Art Donovan - #57

Art Donovan: An NFL classic dies at 89

He was number 57 on the list

Art Donovan played pro football for 12 years. The rest of his life, he spent telling everyone about it. Donovan, 89, who died Sunday of a respiratory ailment at Stella Maris Hospice, played and talked a great game. He was a Hall of Fame defensive tackle for the Baltimore Colts and an engaging raconteur at banquets and on TV talk shows. His cherublike face, adenoidal voice and side-splitting tales of yore captivated generations of viewers who never saw Donovan collar a quarterback or take down a runner."Artie made a career out of telling people everything that he'd done right -- and wrong -- in football," said Ordell Braase, his teammate on the field and in the broadcast studio. "The diversity of his appeal was amazing. Everyone wanted to hug 'Fatso,' from young girls to little old ladies."Donovan died just before 8 p.m., surrounded by 15 to 20 family members, said his daughter, Kelly Donovan-Mazzulli."My mom (Dorothy) was with dad to his last breath, as she was determined to be," she said.Ten times, Donovan appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman," where he spun yarns about his youth in the Bronx, his hitch in the Marines during World War II and his experiences during the sanguinary years of the National Football League, when the game was played by "oversized coal miners and West Texas psychopaths."Often, his stories were laced with self-deprecating humor and some choice four-letter words. Like beer, Spam and junk food."Dunnie had all of his stories numbered," said Alex Sandusky, a Colts teammate. "Going to games, he'd sit in the last seat on the bus, the widest one. That was our 'story room.' Then he'd say, 'This is number 46 coming up.'"He was a classic -- a great, fun-loving human being. If they can laugh in heaven, he'll get them going."Arthur James Donovan Jr. was born in New York City, the son of a famous boxing referee. Arthur Sr., a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, officiated 14 heavyweight title bouts, including a number of Joe Louis' fights.Donovan's grandfather, Mike Donovan, was a world middleweight champion who also gave boxing lessons to President Theodore Roosevelt.But football was Donovan's love. Despite a modest high school career, he received a scholarship to the University of Notre Dame in 1942 but left after one semester to join the Marines. Stationed in the Pacific, he served as an anti-aircraft gunner aboard the USS San Jacinto during the assault on Leyte in the central Philippines.After 13 months at sea, Donovan volunteered for the Fleet Marine Force, which landed him in the middle of combat on Okinawa. His citations, which included the Asiatic Pacific Area Ribbon and the Philippine Liberation Ribbon, would later earn him a place in the U.S. Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame -- the first pro football player so honored."Here's a guy that fought in World War II and played with the Baltimore Colts," former Colts wide receiver Raymond Berry said this weekend while attending the Hall of Fame festivities in Canton, Ohio. "I would say, 'Artie, tell me about your World World II service.' And (he would say), 'Well, I got shot in the butt at Okinawa.' That was typical Art Donovan."Donovan's favorite war story? The time on Guam when he swiped a case of Spam, got caught and was ordered to eat it or go to the brig. In nine days, he polished off all 30 pounds of the processed pork.His go-to jokes dealt with food and drink. Donovan liked to describe himself as a light eater."As soon as it's light, I start to eat," he would say.And: "The only weight I ever lifted weighed 24 ounces. It was a Schlitz. I always replaced my fluids."At war's end, he returned briefly to Notre Dame, then transferred to Boston College, where he made second-team All New England.TURNING PROIn 1950, the Colts picked Donovan in the third round of a special NFL draft. That team folded at season's end, as did the next two clubs for which he played -- the New York Yanks and Dallas Texans."I helped kill three teams," Donovan said in retrospect.In 1953, the Colts returned to Baltimore with the crew-cut tackle in tow. He would never leave again.Strong, smart and surprisingly quick for his size, which ranged from 270 to 300 pounds, Donovan made All-NFL for four straight years (1954-1957) and played in five consecutive Pro Bowls (1953-1957)."He had good balance and great agility," Buzz Nutter, then the Colts' center, once said. "One man alone could not knock Artie off his feet."Playing alongside Gino Marchetti, a Hall of Fame end, Donovan anchored a Colts defense that helped Baltimore win world championships in 1958 and 1959."You can't fool Donovan twice with the same play, and on trap plays he has no equal," said his coach, Weeb Ewbank.The Sun described Donovan thusly: "He blocks the passer's view for yards on either side, and he tackles a player like a house collapsing.""How tough was Artie?" Marchetti said recently. "One game, he and (San Francisco 49ers tackle) Don Campora were going at it, calling each other an s.o.b. All of a sudden, Artie gave him a shot and I looked over there and Artie had a whole handful of the guy's teeth."The referee came over but didn't do anything because when Campora tried to tell him what Artie had done, he couldn't talk right."Donovan's nimble feints drove opponents batty."He was always the hardest tackle for me to block," the Chicago Bears' Stan Jones once told The Sun. Jones, a Hall of Fame lineman who'd played at the University of Maryland, called No. 70 "the smartest tackle I ever faced. He was quick, like a matador. He'd move one way and go the other."Donovan took pride in the fact that, during the 1956 Pro Bowl, he played on a kick-return team for the only time in his life. He delivered two crunching blocks to spring the Detroit Lions' Jack Christiansen for a 103-yard touchdown on the game's first play.That same year, Donovan married Dorothy Schaech, a Baltimore pharmacist whom he'd met on a blind date. Their wedding reception featured a chocolate cake, shaped like a football, and inscribed: To Art Donovan -- The Best Lineman.Teammates called him "Fatso," and he cottoned to it."You know you're big when you sit in the bathtub and the water in the toilet rises," he said.During training camp in Westminster, Donovan liked to saunter downtown, park himself in Harry's Main Street Grille and wolf down hot dogs, as many as 25 at one sitting. In his dorm room, he often slept with the television on. The TV, he said, kept warm the leftover pizza he had placed on top of it.The Colts tried to curb Donovan's appetite by offering a $2,000 bonus every season he managed to keep his playing weight under 275 pounds. Sometimes he got the cash, sometimes not."His (weekly) weigh-in was a story," Marchetti said. "Donovan would take his clothes off, piece by piece, and weigh himself after each one."His last hope was always his (false) teeth. A couple of times he had to take them out to make weight."Run himself into shape? Not Donovan."You could draw a 5-foot circle around him at practice and he'd never leave it," Nutter said.Only once did Donovan ever win a footrace, a 30-yard sprint against a 300-pound rookie during camp in 1960. Fatso won by several yards."I felt like Jesse Owens," he recalled later. "I broke the tape with my arms up."The rookie was released by the team that same day.