Memorials
YOUNGBLOOD'S JESSE COLIN YOUNG, 84
Jesse Colin Young, a good friend who supported my work with Pro Players Association Concerts of Compassion. Jesse told Gary Adler, PPA CEO, anytime we needed him to perform "Get Together" he'd make it his best effort to be there. Such sad news of his passing. RIP Jesse.
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CHARTER MEMBER/BOARD MEMBER/HONORARY BOARD MEMBER
RON CRAMER, 82
It is with sincere sadness that I must announce the passing of Ron Cramer, 82, former Baltimore Colts and Denver Broncos Defensive Back. Ron was in home hospice care when he passed earlier this evening after a long brave battle with emphysema.
Ron played football at and graduated from Millersville Teachers College, Millersville, PA., where he was selected as the Right Defensive Back for the Tri-State Honors Team. His pro career began with the Baltimore Colts alongside Johnny Unitas, 1960-63. Ron continued his stay with the Colts on their semi-pro team, 1964-65. He joined the Broncos as a Defensive Back- Special Teams member for the 1966-67 season.
Ron often liked to share his many experiences of playing with Johnny Unitas on the Baltimore Colts. He was a charter member, past executive board member, and honorary board member of the Pro Players Association. He was also a past member of the NFL Alumni Rocky Mountain Chapter. After retirement from football and having settled in Denver, Ron became a professional auctioneer. He was employed in the auction industry until he was diagnosed with emphysema and had to use oxygen to assist his breathing.
Ron is survived by his wife, Nancy Baker-Cramer, his brother Corke Cramer, his stepson Jeremy Cramer. Memorial arrangements to be announced.
I am posting this at the request of Ron's wife Nancy.
On a personal note,
Ron and I have been friends for thirty years. He was one of the first pro football players that I met when I moved to Colorado. We became great friends and remained as such for all these years. I feel very fortunate that I was able to visit with Ron twice in the last two weeks while he was at home in hospice care. We shared many memories, and he was spot-on recollecting each event. I had the privilege of photographing Ron and Nancy's wedding and we have spent many great times together over those many years. Ron was always there to lend a hand with our many fundraising activities, and he organized and coordinated our 2008 Bowling Tournament.
I will truly miss this great friend who was one of my greatest supporters of many years of my fundraising and auctioneering careers.
Pro Players Association sends our heartfelt condolences to his wife Nancy and his family. May his memory be for a blessing. Ron, may you Rest in Peace.
Photos©️Blind Images
HEARTFELT CONDOLENCES
It’s with great sadness that I’m just reading on Facebook of the passing of a great friend, associate, and former member of the Pro Players Association and the NFL Alumni. Captain Ron McKinney of the Salvation Army.
Ron was a former pastor of the Philadelphia Eagles Football Club. I met Ron and recruited him onto the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the NFL Alumni Association back in the late 90s. He later also became a member of Pro Players Association and was a past advisory board member in the early days of the organization.
Ron McKinney had started working with the Denver Salvation Army around that time. Originally Ron was assigned to the Champa Street homeless shelter.
His next assignment brought him deeper into the community working with many at-risk and disadvantaged youth. Many of us worked with Ron and Roberta at the High Street Red Shield Community Center with local youth, through the instructions of professional boxers Ron Lyle and Lightning Lonnie Smith. The pro boxers instructions from Ron were to help redirect many troubled kids off the street fighting scene and into the ring of competitve fighting. Ron and Roberta’s programs provided these youth an after school program keeping them off the dangerous streets in a safe place to learn, study, and interact in a positive way with each other. Thanks to their efforts, many of these youth were taught respect, responsibility, dedication, trust, and we’re given a new direction.
Ron established an advisory council for the Denver Rehab Center. He later had invited our memberships to participate in fundraising efforts and community service. It was a pleasure to assist Ron with the organization and coordination of more than seven years of golf tournaments. Every holiday season Ron invited our Pro Players members to assist him (and Santa and Mrs Claus) in preparing meals and feeding the residents of the rehabilitation center.
