The death of Frank Gifford brings another story from Bobby Tony | Eastern North Carolina Now

    If this makes me a namedropper, so be it. But Atlanta was a small city in the early 1970's and I knew where the action was.

    Another brush with the rich and famous came in 1973. I was in Harrison's on Peachtree for a night on the town when I ran across Howard Cosell, Dandy Don Meredith and Chet Forte. Chet was a producer of the ABC Monday night football. They were in town to broadcast the Monday Night football between the Falcons and the Minnesota Vikings. Howard, Don and Chet were well into the bottle by the time I arrived, as was I. I took a seat at the bar so I could watch the floorshow (them). Even though Chet was a behind-the-scenes producer he was a wild and crazy guy long before Steve Martin made the phrase famous and he had a tremendous gambling problem that later cost him his job at ABC.

    They were into a deep discussion over some minute detail about football. They were passing bets back and forth with who did what and who did where and who held the record for whatever. It was a football trivia contest with one of the best football trivia men in the business, Howard Cosell. I was sitting at the end of the bar and Chet said points to me and says this guy knows a couple things about football let me ask him a question. I had never met him in my life but he acted as if he knew me from way, way back. He asked me a question about some detail of football that I do not even recall but I had no clue what question or the answer was.

    Anyway they a kept talking and drinking I was amused just to sit there and watch them. I was by no means a part of their crowd but was close enough to overhear the conversation as it was loud eventually the talk got around to Atlanta Falcons football. Chet figured he could stump me again and asked me "I'll bet you don't know who on the Falcon team did the old football "Hat Trick".

    The three-touchdown day by a single player-one rushing, one receiving and one passing-is one of only seven such "hat trick" performances in the history of the NFL. Check here for the link to Harmon Wages:

    It was the probably the only question they asked the whole night that I knew the answer to. I said yes I do I'll bet you $20 against your hat that I know who it is. He said you're on, who is it. I said it is Harmon Wages. Harmon was a pretty boy when he played a few years of the Falcons and then went on to be a broadcaster for a local TV station in Atlanta. He may be more famous for dating Deborah Norville.

    Chet jumped up and looked at me and said, "here is your damn hat now get the hell out of here". It was a baseball hat with the Wide World of Sports logo. I kept that hat for many years and had a lot of fun telling the story which gets bigger each time I tell it. Somewhere in the many moves and transitions, it got lost but here is a web picture of what it looked like.

    For the record, Frank Gifford was not involved with this story and I never saw him in the bar but it gives me a good enough reason to tell the story for the umpteenth time.