Steve Foley

Sport: Football

Induction Year: 2002

University: Tulane

Induction Year: 2002

By Marty Mule’

What Joe Collier was watching was like Xs and Os gliding on grass – just as they were drawn up on his blackboard:

– Steve Foley cutting toward the sideline in the end zone, as close to Cliff Branch as his shadow, then tipping a second-quarter pass away.

– Then, in the third quarter, quarterback Ken Stabler unleashing a perfectly thrown ball in search of Branch, running a post pattern, and, again, Foley making a textbook play to knock the ball down.

“He was tremendous,” Collier, at the time the defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos, said of Foley, then in his second season as a Bronco cornerback, after his secondary essentially shut down Oakland’s Branch and Fred Biletnikoff, the most heralded American Football Conference receiving corps of the era.

“It was a team effort, no one does it alone,” Collier said. “But it was also one of best games Steve ever played.”

Foley himself recalled that freezing day in Mile High Stadium, when Denver beat the Raiders for the 1977 AFC championship as: “A career highlight, certainly one of the big ones.”

In more ways than one. What Foley, who will be inducted in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame on June 25 in Shreveport, didn’t know was he could have worn a bulls-eye on his jersey instead of No. 43 because, when the Raiders really needed a big play, he was targeted.

In the 20-17 Denver victory, which catapulted the Broncos into Super Bowl XII in New Orleans, and, according to the Rocky Mountain News, the No.1-rated most dramatic game ever played in Mile High Stadium, Foley more than held his own, allowing only three completions to Branch for a total of 59 yards – and no touchdowns.

“At the time, I didn’t even think about the fact that they were coming at me,” Foley said afterward. “I was having so much fun, it didn’t occur to me until later.” Merriment became a constant in the Broncos secondary, where Foley spent 11 seasons, playing in two Super Bowls, and where he became – and remains – Denver’s all-time career interceptions leader with 44.

It wasn’t the first – or only – time Foley would overcome skeptics. Beating the odds has been a trademark in the career of Foley, who was a longshot to make the Jesuit High School of New Orleans team he quarterbacked to the state playoffs; who had to walk-on at Tulane, where he became an offensive juggernaught; who was an eighth-round NFL draft choice who would have to make the Broncos roster playing a new position.

As it turns out, on all fronts and despite early dismissive naysayers, Foley excelled on all levels in a notable career.

“Steve is a natural athlete,” said Johnny Robinson, already enshrined in the state’s Hall of Fame after a stellar career at LSU and with the Kansas City Chiefs, and according to Foley perhaps the most influential figure on his own career and on his life.

“No one should be surprised at his achievements,” Robinson said. “The talent may have been hidden by circumstances at times, and some people may have missed it. But it was always there.”Just hard to find sometimes. Rob Foley remembers his scrawny little brother being a concern to junior varsity coaches at Jesuit. “I’m afraid to play the kid,” Rob remembers a Blue Jays coach telling him of his fear Steve could be hurt.

“He was very small and light,” Rob recalled of Steve’s first years at Jesuit. “Then, at practice, a really big guy was running the ball, and Steve came up to make the tackle. They really collided, and neither one got up for a while. Then Steve got up and dusted himself off. The other guy stayed down for significantly longer.

“The coach was excited, yelling to me, ‘He can play, he can play!'” Steve did, and played well, quarterbacking the Blue Jays to a 9-1 record and a share of the district championship as a senior. After that year, however, Foley’s career seemed over. He wanted to play at Tulane, where his brothers Rob, a center, and Mike, a receiver, had received athletic grants-in-aid. At 5-foot-11, 160- pounds, though, none seemed forthcoming for him.

It’s funny how life works. Foley’s best friend and teammate Mark Olivari was dating the daughter of Dr. Ken Saer, the Tulane team orthopedic, and the physician saw several Blue Jays games and was impressed. “Steve was a little guy, but he had a strong arm and very quick feet. I thought he had a lot of potential,” Saer said.

So much so that Saer talked to coach Bennie Ellender about him, but Tulane had already filled its scholarship limit. Saer and two other doctors offered to fund a one-year scholarship, with the tacit understanding with Athletic Director Rix Yard that it would go to Foley.

