(reverent instrumental music) - Hello, I'm Jeff Hullinger inside the Atlanta History Center.

Few things stir the passions of Georgians more than high school and college football.

In this show, we take a look at two players who were local high school standouts, UGA stars, and played in the ultimate NFL game.

Both would also find a new passion to energize them after their playing days were over.

First on our roster, Fran Tarkenton.

This Hall-of-Fame quarterback spent 18 seasons in the National Football League, frustrating defensive linemen and dazzling fans with his elusive scrambling.

He's a Hall-of-Famer.

- I really love playing.

I love everything about it.

- [Jeff] The prototype for the modern dual threat NFL quarterback nicknamed The Scrambler.

- I didn't know I was a scrambler, but I did run in high school, and I ran in college, and I didn't recognize that I was any different from anybody else, but I was!

In pro football, they let me know I'm different, and it's not good, and you'll never make it.

- [Jeff] A popular broadcaster.

- I did "Monday Night Football" with Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford and Don Meredith, and da-da-da-da-da.

I love my life.

I've lived it to the fullest.

- [Jeff] And an entrepreneurial force in business.

- I wanna go out and build things, business-wise, that make people better.

And in doing that, you're gonna get knocked down a lot.

Nothing's easy about business, and nothing's easy about life.

We get knocked down.

When we think we got it figured out, bam.

We all know that, don't we?

That doesn't defeat me, it energizes me.

- [Jeff] Francis Asbury Tarkenton was born February 3rd, 1940 in Richmond, Virginia.

His father, a minister, his mother, an educator, Tarkenton discovered early in life that he had a nose for business.

His first, delivering groceries from the local market to his neighbors at age five.

At seven, his first paper route.

- I flunked kindergarten because I already had no interest in school.

None.

I had a paper route in Washington DC when I was seven years old.

Seven years old.

But I wasn't too young, and all those experiences make me grow.

- [Jeff] In 1950, the family moved to Athens, Georgia.

There, Tarkenton's athletic prowess, his abilities began to develop.

- And what saved me there, I found the YMCA, and Cobern Kelley was the guy that built the Athens YMC.

It was unique.

I spent all my non times at school, I'm at the YMCA, and I'm playing football, basketball, baseball.

- [Jeff] Your family with sports.

Their view of that?

- My father was a preacher.

He was an educator.

My mother was a preacher and an educator.

They didn't know whether the football, baseball, or basketball, was stuffed or was real.

They had no interest, no understanding of that.

None whatsoever.

And I played in the streets of Washington D.C., and I played all those three sports at Merrick's Boys Club when I was seven and eight and nine.

Then I played Little League Baseball.

I was 12 years old, and I'm in Athens, and I'm bigger than everybody else.

I was a pitcher, and I was 12 and 0 with 9, no hitters, and I was just bigger and stronger, but my coach was Jim Whatley.

He was a baseball coach for the Georgia Bulldogs, offensive line coach for the Bulldogs, and his wife was my seventh grade teacher.

and she's the one that got me there.

- [Jeff] While attending Athens High School, the multi-sport athlete led the football team to the state championship, beating Valdosta High School 41 to 30, and was named All State in football, basketball, and baseball.

While he was courted by nearby universities, attending hometown UGA wasn't really on his mind.

- We won the state championship, and then I'm recruited by everyone, Auburn, Bobby Dodd, and Georgia Tech.

I thought I was gonna go to Georgia Tech because of Bobby Dodd.

They had a great program.

Shug Jordan was over at Auburn, and they all recruited me.

And Georgia didn't recruit me because Wally Butts was the coach, and he'd gotten two quarterbacks, Tommy Lewis and Charlie Britt.

And so, but they didn't have a program.

But I'm a home guy, and I couldn't see myself living in a dormitory in Atlanta, Georgia, with Georgia Tech or in Auburn, but I was gonna go to one of those places and Big Jim Whatley, the offensive, you know, line coach, and my little league coach and the coach of the baseball team, he's about 6'4" or 6'5".

And he was like my other dad.

Soft-spoken, he comes in.

He said, "I hear you're thinking about going to Georgia Tech or Auburn."

I said, "Yeah, I am."

He says, "We need you more than they do.

You need to stay home."

And he walked out.

And I thought to myself, "I gotta stay home."

- [Jeff] He was named All-SEC after leading the freshman team to an undefeated season.

