Kicker who joined the Giants after the LA Dons of the AAFC folded, helped beat the Bears in 1956
“The most dominant championship performance in the history of the New York Giants came on a brutally cold Sunday 55 years ago, on the tundra of Yankee Stadium. The Giants clubbed the Bears, 47-7, with the help of a club-footed kicker, a pioneering son of Armenian immigrants who is now the oldest living Giant player, a man who would spend five decades in pro football, and arguably do more than anybody in history to alter the perception of the kicking game.
Of course Ben Agajanian remembers the 1956 NFL Championship. He kicked two first-quarter field goals from 17 and 43 yards out with the Giants running away to a 34-7 halftime lead...”
“I didn’t jump up and down the way the players do today,” Ben Agajanian says from his home in Cathedral City, Calif. “I was cool.”
https://www.google.com/amp/www.nydailynews.com/amp/sports/football/giants/friends-lobbying-ben-agajanian-oldest-living-ny-giant-earn-spot-pro-football-hall-fame-article-1.1009718
An accident in college left him with just one toe on his kicking foot
“He was a college football kicker at the University of New Mexico and had a summer industrial job in 1941 when an accident in the factory irreparably damaged all but the little toe of his right foot. Agajanian begged the doctors to save his toes, but when told they could not, he bargained with them to shave the nubs down to an identical size so he could still kick -- or try to kick.”
http://denverbroncos.com/news-and-blogs/article-1/Sacco-Sez-Bootin-Ben-Agajanian/1ad157f3-5494-4d9e-a457-57a698414e17
He kicked for 14 teams from the 1940’s to the 1960’s in three different leagues...
Link - (
New Window )
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/obituaries/ben-agajanian-square-shoed-kicking-star-dies-at-98.html
And as the article points out, in an era of 33-man rosters - meaning that most kickers were at least nominally position players (Browns great Lou Groza was an OT, GIANTS legend Pat Summerall was an End although he didn't line up there often, Packers part-time place kicker Jerry Kramer was a Guard and his teammate Paul Horning who also place kicked was a halfback, etc.) - Agajanian was a specialist who got a slot on the team because he was so good.
I'd been hoping Agajanian would receive a worthy HOF induction during his lifetime. He is truly worthy.
“ I broke my arm with the Steelers in 1945 and they said, “You can still kick.” And they kept me for kicking, and look at the record books. I made four out of four in 1945. The team was a poor team and they didn’t score much, and they didn’t kick much. So I came home and quit football. Jock Sutherland came out as the new coach and wrote a letter and wanted me to come back. I said, “No,” and I opened a sporting goods store in Anaheim and moved to Long Beach. After I came home, the Hollywood Bears called and said, “Would you kick for us?” And I said, “Yeah, if I just kick. I am not gonna play.” They said, “OK.” Well I kicked 15 field goals and the Rams called me, the Redskins called me, and the L.A. Dons were just forming and they called me and I signed with the L.A. Dons. And I broke the records and everything, and kicked a 53-yarder, which was a league record. It still is because the league folded up.
But anyway, I did real well and when the league folded, the Giants called me. So I go back to New York and my wife wouldn’t stay at New York, so in ’54 and then ’55 I said, “I want to fly back and forth.” And they said, “Well, come back here.” And I went back and kicked for them. Then in ’56 I held out and wouldn’t go back and forth. So finally they let me go back and forth after Gifford missed a field goal. He kicked the ball and hit the center’s ass with the ball. His own center. And the ball rolled back and Cleveland picked the ball for a touchdown. I think it was Bob Gain, took the ball. I think they tied Cleveland, and Gifford went to Wellington Mara and said, “Hell, if we tie Cleveland, Jimmy Brown and them, we can win the championship. Bring Ben back, I can’t kick, I can’t do everything.” So I flew back and forth every week and helped them out and we won the championship.
And you know what? We had a big reunion 20 years later in ’76, then in ’96 we had another reunion. We all went back to New York and I sat way in the back and Gifford has the microphone, and Sam Huff gets up and tells how he knocked Jimmy Brown out-of-bounds and fore-armed him. Everybody’s bragging and talking, and I’m sitting way back there. Somebody said, “Why don’t you say something?” I said, “No, I’m nobody.” If it wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t be there. I knew that. The way I kicked several field goals that were instrumental in winning, and we won the championship by one game, the playoffs, then we went into the championship and beat the Bears on an ice-frozen field. Even there I kicked two field goals on an ice field that you couldn’t walk on. I had one tennis shoe and one kicking shoe without any cleats. I took the cleats off and I did just a little one-step kick, and boom, kicked a 34-17, two field goals. I think the 40-something was as good as any 60-yarder anywhere. But in the field and weather and everything like that, that just made us roll. And we beat them 47-7. But I got no credit because the newspaper people don’t give a damn about kickers. I kept saying things will change, I kept saying, “Everybody will have a kicker.” I went 10 years as the only guy kicking. Everybody was a player-kicker. But evidently I had the talent that they wanted, and if people wanted me, I’d go. I’d go for nothing. I never argued about salary. My first salary was $200 a game, with the Eagles. And you know what? I got married back in Philadelphia and I bought a ring and I bought a little car, and drove home, all on the $200 a game. My room was $5 a week. So I didn’t need any money. That takes care of half of your questions.”
Link - ( New Window )
From the New York Herald-Tribune 10/19/56:
The real Del Shofner is now 83. Probably some Giants older than that out there, though. Interesting question. You'd think the Giants PR Dep't might say as part of the tributes to Ben.
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