Archives for May 4, 2009

‘”I think I just had a knack,” said Byrd at the team’s rookie minicamp this weekend. “I can’t really explain it. Sometimes the ball is just like a magnet. I take pride in it, and I look forward to doing it here.”‘

‘”If there was an individual hero in the Bills’ biggest victory ever-which was played with remarkable skill, especially under such weather conditions-it was Kemp,” wrote Larry Felser, The News’ Bills beat writer.’

‘”There wasn’t a mean streak in his body,” said former County Executive Edward J. Rutkowski, a former Kemp congressional aide and longtime pal. “You had to beat him on the field of ideas, and that was pretty tough to do.”‘

‘Jack French Kemp was an American original, with hair Rod Blagojevich might envy, though Mr. Kemp’s took on an autumn tinge and then a Christmas-tinsel hue as he grew older. He understood Washington but never succumbed to it, he was a football star and never apologized for it, he was a Republican and never stopped trying to broaden the party. He was never on the sidelines, even when he traveled to Dartmouth and Wake Forest to watch his sons follow in his quarterbacking footsteps. His was the loudest boom in the stands.’

‘"What made Jack a powerful leader was Jack had chutzpah," said Bills great and running back Cookie Gilchrist. "He was Jack Kemp. He was cocky as hell. There is nothing he couldn’t do. … Jack was one of a kind. Jack came in with the confidence of a winner, and we won."’

‘Kemp, who died of cancer Saturday at age 73, didn’t have gaudy statistics for the AFL champion Bills in 1964 and 1965. In fact, by today’s standards, his numbers for those two regular seasons are unimpressive…’.

‘"We had so much confidence in Jack and he was a very smart individual," the 1956 Hanover High graduate said. "Even though he didn’t look at it (the playbook) much, he knew it."’

‘It would be an overstatement to say Kemp, who died of cancer Saturday at 73 in Bethesda, made Buffalo big league, but he contributed mightily to the process by quarterbacking the Bills to consecutive AFL titles. And he did this, as the TV broadcasters never tired of pointing out, with his lucky sweat bands snugly around his wrists – no matter how frigid the weather might be at legendary War Memorial Stadium, no matter how wicked a wind might be whipping off Lake Erie.’

‘Jack was a tax-cutting zealot, not because of some abstract philosophical notion, but because he clearly understood how high tax rates reduced the incentives and capital needed for job creation – "How many truck drivers do you have if you cannot afford trucks?"’

‘”He was calling signals and his voice was so high I thought ‘This has got to be a joke.’ And then I saw him throw,” said Maguire, whose voice turned into a low, rumbling chuckle. “I said ‘His voice can be as high as he wants it to be.’ “‘