- Freshmen didn't play back then, and we had three freshman games, and we won all three of 'Soft-spoken.

Georgia was winning nothing.

We played our varsity.

In my freshman year in Sanford Stadium, a week before the season is gonna start, we beat 'em 14 to 7!

(Jeff chuckles) Our freshman team.

There's no program in Georgia then!

- Frustrated by being redshirted, the freshman still found a way to make his mark in the first varsity game of 1958 against Texas.

- I'm hitting Coach Butts.

I said, "Put me in, put me in.

I can do this, I can do this!

We gotta score some points!"

They punted to us.

We fair caught on the five yard line.

Bad deal.

Charlie Britt, he was starting that day.

He was sitting at the bench, I was next to Wally Butts, (mimics quick whooshing) and I ran on the field.

I put myself in.

We went 95 yards.

We had 21 plays, and we're down seven-nothing, and we're on the four yard line.

It's fourth down.

And they sent the kicker in.

I waved him on.

I scrambled around a little bit, hit a pass to Bill Herron, a wide receiver.

We're down seven-six.

He could have the two points for scoring rather than one point kicking, and so, Wally Butts put in the kicker, Durward Pennington from Albany, Georgia, and he comes in, I wave him off.

I'm 18 years old.

I wave him off.

I call a play in the huddle 'cause we had to call our own place, and I was gonna run around a little bit and throw another pass to get to two.

We went ahead, 8-7.

- [Jeff] In 1959, when he finally made the varsity squad, he led the Bulldogs to a 10 and one record and the SEC championship and helped them do a 1960 Orange Bowl victory.

After graduating with a business degree in 1961, Tarkenton was drafted by the NFL's newest expansion team, the Minnesota Vikings.

Like his first game of Georgia, he would come off the bench and lead the Vikings to an upset victory over the dominant Chicago Bears.

- Here, I'm there on the expansion team, and the expansion had never won a game!

And so, we're gonna open up against the Chicago Bears.

Monsters of the Midwest.

George Halas is the founder of the National Football League.

He got all the good players.

And so, we're 28 point underdogs, and I was supposed to start the game.

"Man, you ain't gonna start the game."

Got to the game, he said, "I got this other guy, George Shaw, who's a veteran.

We got him in.

I need to give him a shot of it," so I don't start us.

I don't go into the first quarter.

I was not happy, and, 21 years old, I had words with Van Brocklin, and I went out, and I played three quarters.

This is back when we didn't have two wide receivers.

We had was quarterback, two running backs.

We ran the ball, ran the ball, ran the ball.

We played 'em and we beat 'em.

37-13.

I completed 17 and 21 passes for 245 yards.

I threw four touchdowns.

- [Jeff] Still remember it.

- [Fran] And I ran for another one.

I still remember.

I got a big picture of that.

- [Jeff] He would play for the Vikings for the next five seasons, making the Pro Bowl in 1964 and 1965.

- Yeah, nobody made any money.

You know, I paid $12,500 my first year.

My last year was $180,000, the highest paid player, and nobody else worked in my profession, and the players didn't work.

We didn't make any money, but I worked, and working at a young age, I learned how to be a business guy.

- [Jeff] First by working during the off-season for a trucking company in 1962, and then with a series of his own businesses, including a fast food restaurant chain and a performance business management company.

- [Fran] Every off-season, I worked, and I started 24 businesses.

- [Jeff] In 1966, Tarkenton had had enough of the volatile Vikings head coach, Norm Van Brocklin.

He demanded to be traded.

- He was a terrible guy.

Just a terrible guy.

So the Falcons had come into the league, the Vikings play the Falcons.

My friends and family down here in Georgia could see me play, so this was my fifth year in the league, and he didn't let me play against the Falcons, 'cause da-da-da-da-da.

So I said, "I can't do this."

So I'd fly up to Minnesota in, I guess it was '66, and I met with Van Brocklin, and I said, "I'm not gonna play here for you anymore."

- [Jeff] Fran was sent to the New York Giants in 1967, where he would play for the next five seasons.

While he would make the Pro Bowl four of those years and have one of his best seasons statistically in 1967, the teams in Gotham weren't very good.

In 1972, he had once again found himself wanting a change.

- And I said, "You know, I really want a chance to win, and we can't win here.

You need more players, and you can get maybe some players for me.

We're not gonna go anywhere here."

