Issue Date: October 22, 2006

SPORTS COLLECTIBLES

Football's holy grail

Experts list the top five lost treasures. Is one of them hidden in your attic?

By Tim Wendel

It's amazing what you can find when you clean out the attic. Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach recently discovered his college jersey from the 1963 Army-Navy game, the famous contest that was played just weeks after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The jersey was considered one of the lost holy grails of football -- a real-life Rosebud -- by the College Football Hall of Fame, to which Staubach has loaned the jersey. In fact, it has been a good run for the hall, which recently located Jim Brown's famed helmet from his playing days at Syracuse University.

In USA WEEKEND Magazine's March 24-26 issue, we uncovered the long-sought lost treasures of baseball (Baseball's Lost Treasures). Now, with pigskins zipping in the air for both college and pro players and fans, we wondered what lost football treasures still may be out there, perhaps gathering dust in your home. Exclusively for USA WEEKEND, a panel of experts from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame and two of the top sports memorabilia companies in the United States -- Lelands.com and Memorabilia Evaluation and Research Services (MEARS) -- ranked football's greatest lost treasures, along with an estimate of their value. And if you have any idea where any of these items are, drop us an e-mail at usaw@usaweekend.com. However, USA WEEKEND cannot help you get an estimate on the value of any sports items:

5. Rutgers Red Scarf ($50,000):
For the very first college football game ever played (Nov. 6, 1869), the mighty Rutgers team took to the field against Princeton wearing intimidating ... red scarves? Apparently so. This was before helmets were introduced, so, to distinguish themselves from Princeton, the players wrapped red scarves around their heads. This led to the school's nickname, the Scarlet Knights. "If a scarf worn in the first intercollegiate football game still exists, it would be an unbelievable addition," says Rick Walls, executive director for the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind. "It would be one of our most historically significant artifacts."

4. The "Immaculate Reception" football ($150,000):
As the clock ticked down in a playoff game on Dec. 23, 1972, the Pittsburgh Steelers trailed the Oakland Raiders by a point, 7-6. On fourth down, Pittsburgh quarterback Terry Bradshaw passed downfield for running back John "Frenchy" Fuqua. Raiders safety Jack Tatum hit Fuqua as the ball arrived, and it popped up into the air. As the Raiders' defense began to celebrate its apparent victory, Steelers rookie Franco Harris caught the ball just before it hit the turf and ran for a touchdown. The Steelers had won the game on what NFL Films calls one of the greatest plays in pro football history. And, no, nobody apparently thought of grabbing the ball for posterity. "That catch happened before game memorabilia became so popular," says Joe Horrigan, vice president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "But that's an artifact a lot of Steelers fans would love to see today."

3. Red Grange's jersey from his first professional game ($250,000):
"The Galloping Ghost" running sensation signed with the NFL's Chicago Bears the day after his last college game at the University of Illinois. Pro football wasn't the king of the sports mountain as it is now, so Bears legend George Halas signed Grange to a contract for a 19-game barnstorming tour to help put the sport on the map. Even though Grange was held to 36 yards in that initial contest on Nov. 26, 1925 -- a 0-0 Thanksgiving game against the crosstown Cardinals at Wrigley Field -- he showed flashes of brilliance, adding 56 yards on punt returns and intercepting a pass while playing on defense. Football would never be the same. "Grange's first professional game was one of the most important in football history," says John Carroll, who is the author of Red Grange and the Rise of Modern Football. "Before Grange, pro football was viewed as akin to a back-alley brawl involving hoodlums." But when New York promoters saw that there were 36,000 fans in the stands that day, the NFL had established a national presence.

2. Jim Thorpe's Carlisle jersey ($300,000):
Before Grange, there was Jim Thorpe, arguably the greatest athlete ever. Besides being a football star, Thorpe won two gold track and field medals in the 1912 Olympics, and he played pro baseball. On Nov. 11, 1911, in his most famous college football game for Carlisle, Thorpe single-handedly beat Harvard, scoring a touchdown and kicking field goals of 23, 43, 37 and 48 yards. Recently, Lelands.com sold an everyday jersey from when he played with the professional Canton Bulldogs for $284,350. But memorabilia experts say his jersey from the Harvard game would fetch even more. "He remains one of the greatest athletes of all time," says Dave Bushing, who is the head of memorabilia evaluation for MEARS. "Not much of his exists, so everybody wants something."

1. Network footage from Super Bowl I ($1 million):
That's right, a cool million for a game that was broadcast by two networks (CBS and NBC) -- and has since disappeared! Today, the game is all about big ratings, memorable commercials and A-list music acts. But it was low-key at first. The Jan. 15, 1967, game didn't sell out by the time the Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs took the field at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Neither of the broadcast networks had any idea how big the game would become, so neither saved the game, even for historical purposes. "Legend has it that the two networks that covered the game taped over it with soap operas," says Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films. Adds Josh Evans, founder of Lelands.com: "Here you have the pinnacle of sports events in this country, and network footage of it can't be found. That is unbelievable."

Tim Wendel's books include "My Man Stan," a sports novel for kids, and "Castro's Curveball."