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Rick Spielman is the General Manager of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings. He was promoted to General Manager in 2012 after spending 2006–2011 as the team's Vice President of Player Personnel.^[1] He formerly worked for ESPN on NFL Live.

Spielman is a graduate of Massillon Washington High School located in Massillon, Ohio and is the older brother of Chris Spielman, the former Detroit Lions linebacker.

Playing career[link]

Spielman played linebacker at Southern Illinois (1983–86), earning 1st-Team All-Gateway Conference honoree as a junior. He was also part of the 1983 NCAA Division I-AA national championship team as a redshirt freshman. Upon entering the NFL, as an undrafted free agent, he was invited to training camp with the San Diego Chargers (1987) and Detroit Lions (1988), but did not make it as a professional football player.^[2]

Career in scouting[link]

Spielman began his NFL career as a scout with Detroit in 1990 and worked with the club in college scouting for five seasons before adding pro scouting duties in 1995 and 1996. He moved to Director of Pro Personnel for the Bears from 1997-99 before joining the Dolphins in 2000 as Vice President of Player Personnel. He was promoted in 2002 to Senior Vice President-Football Operations/Player Personnel and eventually General Manager in 2004. Spielman left the Dolphins during the 2005 off-season.

Spielman worked with ESPN as an NFL analyst in 2005, before joining the Minnesota Vikings.^[2]

Minnesota Vikings[link]

Spielman assumed the Vikings' Vice President of Player Personnel role on May 30, 2006, replacing Fran Foley.^[3]

To date, Spielman has overseen six drafts in Minnesota. His most notable draftees include Adrian Peterson and Sidney Rice in 2007, Tyrell Johnson and John Sullivan in 2008, Percy Harvin and Phil Loadholt in 2009, Chris Cook and Toby Gerhart in 2010, Christian Ponder and Kyle Rudolph in 2011. The draft aside, Spielman is best known for the offseason moves the Vikings made in 2008, when they signed Bernard Berrian and Madieu Williams to contracts and traded a first round and two third round picks to the Kansas City Chiefs for pro-bowl defensive end, Jared Allen, and finally in 2009 when the Vikings came to terms with long time Green Bay Packer Brett Favre.

On January 3, 2012, Spielman was promoted to General Manager of the Vikings.

Personal life[link]

Spielman is married and has six adopted children. His wife's name is Michele, and his children are Juan, Luis, Ronnie, J.D., Omie and Whitney.

References[link]

Leslie Antonio Frazier (born April 3, 1959) is a former cornerback/safety in the National Football League for the Chicago Bears and is currently the head coach^[1][2][3] for the Minnesota Vikings.

College career[link]

He played college football at Alcorn State University, where he lined up in the defensive secondary next to Roynell Young.

Pro career[link]

Frazier was a part of the 1985 Chicago Bears team that won Super Bowl XX. During the 1985 championship season, Frazier led the team with 6 interceptions. His career was cut short due to a knee injury he suffered returning a punt in the second quarter of the Super Bowl. He was also a member of the "G Crew" in the video The Super Bowl Shuffle.

Coaching career[link]

Frazier started his coaching career in 1988 as the first head coach at Trinity College in Illinois, now known as Trinity International University. He held the position for nine seasons, built the NAIA program from the ground up and won a pair of Northern Illinois Intercollegiate Conference titles before he moved on to the University of Illinois in 1997 as the Illinois defensive back's coach.

In 1999 Frazier joined first time Head Coach Andy Reid as Defensive Backs coach for the Philadelphia Eagles. It was there that Frazier worked as a fellow assistant with the Vikings future Head Coach, Brad Childress. The Eagles defense improved steadily in the four years that Frazier was there.

He was defensive coordinator of the Cincinnati Bengals from 2003-2004 where he helped turn the unit into a group that increased takeaways from 24 in 2003 to 36 in 2004. The Bengals' 36 takeaways ranked 3rd in the NFL in 2004. The 2004 Bengals notched 20 interceptions, the most since 1996. The Bengals' defense improved from 28th in the league in total yards allowed in 2003 to 19th in 2004, and declined in the two years following his dismissal.

