Turning Pages of ‘100 Things Colts Fans:’ Jeff Saturday
When researching stories on former players, it quickly became apparent that would be easy with Indianapolis Colts center Jeff Saturday.
Fans loved Saturday as much as the Colts did. The following excerpts are from Chapter 37 of the 2013 book 100 Things Colts Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (Triumph Books).
The culmination of a training camp practice at Anderson University in 2011 provided an opportunity to give Saturday a golf-cart ride from the practice field to the locker room.
Chris Williams, AU’s director of communications/community relations, did the driving. Approaching the Kardatzke Wellness Center, a half dozen fans saw Saturday and came running.
Saturday spotted them, too, and asked Williams to “Pull over here.” Autographs all around from the fan favorite.
“The people then came out of the woodwork,” Williams said. “Like a dozen more came over and he signed for every one of them.”
Afterward, the inquisitive university administrator reminded he didn’t have to stop. Saturday enlightened him.
“The fans are everything,” Williams recalled Saturday saying.
Williams was impressed.
“That endeared Jeff to me,” he said.
Saturday’s rise to greatness explains how the man could stay humble. An undrafted, presumably undersized center out of North Carolina, he signed with Baltimore but was cut 46 days later in 1998. That sent him back to Raleigh to work in an electrical supply store.
A year later, he received a tryout with the Colts and made the team. He would start later that season, at left guard. The next year, Saturday became entrenched at center. He didn’t miss a start for 85 consecutive games until 2004. He would be selected for six Pro Bowls, five with the Colts, and start 188 of 197 games while with Indianapolis. His O-line was continually among the best in fewest sacks allowed – quarterback Peyton Manning took just 10 in 2009.
Former Colts tight end Ken Dilger said of his teammate: “He just worked his butt off to become a great center.” And Saturday possessed one other special ability.
“He knew how to give it back to Peyton Manning when Peyton was wrong, which wasn’t often,” Dilger said.
Manning and Saturday set an NFL record for most starts by a quarterback-center combination with 170.
When asked once at training camp about Manning, the NFL’s only five-time MVP, having his hands on the center’s butt all those years, Saturday joked, “There’s nothing magical about those golden hands.”
Popular radio host Bob Kevoian of “The Bob & Tom Show” marveled at how Saturday handled himself in guest appearances.
“Jeff was a real special guest,” Kevoian said. “He just knew exactly what to say and how to say it.”
That explains how Saturday, along with New England owner Robert Kraft, were credited as key influences in resolving NFL and NFLPA differences for a new collective bargaining agreement that saved the 2011 season. A picture of Saturday hugging Kraft, whose dying wife had encouraged him to get the dispute resolved, was dubbed, “The hug felt around the league.” It was a most unexpected visual, considering the bitter Colts-Patriots rivalry.
“His wife, Myra, who was sick the entire time, him having to balance and juggle his time going back and forth, and she would push him to come to the meetings,” Saturday said. “I have a ton of respect for what she did, even in her weakest moment and for what he did and the sacrifice he made – I really do have a lot of respect for that situation and that family and how they handle their business. I think each and every one of us understood what he was going through, and I can’t imagine it. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
Myra Kraft died from cancer one day before the owners ratified the deal.
After a final season in Green Bay in 2012, the 37-year-old Saturday came home to sign a one-day contract and retire as a Colt on March 7, 2013. He graciously thanked everyone in a 20-minute press conference: owner Jim Irsay, management, coaches, trainers and equipment staff, players, his family – wife Karen and children Jeffrey, Savannah, and Joshua sat behind him.
Before the guest of honor took to the lectern, Irsay gushed. He mentioned his favorite play, when Saturday recovered a fumble for a touchdown in the AFC Championship Game victory over Kraft’s Patriots in 2007. That score cost Kevoian and Tom Griswold a bet. They thought they were safe in wagering Saturday would never score. Instead, the dynamic radio duo coughed up $10,000 to charity.
“The community here, you’re my wife and I’s heart,” Saturday said.
He listed his own personal Colts Hall of Fame, the guys he had played with the most over the years: Marvin Harrison, Tarik Glenn, Manning, Hunter Smith, Reggie Wayne, Justin Snow, Ryan Diem, Dwight Freeney, Raheem Brock, Dallas Clark, Robert Mathis, Bob Sanders, Ryan Lilja and Jim Sorgi.
Saturday, who was inducted into the Colts Ring of Honor in 2015, said the record he shared with Manning is his favorite.
“It’s a combination of how many things we had to go through, how many things we had to stay healthy and battle through injuries to keep going. It is a tremendous honor to hold that distinction with him of the greatest or the longest tenure of a quarterback-center,” he said. “So very special.”
(Phillip B. Wilson has covered the Indianapolis Colts for more than two decades and authored the 2013 book 100 Things Colts Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. He’s on Twitter @pwilson24, on Facebook at @allcoltswithphilb and @100thingscoltsfans, and his email is phillipbwilson24@yahoo.com.)
