Giants great Brad Van Pelt dies at 57

Brad Van Pelt will be remembered by many for his contributions to one of the most fearsome linebacking groups in NFL history. Together with Hall of Famers Harry Carson and Lawrence Taylor and Brian Kelley, they formed the "Crunch Bunch" in the 1970s and early 1980s for the Giants.

But for those closest to Van Pelt, football mattered little.

Just spoke with Harry Carson and George Martin about their memories of Brad Van Pelt, the Giants linebacker and five-time Pro Bowler who passed away on Tuesday at age 57. Very little of our conversations centered around football.

"He will be fondly remembered and he will be missed," former Giants defensive lineman George Martin said. "His impact on our lives was greater as a person than it was as a ballplayer."

"Football is irrelevant," Martin told me. "We think in terms of friendship and the impact we had on each others’ life."

Carson said he spoke with Bill Parcells this morning.

"He said that when you start losing your constituants, it gets a little hairy," Carson said. "I agree."

Also, on a sad note, Martin said that this is the third loss he's suffered recently. A high school friend of his recently died from cancer and his younger sister died just last week at age 48.

Van Pelt was found dead at home in Owosso, Mich., of an apparent heart attack .

Remembering Brad Van Pelt

Giants President and CEO, John Mara

Brad was one of the best players in our history and was a good person with a huge heart. He was a great athlete coming out of college and had a chance to play major league baseball. He was a particular favorite of my father, who signed him to his first contract (outbidding the St Louis Cardinals baseball team). Brad was a kind and generous person and a true Giant.

Lawrence Taylor

One of the greatest players I ever played with. I not only liked him as a player but he was one of my true friends, one of the original members of the Big Blue Wrecking Crew and the Crunch Bunch.

As a collegian, Van Pelt was perhaps even more impressive:
WILX.com:
If Brad Van Pelt wasn’t Michigan State’s all time greatest athlete, then who was? Will we ever see a seven letter athlete again? A guy who starred in three sports? It just doesn’t happen. Will MSU ever have the college football player of the year again? Maybe, but Van Pelt won the Maxwell Award in 1972 as a defensive back, and will a DB ever win such an honor anywhere in America again?

If you have any memories you’d like to share, please put them in the comments section:

Here is the obituary that will be posted on the Web site later tonight:
By Bruce Weber
Brad Van Pelt, a stalwart linebacker for the Giants who was perhaps the best player on the woeful squads fielded by the team in the 1970’s, died Tuesday in Harrison, Mich. He was 57 and lived in Harrison.
The cause has not been confirmed, his brother Kim said, but the suspected cause is a heart attack.
A fleet, athletically gifted player who was a safety in college and was converted to linebacker as a pro, Van Pelt excelled in pass coverage, intercepting 20 passes during his career. He was especially recognizable on the field for two reasons: his rangy physique, unusual for a linebacker, and his uniform number, 10. League rules usually reserved such low numbers for kickers and members of the backfield, but because he was listed as the Giants’ backup kicker when he was a rookie, the league allowed him to wear it for his entire tenure with the team. He played 11 years for the Giants, from 1973 to 1983, and for five consecutive seasons, from 1976 through 1980, he was named to play in the Pro Bowl. The Giants named him their player of the decade for the 1970’s.
Only once during his career, however did the team have a winning record, in 1981. By then he and another hard-working but little-rewarded player, Brian Kelley, had been joined in the linebacking corps by Harry Carson and Lawrence Taylor, and together they were the strength of the team. In a sense, Van Pelt was born just a few years too soon; as his career waned, Carson and Taylor were becoming stars, and they, along with Carl Banks, who was drafted as Van Pelt’s replacement, provided the backbone of the defense that helped the Giants win their first Super Bowl after the 1986 season.
Van Pelt finished his career playing two seasons for the Los Angeles Raiders and one for the Cleveland Browns, retiring just as the Giants were becoming champions.
Brad Alan Van Pelt was born in Owosso, Mich., near Flint, in the central part of the state. He was a high school hero, making the all-league team in basketball, baseball and in football on both defense and offense; he was an all-state quarterback for Owosso High School. At Michigan State University, where he was twice an All-American safety, he played the two other sports as well. The Giants made him their second-round choice in the 1973 draft, and the only reason he was not chosen by any team in the first round was that he was also considering a career in baseball; the St. Louis Cardinals had drafted him as a pitcher.
Van Pelt always felt the tug of home, even as a Giant. After a few years on the miserable Giant teams of the 1970’s he asked the team several times to trade him to the Detroit Lions. He went back to Michigan State in the 1990’s and earned a degree in kinesiology, the branch of physiology that deals with human movement.
His two marriages ended in divorce. In addition to Kim Van Pelt, who lives in Owosso, he is survived by his fiancée, Deanna Ireland of Harrison; his mother, Bette Van Pelt of Harrison; a brother, Robin, of Owosso; and three sons: Brian, of Boulder, Colo., Bret, of Santa Barbara, Calif., and Bradlee, also of Santa Barbara, who has played quarterback for both the Denver Broncos and Houston Texans.