In 2005, Frazier was hired by Tony Dungy as a defensive assistant for the Indianapolis Colts, receiving the title of Special Assistant to the Head Coach as well as Defensive Backs Coach. He was specifically brought in by Dungy to help the Colts' young corps of defensive backs. During his time in Indy the Colts passing defense improved from 15th in 2005 to 2nd in 2006. On February 4, 2007 the Colts beat Frazier's former team, the Chicago Bears, in Super Bowl XLI. Four days later, on February 8, 2007, he became the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings following the hiring of Vikings defensive coordinator Mike Tomlin by the Pittsburgh Steelers as their head coach.

On November 22, 2010, the Vikings fired head coach Brad Childress and named Frazier the interim head coach for the remainder of the 2010 season.^[4] Frazier ended the 2010 season with a loss to the Detroit Lions, putting the Vikings in last place in the NFC North. Frazier's record in 2010 was 3-3.

On January 3, 2011, the Vikings and Leslie Frazier reached an agreement making him the permanent head coach.

In Frazier's first season as head coach, the Vikings went 3-13 which was their worst season since 1984.

On December 5, 2011, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf stated "Leslie will definitely be back next year."

References[link]

External links[link]

• Minnesota Vikings profile

Fran Tarkenton

Tarkenton in January 2010
No. 10
Quarterback
Personal information
Date of birth: (1940-02-03) February 3, 1940 (age 72)
Place of birth: Richmond, Virginia
Height: 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) Weight: 190 lb (86 kg)
Career information
High school: Athens High School
College: Georgia
NFL Draft: 1961 / Round: 3 / Pick: 29
Debuted in 1961 for the Minnesota Vikings
Last played in 1978 for the Minnesota Vikings
Career history
Minnesota Vikings (1961-1966;1972-1978) New York Giants (1967-1971)
Career highlights and awards
9× Pro Bowl selection (1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1976) 2× First-team All-Pro selection (1973, 1975) 1× Second-team All-Pro selection (1970) 1975 NFL MVP 3× NFC Champion (1973, 1974, 1976) 1975 NFL Offensive Player of the Year 1975 UPI NFC Player of the Year 1975 Bert Bell Award 1964 Pro Bowl MVP Minnesota Vikings #10 Retired, Ring of Honor Minnesota Vikings 25th Anniversary Team Minnesota Vikings 40th Anniversary Team 50 Greatest Vikings Records Vikings Career Passing Yards Leader with 33,098 Vikings Career Passing Touchdowns Leader with 239
Career NFL statistics as of 1978
Pass attempts 6,467 Pass completions 3,686 Percentage 57.0 TD-INT 342-266 Passing yards 47,003 QB Rating 80.4 Stats at NFL.com
Pro Football Hall of Fame
College Football Hall of Fame

Francis Asbury "Fran" Tarkenton (born February 3, 1940) is a former professional football player, TV personality, and computer software executive.

He is best known for playing with the Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants, as well as serving as a commentator on Monday Night Football and a co-host of That's Incredible!. At the time of his retirement he owned every major quarterback record.

Tarkenton also founded Tarkenton Software, a computer-program generator company, and he toured the U.S. promoting CASE (computer-aided software engineering) with Albert F. Case, Jr. of Nastec Corporation. Tarkenton Software later merged with KnowledgeWare (with Tarkenton as president), until selling the company to Sterling Software in 1994.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Fran Tarkenton was born in Richmond, Virginia. His father, Dallas Tarkenton, Sr., was a Pentecostal minister.^[1] Fran Tarkenton went to Athens High School in Athens, Georgia, and later attended the University of Georgia, where he was the quarterback on the Bulldog football team. He led Georgia to the 1959 Southeastern Conference championship under Coach Wally Butts. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

Also, in Tarkenton's early years he was a member of the Masonic Youth Group DeMolay.

Tarkenton's first marriage was to Anna Elaine Merrell of Decatur, Georgia. They wed on December 22, 1960, at First Baptist Church in Decatur.

Professional football career[link]

The Minnesota Vikings drafted Tarkenton in the third round of the 1961 NFL Draft, and he was picked in the fifth round of the 1961 AFL draft by the Boston Patriots. He signed with the Vikings. Tarkenton, 21, played his first National Football League game (and the Vikings' first game) against the Chicago Bears and led the Vikings to a victory by passing for 250 yards and four touchdown passes as the upstarts stunned the Bears 37–13. He is the only player in NFL history to pass for four touchdowns in his first NFL game.