Ron and Roberta’s service was called upon to move to Las Vegas Nevada and that is where they remained for the last several years giving of themselves to the community as Salvation Army officers
He was incredible in that he reached out and gave of himself to the community in so many ways, so very often. His presence, our friendship will forever be missed. He was surely God’s soldier.
Heartfelt condolences to Roberta from myself and on behalf of the Pro Players Association. Please reach out to us if there is anything that we can do.
May Ron’s memory be for a blessing and may he Rest in Peace.
Photo by Blind Images ©2013
PPA CHARTER MEMBER DENVER BRONCOS CHIP MYRTLE, 77, TAKEN BY LEUKEMIA
Our hearts are not merely broken, but shattered, as yet another senseless tragedy strikes our country.
IN MEMORY
IN MEMORY
Our heartfelt condolences go out to the Miller family and the Denver Broncos family on the passing of former 'Orange Crush' Head Coach Red Miller, September 27, 2017.
In years past Red had participated in several of our fundraising efforts with NFL Alumni and Pro Players Association. Gary Adler recently shook his hand and spoke with him at Babe Parilli's funeral in July after having not seen him for many years. His friendship and association with our organization will be greatly missed.
Rest In Peace Red.
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Vito "Babe" Parilli: 1930-2017
Parilli, who died Saturday, spent nearly a half-century in college and pro football, including a three-year stint as the Broncos' quarterbacks coach.
Posted Jul 15, 2017 Denver Broncos Football Club
Andrew MasonSenior Digital Reporter
Babe Parilli
The life of Vito "Babe" Parilli in football was unlike any other.
Parilli, who died Saturday at the age of 87, was the quarterbacks coach for the Broncos from 1977-79, working on the staff of one Ring of Famer (head coach Red Miller) while guiding another Ring of Famer (Craig Morton) to some of the best seasons of his career.
Those three years forever connected Parilli to the Broncos and to Denver. But they tell just a small fraction of his story, a journey of nearly 50 years in the sport that saw him cross paths with one legend after another.
After growing up in Rochester, Pennsylvania, Parilli played at Kentucky under perhaps the greatest coach in college football history, Paul "Bear" Bryant. He guided UK to its greatest football success, leading them to wins in the Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl in consecutive seasons. That earned the notice of the NFL and the Green Bay Packers, who drafted Parilli with the No. 4 overall pick in the 1952 NFL Draft.
A whistle-stop, 18-season playing career followed, beginning with two years in Green Bay. It included two separate stints with the CFL's Ottawa Rough Riders, and a year with the Cleveland Browns under Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown, when he was a first-hand witness to Brown's early attempts to use a radio receiver in a quarterback's helmet. Parilli returned to Green Bay in 1957, playing two more seasons as a backup behind Bart Starr before he was cut in 1959 by a head coach just getting his feet wet -- Vince Lombardi.
As Parilli told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in 2003, he got the better of Lombardi on the golf course -- but that might have been a mistake.
"We were only playing for a dollar," Parilli said. "But afterwards, he threw the dollar at me and said, 'That's the last dollar you'll ever make from me.' And before the season started, he cut me."
However, that set up the decade that would help define Parilli's legacy: 10 seasons as an American Football League quarterback. After playing for the Rough Riders in 1959, he joined the new league's Oakland Raiders in 1960, then was traded to the Boston Patriots in 1961.
The Patriots gave Parilli the chance he desperately wanted: a full-time starting role with a U.S.-based pro team. He flourished, establishing franchise passing standards that stood for two decades during seven seasons that saw the Patriots go 44-32-7 in his starts. Parilli still ranks fourth in Patriots history in completions, yardage and touchdown passes behind Tom Brady, Steve Grogan and Drew Bledsoe.
In 1968, Parilli joined the New York Jets and earned a Super Bowl ring as Joe Namath's backup quarterback while soaking up knowledge from the Jets' Hall of Fame-bound coach, Weeb Ewbank.
