The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Little deserves help in fight against cancer
‘Friends of Floyd’ started GoFundMe for Hall of Famer
Bill Santillo remembers making his way to Bowen Field in November of 1960 for the Hillhouse-Wilbur Cross game and even now, 60 years later, he lets out a sigh of amazement at what he saw that day.
“I was dumbfounded how Floyd Little moved with the football,” said Santillo, president of the New Haven Gridiron Club. “He scored four touchdowns and he left such an impression on me.”
Santillo, who would go on to quarterback Wilbur Cross to a perfect 1963 season and a No. 1 state poll ranking, was still a freshman, and freshmen couldn’t play varsity in those days. Little was a junior for Hillhouse, yet he had repeated the fifth grade because of illness stemming from ptomaine poisoning. He’d be too old to play as a senior and went on to integrate previously all-white Bordentown (N.J.) Military Institute.
So Santillo, 74, never got a chance to play against Little. He did follow Little’s career closely through Syracuse and his nineyear career with the Denver Broncos of the AFL and NFL, a career that ended with 6,323 rushing yards and an enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He saw Little when he was named Walter Camp Man of the Year in 1978.
“He was my hero,” Santillo said. “Mickey Mantle and Floyd Little.”
Yet it wasn’t until 13 years ago that Santillo got a chance to get to know Little through the Gridiron Club and the Floyd Little Scholarship it sponsors. The two hit it off. They grew close. The four of
them, Floyd and his wife DeBorah, Bill and his Teresa, became good friends.
Bill and Teresa were there sitting toward the front that day in 2010 when Little was inducted at Canton. Santillo served as chairman of the Floyd Little Dedication Committee to rename the New Haven Athletic Center in his honor in 2011. They grew even closer. After putting together a video for Little, Santillo was there again last October when Floyd was inducted in the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame alongside UConn’s Breanna Stewart.
And now Santillo’s good friend, one of the greatest athletes in Connecticut history, is in what Little’s former Syracuse teammate Pat Killorin called the toughest fight of his life with a treatable but aggressive form of cancer. Killorin put together a GoFundMe page for Little’s treatment and to offset the financial burden on his family. As of Thursday, nearly $60,000 of a goal of $250,000 has been raised since the page was created on May 17.
“Please thank everyone for their love and support,” Santillo read from a note he received from DeBorah. “We are fighting hard. We have every intention of beating this.”
There have been some remarks online asking why Little, 77, would need a GoFundMe page. Santillo said he has received 15-20 such calls.
“When Floyd was playing, they were making peanuts,” Santillo said. “He was making like 11, 12 grand a year starting out. He tells the story in a funny vein that he cashed his checks at the 7-11. He lost out when the NFL and AFL merged, too.
“Floyd did have a Ford dealership for many years in the Seattle area, but you know how the economy crashed in 2008, no one was buying cars and it hurt Floyd tremendously financially. It went kaput (in 2009).”
Santillo, who owns 27 buildings and is one of the biggest property owners in New Haven, knows business. He knows and loves Little. He wanted to get this off his chest: The GoFundMe initiative is more than legit.
“I got to sit on the bus with his former teammates going to the ceremony in Canton,” Santillo said. “You should have heard them all speak so highly of him. The theme of Floyd’s whole life is overcoming obstacles. That’s why he’s my hero. He has such determination, such guts; if there’s anyone who can beat this it’s Floyd.”
Little and his wife, Santillo and his wife were driving up to Bradley Airport one time when Teresa mentioned the story of how Bill was accused of biting someone in kindergarten. Santillo didn’t do it, but a teacher put a sign around his neck and had him walk around the school. The message essentially was don’t be like Bill. Santillo was humiliated.
“I didn’t speak in class for years,” he said.
“Really?” Little, who now lives in Las Vegas, told Santillo. “We’re joined at the hip.”
Little fumbled an answer in class, mispronouncing words. The kids made fun of him. He clammed up. His dad died when he was 6 of a brain tumor. His mom, Lula, raised six kids, did the best she could on welfare. Little described himself as an angry young guy. In the seventh grade at Troup Middle School, he took on a ninth-grade bully. It wasn’t pretty. Little got kicked out of school, but Bob Schreck and some others helped convince administrators to allow Little back. That day in Canton he spoke to the football world emotionally about those who got him back on the right path.
“He thought his life was ruined,” Santillo said. “Before the speech, my wife said, ‘You sure Floyd is going to be OK?’ I said, ‘Just wait.’ I’d seen him speak before.”
Little stole the show. “The man speaks from the heart,” Santillo said.
This was a kid who scored 200, 210 on his first SAT, essentially numbers for signing his name. Two years later, after Bordentown, he scored a 1280.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur tried to recruit Little to West Point, telling him he had the stuff of a future general. Notre Dame wanted him too, 47 schools in all. Yet it was Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder who showed up unannounced in the snow at Little’s home on Kensington Street in December 1961. He brought Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy, along with him.
They went down to Jocko Sullivan’s restaurant to eat. Davis told Little, hey, let’s go to the restroom. As the food turned cold, each with one foot on a urinal, they talked. Davis sold Little. Floyd blurted out that, yeah, he’d go to Syracuse. Yet it wasn’t until May in 1963 when he heard Davis had died of leukemia that Little picked up the phone and told Schwartzwalder he was definitely going to Syracuse.
He wore No. 44. The number Davis wore. The number Jim Brown wore.
“I remember in high school, people were saying he’s not going anywhere,” Santillo said. “He’s a slow learner. He’s stupid. He’s dumb.”
Not so stupid. Not so dumb. Little tackled the books. After graduating from Syracuse, Little later got a law degree from Denver University in the top third of his class. He bought Lula a home.
The National Football Foundation honored Little. Walter Camp honored Little again in 2011 with the Distinguished American Award. Brown. Davis. Little. Last October in Syracuse, Floyd brought Santillo over to see the 12-foot statues of the three at his alma mater. Floyd is buddies with another Syracuse guy: Joe Biden.
In 2010 Little donated $1,200 and in 2012 he arranged for a $5,000 grant from the Heisman Trophy Trust to support the Gridiron Club’s Little Scholarship Fund. It goes annually to a college-bound New Haven-area athlete who has shown academic improvement and persistence in the face of adversity — like No. 44. Since 2007, Little has come home to personally hand it out a number of times. He did so again in December, there in his yellow Hall of Fame jacket, presenting the award to Josiah Artis of Hillhouse.
“For being such a warrior on the football field, he is so gracious and warm off it,” Santillo said. “People love and respect him. He’s the gold standard of a man.”
And now it’s time to help Floyd Little out at https://www.gofundme.com/f/friends-of-floyd