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Frank Gatski, 84, Hall of Fame Lineman for Powerful Browns, Is Dead

Published: November 26, 2005

Frank Gatski, the Hall of Fame center on the Cleveland Browns teams that played in 10 consecutive professional football championship games in the decade after World War II, died Tuesday at a nursing home in Morgantown, W.Va. He was 84.

His death was announced by his daughter Anne Harman.

Anchoring the offensive line on Browns teams that dominated the All-America Football Conference and then the National Football League, Gatski was nicknamed Gunner for his fierce blocking that blew away defenders. He said that he never missed a game, or even a practice, in his two decades playing high school, college and pro football.

Playing for the Browns from 1946 to 1956, Gatski protected Otto Graham, one of the game's greatest quarterbacks, on his passes to the star receivers Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie. He opened holes that allowed the bruising fullback Marion Motley to burst up the middle.

A 6-foot-3, 240-pounder, Gatski played on lines that also featured Lou Groza and Mike McCormack at tackle and Abe Gibron at guard. A four-time all-N.F.L. player, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

Gatski was born in Farmington, W.Va., the son of a miner, and played for Marshall and Auburn before joining the Browns in 1946, their inaugural season. Founded and coached by the renowned Paul Brown, the franchise won the championship of the All-America Football Conference in all four of its seasons, 1946 to 1949, then joined the N.F.L., going to the league championship game every year from 1950 to 1955 and winning the title three times. Gatski ended his career with the 1957 Detroit Lions team that routed the Browns, 59-14, for the N.F.L. championship.

Sam Huff, who played for Farmington High School a decade after Gatski's years there and became a Hall of Fame middle linebacker, regarded Gatski as his hero and recalled facing him when he broke in with the Giants.

"I was getting ready to reach for the ball carrier and make the tackle when somebody grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me down," Huff once told The Charleston Gazette. "It was Gunner Gatski. He had the most enormous hands. And I said, 'Gunner, you're holding me.' He said, 'I had to do something, Sam.' And I said, 'O.K., since it's you.' "

After retiring from football, Gatski coached and taught at an industrial school for juvenile offenders in West Virginia. In addition to Anne Harman, he is survived by his daughter Karen Giuliani; his sons Frank, Joseph, Steven, Louis and John; and six grandchildren.

When he was voted into the Hall of Fame by the old-timers' committee, Gatski was fox hunting, but he ordinarily was not immediately reachable because he had no telephone at his home in a wooded area of central West Virginia. He learned of his selection only by reading it in a newspaper, according to The Houston Chronicle. "Where I come from, they put a note on an arrow and shoot it into the door," it quoted him as saying.

Inducted alongside four marquee figures - Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, O. J. Simpson and Pete Rozelle - the relatively unsung Gatski, having returned to his rural roots, expressed a simple yearning for the game he loved.

"When I first went out for football at Farmington High School, I got one shoe size 10½; the other was a 9," he told the audience at ceremonies in Canton, Ohio. "My football was never planned; I was just in the right place at the right time. And if I had one more choice in my life, I'd put on togs and run to play one more football game."

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