Parilli retired from playing in 1970 and began another adventure as a coach that included his three years under Miller on the Broncos' sideline and a stint as Chuck Noll's quarterbacks coach in Pittsburgh tutoring Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw.
Parilli also coached in three other leagues: the World Football League (as head coach of the New York/Charlotte Stars and the Chicago Winds), the United States Football League (as the Denver Gold's offensive coordinator under Morton) and as the head coach of six different Arena Football League teams, including the Denver Dynamite from 1989-91.
In 1997, Parilli concluded his head-coaching career with the AFL's Florida Bobcats. It was a team that was basically homeless; because of venue and management problems, it played its "home" schedule in places like Boston, Los Angeles and Ottawa, Canada.
Midway through that final season, Parilli's team faced off against a future Pro Football Hall of Famer: Kurt Warner, who was guiding the Iowa Barnstormers. A few months later, Warner would get his NFL shot with the St. Louis Rams, but on that night, Parilli's humble Bobcats stunned the legend's team, 68-55.
It was the sort of wily triumph that was Parilli's specialty. Knocked down so many times, but never out, he was one of the game's true survivors, leaving behind a legacy as unique as the sport itself.
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Pro Players Association would like to express our heartfelt condolences to the family of Bobby Burnett.
Bobby Burnett 1943-2016
Bobby Clell Burnett passed away on Saturday, October 1, 2016. He was born January 4, 1943 in Clinton, Arkansas to Clell and Frances Burnett. He was the oldest of 3 children, with 2 brothers, Tommy and Billy. Bobby married Dorothy Letsch on July 12, 1965 and were happily married for 51 years. They raised 4 children together: Chad, Deana, Randy, and Shane. They also had 12 grandchildren. Bobby was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and had a strong testimony of his Savior, Jesus Christ.
Bobby Burnett graduated from Smackover High School in Smackover, Arkansas. He played tailback for the Arkansas Razorbacks from 1963-65. In 1965, he was selected as All-SWC, led the conference in touchdowns, set a Razorback single season record of 16 touchdowns, received the Charles T. Myers award as his team's Most Valuable Player, led the SWC in rushing, carrying the ball 232 times for 947 yards and 16 touchdown's without a fumble, and ranked in the top 5 nationally in a number of categories. He scored the winning touchdown in the 1965 Cotton Bowl against Nebraska that gave Arkansas it's only national championship; with that feat being named by Sports Illustrated a few years ago as the most memorable moment in Arkansas' Sport history. Bobby scored 2 touchdowns in the Senior Bowl before being drafted by the Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills. He signed with the Bills, with Jack Kemp at quarterback, and Marty Schotenheimer at linebacker. Bobby was selected as the AFL's "Rookie of the Year" in 1966. He was also selected as All-Pro and scored twice in the Pro Bowl, while being selected as the Bill's Most Valuable Player for 1966. After his career with the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos, he completed his Master's degree in Education and became co-owner of the largest single-office real estate business in the state of Colorado, employing over 500 agents. He has been inducted into the State of Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame twice; as an individual in 1997, and as a member of the 1964 Razorback National Champion Team in 2010.
He will be forever remembered as an amazing athlete, father, grandfather, husband, friend, and inspiration to all who knew him.
Pro Players Association would like to express our sincere condolences to the family of our member Dan Haggerty, aka Grizzly Adams who passed away earlier today, Friday, Jan 15, 2016 after a courageous battle with cancer.
Met my friend Dan, most of you knew him as Grizzly Adams, in May 2007. We remained friends since, kept in touch, then he even became a member of Pro Players Association. It was an honor to be able to call Dan my friend. I just wrote him get well wishes earlier this week, as he was battling cancer. My heart breaks to have to say, the cancer won. You're probably reuniting with all your animal friends of years past. We'll miss your big heart and awesome smiles down here. Griz rest easy and rest in peace.
Photo by Blind Images ©2007
IN LOVING MEMORY OF STORM JACOB ADLER
March 11, 2001 - June 17, 2015
IN LOVING MEMORY OF JACOB "JAKE" BRYCE ADLER
September 26,1984 - December 24, 1999
