Topps has featured some pretty fine action shots. Even with the nasty paint jobs and airbrushing, the excitement of professional football was always there.
And then, there’s inactive shots. Players standing off to the side, staring blankly into space. Or, sitting glumly on the bench. They are probably thinking, “If I could just get into this game” or “Ribs would be awesome for supper”…
And then there’s Randy Dean.
Randy Dean was actually an Olympic athlete. He wasn’t a shot putter, or a decathlete or “the world’s fastest man”. Al Davis wasn’t hounding him, we’re sure.
He and his twin brother were the US team handball champions. In Montreal in 1976, they finished tenth overall. Yeah, it’s not Bo Roberson or Bullet Bob. No one was confusing him with Bruce Jenner (especially now) or Sugar Ray Leonard. But, he was an Olympian. With the jacket and the opening ceremonies and everything.
It was those handball skills that can be so strongly seen here–look at the grasp of the clip board! The ruthless documenting of stats! The Giants’ stats were in good hands. Olympic hands.
They just couldn’t throw a ball. Randy had exactly one touchdown pass in his career, against five interceptions in three total starts. And it didn’t help that he was stuck behind Joe Pisarcik and Phil Simms, who had no intention of totin’ the ‘board. By the time Randy’s second and last card was released in 1980, the Giants traded his trusted clipboard skills to Green Bay, after he had just bought a house in New Jersey. But he was a Wisconsin native, and you’d think that the cold temperatures would ensure the need of a steady and sure hand to man the clipboard, but the Packers released him in the ‘80 preseason.
It’s a shame that the Packers would so coldly waste hands like that.
