Johnny Unitas

John Constantine Unitas was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, into a Lithuanian-American working-class family. After his father died when Johnny was five, he shoveled coal to help his mother. Cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers as a ninth-round draft pick in 1955, Unitas worked as a construction laborer on a pile driver crew while playing semi-pro football for the Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game on sandlot fields.

Signed by the Baltimore Colts in 1956 after a $0.80 tryout call, Unitas became an immediate sensation under coach Weeb Ewbank. In an era when quarterbacks were merely hand-off technicians, Unitas called his own plays, revolutionized the two-minute hurry-up offense, and carved up defenses with surgical timing passes to Raymond Berry and John Mackey.

His defining milestone occurred on 28 December 1958 at Yankee Stadium against the New York Giants in the NFL Championship Game—celebrated as 'The Greatest Game Ever Played'. Orchestrating a clinical two-minute drive to tie the game in regulation, Unitas marched the Colts 80 yards in the first sudden-death overtime in NFL history, handing off to Alan Ameche for the winning touchdown before 45 million television viewers. Between 1956 and 1960, Unitas threw a touchdown pass in 47 consecutive games, an untouchable milestone that held for over half a century until Drew Brees surpassed it in 2012.