Frank Gifford’s Gift to Ski Racing

Who can forget the 1976 Olympic men’s downhill in Innsbruck, Austria, won by the legendary Franz Klammer?

Klammer may have landed in the limelight, but the men behind the calling curtain became legends in their own right. One was Bob Beattie, World Cup co-founder and longtime U.S. Ski Team coach. The other was Frank Gifford — the voice of Monday Night Football who died earlier this month in his Connecticut home.

Their friendship stretched far beyond the broadcast booth.

Frank Gifford was a Giant.

The two first met in Vermont in 1956 while Beattie was coach of the Middlebury Ski Team and Gifford was at the New York Giants training camp in Burlington. Gifford would go on to compete in a Hall of Fame-worthy career with the Giants and ultimately retire in 1964. Among his winnings were eight Pro-Bowl selections, an NFL MVP title and the 1956 NFL Championship.

Then there was Beattie, who, after coaching the U.S. Ski Team, joined ABC Sports as a commentator in 1970 — now coaching Gifford in how to call the sport.

“Well, I was the ‘expert,’” Beattie says during a recent phone interview, trying to hold back laughter. “And he was there to lead me through it.”

Franz Klammer landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The pair provided ABC’s commentary for the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympic Winter Games. Among the highlights were not only that gold-medal performance by Klammer at Innsbruck, but also American Bill Johnson’s gold-medal-winning run at the 1984 Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

Beattie also remembers some tougher times as well, like the time they were working in Lake Placid and he had to break the news to his friend that Gifford’s son, Kyle, had been seriously injured in a car accident.

Even after their respective broadcasting days were over, with Gifford stepping down from Monday Night Football in 1997 and Beattie retiring in 2001, the two remained close friends and confidants until Gifford’s passing.

“We had a lot of great memories,” says Beattie. “We were very close. We shared everything with each other.”