by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Pat Summerall has a new lease on life and he knows it. In April, he marked the one year anniversary of his successful liver transplant, a surgery necessitated by years of hard living. A year ago, his next breath was in doubt. Today, he ponders whether to play golf or simply enjoy being alive.
“I feel good,” said Summerall, who was in town last week for a checkup at the Mayo Clinic and a visit with his daughter, Susie Wiles, and her family. “I speculated after the transplant about why I deserved another chance. I had lived a full life. Then someone told me, ‘God’s not through with you yet. You still have things to do.’
“I have concentrated on doing that. I think I am more grateful for everything: life, the ability to get up in the morning and the fact that I can even come back to Jacksonville for these exams. I am living better and I am doing better and I am living a more wholesome life. Doing that is a concern of mine now. I do not believe it was a concern before.”
Summerall was born in Lake City and once lived here with his first wife. He’s the reason Wiles is here, and today she’s one of Jacksonville’s most powerful people in her role as one of Mayor John Peyton’s closest advisers.
The family will party today: it’s Summerall’s 75th birthday and his life has been one of fame for the past half century.
He played football at the University of Arkansas and spent 10 years with the National Football League’s New York Giants where he was a tight end and kicker. As a member of the Giants, he was on the losing end of the 1958 NFL Championship game against the Baltimore Colts.
After his playing career ended, Summerall’s broadcast career began. He joined CBS and began covering golf. He ventured into tennis and eventually the NFL where he teamed with former Oakland Raiders head coach John Madden for 21 years, first with CBS and then with FOX starting in 1994. The pair ended their run in 2002 when Summerall retired.
But the retirement didn’t last long. He was hired by FOX and worked with former player Brian Baldinger before health issues forced him out of the booth.
Decades of living on the edge - Summerall is a recovering alcoholic - destroyed his liver. For most, a liver replacement at age 73 would have meant a few more years of existing. Summerall is not only living, he’s doing. When ESPN’s NFL play-by-play man, Mike Patrick, suddenly needed heart surgery last summer, the network contacted Summerall. Amazingly, six months post-op from an organ transplant, Summerall’s doctors left the decision up to him.
“When ESPN first called me, I was not sure if I would be strong enough,” said Summerall, who lives in Dallas with his wife Cheri. “In August, I asked the doctors if I could do it. They said, if I felt like it, it was fine. It was great to be back in the booth and I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Summerall may be back in the booth this fall if everything works out. The number of games aired each season has created a demand for experienced play-by-play men and no one has Summerall’s experience.
“I’d like to do more football this year,” said Summerall, who has covered 17 Super Bowls (16 with Madden,) the last of which was Super Bowl XXXVI, where the New England Patriots beat the St. Louis Rams 20-17 on the last play of the game. “ESPN and CBS have the NFL and NBC is getting back into it. There are a lot of possibilities. If someone calls, I’d be willing to do games.”
In addition to playing a little golf (the doctors say he is fine to play but Summerall says he’s still a little apprehensive), he has two other projects on his plate. He’s writing a book and he’s using his second lease on life as a chance to inspire and thank others.
“The book is a memoir and it’s all fact,” he said. “It’s all about the three phases of my life: football, broadcasting and life since my liver transplant. I am still looking for a title. Any ideas?”
It’s the talks that may be the most rewarding - and gut-wrenching. He talks to groups, many of whom are organ donors themselves and families of organ donors. While someone in the audience may have given up a kidney for a family member, the reality is many in the audience are the families of someone who donated an organ, often as the result of a tragic and untimely death.
“They look at me and I feel good and I’m healthy. I know they went through a tragic event and someone had to die for someone else to live,” said Summerall. “It’s a hard speech to make.”