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WAR DAMN EAGLE
(68.153.185.249) on 7/27/2005 - 1:37 p.m. says: ( 6 views
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"For Hep..."
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(EDITED BY AUTHOR: 7/27/2005 - 1:37 p.m.) Giants.com Where are they now? Tucker Frederickson
Where are They Now? Tucker Frederickson
By Michael Eisen, Giants.com
January 18, 2005
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Thirty nine years before Eli Manning joined the Giants as the most celebrated rookie of 2004, another No. 1 overall draft choice from a Southeastern Conference school became the brightest new star in the big city.
RB Tucker Frederickson played for the Giants from 1965-1971.
In 1965, that player was Tucker Frederickson, a running back from Auburn. A 6-2, 220-pound package of power and speed, Frederickson, like Manning, was the SEC Player of the Year as a senior, made several All-America teams and was considered by many to be the finest player in the country.
And like Manning, Frederickson was paid the big bucks, although it wasn’t quite a $45 million deal.
“I signed a three-year contract with a $30,000 bonus and salaries each year of $27,500,” Frederickson said recently. “I didn’t have an agent. The most important thing to me was getting a three-year no-cut contract and going to New York. I had a chance to be the number one draft choice in the AFL, too. Denver called and said, `We want to pick you,’ and I said, `Don’t waste your time, don’t waste your pick, I’m going to New York.’ Then Joe Namath had an agent and a couple of months later got a contract for $400,000. I thought, `I guess I should have had an agent.’”
He also should have had a watchman for his car.
“I had never been to New York,” Frederickson said. “I’ve often told the story that my first night in town, I had a new Corvette I had bought with my bonus money. We broke camp in Fairfield and came down to New York. I had an apartment. I also had a parking space, but that one night I had to leave the car on the street. When I went to pick it up the next morning, it was gone. That was my indoctrination to the city.
“But it didn’t take long to figure the city out. It was a great place to be. The adaptation was eased by the fact that I was an athlete. Good things happen.”
Like all Giants fans – he is still a season ticket holder – Frederickson expects good things will happen to Manning, who struggled early after entering the starting lineup in November, but played well in the season’s final three weeks. He well remembers the expectations he carried into his rookie season because he was the first pick in the draft.
“It’s nothing like today,” Frederickson said. “There was self-imposed pressure. The P.R. aspect of the game wasn’t like it is today. My biggest pressure was being one of the guys. That was important to me. Once you go out there and participate and show that you can play – and you play pretty well and you’re on the team -- that goes away.”
Frederickson believes the opportunity to observe and develop in practice while veteran Kurt Warner started the first games was extremely beneficial to the youngster. Because of Warner’s presence, Manning didn’t have to carry an extraordinarily heavy burden right away.
“I thought it was very important that he had Kurt Warner there,” Frederickson said. “You don’t expect a quarterback to come right in and (play great). You have to have a chance to learn and a chance to observe, where a running back or a receiver or a DB is going to be expected to play. A quarterback is going to get a chance to sit back a little bit.
“But there’s pressure. There’s tremendous pressure now.”
Tucker Frederickson in a recent photo.
Less stressful was Manning’s transition from a relatively quiet Southern college town to the busiest, noisiest, hippest metropolitan area in the country.
“He doesn’t live in the city,” Frederickson said. “A lot of us did – we needed offseason jobs. Now they make so much money they don’t have to worry about that. I’m sure Eli is going to be full-time football and not worry about what he’s going to do in the offseason. We had to worry about what we were going to do with the rest of our lives. We had to network in the city.”
On the field, Frederickson’s career started well. As a rookie, he rushed for 659 yards, caught 24 passes, scored seven touchdowns and was selected to the Pro Bowl. Frederickson seemed to have as bright a future as a No. 1 draft choice is supposed to have.
But it was not to be. That rookie season was the best of the seven years he spent with the Giants. He missed the entire 1966 season after injuring his left knee. Late the following year it was the other knee. It wasn’t until 1970 that Frederickson again felt like he was at the top of his game.
“I got hurt the first week in practice in 1966,” Frederickson said. “My leg got caught in a drill. I rehabilitated it and played in the last exhibition game against the Packers. The knee gave out and that was it. In those days, they put a full-length cast on your leg for six months. You ought to see the scars.