He played for the Vikings from 1961 to 1966, during which time he frequently locked horns with head coach Norm Van Brocklin, who disdained the idea of a mobile quarterback, a concept that Tarkenton dramatically advanced in the NFL. Tarkenton was given the nicknames "The Mad Scrambler," "Frantic Fran," and "Scramblin' Fran" because he frequently ran around in the backfield to avoid being sacked by the opposition (among his other nicknames: "Sir Francis," used occasionally by Howard Cosell of ABC Sports).

Tarkenton was traded to the New York Giants in 1967 and played there for five seasons. His efforts helped the Giants rally from the NFL's basement (a 1-12-1 record in 1966) to better times. In the first game of the 1969 season, Tarkenton's Giants played the Vikings. After trailing 23-10 in the fourth quarter, Tarkenton threw two touchdown passes to secure a 24-23 comeback victory over his former team.^[2] The 24 points allowed by Minnesota's defense would be a season-worst for the unit that would finish #1 in dominant fashion.^[3]

Tarkenton was traded back to Minnesota in 1972. He led the Vikings to three Super Bowls in the 1970s, but lost all of them. In Tarkenton's first Super Bowl appearance they lost to the Miami Dolphins 24–7 in Houston, they lost the second to the Pittsburgh Steelers in a defensive struggle 16-6 in New Orleans, and in the last Super Bowl Tarkenton would ever play, the Vikings were blown out by the Oakland Raiders 32-14 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Tarkenton won the NFL's MVP award after the 1975 season, capturing All-Pro honors in the process. Tarkenton was also second Team All-Pro in 1973 and earned All-NFC selection in 1972 and 1976. He was named second Team All-NFC in 1970 and 1974. Tarkenton was selected to play in nine Pro Bowls.

In his 18 NFL seasons, Tarkenton completed 3,686 of 6,467 passes for 47,003 yards and 342 touchdowns, with 266 interceptions. Tarkenton's 47,003 career passing yards rank him 6th all time, while his 342 career passing touchdowns is 4th all time in NFL history.^[4] He also is fifth on the all-time list of wins by a starting quarterback with 124 regular season victories. He also used his impressive scrambling ability to rack up 3,674 rushing yards and 32 touchdowns on 675 carries. During his career, Tarkenton ran for a touchdown in 15 different seasons, an NFL record among quarterbacks. He ranks fourth in career rushing yards among quarterbacks, behind Randall Cunningham, Steve Young and Michael Vick. He is also one of two NFL quarterbacks ever to rush for at least 300 yards in seven different seasons; the other is Tobin Rote. Inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986. Vikings head coach Bud Grant flatly called Tarkenton "the greatest quarterback who's ever played." When he retired, Tarkenton held NFL career records in pass attempts, completions, yardage, and touchdowns; rushing yards by a quarterback; and wins by a starting quarterback.

However, Tarkenton's poor performance in three Super Bowls and his inability to win a championship ring in 18 seasons prevents some people from considering him as great as other quarterbacks. Despite not winning a Super Bowl, he won six playoff games, and in 1999 he was ranked number 59 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. He was also known to heave the ball deep on third and long with no regard to an interception. He stated this was due to the great defense his teams had.

One of the more difficult losses of Tarkenton's career occurred during the 1975 NFC Divisional Playoffs. With what was considered by some observers^{[citation needed]} to be the best team of their Purple People Eater era, the Vikings lost to the Dallas Cowboys 17-14 on a hail Mary touchdown pass from Dallas quarterback Roger Staubach to wide receiver Drew Pearson. The play so incensed the crowd that one fan fired a whiskey bottle from the stands, striking official Armen Terzian in the head. This was partly responsible for the banning of glass bottles at arenas around the country. Common Vikings folklore blames this incident for many future calls that referees made against the Vikings, and has been termed "Terzian's Revenge". Tarkenton also lost his father, who died while he was watching the game; it had been rumored that the "Hail Mary Pass" caused the cardiac arrest, but in fact Mr. Tarkenton died during the middle of the third quarter. It was a disappointing end to a spectacular season for the Vikings. They had finished the season with an NFC best 12-2 record and Tarkenton had won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award, and the NFL Offensive Player of the Year Award.

