Fran Tarkenton is still scrambling after all these years...

Tarkenton on Twitter:

My first job was a paper route when I was 7-years-old in DC.

After that I had a summer job every year while growing up. Then, when it came to pro football, I had jobs every off season.

All of that experience got me hooked on doing something in business that could be productive and could make a difference. After all, the mission of business is to help people.

I'm now 84 and I love going to work every day. I never slow down.

The elevator beeped, and the doors opened. We had arrived on the 17th floor.

Fluorescent white lights hung from the ceiling of the office space. The sun, peeking in on this scorching summer day, brightened the gray walls. Past the expansive lobby and down a skinny hallway was a room with a cracked door. When the man inside heard the knock, he blurted, “Come on in!”

Fran Tarkenton’s glasses pressed up against the tip of his nose. He slouched in a chair, holding an iPad. Spotting me, he placed the tablet on his wooden desk, pulled the black frames off his face, set them down, then motioned toward the chair on the other side of the desk.

“Sit down!” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

On the wall behind him were dozens of framed photos: Tarkenton with revered Minnesota Vikings head coach Bud Grant, posing with the board of directors at Coca-Cola, standing next to former president George W. Bush. He didn’t acknowledge any of these pictures, the bobblehead of himself on his desk or the paintings leaning against the walls. He ran his hand through his wispy white hair and smiled.

He seemed amused, like he couldn’t wait to unfurl stories and explain why, at 84 years old — 63 years after his NFL debut — he still drives to this building in Buckhead to work almost daily. He would talk for hours, mentioning business titans (Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs), NFL players (Patrick Mahomes and Kirk Cousins), famed football coaches (Nick Saban and George Halas) and golf courses (Augusta National and Pebble Beach) in a fluid conversation that did not exhaust him for a second.

Tarkenton cursed, shrieked, eye-rolled and laughed. He even considered what it would be like to attend Week 1’s Vikings-New York Giants game as part of the latter team’s 100-year anniversary ceremony.

They’d asked him to go, which makes sense considering he is a Pro Football Hall of Famer who made four Pro Bowls with the Giants. That they played the Vikings, the franchise that bookended Tarkenton’s career and watched him set every significant NFL passing record at the time of his retirement, only made the trip to New York more sensible.

“I’m not going,” he said.

Why?

“I don’t need to do that,” he added, contorting his face and waving like a beauty queen atop a parade float. “I don’t have any interest,” he said plainly.

He’d rather work.

In the spring of 1966, having played five seasons in Minnesota for head coach Norm Van Brocklin, Tarkenton boarded a plane to Minneapolis, entered the team facility, walked into Van Brocklin’s office and said, “I ain’t playing here anymore. I’m not playing for you.”

“Why?” Van Brocklin responded.

“Because I have no faith or trust in you,” Tarkenton said. “You don’t want a quarterback who doesn’t believe in you.”

Their relationship had been rocky from the beginning. Ahead of the expansion Vikings’ first game in 1961, 63 years ago Tuesday, Van Brocklin told Tarkenton he’d be the starter. Then, in the locker room before kickoff, Van Brocklin said he’d decided to start George Shaw, a more experienced veteran.

“F— you,” Tarkenton told Van Brocklin at his locker. Later that afternoon, Tarkenton replaced Shaw and spurred the Vikings to a 37-13 victory.



Elevating the win was the fact that the Vikings had spotted a cameraman at practice during the week. They believed legendary Bears coach George Halas had dispatched the staffer to record the Vikings’ plays. “He cheated!” Tarkenton claimed.

Tarkenton’s initial success did not eliminate the lack of trust between him and Van Brocklin, and by 1966, the Giants ponied up four draft picks for the quarterback, including two first-rounders. Tarkenton enjoyed the glitz and glamour of New York, but in the end, the team’s struggles dragged him down. Once, shortly after Joe Namath had risen to prominence with the Jets, Giants owner Wellington Mara asked Tarkenton to come into his office for a meeting.

“Can you cut your hair real short?” the owner asked.

“Cut my hair? Why?” Tarkenton responded.

“We want you to be the anti-Namath,” Mara said.

“I don’t want to be the anti-Namath,” Tarkenton quipped. “I came here to win football games!”

Tarkenton has been traveling. He went to Paris with his wife, Linda. He stayed at his lake house, where he lives close to Saban, who has become a close friend. He even played golf at Pebble Beach.

“My last hole-in-one was in 2022,” he said. “At Pebble. I had one at Augusta National, too, years ago. I asked the guys at Augusta and Pebble how many people have had a hole-in-one at both courses. Small number,” he said, smiling because he knows how he’s coming off.

It was confidence bordering on arrogance. Tarkenton often blurs this line, and who could blame him? He went from preacher’s son near the country’s capital to a symbol of hope at a huge university in the South. He went from third-round draft pick to one of the most recognizable athletes of his generation.

He acted brashly, and it worked. He wanted to make money and he did. Now eight decades in life’s pursuit, he liked going where he wanted to go, doing what he wanted to do, telling the stories he wanted to tell. And who could blame him?

The most interesting aspect of it all was how vivid everything was. It felt like he could go for days, but he needed to get back to work. He walked up the narrow hallway and through the lobby. He pointed me toward the elevators.

One of his employees was about to press the down arrow, then quickly asked me, “How was he?”

Indescribable. How does anyone have that kind of energy at 84?

The employee pointed back at the office.

“This place and these people keep him sharp,” the employee said. “They keep him young.”