Art Donovan, the lineman whose hilarious stories about his football career enabled him to maintain his popularity long after his election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died Sunday night. Art Donovan, the lineman whose hilarious stories about his football career enabled him to maintain his popularity long after his election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died Sunday night. Before he was a Hall of Fame defensive tackle for the Baltimore Colts, before he was a late-night wisecracker on television talk shows, before he was Fatso, Art Donovan was something else. He conducted boxing lessons with soldiers and was recruiting at the New York Armory when he died, on 24 March 1918.One of Mike Donovan's 14 children followed in his father's footsteps, both on the battlefield and in the ring. HB | Boston Braves
Donovan -- a fixture on commercials and talk shows in later years -- was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968. Donovan was one of 12 Hall of Fame players to take part - six of them Colts - but at the time he was not aware of the game's significanceDonovan was married to the former Dorothy Schaech for 57 years. "Donovan broke into professional football in 1950 with the Colts, who folded after his rookie season.
That’s pretty special.”
From the Civil War to the first and second world wars, a Donovan fought for his country in each – Mike Donovan, a boxing legend from the bare-knuckle days who became President Theodore Roosevelt's personal trainer; Art Donovan, one of the most prominent boxing referees of the 20th century; and Art Donovan Jr, a Hall of Fame and Mike Donovan was born in Chicago in 1847.
The elder Donovan was the third man in the ring at 19 of Joe Louis' title fights and some 150 championship bouts in all.When the younger Donovan grew up and left the tough New York neighborhood of his youth, he fought in World War II and played college football at Notre Dame and Boston College. Long after his career was finished, Donovan made a living on the talk-show circuit, weaving yarns about the NFL's good old days -- as he put it, "When men were, well, men. While many later knew Art as a colorful ambassador to the sport because of his personality, those who played alongside and against him attest to his grit and greatness," Donovan also spent single seasons with the New York Yanks and Dallas Texans in a career that lasted from 1950 through '61. Whoever thought that kids who enjoyed the game on all those sandlots would get to play the game on the pro level? In 1884, he defeated Walter Watson for the right to become the boxing instructor at the prestigious New York Athletic Club. He had hoped to talk his way into Fordham, his first choice all along, but he wound up going to Boston College. Murray retired after the fight; after several more bouts, Donovan was declared the middleweight champion of the world.He went on to become one of the biggest names in boxing and one of America's first sports celebrities, fighting several memorable battles against a heavyweight contender named John L Sullivan, who went on to become one of the most celebrated fighters of his time and a legend to this day in American sport and culture. He appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman" and "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and reduced both hosts and their audiences to howling in seconds.
It was a fight with far-reaching political and social implications, pitting as it did Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, who had trumpeted a reluctant Schmeling as the champion of the Aryan race, against America and its hero, Louis, a black man who was a second-class citizen in his own country. Like many athletes, who were part of the Schudel, Matt (August 7, 2013) "Colt a Hall of Famer on the field, a card off it" Art Donovan, a 12-year NFL veteran and 1968 inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died Sunday as the result of a respiratory ailment at Stella Maris Hospice in Maryland. He would later box under his real name, but he decided a pro career was not going to lead to a championship like his father. Donovan was that rare guy who didn't have to try.
Arthur Donovan became a professional fighter, but his career was cut short and interrupted by his committment to his country when he fought with General John O'Ryun and Black Jack Pershing on the Mexican border. After 44 – yes, 44 – hard-fought rounds, police did indeed raid the event. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
"Wherever Artie goes, people always crowd around him and he makes them laugh," former Colt Dick Syzmanski once said. America was at war, and when that happened, a Donovan answered the call, just as his grandfather and his father had. He was 89. "He was hardly particular about what he ate (or drank), which could explain why he spent much of his life hovering around 300 pounds, although the playing weight of the 6-foot-3 Donovan was listed at 265. Often the jokes were at his expense.