Post-football life[link]

Tarkenton was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1977, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Athens (GA) Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000.

Tarkenton later appeared on the television show That's Incredible! and also worked part time on Monday Night Football. He also guest-hosted Saturday Night Live on January 29, 1977.

A biography of Tarkenton titled Better Scramble than Lose was published in 1969. This followed Tarkenton's 1967 autobiography No Time for Losing and preceded by several years his 1977 autobiography Tarkenton co-written with Jim Klobuchar. The autobiographies chronicle not only his football career but also his personal evolution from his early football days as a preacher's son. Tarkenton wrote a book titled Broken Patterns: The Education of a Quarterback, as told to Brock Yates. It is a chronicle of the 1969 New York Giants season.

In 1986 Tarkenton, with author Herb Resincow, wrote a novel titled Murder at the Super Bowl, the whodunit story of a football coach killed just before his team is to participate in the championship game.

Tarkenton wrote the self-help, motivational books Playing to Win in 1984,^[5] and How to Motivate People: The Team Strategy for Success in 1986.^[6]. He also wrote the motivational self-help business book titled What Losing Taught Me About Winning,^[7],and "Every Day is Game Day." In 1987, Tarkenton hosted a Think and Grow Rich TV infomercial that sold the book with an audio cassette version (the audio cassettes contained an introduction and conclusion by Tarkenton).^[8]

Tarkenton was also a pioneer in computer software, and founder of Tarkenton Software, a program generator company. He toured the United States promoting CASE or "computer-aided software engineering" with Albert F. Case, Jr. of Nastec Corporation, but ultimately merged his software firm with James Martin's KnowledgeWare, of which Tarkenton was president until selling the company to Sterling Software in 1994.

Since then, Tarkenton has been seen promoting various products and services including Tony Robbins and 1-800-BAR-NONE. He also founded GoSmallBiz.com [2], a small business consulting website, which is sold exclusively through Pre-paid Legal Services, Inc. His most current company is an annuity marketing firm called Tarkenton Financial.[3]

In 2009, Tarkenton made national news for his harsh criticism of Brett Favre's indecision on whether or not to come out of retirement to play for the Minnesota Vikings. Tarkenton, however, himself was similarly indecisive on his retirement during the last seven years of his playing career.^[9][10] Ironically, Tarkenton forced the Vikings to trade him away in 1967, even though head coach Norm Van Brocklin, with whom he had had much unhappiness, had already resigned. Tarkenton's departure caused the Vikings to go on a five-year search for a starting quarterback (Joe Kapp, Gary Cuozzo, Ron Vander Kelen, Norm Snead, and Bob Lee were all Vikings' starters between 1967 and 1971), before Tarkenton badgered the Giants into trading him back to the Vikings in 1972.

In February 2012, Tarkenton began hosting his own weekly call-in radio show on Sirius XM.^[11]

Tarkenton, his wife Linda, and currently reside in Atlanta, Georgia. They have four children and ten grandchildren. They also enjoy spending time at their home located in North Georgia.

See also[link]

• History of the New York Giants (1925-1978)
• Most consecutive starts by a quarterback (NFL)

Further reading[link]

• Olsen, Jack (1969). Better Scramble Than Lose. Four Winds Press.  Book-length biography of Fran Tarkenton.
• Tarkenton, Fran and Bruton, Jim, (2009). Every Day Is Game Day, Triumph Books, ISBN 1-60078-253-1 [Autobiography of Fran Tarkenton]

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• Fran Tarkenton.com - official web site
• Fran Tarkenton at Pro-Football-Reference.com
• Fran Tarkenton at the Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Fran Tarkenton at the Internet Movie Database
• College Football Hall of Fame - Fran Tarkenton
• Georgia Sports Hall of Fame
• Fran Tarkenton (entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia)
• Football card gallery.com - Fran Tarkenton
• Fran Tarkenton Career Publications - VikingsCards.com
• View Fran Tarkenton on FanBase

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