No. 38
Bloomsburg
"As a 25-year-old rookie, Bob Tucker had to perform in extra-special fashion last year in order to make the club. He didn't win a job until the end of the exhibition season, but by the middle of the season Tucker was the Giant's starting tight end.
He proved to be an outstanding blocker and had the knack for catching third-down passes under pressure. Bob hung on to 40 passes, five of them for touchdowns.
A product of Bloomsburg State in Pennsylvania, Tucker had brief trials with the Patriots (1968) and the Eagles (1969), but he picked up most of his experience in the Atlantic Coast Football League, where he caught 17 touchdown passes for the Pottstown Firebirds in 1969."
-Brenda Zanger, Pro Football 1971
"Tucker was signed as a free agent by the Giants after failing to make the Patriots (1968) and Eagles (1969). He had played minor league football in 1968 and 1969 with Lowell and Pottstown in the Atlantic Coast Football League.
He proved to be a happy surprise for the Giants, winning the tight end job and ranking third among the team's pass catchers with 40 catches for an average of 14 yards a catch- very high for a tight end. He blocks down beautifully on middle linebackers- one of the primary skills of a good tight end.
Tucker set three small-college records in 1967 (receptions, yards in a single game and total yards) and was Little All-America. He played both defensive end and tight end. A major in biology, Tucker hopes to teach science.
Married, he was born in Hazelton, Missouri, where he still lives."
-John Devaney, The Complete Handbook of Pro Football (1971 Edition)
"Given an opportunity to prove himself, Bob was an outstanding receiver for the Giants in 1970 as he finished among the club's top four pass catchers. He was signed as a free agent for the 1970 season after trials with the Patriots and the Eagles and after two fine seasons with the Atlantic Coast Football League, 1968 with Lowell and 1969 with Pottstown.
He set two ACFL records with Pottstown, most catches by a tight end with 66 and most touchdown receptions with 17. At Bloomsburg State in 1967, Bob set records for receptions, yards in a single game and total yards and was a first-team Little All-America selection. He played both defensive end and tight end and earned three letters in the process.
Bob is studying to be a science teacher."
-1971 Topps No. 79
NO MORE POTTSTOWNS ON BOB TUCKER'S MAP
"If there was a fury and inspiration to the way Bob Tucker played tight end for the New York Giants last year it was understandable. After two minor league seasons in such places as Lowell, Mass., and Pottstown, Pa., Bob was determined to make good on what he knew would be his 'last chance.'
'When I reported to the Giants,' says the dark-haired Pennsylvanian, 'I had already made up my mind that it was 'now or never.' I knew I could play in the NFL but I was pretty damned tired of trying to prove it to everyone. I couldn't waste any more time. I was like a gypsy- here one day, there the next, never really belonging.'
When he arrived at the Giants' C.W. Post College training base last summer, Tucker was described as 'an angry young man' but he says it isn't so. 'Maybe tired and impatient, but not angry.'
The road that led Bob from little Bloomsburg State College in Pennsylvania took some odd twists and turns for the 26-year-old receiver. It passed through Boston and Lowell and Philadelphia and Pottstown and even Green Bay, but seldom did it appear to Tucker that it was leading anywhere.
'It sometimes seemed that everything was conspiring to keep me from ever making it to the National Football League,' he smiles.
Despite his record-breaking achievements as a receiver at Bloomsburg, the computerized NFL scouting tentacles missed Tucker and he was not drafted by any of the 26 clubs. It wasn't until two or three months later that the Boston Patriots approached him ( ... 'in a round-about fashion,' says Bob) to sign him as a free agent. He lasted six weeks in the Boston training camp in the summer of 1968, surviving until the next-to-last cut, and then was talked into playing with the Patriots' Lowell, Mass., farm in the Atlantic Coast Football League.
'Sure I was disappointed,' he recalls. 'But at the same time I knew I had a lot to learn about pro ball, so I was glad for the experience.'