"You mean you don't wanna play for the New York Giants?"

I said, "I'd love play for the New York Giants, but I wanna have a chance to win, and we don't have it here.

And you need more than just me."

Three days later, I get a call from Bud Grant.

I didn't know who Bud Grant was.

He said, "How would you like to come back?"

He didn't know me, and I didn't know him.

I said, "Come back to Minnesota?

I never thought about that.

But I'd like that."

- [Jeff] For the next seven seasons, the scrambler would be considered one of the best in the league with three Pro Bowl nods and winning the MVP award and the NFC Player of the Year in 1975.

The Vikings would dominate the NFC central division, winning six divisional titles.

He would lead them to the 1974, '75, and '77 Super Bowls, losing all three, something that Tarkenton takes responsibility for, deservedly or not.

- We had beaten great teams to get to the Super Bowl in the three Super Bowls I played in.

Back then, we didn't know much about Super Bowls.

Keep in mind, I think the Super Bowls I played in were 7, 8, and 10, maybe something in that era.

In the season, we played a game every week.

But when you win your division championship to go to the Super Bowl, you have two weeks to prepare.

But in his own way, he did it different from everybody else.

He did it great, but he said, "Boys, go home.

Enjoy your family.

Come back here next Sunday.

We're gonna leave here.

We can practice football the next week, but go, enjoy yourself, come back Sunday.

We'll fly to wherever we're playing, LA, Dallas, and Houston," and so, I didn't think of anything.

He was the coach.

But the worst thing, I put in the offense.

But that week, I'm back here in Atlanta.

I don't put in the offense.

We were not prepared, and we didn't have a chance in any one of the three Super Bowls.

The teams that beat us, we beat 'em before and after.

- I remember.

- But we weren't prepared!

It was a great lesson for me, understanding that, if you're not prepared, you're not gonna perform like you should.

- [Jeff] At the end of the 1978 season, Fran Tarkenton called it a career.

After 18 seasons, he left the NFL with records and pass attempts, completions, passing yards, and quarterback wins.

The scrambler also had the most rushing yards by a quarterback, scoring at least one running touchdown in 16 of his 18 seasons.

For all of his success, Tarkenton says he never looks back.

- I haven't been to a Viking game in 15 years.

When I left, I left.

My life didn't finish then.

I was just getting started.

I don't go to Georgia to watch games, 60 miles away.

I watch 'em both.

I love the Dogs, I love the Vikings, but I don't go to the games, I watch it on television.

I've got too many things to do that I wanna do.

I wanna go out and change the world.

- Well, you're always at the forefront of something, whether it's as a player, one of the first mobile quarterbacks, or you were one of the first waves of pro football players to make it into the world of entertainment and broadcasting, which is now commonplace now.

- Well, the broadcasting, when you play, you play, and it's the game, which is you win or lose after 60 minutes.

I'm up in the broadcast booth.

"Nice catch!

Nice run.

Oh, good tackle!"

I had nothing in the game!

It didn't matter who won or lost.

I didn't like that.

So I quit after four years.

I just quit.

I did "That's Incredible", and I did "That's Incredible", which was a real good success because I wanted to have money there, which I made a lot of money doing those television shows and doing Monday night football so I could invest in my businesses.

- [Jeff] In 1986, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Throughout the eighties, he continued to create and run his businesses.

Everything from computer software, funding small business startups, and creating Tarkenton Financial, a boutique insurance marketing company.

- And here I am at 85, I'm in my office, starting new companies, buy old companies.

We're out trying to be relevant and do things that make a difference, and then people pay us for that, and I have a good lifestyle.

- [Jeff] The scrambler still moving at a frantic pace, refusing to slow down or to be brought down.

And I see you light up talking about the businesses in a way that you probably felt about playing in the NFL.

- Oh, every bit.

Yeah.

This is just as exciting for me, and because every day is a new day, and some days, you get knocked down.

Things don't go right.

Somebody, you know, did something wrong.

And to make businesses continue to work, boy, you've gotta like life.

You gotta keep getting better, and better, and better, and better.

- Do you ever wake up and say to yourself, "Look, I've had this remarkable, generational life here in the United States.

Maybe it's time for me not to do this"?

- No, I never have.

Never do that.

To build businesses and make a difference and make products or services that people actually want?

I find that pretty fun.

