Another Great Banquet - 2005
By Rich Rooney
I arrived early and met Dave Gettleman, who I hadn’t seen in over a year and boy did he look good (with the loss of some weight- 49lbs) and all dressed up in a suit, he was a sight for sore eyes. But with that boyish grin he always has and his warm personality, I knew it would be a good day. I was busy getting many things done before the banquet started and Dave was meeting new and old friends as he was introduced around and bumped into some old pal’s from Training Camps, gone by.
The hall was filling up and there was backslapping and stories about by-gone days of glory and hopes of a new season, where hopefully our dream of a winning season would surface. Each table I stopped by I talked about last season and of disappointment, but most folks I talked with had a smile on their face, a sparkle in their eyes and in their conversation I could definitely sense a hope, especially after they talked with Mr. Gettleman.
As the event proceeded and we had a drink and some food the crowd was settling in for a conversation with Mr. Dave Gettleman. We opened up introductions, a memorial moment of silence for past members Joe Moore of Marshfield and Roland Bunnell II. A special moment came when we mentioned our founder Ron Anderson; being in Mass General and everyone had a kind word and hoped his return to our podium will be a swift one. We continued with Fan Club business and after dessert came the introduction of Mr. Dave Gettleman.
Dave wished everyone well and began to speak about the organization and talked about the team and how Accorsi/Coughlin have framed the overall plan and how all facets of the organization work as one to achieve this goals. He went on to talk about the free agent signings and spoke about with fewer draft picks they could spend more in free agency and “earmark’ high priority athletes by position. Also as part of their strategy was to set the draft “Board” up make sure all evaluations were up to date and hope valuable players would fall to them, and of course with a little luck we received quality at every round. He also talked about scouting and gave us a rough idea of what the life is like and how you scout at the college level and with today’s restrictions the scouting staff has to work harder to achieve good results (restrictions of time and access to both players and coaches).
He also talked about a usual year with all your draft picks; it usually takes several days to do the contacting of all the undrafted free agents. But this year they got an early start because of the draft pick void, they were able to contact these free agents earlier and get a head start on this tasking. Dave also talked about once the season starts how they scout, he will take the next opponent and travel to see and scout their game and Ken Sternfeld (who works with Dave) will take the opponent of two weeks out and go scout their game. Dave told a nice story about Ken and how they both were going for the same internship with the NE Patriots back at the beginning and how Ken and Dave have become goods friends, even though Ken received that job over Dave.
Dave also mentioned that with the year round training that athletes do today really hampers players’ recuperative process. He thinks this is what’s causing the high increase of injuries, not only at the Giants about around the NFL. Also during Dave opening remarks he mentioned several times the tight organization that exists and how both Jerry Reese (player development-scouting) and Kevin Abrams (VP to Gen Mgr Accorsi and Capologist extraordinaire) have put in long hours and have done an excellent job of earmarking and signing players.
Also with the lowest rookie pay structure in the NFL (due to the least amount of draft picks), the Giants still have money’s available and will probably be active after June 1st with unsigned veteran free agent market. The remarks from Dave ended and he took many questions from the audience and I was enthused with the great questions all the members asked and some even gave follow ups when they felt Dave hadn’t answered their questions. Dave also presented the “True Blue” award that goes to that person (s) that exemplify being a New York Giants fan and that went to Ed and Glen Burke (Glen is Ron Anderson’s sister). Also Andrea Hall Phinney presented the “Tyler Day” award to Warner Lund. Both recipients were surprised and speechless.
After the questioning we took a small break and had our annual raffle where there was much merchandise to be had, unfortunately as usual I got zilch for many tickets bought, but it’s for the club so I was happy many of the members received items. After the raffle many people had Dave sign autographs and pose for pictures and he would have stayed all day. But that’s the kind of guy he is. A real GIANT among men. |
