Remembering The Jersey Giant, the 1,200-pound Angus steer won in Super Bowl XXI bet. New York Giants coach Bill Parcells is carried off the field after the Giants defeated the Broncos in Super Bowl XXI on Jan. 25, 1987 in Pasadena Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) (ERIC RISBERG) A few days after the New York Giants beat the Denver Broncos 39-20 in Super Bowl XXI, the Mercer County Park Commission became the owner of a 1,200-pound Angus steer that then-Gov. Tom Kean won in a nationally publicized bet with Colorado Gov. Roy Romer. The Colorado cowboys who delivered the steer to Mercer County’s Howell Living History Farm were dubious over the plan to use him for educational purposes instead of meat. He was ornery, they said. And aggressive. The big orange tag in his ear marking him “1” was not just a symbol of Broncos’ colors and pride; it was the number he got for being the first out of the feedlot — and into the chute to the slaughterhouse. The Pride of Colorado, as they called him, was, after all, grade-A Angus steak, not the kind of beef that sturdy oxen are made of. Renamed “The Jersey Giant” and trained to pull plows and wagons like the farm’s other oxen and horses, Giant was so easygoing before an audience that he was drafted that October to help Gov. Kean break ground for the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture in New Brunswick. In the decade that followed, he made guest appearances at fairs and festivals statewide, including one in Trenton, where, with his teammate Lyon, he helped plow an abandoned lot for use in a novel “city greening” program that today has more than 35 gardens. But Giant was best known for his work at Howell Farm, where he helped introduce more than half a million visitors to their history and heritage, and to a unique training program connected with it. The program, now in its 30th year, helps prepare Peace Corps volunteers for jobs in countries where draft animals are an essential source of farm power and where methods like those used at Howell Farm are studied and applied in new ways in the fight against world hunger. When football fans brave the frosty Meadowlands tomorrow to witness Super Bowl XLVIII, there will be few who remember the 13-yard touchdown pass that Phil Simms threw to Mark Bavaro in the third quarter of Super Bowl XXI that propelled the Giants past the Broncos, changing the fate of an eight-month-old steer standing in a feedlot in Akron, Colo.Those of us on the receiving end of that pass, albeit on another field, are forever grateful to those Giants – and Giant – for a story that’s as super as they come. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 17:53:27 +0000
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