- [Jeff] Tarkenton, who says he has known president Donald Trump for over 48 years, spoke at the 2016 Republican convention, linking the importance of small business success to a successful US economy.

Raised by a single mother who struggled to provide for her children, Malcolm Mitchell's life could have turned out so differently.

His skill on the football field would allow him to avoid a harsher, more dangerous fate lived by so many kids in his hometown.

While in college, injuries and something far more insidious almost derailed his football ascension.

Determined to do something about it, his journey of self-improvement would lead him to not only transcend his own life, but eventually help hundreds of thousands of children across the country with reading and literacy.

Oh, and also earn a Super Bowl ring along the way.

- When I was growing up, I thought very little about the future.

You know, so many challenges in under-resourced environments are paramount that you kind of focus on your day-to-day task, you know?

Food, water, shelter, but the idea that you could plan for the future or try to be a part of something that enhances someone's life, you know, in terms of educating and encouraging to read, no, those aren't the type of things you think about when you're from where I'm from.

- [Jeff] Malcolm Mitchell's remarkable journey has been an extraordinary evolution of thought, action, and purpose.

Mired in South Georgia, generational poverty, raised in a Habitat for Humanity home by a single mother, the former University of Georgia Football star and Patriot Super Bowl champion has risen repeatedly against all the societal odds.

- For a majority of my life, I only believe that you receive what you earned.

My mother taught me that.

I also realized that there are some things that you can have, there are some things that you can't have, but at the end of the day, I was gifted the ability to always believe anything was possible.

- [Jeff] Today, the former wide receiver leads a youth literacy initiative through his foundation, Share the Magic.

- If we're not willing to invest in the ideal of education to the same way we invest in the ideal of sport.

There's somewhere in Georgia, there was just a $65 million high school football stadium built.

- That's right.

- Can you tell me the last time you read an article where there's a $65 million library built to change literacy outcomes?

- You won't find it.

- And that's what I'm saying is the issue.

- He is a motivational speaker, author, and advocate for children, traveling the country as a sort of pied piper of reading.

What do you think, as people are watching this interview, to share with them, what do you think the greatest need is, and how it can change?

- You have to completely alter where education and literacy falls on the totem pole in society.

You got to change the cultural ideal of what it means to be literate.

- Can that be done?

- It can be done.

Here's the thing I always say when we talk about why kids want to be football players, right?

These are true stories.

When I was in high school, the valedictorian wasn't on the front page of the newspaper.

The person who had the highest GPA in our graduating class was not recognized to the same degree that I was recognized as a star football player.

When I got to college, there were certain courses that I was not doing well in, and the professor, at the end of the class, wanted to take a photo, and asked me to sign some monographs for him.

But the student who was doing well and who I know was doing well got ignored and and wasn't acknowledged.

So you put football or athletics on a pedestal, and you wonder why everything else gets neglected.

What I wanna come in and say is, "No, no, no, no, no."

- [Jeff] The genesis for all of his current work, football, recruited to play at UGA for Mark Richt.

From Valdosta, he possessed the athletic skill, but academics were another issue.

Once in Athens, a horrible realization.

His rating skills were poor.

Everything in his ascendancy was at risk.

When a professor assigned Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", troubled indeed, whereto?

In Athens's Barnes & Noble was the answer.

- Divine intervention.

I walked into a bookstore one day, lost and confused, not knowing which section to go to to find a book I wanted to read.

To my left, there was a woman who had about five books in her hand, and she was looking for more.

And I thought to myself, "If anybody can help me find a book, it must be this person who's juggling 10 of them."

I start walking towards her, and I actually walk right by her, thinking to myself, "This isn't going to go well."

She was an older woman, a different complexion, different generation.

I had on probably sweat pants and a dri-FIT shirt.

Everything in society told me I wasn't allowed to walk up to that woman and strike up a conversation and not be a negative outcome.

But, man, I just desperately wanted to be a better reader because I knew, deep down in my soul, that there was no other powerful tool that could do what I thought needed to be done in my life at that time.

So I double back.

I ask her a question.

She's excited to share.

She tells me about her book club, and I think to myself, "If I wanna be a better reader, I need to hang around readers."

And I asked to join her book club.

And she hesitated, told me she had to talk to some people.

I gave her my name, gave her my email.

That same day, she emails me back and says, "We'd love for you to join."

And for two and a half years, every second Tuesday of the month, I went to Silver Leaf Book Club, and I read those books.

