Babe Parilli
Encyclopedia

Biography

Parilli was born in the Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

 industrial suburb of Rochester, Pennsylvania
Rochester, Pennsylvania
Rochester is a borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located northwest of Pittsburgh, it is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The population was 4,014 at the 2000 census....

. He attended the University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...

 as an All-American starting quarterback
Quarterback
Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...

 for the Wildcats under Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant.

After playing for the Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

 and Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...

 in the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 before a one-year stint in the Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....

 with the Ottawa Rough Riders
Ottawa Rough Riders
The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1876. One of the oldest and longest lived professional sports teams in North America, the Rough Riders won the Grey Cup championship nine times. Their most dominant era was the 1960s and 1970s, a...

, Parilli was picked up by the fledgling American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...

's Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

 on August 17, 1960 and threw for just over 1,000 yards.

On April 4, 1961, he was part of a five-player trade that sent him to the AFL Boston Patriots, and he went on to become one of the AFL's most productive and colorful players. Playing for the Patriots from 1961 through 1966, Parilli finished his career with over 25,000 total yards and 200 touchdowns, ending among the top five quarterbacks in 23 categories such as passing yards, passing touchdowns and rushing yards. Parilli was selected for three All-Star Games
American Football League All-Star games
-All-League Teams:The Sporting News published American Football League All-League Teams for each season played by the American Football League, 1960 through 1969...

. In 1964, throwing primarily to Gino Cappelletti
Gino Cappelletti
Gino Cappelletti is a former American collegiate and Professional Football player. He played at the University of Minnesota, and was a star in the American Football League for the Boston Patriots...

, Parilli amassed nearly 3,500 yards passing with 31 touchdowns; the latter number was a Patriots record until 2007
2007 in sports
2007 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.-American football:* February 4 – Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears 29-17 to win Super Bowl XLI at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. The win was the Colts' first Super Bowl Championship since their 1970-71 team, when...

, when it was broken by Tom Brady
Tom Brady
Thomas Edward Patrick "Tom" Brady, Jr. is an American football quarterback for the New England Patriots of the National Football League . After playing college football at Michigan, Brady was drafted by the Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft.He has played in four Super Bowls,...

. During that season's October 16 contest against the Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

, he threw for 422 yards and four touchdown passes in a 43-43 tie. Parilli is a member of the Patriots All-1960s (AFL) Team.

Parilli completed his career with the New York Jets
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional football team headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, representing the New York metropolitan area. The team is a member of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

, where he earned a ring as Joe Namath
Joe Namath
Joseph William "Joe" Namath , nicknamed "Broadway Joe" or "Joe Willie", is a former American football quarterback. He played college football for the University of Alabama under coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and his assistant, Howard Schnellenberger, from 1962–1964, and professional football in the...

's backup in Super Bowl III
Super Bowl III
Super Bowl III was the third AFL-NFL Championship Game in professional American football, but the first to officially bear the name "Super Bowl". This game is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sports history...

, when the Jets stunned the Baltimore Colts
History of the Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional football team based in Indianapolis, Indiana. They play in the AFC South division of the National Football League. They have won 3 NFL championships and 2 Super Bowls....

 by a 16-7 score. Coincidentally, this gave the Jets two quarterbacks from Beaver County, Pennsylvania
Beaver County, Pennsylvania
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 181,412 people, 72,576 households, and 50,512 families residing in the county. The population density was 418 people per square mile . There were 77,765 housing units at an average density of 179 per square mile...

, with Parilli being from Rochester and Namath being from nearby Beaver Falls
Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania
Beaver Falls is a city in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 8,987 at the 2010 census. It is located 31 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, and on the Beaver River, six miles from its confluence with the Ohio River...

 and both played for "Bear" Bryant in college. In 1967 it was discovered by Life Magazine that Parilli and several other professional athletes were regular patrons of Patriarca crime family mobster Arthur Ventola's major fencing operation called Arthur's Farm in Revere, Massachusetts
Revere, Massachusetts
Revere is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States, and located approximately from downtown Boston. It is named after the American patriot Paul Revere. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 51,755.- History :...

. Despite the organized crime connection, journalist Howie Carr stated that there was never any inside information passed between Parilli and Ventola. Arthur was the uncle of mob associate Richard Castucci
Richard Castucci
Richard J. Castucci was an Italian-American member of the Boston Winter Hill Gang who owned several strip clubs and was involved in illegal gambling...

.

Besides his considerable skills as a quarterback, he was one of the best holders in the history of football and was nicknamed "gold-finger" as a result of kicker Jim Turner's then-record 145 points kicked in 1968 (plus another 19 points in the play-offs and in Super Bowl III). He is one of only twenty players who were in the American Football League for its entire ten-year existence, and is a member of the University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...

 Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1982 Parilli was named to the College Football Hall of Fame.

The wide receiver-quarterback duo of Cappelletti and Parilli was nicknamed "Grand Opera".

In 1974, Parilli became the head coach of the New York Stars of the World Football League
World Football League
The World Football League was a short-lived gridiron football league that played in 1974 and part of 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest the WFL reached was placing a team – the Hawaiians – in Honolulu, Hawaii. The...

. The next year he coached another WFL team, the Chicago Winds
Chicago Winds
The Chicago Winds was the World Football League's ill-fated 1975 successor to the Chicago Fire. The team was named the Winds because Chicago was nicknamed "The Windy City." The Winds played at Soldier Field and was assigned to the WFL's Western Division for 1975 .-Pursuit of Joe...

. *In the late 90s and through most of the 00s*, he would coach several Arena Football League teams.

College Statistics

Season |Passing
Comp Att Yards Comp% TD INT
1949
1949 college football season
The 1949 college football season finished with four teams that were unbeaten and untied-- Notre Dame, Oklahoma, #3 California and Army had won all their games at season’s end. Notre Dame, however, was the overwhelming choice for national champion, with 172 of 208 first place votes...

81 150 1081 54.0 8 13
1950
1950 college football season
The 1950 college football season finished with the unbeaten and untied Oklahoma Sooners being the overwhelming choice for national champion. On New Year’s Day, the 9-0-0 Sooners were upset by the 10-1-0 Kentucky Wildcats in the Sugar Bowl. The #2 team, the United States Military Academy had been...

114 203 1627 56.2 23 12
1951
1951 college football season
The 1951 college football season finished with seven unbeaten major college teams, of which five were unbeaten and untied. Ultimately, the Tennessee Volunteers were voted the best team by the Associated Press, followed by the Michigan State Spartans, with the Vols having a plurality of first place...

136 239 1643 56.9 19 12
Career Total 331 592 4351 55.9 50 37

External links

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