Hall Of Fame QB Y.A. Tittle Dead At 90

Y.A. Tittle, a Hall of Fame quarterback and the 1963 NFL MVP, died Sunday night at the age of 90.

Hall of Fame QB Y.A. Tittle Death News

HIs alma mater LSU confirmed the news, saying Tittle passed surrounded by his family.

Tittle was known as the “Bald Eagle” for both his strong leadership and his receding hairline and played 17 seasons of Pro Football. He started with the All-America Football Conference’s Baltimore Colts in 1948 and finished with the NFL’s New York Giants. He also played with the San Francisco 49ers for ten years in between, although he was most successful in New York, where he led the Giants to three division titles in four years in the 1960s. Tittle played both quarterback and tailback for LSU from 1944 to 1947.

“For all Y. A.’s bumpkin ways, I suspect the city saw in him a reflection of itself,” the former Giants star and broadcaster Frank Gifford remarked in his 1993 memoir, “The Whole Ten Yards.”

Tittle — who never won a national championship — was also called “YAT” by his teammates and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971. He threw 36 touchdown passes while winning the MVP award in 1963 and held the NFL record for most touchdown passes in a season until Dan Marino threw 48 in 1984.

The QB started 78 games and earned four of his seven Pro Bowl selections during a decade with the 49ers. He even became the first pro football player to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1954.

Tittle passed for 33,070 yards and 242 touchdowns in two leagues during his career. He is one of eight players, along with Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, to throw for seven touchdowns in a game. Tittle finally retired in 1964.

He established Y.A. Tittle & Associates Insurance Services during his playing days and ran the business in Palo Alto, California, well beyond the age of 65. Tittle also had a cameo in the 1999 movie “Any Given Sunday,” playing a football coach.

Tittle’s death follows that of another notable athlete, former Basketball Hall of Fame forward Connie Hawkins, a New York-born star who died at age 75 on Friday, ten years after being diagnosed with colon cancer. Hawkins, who played with the Phoenix Suns and the Harlem Globetrotters among other teams, was barred from the NBA following his suspected involvement in a college point-shaving scandal in the early 1960s.

BATON ROUGE, LA – SEPTEMBER 20: Y.A. Tittle gives a thumbs up on the sidelines before a game between the LSU Tigers and the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Tiger Stadium on September 20, 2014 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)