(cid:42)(cid:79)(cid:82)(cid:85)(cid:92)(cid:3)(cid:39)(cid:68)(cid:92)(cid:86) I n the early days of the National Football League NFL some teams had lots of fans and other teams struggled In 1950 the Baltimore Colts lost 11 of 12 games The team soon went out of business Football fans in Baltimore Maryland hoped the day would come when they could support another club In 1953 a local businessman named Carroll Rosenbloom brought a new team to Baltimore He chose a familiar name the Colts This time the fans came out in huge numbers In the years that followed they would become famous for their loyalty to the team Baltimore’s early stars included defensive standouts Art Donovan and Gino Marchetti and a record-setting kicker named Bert Rechichar Later in the 1950s the Colts added talented players to their offense (cid:25)
including Jim Parker Alan Ameche Lenny Moore and Raymond Berry Their leader was Johnny Unitas a skinny quarterback who was one of football’s greatest passers In 1958 the Colts played the New York Giants for the NFL championship It was a thrilling game that Baltimore won in overtime An NFL game had never ended this way before Millions watched it to the very end on television They became instant NFL fans The Colts won the NFL championship in 1959 and again in 1968 In January of 1969 Baltimore played in its first Super Bowl The Colts made it back to the Super Bowl two years later thanks to a strong defense led by Mike Curtis and Ted Hendricks They beat the Dallas Cowboys with a field goal in the final seconds The Colts were very good during the 1970s Their stars included Bert Jones Lydell Mitchell and John Dutton However LEFT Johnny Unitas ABOVE Alan Ameche scores the winning touchdown in the 1958 NFL title game (cid:26)
they did not win another championship Team owner Robert Irsay thought a new stadium would improve the Colts luck When Irsay could not get funding for the project he moved the Colts to Indianapolis Indiana AFC The people of Indiana were thrilled to have their own team The Colts rewarded them by making a run for the Super Bowl in 1995 On the last play of the championship game of the American Football Conference Jim Harbaugh’s desperate pass into the end zone fell to the ground an inch from his receiver’s fingertips Though disappointed the Colts and their fans vowed they would return to the Super Bowl one day The Colts remade their team around quarterback Peyton Manning People said Manning was born to play the position and he was his father had been a star passer in the 1970s Working with a talented receiver named Marvin Harrison Manning broke almost all of Unitas’s team passing records and set many NFL marks too LEFT Peyton Manning ABOVE Marvin Harrison (cid:28)