Part of Foley being overlooked was the fact that he was 16 when he played his senior season. “He hadn’t grown into his body yet, didn’t even have peach fuzz,” Saer said. “But I was convinced he was going to be something special when, at a track meet, I saw him throw the javelin 200 feet. He had a strong arm.”During his freshman year at Tulane, Foley had a growth spurt. He stretched three inches, and because of a vigorous weight-lifting regimen with Olivari, added 25 pounds. He also worked with speed coach Phil Foto, who helped further Foley’s already deft footwork (a factor which, no doubt, played a role in the running away with the heart of Cindy Foto, Phil’s daughter and now Steve’s wife). The intense training made a huge difference, just what the doctor ordered with Foley becoming a major factor in Tulane’s run-first offense with his quick feet making him a dangerous scrambler to go with his exceptional passing skills.

In the 1972 season, the three Foley brothers became an everlasting trivia question for Tulane fans. Foley-to-Foley-to- Foley became one of broadcaster Bruce Miller’s favorite calls when Rob snapped to Steve who passed to Mike. It could be an effective combination, from which Miller used to exclaim, ‘Oh, brother!”That year Steve, who, of course, finally received an athletic scholarship, played the game he says was his most memorable, when he drove Tulane 671/2 yards in the final minute against LSU, a game which ended when he completed a short pass to a fullback who was stopped a half-yard from the end zone on the last play of a 9-3 defeat.

“That game was an extension of what happened the next season,” Foley said in reference to Tulane’s 14-0 victory over the Tigers in 1973, breaking a 25-year drought en route to a 9-3 record. “We knew then we could play with LSU.” The importance of Foley to the Tulane offense was made abundantly clear in 1974 when Steve guided the Wave to five straight victories in the first half of the season. After he broke an ankle against Georgia Tech, Tulane dropped six straight.
Robinson took over from there. Eschewing the NFL for the World Football League because of a $10,000 difference in offers, Foley went to the Jacksonville Sharks, where Robinson, one year after retiring from a distinguished pro career, was the secondary coach.

“He had all the ingredients,” Robinson said of Foley, moved to defense as a pro where he had to learn the game from a completely different perspective. “His talent just had to be refined, that’s all. Steve made perhaps the toughest adjustment in football in going from quarterback to the secondary.

“Not many athletes could.”

Foley maintains Robinson was the person most responsible for that successful switch, the source of both his technique and playing mindset. “He honed my skills,” Foley said, “and gave me his temperament. Johnny showed me what to do, how to do it, laughed when I didn’t, and then assured me that everyone gets beat now and then and that when it happened I just had to forget it.”

What Foley never forgot was Robinson’s religious faith, which was never pushed on anyone but was unshakeable.

“Johnny Robinson was one of the greatest safeties in NFL history, and he had a huge impact on me spiritually as well as athletically,” Foley said, adding with some amazement, “and he only coached me for one year.”

The WFL folded the next year, and Collier benefitted from Robinson’s polishing of Foley’s still-emerging defensive abilities, as well as his quarterback mentality, which stayed with him and which Foley says aided him immensely. “Sometimes, watching other quarterbacks while I was on defense was like watching myself in the same situation,” Foley said. “I knew what they were going to do.”

Collier was intrigued. Foley wasn’t especially fast (4.7 seconds in the 40-yard dash), but was almost never caught out of position, either as a cornerback early as a pro or a safety later.

Collier devised a test, in which the drills and movements of his defensive backs were filmed, and an astounding trait in Foley’s game was discovered: he very seldom made a false move, meaning he wasn’t trying to make up lost ground and was able to stay with opposing receivers.

“He was efficient and he was smart,” Collier said. “Steve became the prototype safety.”

A lot of factors play a role in any career, but 30 years ago Mike Foley, one of 13 siblings, gave an insightful reason for Steve’s athletic abilities: The boys used to play touch football on the neutral ground in the middle of an Uptown New Orleans street.

“Nothing is as galling as defeat by your brother,” Mike said in a 1972 interview, “and that center strip was probably one of the reasons for Steve’s success and accuracy as a thrower. You can’t lead a kid too far when you only have a five-foot-wide field – or you could have a fatality.”