When the New York Giants hit the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field in Green Bay to face the Packers in subzero temperatures in the NFC Championship game on January 18, the ties to Fordham University alumni were varied and numerous.
Vince Lombardi ’37, the late, legendary coach of the Packers, had led Fordham’s Seven Blocks of Granite during the University’s football heyday in the 1930s. Wellington Mara ’37, the late, legendary owner of the Giants, was a manager on those teams, and another Fordham stalwart, or should we say, giant.
John Mara, Wellington’s son, who has succeeded his father as president and co-owner of the Giants, is a graduate of Fordham Law School. Bob Papa ’86, the play-by-play voice of the Giants on WFAN (660 AM) in New York, is yet another distinguished alumnus, who honed his broadcasting skills at Fordham’s WFUV (90.7 FM). And, of course, the Giants and Packers would be playing for a chance to take home the Lombardi Trophy, named for the iconic coach, in Super Bowl XLII.
“It was certainly very special for our family, and we knew of all the Fordham connections,” said John Mara ’79 JD, reflecting on the Giants’ 23-20 win over the Packers on that frigid evening in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “To win that game, in that stadium, was very, very special.
“Vince was my brother Steve’s godfather, and I remember as a kid when he would come to our home,” Mara said. “I remember being in awe of him, but he was such a nice person. He was down to earth, proud to be a New Yorker and proud to be a Fordham man.”
Mara has even fonder recollections of his father, who died in October 2005 and was widely regarded as “the patriarch of the NFL”—and renowned for his love and passion for his alma mater.
“There weren’t many things that my father liked to do more than go to a Fordham athletic event,” Mara said. “My first recollection of any sport is going to Fordham basketball games in the Rose Hill Gym with my father. He loved going to the football games too.”
And so when the Giants, destiny’s darlings, thwarted the Packers in an improbable run to the Super Bowl to face the previously unbeaten and heavily favored New England Patriots, some of the Fordham spirit would be there with them.
For broadcaster Bob Papa, it was on to Arizona to cover the game. Also making the trek were ESPN Radio’s Michael Kay ’82 and Paul Dottino ’86; WFAN engineer and producer Chris Majkowski ’89; and Fordham students Ryan Ruocco and Bobby Coyle, who co-hosted One on One, WFUV’s weekly sports call-in show, live from Phoenix the day before the big game.
And of course, up in the press box, longtime Giants beat reporters Ernie Palladino ’77, who has been covering Big Blue for 19 years at The Journal News, and Tom Canavan ’76 of the Associated Press, would be there too.
For the Mara family—including Wellington’s widow, Ann, and his grandson Sean, a first-year Fordham student and member of the Rams football team—it was an opportunity to bring home the trophy named after a family friend, if only the Giants could pull off another stunning upset with the world watching.
And the improbable happened.
Eli Manning, the maligned quarterback who came of age in the playoffs, led Big Blue downfield in the waning minutes of the game, and Coach Tom Coughlin’s Giants put away the Patriots, 17-14, to cement themselves in New York sports lore for eternity.
“How the team transformed itself into a true winner—and so did Eli—was truly amazing,” said Palladino, who also covered the 1990 and 2000 Super Bowls. “I have never seen anything like it in 32 years in journalism.”
Papa, who has been the play-by-play voice of the Giants since 1995, also enjoyed the ride.
“I was moved by it, really. … Mr. Mara was always a big supporter of mine, and there was no doubt that part of the reason was the Fordham connection,” Papa said. “I always loved to chat with him about the old days. He was such a wise man, a treasure. It was an honor to know him.
“It seemed like it was meant to be,” Papa added. “You think about the numbers. Mr. Mara had 42 grandkids; it was Super Bowl 42. … At stake was the Lombardi Trophy, the closeness between the Lombardis and the Maras—it almost seemed mystical.”
On February 5, when New York City honored the Giants with a ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes, Papa got to host the ceremony on the steps of City Hall with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“It was a special honor, and it was awe-inspiring,” said Papa, who noted that the last time the city threw a ticker-tape parade, for the New York Yankees in 2000, it was another Fordham alumnus—the Yankees’ lead television play-by-play announcer Michael Kay—who emceed the event.
“Michael sent me a text message right before the ceremony [telling me]to enjoy every minute of it because it would be one of the coolest experiences in my life,” Papa said. “That calmed me down.”
Ryan Ruocco, a Fordham senior and the lead play-by-play announcer for Fordham basketball and football on WFUV, hopes to follow in Papa and Kay’s footsteps (and the prediction from this corner is that he surely will).
“I take so much pride in the Fordham connection in sports and broadcasting, so having it from all angles in this Super Bowl was fantastic,” Ruocco said. “I think that lineage provides a foundation of belief that I can make it, too. The Mara and Lombardi connection is amazing because those two great men were NFL pioneers.
“All the Fordham connections in this year’s game just add to the pride I have in the whole experience,” Ruocco added. “When I look back on what an enormous event it was for New York, it’s just going to make it even sweeter remembering that Fordham fingerprints were all over this Super Bowl.”
Perhaps Joseph M. McShane, SJ, president of Fordham, summed it up best when he spoke at the Fordham Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony in the McGinley Center Ballroom on February 10.
“When I saw Mrs. Mara and John Mara standing there, surrounded by the team and acknowledging the roars of the crowd, my heart was filled with pride, for I saw not only the owners of the Giants but the representatives of the best of what Fordham offers the world: character, integrity and class,” Father McShane said. “In a world often distracted or fooled by flash, the Mara family—and all Fordham men and women—have always achieved greatness in this way: through character, integrity, and class.”
John Cirillo ’78 grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, the birthplace of Vince Lombardi. He is the president and founder of Cirillo World, a Manhattan-based sports public relations agency, and an adjunct professor of communication and media studies at Fordham.
