Frank Tripucka

Pay attention – because I’m only going to say this once. Yesterday, I was wrong – and so was my Twitter buddy Baseball Giorgio.

Did you catch my drift?

Baseball Giorgio and I were both wrong – and that’s something that doesn’t happen very often. And making it worse yet, I was wrong twice.

It all started out innocently when I tweeted about Monday’s column.

The column was about the guy in the middle, the guy with the glasses – Irv Kupcinet, who once played quarterback for the Eagles. It wasn’t about the guy on the left, Frank Sinatra. I just used Sinatra to draw attention to the article.

Baseball Giorgio must’ve read my column – or at least the headline – because he tweeted me.

He was answering my Sinatra question. He was wrong – but I didn’t pick up on it.

Frank Tripucka never played for the Eagles – and I should’ve known that. I mean, I just wrote the book 12 Best Eagles QBs which provides thumbnails on every quarterback who ever took a snap with the Eagles.

I knew that Frank Tripucka played quarterback at “Notre Dame” without Giorgio’s hint – and I knew he also played quarterback in the NFL. I knew that because, when I was nine, I had his Chicago Cardinals football card.

Baseball Giorgio is a sharp cookie – which is why I messed up . I automatically gave him the benefit of the doubt. I figured it just slipped my mind that Frank Tripucka had played for the Eagles.

Now, the part where Baseball Giorgio said “Pole” meant that Frank Tripucka was Polish. Girogio and I are both Polish and, unless you’re Polish, you probably can’t relate to how chauvinistic we Poles are about players who share our heritage.

I’m talking about players like Stan Musial, Carl Yastremski, Bill Mazeroski, Ted Kluszewski, Stan Lopata, Greg Luzinski, Jim Konstanty, Ron Jaworski, Tom Gola, and Mike Ditka – to name ten off the top of my head – and of course Frank Tripucka. And let’s not leave out old-time wrestling legend Killer Kowalski.

I went on-line, found a Frank Tripucka football card, and tweeted back.

And tweeting “Correct” was my second mistake within minutes.

I’d glanced at the white-and-green uniform on the card and assumed Frank Tripucka was wearing an Eagles uniform. But a little while later I noticed that it said “Denver Bronocos” on the card. So I opened 12 Best Eagles QBs and failed to find any Frank Tripucka pages between the covers. And I went back online, found what I was looking for, and passed the info along to Giorgio.

Right – Kelly Tripucka played basketball at Notre Dame. A two-time All-American, he was selected in the first round of the 1981 NBA draft by the Detroit Pistons. At 6-6, he alternated between small forward and shooting guard. He averaged 21.6 ppg as a rookie, a career-high 26.5 ppg during his second year, and 17.2 ppg lifetime. He played in the NBA for ten seasons and made the All-Star team twice. After five seasons in Detroit, he finished up with two years with the Utah Jazz and three seasons with the Charlotte Hornets.

Getting back to Kelly’s father, the Eagles did, in fact, draft Frank Tripucka in the first round of the 1949 NFL draft with the 9^th overall pick – but the Eagles traded him to the Detroit Lions before the season began. By the way, the Eagles selected Penn All-American center Chuck Bednarik with the first pick in that draft.

Frank Tripucka played in the NFL for four seasons – one with the Lions, two with the Chicago Cardinals, and one season split between the Cards and Dallas Texans. He passed for 2,606 yards and 18 TDs.

He prolonged his career by going to the Canadian Football League for seven seasons with both the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Ottawa Rough Riders. He passed for 15,506 yards and 82 TDs in the CFL.

When the fledgling AFL started playing in 1960, the Denver Broncos hired Frank Filchock – Tripucka’s former coach at Saskatchewan to coach the Broncos. With Tripucka in retirement as a player, Filchock hired him be one of his assistants. But the Broncos ran into problems at quarterback during the preseasons and Tripucka was pressed into duty.

He played in Denver for three seasons and was the first quarterback in the AFL to throw for 3,000 yards in a season – and 7,676 yards and 51 TDs in all three years in Denver. He made one AFL All-Star team, made the Broncos Ring of Fame, and had his number-18 retired. But when the Broncos acquired Peyton Manning in 2012, Tripucka allowed the team to unretire his jersey so Manning could wear number-18.

Both Frank and son Kelly Tripucka are enshrined in the Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame.

Frank is the grandfather, and Kelly is the father, of football player Travis Tripucka and lacrosse player Jake Tripucka.

Frank Tripucka died from congestive heart failure in 2013 at the age of 85.

Sometime last night Chris Tripucka saw the tweets between Baseball Giorgio and myself.

Did some quick checking. Chris is the last of Frank Tripucka’s seven children – all of whom seem to have their own list of athletic accomplishments. A remarkable family.