Steve Bartkowski was cool. We’re talking Fonzie/Barney Stinson cool.
Good looking California dude, with the blonde hair flowing out from his helmet…and I like girls. A lot. So if he was good looking to guys, I can’t dare imagine his effect on women.
Plus, he was a great quarterback. How great? He drove Vince Ferragamo to the bench at Cal. Vince then transferred to Nebraska, became an All-American, and eventually QB’d the LA Rams to the most unlikely Super Bowl appearance ever. But all that happened because Bartkowski was better.
And the name.
A Surfer Dude with the name of a 1950’s NFL offensive lineman? We’re not talking abusive parents like those of Claude Crabb, Dick Wood or Fair Hooker. His parents KNEW that with a name like “Steve Bartkowski”, he’d be kicking ass whether he was playing football, working as a private detective or running a day care.
In 1975, he was the NFL’s rookie of the year, and as a result got this awesome card in 1976, which simply encapsulated his cool factor onto cardboard for eternity. This card is simply one of the best looking cards Topps ever produced, and Bartkowski (that is so cool that I prefer it to just calling him “Steve”) was up to the task of deserving it.
Sadly, he was only slightly luckier than Archie Manning when it came to his team. Where Archie played for a New Orleans Saints team that he could have successfully sued for non-support and emotional abuse, Bartkowski played for an Atlanta Falcons team that still looked at itself as an expansion franchise a decade after its formation…until the 1978 and 1980 seasons. The years where almost everything came together…until the Dallas Cowboys ruined everything with their evil mojo. The Falcons and Bartkowski never meshed again, thanks to Dallas’s sorcery.
Eventually, Bartkowski’s #10 was retired by the Falcons, and he was named to the Polish American Sports Hall of Fame (take THAT, Canton!) and the College Football Hall of Fame. He survived Stage 2 colon cancer. And he fishes in Montana. How cool is that?
Here’s a cool Steve Bartkowski highlights video that is worth watching
