Tom Fleerty, a faithful of the cowboys offensive line whose career has weighed the generations of Roger Staubach in Troy Aikman and who was so hard that he learned to walk again at the average age after a neurological disorder left him a feeling under the size, died Thursday at 70 years old at Windsor, Color, after a blow.
Firoferty’s daughter Rachel Powers said her father had been hospitalized since early May.
Born and raised in New York and drafted in the fourth round of Penn State in 1976, Fluffy inherited the place of Blaine Nye at the right guard during his second season. He started there or in the center for two super bowls and 167 consecutive games in all, the longest sequence in the history of the organization at the time, until Mark Stepnoski replaced him in the middle of the 1989 season.
Fleerty was typical of men who populated Tom Landry’s offensive lines in the 1970s and 80s: undersized at 6-3, 256 pounds, but fast, difficult and intelligent.
“If you look at its dimensions,” said Brad Sham, the long-standing radio voice of the cowboys that started with the organization the same year as Fleerty, “he would not play in the offensive line today. But that’s what Tom wanted. He wanted to draw lines and guys who could climb down the field in front (Tony) Dorsett on a pass.
“It was perfect for that.”
Firfy, in fact, helped Spring Dorsett to a 99 yards touchdown to the order of the NFL against Minnesota in 1983, when the cowboys had only 10 men on the ground. He also played a support role, but reluctantly, the same season in one of the most infamous episodes of the organization.
On December 11, 1983, Dallas and Washington, tied at 12-2, clashed for first place in the NFC East and the best record of the NFL. Led 14-10 and face a fourth stockings and centimeters in the midfield in the third quarter, Landry told his quarter-Arrière, Danny White, to use a hard count to try to draw the defense. If the Redskins do not jump, Landry said to him, the cowboys would simply take the penalty and the clearance of clearance.
In The Huddle, White, everything on the call, underlined the orders of Landry. No one should move. Once he approached the melee line, White had other ideas.
“They thought we were going to kick,” he said during a phone call on Thursday, “so they had the bad staff. Crazy programming. I thought we could get whatever we wanted.
“Probably a touchdown.”
SO BLANC ABOYA “Green 36!” – The call for live cowboys audible – and was about to start its cadence when Flatty, from position to the center, interrupted.
“Noooooo!” He said to his quarter.
“Yes!” White said.
Flatty refused to break the ball on the second account. White barked a little more. Firfty did not move.
During the call for television, John Madden told viewers that 22 seconds seemed to be.
“Raff was not going to break the ball,” said White on Thursday. “He is not really in a good position to chat with the quarter-Arrière, so I just went.
“He broke it, they stopped us and the rest belongs to history.”
Because the rest of the cowboys line obeyed the group’s orders and did not move, the Redskins exploded the race by Timmy Newsome. On the sidelines, at the sight of photographers and television cameras, the normally stoic Landry lost its cool, shouting: “No, Danny, no!”
Washington took over in the midfield and scored 21 consecutive points to take control of the division. Cowboys later lost against Rams in the Wild Card, ending a series of three consecutive conference title appearances.
“I still think, to date, that it was the right thing to do,” said White about his audible. “Raff was quite angry with me.
“It was Raff, he was ready to do the right thing.”
Another snapshot of the 1983 season: a Philadelphia line player tips a white pass intended for Newsome and in the hands of Firfetty, a graceful receiver, if not exactly a graceful. As the Eagles dragged him, he knew what came from teammates.
“I felt sure that these guys were going to give me hell,” he told journalists after the match.
A photo of the room is suspended in Firfetty’s house in Colorado. He and his wife, Donna, who would have celebrated their 49th birthday on June 20, moved to the Colorado of the Dallas region two years ago to get closer to their grandchildren.
Firferty, who entered the sales of sports facilities after his retirement from the NFL, had struggled with the debilitating effects of transversal myelitis after his diagnosis in 2008. He stayed at the hospital 48 days, refusing a wheelchair.
“He just continued until he could walk again,” said Powers. “No feeling below his size, but he did it.
“Had a lot of physical determination.”
Besides his wife, daughter and two grandchildren, Flatty is survived by his son, Michael, from San Antonio. The children of Firferty remember their father, who obtained his baccalaureate in Penn State and an MBA in Ut Dallas and was honored as a member of the Greater Syracuse Hall of Fame, as an intelligent, calm and generous man who has obtained a teasing kick that he knew well.
Until the end, he remained faithful to his only professional team.
“He was not pure and hard,” said Michael, “but he would keep an eye on them.”
A commemorative service is pending.
Twitter / X: @KSherringtondMn
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