When Angus-born American football star Graham Gano runs out for the Carolina Panthers in the Super Bowl on Sunday February 7, he’ll be the toast of Scotland.
The kicker, whose family live in Arbroath, played a key role in the dismantling of the Arizona Cardinals to reach the final, and will face the Denver Broncos in San Francisco in what is only the Panthers’ second Super Bowl.
Yet there’s a former American football legend with lesser known Scottish connections who will also be playing a prominent role in the show piece event and he knows exactly how Gano will feel as he runs out.
Four times Super Bowl champion Franco Harris, who can trace part of his family to the Scottish Highlands, will be honoured on the pitch alongside other surviving most valuable players (MVPs) from the past 50 years.
And in an exclusive interview with The Courier, the man who is still idolised by thousands of Italian-Americans for helping their team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, win four Super Bowls between 1975 and 1980, is putting his money on the Panthers to win.
Speaking from America, he said: “Carolina, to me, is the better all-round team. They are a young team that are really exciting to watch. They have really come together and are playing some great football. It kind of reminds me of us in 1974 and how we came together for a run. So I think the Carolina Panthers will win.”
Ranked number 83 on The Sporting News’ list of the 100 greatest American football players, Franco Harris was the first African-American and Italian-American to be named Super Bowl’s MVP, and has even been immortalised with a life size statue in the grand concourse of Pittsburgh International Airport.
Last summer he explored his Scottish roots with wife Dana when he visited Edinburgh and St Andrews, paying a visit to the Open Championship where he had an “absolutely amazing” time.
Yet more than 30 years after making the transition out of football to set up his Super Donuts and Silver Sport businesses in the United States, the 65-year-old’s heart remains entrenched in the game he loves. And he can’t wait for the action to begin.
“To run out at the Super Bowl is a pretty incredible experience, “ he said, thinking back to his first Super Bowl appearance 41 years ago.
“For me, that first time was the 1974 football season and the Super Bowl in January 1975. We were playing the Minnesota Vikings and it was held in New Orleans which was the best place to have a Super Bowl. The atmosphere, the energy, the food -it was a nice experience. We went down a week early. Our coach allowed us to go out and enjoy ourselves and get it out of our system. But he warned us we needed to come back mid-week and focus on the game. And that’s what we did.”
Named the most valuable player in Super Bowl IX, Harris rushed for 158 yards and had a touchdown on 34 carries for a 16-6 win over the Vikings.
He was a major contributor for the Steelers in all of their first four Super Bowl wins.
He added: “We knew we had a great football team and knew we had a great chance to win. We went in there with that frame of mind and wanted to prove we were the best. And that’s what we did. It was so good, we wanted to do it again, and we did that as well. Four times in six years. It was pretty exciting. And for kids growing up in Pittsburgh, they thought this was normal!”
Franco says there will undoubtedly be “a lot of hype” around Super Bowl 50 more so than in the 1970s. But the principles of preparation remain the same.
He added: “The game is so much bigger now. There are so many things that can take your mind off the game if you are a player. So they have to make sure they are properly prepared mentally and physically. Once there, at kick off, you really find nothing else matters. It’s all about the football game – then the best team wins.”
Franco, who hosts his annual charity Super Bowl dinner ahead of the show piece, finds it incredible that when he won his first Super Bowl it was only the ninth ever event.
“That’s why I found my trip to St Andrews last summer so incredible, “added the sportsman who took up golf five years ago having previously flirted with the game whilst on a football scholarship at Pennsylvania State University in the early 1970s.
“The history of it all is incredible, and to have been able to be there for The Open was amazing. To think that my first Super Bowl was just the ninth. I thought deeply about that when I was at St Andrews. The place where golf began all those centuries ago and how that sport has developed to be as big as it is today. It’s humbling.”