To say that Bob burned up the Atlantic Coast League would be putting it mildly. He led all tight ends with 64 catches. He scored 12 touchdowns. He was a unanimous all-league pick. 'The Patriots wanted to bring me up late that year when they saw how well I had done,' he explains, 'but they couldn't. It seems they hadn't put me on their taxi list or something.'
Boston coach Mike Holovak wanted Bob for the 1969 season but he was replaced as coach by ex-Jet aide Clive Rush, and Rush apparently failed to see the potential in the determined 6-4, 225-pound tight end.
'He just never asked me to camp,' says Tucker.
Next stop, the Philadelphia Eagles' training base, where he went to the final cut. 'They had nine or ten tight ends in camp,' he recalls. 'There was Gary Ballman and Fred Hill and Fred Brown, all veterans, and some good rookies. Hell, there were four or five of us left that last week. I guess (coach) Jerry Williams wanted to go with the experience. I can't say that I blame him. But I still felt I should have made that team.'
The Eagles assigned Bob to Pottstown of the Atlantic Coast League, a Philly farm team, and he had a splendid season there with a record (for a tight end) 66 receptions and 17 touchdowns.
When the ACFL campaign ended in December, Tucker was invited to spend several days with the Green Bay Packers. The Eagles wanted him, too, but Bob says, 'I wasn't so sure I wanted them.'
'I worked out with the Packers and Bart Starr threw me a lot of passes,' he recalls, ''but it was so cold up there and there was so much snow that you really couldn't show much.' Bob must have shown something, though, because the Packers asked him to report to their training camp the following summer. 'But,' he says, 'we couldn't get together on our negotiations.'
Don't all free agents accept whatever is offered them, just to get a crack at the NFL? 'Maybe so,' he states, 'but I wasn't about to sell myself short. I was married and I had wasted a lot of time trying out and I had passed up some pretty good jobs. I felt I was worth more than they offered. But, again, I'm not blaming anyone. It was just one of those things.'
See, who said Bob Tucker was an angry young man?
Eagles' GM Pete Retzlaff made several overtures during the spring of 1970 but in the meantime, Bob was contacted by ex-Giant linebacker Tom Scott, then general manager of the L.I. Bulls of the ACFL.
'Would you like a trial with the Giants?' Scott asked. 'I've told them all about you.'
Tucker said 'yes,' pro personnel director Jim Trimble signed him ( ' ... he wasn't easy, though) to a contract and there he was the next July at C.W. Post College while Aaron Thomas and Dick Kotite and Butch Wilson and the other tight ends were out on strike. When the veterans finally settled their labor problems, Bob was the Giants' regular tight end. They never got him out of there.
As noted, Bob Tucker was not about to waste his 'last chance.'
By the time the 1970 season ended, Tucker was receiving solid support in the annual Rookie of the Year poll. He had caught 40 passes for 571 yards and five touchdowns. He personally had ruined the St. Louis Cardinals (twice) and the New York Jets with his great clutch receiving and running. He played with a savage determination, with the fire of a man with something to prove. He played tough and hard and he played hurt, but somehow you don't feel the bumps and bruises and pain in Yankee Stadium the way you do in Pottstown, Pa.
'He was,' says coach Alex Webster in fond retrospect, 'one helluva rookie tight end.' To which quarterback Fran Tarkenton adds, 'He's one of the best young receivers I've ever seen. He runs his patterns perfectly; he blocks; he's always in there fighting.'
Joe Walton, himself a great tight end with the Giants and the man quarterback Y.A. Tittle once called 'the greatest third-down receiver in pro football,' had much to do with Tucker's emergence in 1970.
'Joe taught me so much,' says Bob. 'He really taught me how to play the position. And Webster- well, he gave me the faith I needed. He gave me the chance I was looking for.'
Tucker's first NFL season proved to him that there is much more to be mastered. He has not achieved the pinnacle yet. But at least now the road stretches out straight and wide before him- and it does not lead to Pottstown, Pa."
-1971 New York Giants Official Yearbook
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