Hall of Fame RB, New Haven legend Little battling cancer
Last December, Floyd Little returned to New Haven, as he often has, to present the scholarship that bears his name.
As he handed off to Josiah Artis of Hillhouse High, Little spoke to the young football players, telling his story for those too young to remember.
“You could hear a pin drop when he spoke,” said Bill Santillo, president of the New Haven Gridiron Club, who is not too young to remember Little barreling with the ball for Hillhouse in the early 1960s.
“Basically, he talked about what you’ve got to do to be a champion,” Santillo said. “You’ve got to overcome obstacles. You’ve got to hang with the right people. You can’t let outside influences influence you. You’ve got to focus on it. Everybody was listening and when he got done, everybody gave him a standing ovation.”
Even for others old enough to know the significance of the man, who perhaps had heard the stories, it still hit home, fresh and forceful and relevant, that evening. Little’s rise from New Haven to Syracuse, where he wore the cherished No. 44 bequeathed by Ernie Davis, to the Denver Broncos and finally to the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, remains an inspiration to all who hear it.
This spring, Little is fighting hard once again, fighting hard to beat cancer and extend a remarkable life.
“His wife [DeBorah] always refers back to, ‘He’s going to defeat this, Bill. He’s going to defeat this,’ ” Santillo said. “‘You know Floyd, he’s going to defeat it.’ He’s overcome so many obstacles in his life, he’s going to overcome this.”
One of Little’s former teammates at Syracuse, Patrick Killorin, set up a GoFundMe page to help the Littles defray the costs of treatment, and just past Little’s 78th birthday on July 4, it crossed the halfway point to its goal of $250,000.
“Floyd was recently diagnosed with a treatable but aggressive form of cancer,” Killorin’s page reads. “No doubt it will be the toughest fight of his life. Although he has lived a full life admired and enjoyed by many, Floyd doesn’t believe he has yet written, with his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the final play of his life.”
Little made waves all over the state with his ball carrying for Hillhouse, and Santillo is one of many friends and admirers in New Haven helping out now.
“When I saw him play against my future team, Wilbur Cross, in 1960, he was like a man among boys,” Santillo remembers. “He scored on a 90-yard run, 20 yards, a couple of shorter runs, and he was running through everybody, flying through, and everybody at Bowen Field was saying, ‘Wow, look at this guy.’ But at the same time, they were disparaging him, saying, ‘Yeah, but he’s dumb. He’s stupid. He isn’t going anywhere.’ ”
Little, who also scored four TDs against New Britain, ending the Hurricanes’ 15-game winning streak, scored more than 100 points in 1960, but he was denied a TD on a controversial call against Notre Dame-West Haven, Hillhouse’s only loss. A highly recruited prospect, but a struggling student, he went to Bordentown Military Institute, and as the first African American to play there, he stood up to racist bullying, Santillo said. He was expected to go to Notre Dame. He was asked by aged Gen. Douglas MacArthur to go to West Point.
But a conversation with the dying Ernie Davis convinced Little to go to Syracuse, to wear the same No. 44 and run in the footsteps of Jim Brown and Davis.
“When Ernie Davis came to New Haven,” Santillo said, “with Ben Schwartzwalker, the coach at Syracuse, they were in the men’s room and Floyd promised Ernie Davis he would go there. They promised that if he didn’t succeed in football, he could keep his scholarship and continue on. Floyd said, ‘That’s for me.’
Ernie passed away a couple of months later, and that was a big thing for Floyd. He decided he was going to Syracuse to carry on the tradition of Ernie Davis and Jim Brown before him.”
Little was a three-time All-American, then was drafted in the first round by the Denver Broncos in 1967. With the AFL and NFL in the first stage of their merger, the Broncos needed money to enlarge their stadium, which was built for Triple-A baseball, to reach NFL capacity.
“He walked door-to-door to help drum up financial support that would ultimately lead to the expansion of that ballpark to become Mile High Stadium,” wrote former Broncos executive Jim Saccomano, in a July 4 tribute to Little.
Little scored 54 touchdowns and gained 6,323 yards, seventh in NFL history at the time of his retirement in 1975, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010. He entered the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983.
After football, Little owned auto dealerships in the Seattle area that went out of business during the recession in 2008, then he worked as a special assistant at Syracuse, raising funds and mentoring students.
He remains a revered figure in New Haven, where the sprawling athletic center next to Hillhouse High was named for him in 2011. “… How many people enshrined in Canton have a building with their name on it?” Little told the New Haven Register in 2011. “That’s something that perpetuates you. That’s what makes me say, ‘Wow.’ And to have it in the place where it all started for me, that’s what makes it more significant for me than being in the Hall of Fame.”
Little has more to do. His wife told a Denver TV station he is in the middle of two weeks of daily chemotherapy at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, and weathering the side effects. Friends in New Haven are pulling for him to win one more and return home to give his message to another group of young athletes.
“The biggest thing for Floyd in his life is what he’s overcome,” Santillo said. “It’s been an incredible life, what he overcame as a kid, being made fun of. I said to him once, ‘They really should make a movie of your life. Forget the football. The whole movie should be all the things you’ve overcome and all the examples you’ve set.”
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com.