They would never let me have the wine, (both chuckle) but they would always do simple things such as send me texts before football games, after football games, bring cinnamon rolls, and they'd just showered me with what I needed at that moment, which was a community of readers that just encouraged me to be the best version of me, no matter what.

- [Jeff] Mitchell did not give up, just as he didn't quit when finding himself in trouble, and people in Valdosta were saying his life would be like others, filled with jail time.

There were other reading issues, too.

Trying to keep up with television closed captions, or reading the difference between applesauce and apple slices in the grocery store.

He had to read better.

- If you go into any school and you ask a kid, "What's a better outcome?

Being a professional athlete or being a proficient reader," well, it's almost a redundant question.

And I'm saying, "Well, that's the problem."

- Moving that is like moving a glacier.

- No, it's hard, because reading in education is not immediate gratification unless we devise strategies to position it as such.

- [Jeff] Seeing an interview with rapper 50 Cent also motivated Mitchell toward reading literacy, noting success with finances demand reading ability, but the clock was ticking.

His football career would be brief due to injury, but the Mitchell legacy will live forever in Super Bowl lore.

A rookie unsure if he will play in Super Bowl '51 versus Atlanta.

Playing poorly the week prior, quarterback Tom Brady offered support in January of 2017.

- And as we get ready to fly down to Houston the week before the game, Tom comes up to me with a note card, and he says, "Malcolm, I want you to read this card every time you feel an ounce of negativity," and on the card, it said, "My name is Malcolm Mitchell.

I catch every pass.

I run every route.

I can't be stopped.

I'm the best."

This is before words of affirmation was a thing that was popularized on social media.

And Tom hands me this card.

I read it about 10,000 times from the time he handed it to me to the time we landed in Houston, and everything changes.

That week, I have the best practices of my life, and get an opportunity to play in what will go down as one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time.

- [Jeff] Mitchell caught six passes, five in the fourth quarter, including a touchdown.

The 28 to 3 Patriots deficit erased in one of the most famous comebacks in American sports history.

New England has another Lombardi Trophy.

- You ever saw that Charlie Brown scene where it's raining, pulls out an umbrella, and then lightning strikes the umbrella?

That's what it felt like at some point throughout that game.

But you have these choices in life, right?

You can be in a pretty bad situation.

You can get knocked down, and you can stay down, and everyone would understand.

But you can get knocked down, and you can get back up, and you can get knocked back down again, and you can get back up, and you can get knocked down again, and you can keep getting back up.

In our perspective, that day, I know for a fact because of the team culture that was established, you may beat us, but we're not just gonna lay down and take it.

- His move into the domain of children's literature with the release of two books has also been arousing success.

"The Magician's Hat" instills the value of reading.

The decision to write was obvious, and has been immensely satisfying.

The book has triggered the spark of literacy among so many young people across America.

How many more books do you think there are in you today?

Do you think there are more than a half a dozen in the next few years?

- Yeah, I could probably write a picture book, three or four picture books every three months.

I think there are some other larger texts that I wanna spend some time on, you know, moving to the young adult or middle grade area, and maybe do like a memoir because I truly have yet to communicate the intersection of football and literacy to the degree in which it's had an impact on my life.

Most times, I'm asked to speak about literacy, or I'm asked to speak about football, but there's a combination of both of those things coming together that I think produced an outcome that I never expected.

- [Jeff] It is hard to believe Mitchell is only in his early thirties, holding a UGA degree in communications, an incredible, eventful life of meaning and accomplishment, and there is so much more ahead.

- I will do - [All] I will do - whatever's necessary - [All] whatever's necessary - for me - [All] for me - to reach - [All] to reach - my maximum - [All] my maximum - potential.

- [All] potential.

- You're a young man right now.

How does this take on a different lilt in the decades ahead?

- I sit up late at night on my back porch, wondering the same thing.

I have no idea.

- [Jeff] But it will evolve.

- Evolution is necessary.

How will it evolve?

I'm not sure.

Will I ever stop doing the work?

Not as long as I'm breathing.

- Each year, Mitchell teams up with the Georgia Council on Literacy to get children pumped up about reading at the annual Georgia Reeds Day.

GPB streams the event live, so even if your children can't get there, they can still share in the joy of reading.

For "Georgia Legends", I'm Jeff Hullinger.

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