 1958 Baltimore Colts, and celebrating the 50th anniversary of "The Greatest Game Ever Played."

PONTIAC, Mich. -- Raymond Berry, a Hall of Fame receiver and a Super Bowl coach, was hired yesterday as the Detroit Lions' new quarterbacks coach.That's right -- quarterbacks.No, Berry has never coached quarterbacks.No, he's not at all familiar with Lions quarterbacks Rodney Peete or Andre Ware.No, he has no working knowledge of the run-and-shoot offense, although he did see the Lions play on television a couple of times last season.And, yes, coach Wayne Fontes was aware of those factors when he gave Berry the job."

Philip M. Prestianni, a retired optical lens crafter who designed a prescription face-mask shield worn during games by Baltimore Colts receiver Raymond Berry, died Wednesday at his home in Gardenville. He was 90. Mr. Prestianni was the third of eight children born to Signorino and Basilia Prestianni in their Camden Street home. He graduated in 1937 from City College, where, family members said, his interest in the vision industry began. A year later, Mr. Prestianni started working at New City Optical.

Before and after football practice each day, Johnny Unitas spent hour after patient hour creating a football player -- a Hall of Fame-bound quarterback -- a guy named Johnny Unitas.That was 40 years ago. On the playgrounds and practice fields of his time.There, morning, afternoon and evening, Unitas at first aimed for -- and then played for -- the old Baltimore Colts.Endowed with no more than modest talent, he built himself into the National Football League's most famous self-made quarterback by endlessly repeating every little thing that the good ones try to do on every play.

The Redskins were stacking touchdowns on the Detroit Lions on Sunday night at RFK Stadium, and I kept coming back to this phone conversation I'd had with Raymond Berry's wife in July.I'd had reason to speak to Berry, who caught hundreds of Johnny Unitas' passes and later coached the New England Patriots, and tracked him down in Detroit, where he is now the Lions' quarterback coach. It was 9:30 on a weeknight. His wife answered the phone."You'll never get him here," she said. "He leaves at 6 in the morning and comes home at midnight."

As he carried the Lombardi Trophy to midfield after the Super Bowl Sunday, past a double row of giddy and groping New York Giants, Raymond Berry felt their glee. "They (players) were in another world," said Berry, 78. "As I watched them touch the trophy, and kiss it, the emotion of the experience was written all over those boys' faces. Winning the championship is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I could identify with them. I've been there. " Fifty-four years ago, Berry led the Baltimore Colts to their first NFL title, a 23-17 sudden-death victory over the Giants.

Raymond Berry can't fathom the odds. Who'd have thought that, the same year he was asked to present the Vince Lombardi Trophy, the two locales most dear to his heart would be playing on Sunday for a Super Bowl berth? That's Baltimore, the town Berry helped win two world championships as a Colts receiver, and New England, the club he later coached to the Super Bowl. Either the Ravens or Patriots will advance Sunday to the big game, giving Berry a rooting bias in Indianapolis two weeks hence.

When the phone call came, asking if he would present the silver trophy at the Super Bowl in February, Raymond Berry took it for a prank. "You've got to be kidding," he told the caller. "Is this a joke?" Frank Supowitz, the NFL's senior vice president of events, assured Berry that the offer was legit. The league wanted the Baltimore Colts Hall of Fame receiver to take part in the post-game ceremonies, with the world watching, at Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis on Feb. 5. Berry said yes and hung up, agog.

Sitting on stage alongside his aging teammates, having dinner during the Sports Legend Museum induction at Martin's West Tuesday night, 85-year-old Gino Marchetti will chew on this: "It's amazing to me that, after all these years, people are still thinking of us," Marchetti, the Baltimore Colts' Hall of Fame defensive end, said. "I always figured that I'd play football for a few years, go home to Antioch (Calif.) and work in the mill until I turned 65, then go fishing. But, God almighty, the people of Baltimore want to keep promoting us. "The fans were always great in this town.

Today, Raymond Berry will retreat to the den of his Tennessee home and - if his nine grandchildren will allow -- watch the NFL playoff game between two places dear to his heart. Berry will root for the New England Patriots, the team he once coached to the Super Bowl. But he said he believes Baltimore will win. "I've got to pick the Ravens by a touchdown," said Berry, 76, the Hall of Fame receiver whose 13-year career with the Baltimore Colts included two world championships.

For Mark Bowden, writing a book about the 1958 pro football championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants was a return to his roots. Bowden made his name writing prize-winning articles for The Philadelphia Inquirer and best-selling books such as Black Hawk Down, his reconstruction of a disastrous U.S. military raid in Somalia, and Killing Pablo, his chronicle of the manhunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. But before all that came Baltimore. Bowden was 13 when his family moved to town in the mid-1960s.

For Mark Bowden, writing a book about the 1958 pro football championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants was a return to his roots. Bowden made his name writing prize-winning articles for The Philadelphia Inquirer and best-selling books such as Black Hawk Down, his reconstruction of a disastrous U.S. military raid in Somalia, and Killing Pablo, his chronicle of the manhunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. But before all that came Baltimore. Bowden was 13 when his family moved to town in the mid-1960s.

This was a homecoming for Raymond Berry, who was such a remarkable young man that some teammates, given to a torrent of profanity, would clean up their language when he approached. That was the ultimate sign of respect.Berry didn't "wear religion on his sleeve" and wasn't about to force personal beliefs on others. He was, though, an extraordinary man and football player, graduating from SMU before a 13-year career as a pass receiver with the Baltimore Colts earned him enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Today we examine the year 1958 and what it was like in Baltimore and New York around the historic Dec. 28, 1958, game between the Colts and Giants. As the 50th anniversary approaches, we'll look at the game through the eyes of those who played in it and those who watched it at Yankee Stadium. In addition to The Baltimore Sun's coverage the next week, there will be events in Baltimore commemorating the game: Tuesday The Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards is opening an exhibit honoring Baltimore's first football champions, the 1958 Baltimore Colts, and celebrating the 50th anniversary of "The Greatest Game Ever Played."

Gerry Sandusky, sportscaster for WBAL television, is the son of John Sandusky, not Alex Sandusky. The television broadcast of the 1958 National Football League championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants has been lost to history, but the radio broadcast still exists. There were more mistakes in that game, Sandusky said, than there were in the much-maligned Super Bowl V between the Colts and the Dallas Cowboys. Was I really supposed to be learning all this sports stuff at the Maryland Historical Society?