Death
On September 11, 2002, Unitas died suddenly of a heart attack while working out at the Kernan Physical Therapy Center in Timonium, Maryland. After his death, many fans of the Baltimore Ravens football team petitioned the renaming of the Ravens' home stadium (owned by the State of Maryland) after Unitas. These requests were unsuccessful since the lucrative naming rights had already been leased by the Ravens to Buffalo, New York M&T Bank. However, a statue of Unitas was erected as the centerpiece of the plaza in front of the Stadium named in Unitas' honor. Large banners depicting the NFL Hall of Famer in his Baltimore Colts heyday flank the entrance to the stadium. Towson University, where Unitas was a major fund-raiser and which his children attended, named its football and lacrosse complex Johnny Unitas Stadium in recognition of both his football career and service to the University.
Toward the end of his life, Unitas brought media attention to the many permanent physical disabilities that he and his fellow players suffered during their careers before heavy padding and other safety features became popular. Unitas himself lost almost total use of his right hand, with the middle finger and thumb noticeably disfigured from being repeatedly broken during games.
He is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, Maryland.
Read more about this topic: Johnny Unitas
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“But, when nothing subsists from a distant past, after the death of others, after the destruction of objects, only the senses of smell and taste, weaker but more enduring, more intangible, more persistent, more faithful, continue for a long time, like souls, to remember, to wait, to hope, on the ruins of all the rest, to bring without flinching, on their nearly impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)