“I came back in `67, but I got hurt in the 10th game. The other knee went. It was the same deal again. I played in `68, sort of half-way. I played in `69 half-way. I had a good year in 1970 (375 yards rushing, 40 catches), and the team had a good year (missing the playoffs on the final day of the season).”
Frederickson played one more season, rushing for 242 yards for a 4-10 team in 1971. He never regained all the skills he had prior to the knee injuries.
“I lost speed and explosion,” he said. “I lost my weight. I had been 225, but I got down to 212. When you have that operation, you tape that knee up as tight as you can and slow yourself down. There were things I used to be able to do that I was not able to do because of the tape. Plus in your mind, you’re vulnerable. I was never the same.”
During his offseasons, Frederickson had been a stockbroker for the Wall Street firm of Allen and Co., and when that season ended, he began to pursue that career full-time. He retired after playing just 66 games, in which he rushed for 2,209 yards and caught 128 passes.
“It was time,” he said of his retirement. “I was doing well in the offseason, working with Allen and Co. It was an easy transition. I was making more money on Wall Street than I was playing football.”
Besides, by working for Allen and Co., he didn’t have to leave New York. Although Frederickson grew up in Hollywood, Florida and went to college at Auburn, he grew to love the big city.
“New York was a great, great place to play football, and the Mara family was wonderful to me,” said Frederickson, who just turned 62. “I could not have asked for a better experience than playing in New York. We stayed in New York in the offseason and worked, and that gave us an opportunity to meet people and to get to know New York the way we did. It was a tremendously rewarding experience – other than getting hurt, you couldn’t ask for a better time.
“I lived on the East Side of Manhattan. We practiced at Yankee Stadium. The city is a great place to stay and work. And being a professional athlete, especially for the Giants, was tremendous. It was a good door-opener. I stayed in the city after I retired. It was either that or start commuting.”
In 1983, seeking what he called a “lifestyle change” Frederickson moved his family to Florida.
“We had kids,” he said. “It was either move here or move to the suburbs and commute into the city, which I didn’t want to do. I missed New York tremendously for a couple or three years. Then we got acclimated and pretty soon, everybody I knew from New York was coming this way. They’re all down here now.”
Frederickson is in North Palm Beach County, about 60 miles North of his boyhood home.
“It was a great place to grow up and be from. Today, it’s jammed,” Frederickson said. “I thought I was going to be a veterinarian, because my dad, an uncle and three or four cousins were vets. The state of Florida did not have a veterinary medical school, so I went to Auburn. But I never went back to veterinarian school.”
He instead became a successful businessman. Frederickson stayed active in the brokerage community by becoming a general partner in a hedge fund that he set up. He then ventured into real estate.
“I did a deal with Greg Norman called the Medalist Golf Club (in Hobe Sound, Fla.) in the early `90s,” Frederickson said. “I’m partners with Jack Nicklaus in a club called The Bear’s Club (in Jupiter, Fla.). I also have a joint venture with Ritz Carlton called the Jupiter Ritz Carlton Spa and Golf Club. The Bear’s Club is full of New Yorkers. I’m a partner with Jack on the real estate side. It’s a very, very high end club. I help out (attracting people to the club). They know who I am because of New York.”
When Frederickson was born on Jan. 12, 1943, his parents named him Ivan Charles. So how did the nickname “Tucker” come about?
“Anything but Ivan,” he said. “I don’t know how I got the name. As far back as I remember, people have called me Tucker.”
Frederickson’s first wife, Dale, passed away in 1986. They had three children: Ashley, 25, is a graduate of Colorado State; Amanda, 22, recently graduated from Boston University; and Jon Erik is a wide receiver at Kent State. “He’s 6-2, 215,” Frederickson said. “I don’t know where he got his speed.”
His second wife, Stella, is the daughter of the late Gardner Dickinson, once an outstanding golfer on the PGA Tour and a founder of the Senior PGA Tour. They have a nine-year-old daughter, Della.
“It wears you out,” he said of having a youngster in the house again. “It keeps you busy.”
Almost 40 years after he arrived in the big city, Frederickson feels a strong connection to the Giants. He keeps in touch with several teammates, including Bobby Duhon (his brother-in-law), Bill Swain, Ernie Koy and Dick Lynch.
“There’s a tremendous respect there,” Frederickson said. “I consider the Maras great friends and I hope they consider me a friend. They picked me ahead of a lot of pretty strong guys. I got hurt my second year and they were loyal to me. They stuck with me.”
Neither side has ever let go.
Copyright New York Giants 2005
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