For those of you old enough to remember him, former kicker Errol Mann passed away
this past Friday very unexpectedly at his home here in Missoula. He was 71. He started his career in 1968 with the Packers, but got injured and only played in 4 games. The next year began his career with the Detroit Lions and when he left at the end of the 1976 season he was the Lions all time leading scorer at the time. He finished his career with the Raiders, getting a Super Bowl ring in Super bowl XI.
I met Errol several times at sporting functions, mainly an annual awards banquet here in Missoula to honor Western Montana high school and college athletes. One of the funniest moments happened about 12-13 years ago at this affair. Jan Stenerud was the master of ceremonies, and several former NFL players were in attendance. Errol was to be one of the speakers at the program. When Jan was about to introduce Errol, he looked down at his notes......looked questioningly at Errol.....and started to laugh.
"You gotta be kidding me, Errol!"
"Just read what I wrote down there, Jan."
So Jan proceeds to list all these accomplishments (some real, most phony) that Errol had suppossedly done during his career. I don't remember them all, but by the time Jan had finished, the entire audience was cracking up. Errol had listed that he scored 5 TD's off of his kicks being blocked; He threw 6 or 7 TD passes off of fake field goal attempts; He was actually a back-up QB, but never got the chance to show his stuff. And the list went on.
When Errol started to talk he looked directly at Stenerud and told the audience that if it hadn't been for him (Errol), Stenerud would never have made it in the NFL. With that awful Norwegian accent nobody could understand him. Errol grew up in Minnesota and went to the University of North Dakota......HE could understand the fractured Norwegian....and when they played each other he gave Jan lessons in proper English. And, he warned the rest of the league about the silly Norwegian kicker who would come down the tunnel on a pair of jumping skiis.
He closed by telling Stenerud...."You should have stuck to ski jumping. Much better future in that."
RIP Errol Mann.
Anyone for a Weenie Roast?