Nottingham resides in Florida, but Baltimore has a piece of his heart. The other guy? He helped the Dolphins win it all that year. But the coaches didn't care if you made a mistake, as long as you did it full blast and didn't make it over and over again." From then on, Nottingham said, every time Unitas checked off in a game, he'd turn to the rookie and ask, "You got it?" In 1973, Colts coach Howard Schnellenberger proclaimed Nottingham "the best blocking back in football." Soon after, he was traded to Miami for another running back, Hubert Ginn, who lasted half of a season. I sweated out the whole weekend, thinking the team would cut me. " 'And I didn't.' " "Mac starts laughing. Coach (Don) McCafferty grabs my arm and screams, 'What happened?' " 'John checked off,' " I said. "Now, the Colts call timeout to get the rookie out of the game. Meanwhile, the ball is sitting on the 5-yard line. "I look up and see 60,000 people in the stands, 21 football players and 7 officials all standing there, frozen. I hit (Unitas) in the ribs and knock him over the pile, three yards deep in the end zone. So at the snap, I run straight ahead, like I'm getting the ball. "When he calls for a fullback plunge, I'm thinking, 'How great is this?' "Then, at the line of scrimmage, John checks off, to an off-tackle play, which means Don McCauley will run the ball. "There I am, standing in the huddle with God," he said. Seconds later, a roar went up as Unitas trotted onto the field for the first time since suffering a foot injury in preseason. Leading New York, 22-0, the Colts sent him in with the ball resting on the Jets' 2-yard-line. He cannot forget his first Colts game, though he'd like to. "I'd rather have a nickname like 'Stud,' but you take what you can get," he said. ![]() An insurance agent now, Nottingham has recovered from quintuple bypass surgery ("I call it a triple-double"), watches his diet and said his goal is to be "the longest-living Nottingham in the world." If they put a bowling ball on his gravestone, he wouldn't be surprised. That was 40 years, three kids and two grandchildren ago. "I hit him - and I wound up five yards back." Smith glowered over him. "Once, I tried to take out Bubba Smith," Nottingham said of the Colts' All-Pro defensive end. "When you have leverage, you win." Not always. "Basically, I was a guard who didn't have enough height," he said. At practice, after Nottingham had flattened him on three straight power plays, May screamed, "You can't get lower than no damn bowling ball!" Nottingham laughed, recalling the day. It wasn't how many times you knocked me down, but how many times I got up." It was May, the Colts' linebacker, who gave the rookie his nickname. "John Unitas once told me, 'I never lost a football game, I just ran out of time.' I kind of felt the same way. But the Colts gave me a chance, and I took a stab at it. I wasn't supposed to be in camp more than a week. "I had no speed, no moves and absolutely no talent. "By all standards, my career was seven years longer than it was supposed to be," said Nottingham, 62, of Summerfield, Fla. Nottingham beat the odds, played seven years and earned a Super Bowl ring (size 15) with the Miami Dolphins that he always wears. ![]() Even Life Magazine took note, interviewing Nottingham in 1971. "He'll hit anything standing, and knock it down," former Colts coach Don Shula once said. Size aside, Nottingham stood out in training camp for his high-pitched voice, feet as wide as snowshoes and a fearsome love of contact. The Colts, then reigning Super Bowl champs, didn't know what to make of the odd-shaped rookie from Kent State. "The best way to tackle Don is to hit him low - around the neck," teammate Ray May once said. ![]() Not bad for a guy who was the next-to-last one taken in the 442-player college draft. In 2-1/2 seasons with the Colts (1971-73), Nottingham rushed for nearly 1,000 yards and nine touchdowns, while averaging 4 yards a carry. He ran the ball the same way, burrowing past linemen who'd swipe at him, to no avail. At 5-9 and 220 pounds, and with a low-slung center of gravity, Nottingham excelled at hammering would-be tacklers and knocking the pins out from under them. That handle fit Don Nottingham, the Baltimore Colts' stubby fullback, just fine. Before there were NFL players nicknamed The Bus and The Fridge, there was The Human Bowling Ball.
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