93. My dad went at 91, different year, same kind of quiet exit. Watched the NFL Films reel of the 1958 game more times than I can count, that corner route against the Giants still looks impossible. Hits harder tonight than it should.
Their story
Raymond Emmett Berry was an American football player and coach whose rise from 20th-round draft pick to Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver became one of the sport's most cherished underdog stories. Playing split end for the Baltimore Colts from 1955 to 1967, he formed one of the most celebrated…
Raymond Emmett Berry was an American football player and coach whose rise from 20th-round draft pick to Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver became one of the sport's most cherished underdog stories. Playing split end for the Baltimore Colts from 1955 to 1967, he formed one of the most celebrated quarterback and receiver partnerships in NFL history with Johnny Unitas, and his performance in the 1958 NFL Championship Game, widely known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played", helped turn professional football into a national obsession. Decades later he returned to the sidelines as head coach of the New England Patriots and led the franchise to its first Super Bowl appearance.
Berry was born on February 27, 1933, in Corpus Christi, Texas, the son of Mark Raymond Berry and Bess Hudgins Berry. His father, known to generations of players simply as "Coach Berry", was a math teacher and football coach who moved the family to Paris, Texas, where he taught and coached at Paris High School for 35 years. Raymond played end for his father but did not start until his senior year and caught very few passes. After a season at Schreiner Institute in Kerrville, Texas, in 1950, he transferred to Southern Methodist University, where he played alongside his lifelong friend Forrest Gregg and caught only 33 passes in three seasons. "I didn't catch many passes because not many were thrown," he later explained. He graduated from SMU with a degree in accounting in 1955.
The Colts selected him in the 20th round of the 1954 NFL draft as a future prospect, and few expected him to make the roster. He was thin, had poor eyesight that required contact lenses, ran the 40-yard dash in about 4.8 seconds and wore a back brace for most of his career. What he lacked in natural gifts he replaced with preparation. He studied film for hours, catalogued every kind of catch a receiver might be asked to make and practised each one after practice, including badly thrown balls. He squeezed Silly Putty to strengthen his fingers, made his own wristbands from cut towels, had special sunglasses made for games at Candlestick Park and counted 88 different moves to get open. He fumbled only once in his career.
After catching 13 passes as a rookie, he became a starter in 1956 when the Colts acquired Unitas. The two worked together relentlessly after practice to build their timing, and Berry led the NFL in receptions three times (1958 to 1960), in receiving yards three times (1957, 1959 and 1960) and in receiving touchdowns twice. In the 1958 championship against the New York Giants at Yankee Stadium he caught 12 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown, including three straight catches for 62 yards to set up the tying field goal at the end of regulation and two more on the winning overtime drive. The Colts won 23 to 17, and his 12 receptions stood as a championship game record for more than half a century. Baltimore beat the Giants again for the 1959 title, and Berry won the receiving triple crown that season with 14 touchdowns. In 1960 he caught 74 passes for a career-best 1,298 yards. When he retired after the 1967 season he was the NFL's all-time leader in receptions (631) and receiving yards (9,275), with 68 touchdowns.
Berry then spent more than two decades coaching. He coached receivers for Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys, Frank Broyles's Arkansas Razorbacks, the Detroit Lions, the Cleveland Browns under Forrest Gregg and the New England Patriots. After a spell in private business, he was hired as Patriots head coach in the middle of the 1984 season. In 1985 his team went 11 and 5 and became the first in NFL history to reach the Super Bowl by winning three road playoff games, beating the Jets, the Raiders and, at the Orange Bowl, the Miami Dolphins. The Patriots lost Super Bowl XX to the Chicago Bears, and Berry took the blame himself. He won the AFC East in 1986 and finished with a 48 and 39 regular-season record before being fired in 1990 after refusing to give up control of personnel. He later coached quarterbacks for the Lions and the Denver Broncos, retiring from coaching after 1992.
Off the field Berry was soft-spoken, orderly and devout. He became a committed Christian at 27 after a conversation with Colts teammate Don Shinnick, memorised large portions of Scripture, was active with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and answered his considerable fan mail personally. He met Sally Crook on a blind date at Baylor University in 1960, and they married that August 20. They had three children, Suzanne, Mark and Ashley, and nine grandchildren. He distilled his craft into the book and film There's a Catch To It and, in 2016, the memoir All the Moves I Had: A Football Life, written with Wayne Stewart.
He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1973 and was named to the NFL's 1950s All-Decade Team, the 75th Anniversary All-Time Team and, unanimously, the NFL 100 All-Time Team. The Colts retired his No. 82, and he is in the Baltimore Ravens Ring of Honor. In 2012 he carried the Vince Lombardi Trophy onto the field at Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis.
In 2004 Raymond and Sally moved from Golden, Colorado, to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to be near their children and grandchildren. He died peacefully at home in Murfreesboro on May 25, 2026, aged 93, surrounded by his family. The Pro Football Hall of Fame announced his death on June 1, 2026. No cause of death was made public, and the family held a private funeral service.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (Raymond Berry); Pro Football Hall of Fame obituary (June 1, 2026); Woodfin Funeral Chapels obituary; AP; Washington Post; Patriots.com. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“I didn't catch many passes because not many were thrown.”
On his modest college receiving numbers at SMU (quoted by Garry Wills, Lead Time).
“Every season we had to start all over on our timing, especially the long ball. He knew he had to release the ball when I was eighteen yards from scrimmage for me to receive it thirty-eight yards out. I knew I had to make my break in those first eighteen yards and get free within 2.8 seconds.”
On working with Johnny Unitas (quoted by Garry Wills).
“I tried all kinds of lenses till we got what we wanted. I even had tinted lenses for sunny days, so I could watch the ball come right across the sun.”
On playing with contact lenses.
“We couldn't protect the quarterback, and that was my fault. I couldn't come up with a system to handle the Bears' pass rush.”
Taking responsibility for the Super Bowl XX loss (Felger, Tales from the Patriots Sideline).
“Raymond Berry earned more respect in one day than Ron Meyer earned in three years.”
Patriots running back Tony Collins on Berry's arrival as head coach in 1984.
“Polite as a deacon, as quiet as a monk.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray describing Berry in 1986.
Photos
2Raymond Berry of the Baltimore Colts in 1960
Jan 1960 · by People Forever
Raymond Berry on a 1961 Topps trading card
Jan 1961 · by People Forever
Sorry about your dad. That catch never gets old.