Program from 1965

If it sounds like there’s a pursuit-of-a-running-back theme in my series, The Giant’s Dark Ages, there actually is. From the early sixties on, the Giants were perennially searching for a stud runner. And, as it happens, after the Dick James trade (Dark Ages-Part-2) and after the Joe Don Looney fiasco (Dark Ages-Part-1) and just before the arrival of the Baby Bulls in 1965, the Giants found a huge running back who’d played his football in the military and who looked like he just might be that stud — except, alas, he wasn’t. His name was Ernie Wheelwright and he was certainly big enough. And he may even have had good speed for a big guy.

The problem was, though, we never got to find out because he never broke away for a big run. As a matter of fact, when he hit the hole — sometimes even the right hole — and ran head-on into a linebacker or even a DB, he never got that extra yard that some big backs get when they lower their pads, lunge into the tackler and fall forward. Instead, when Big Ernie hit the hole — again, presumably the right hole — and ran head-on into a defender, the big guy simply toppled backwards like a felled oak tree after being chain-sawed into submission. And so the search for that stud runner continued as Big Blue continued to slog through The Giant’s dark Ages.