Thursday, August 27, 2009

When a Superstar "Missing Piece" Quarterback gets traded to the Vikings

Fran Tarkenton and Alan Page are the only two Viking players to win NFL MVP. They played in three Super Bowls together. But in Tarkenton (1976), by Fran Tarketon and Jim Klobuchar, Klobuchar suggests that when the much-hyped and heroically welcomed Tarkenton was traded back to the Vikings, there was some resentment:

"Page had no such Arthurian outlook. He reacted to the Tarkenton trade with a skeptical shrug and a cryptic fatalism, attitudes purely Page. The Minnesota Vikings, he contended, didn't need a savior" (153).

"In the ensuing years, Page and Tarkenton would be civil and respectful toward each other as teammates and as colleagues in the superstar fraternity. Yet in their coexistence on the same football team, they represented--in ways largely unknown to the fan who admired both--archetypes who symbolized opposite and conflicting forces in the pro football society of their time" (154).

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