Kosar Quits Football To Focus On Family, Business Pursuits

Quarterback Bernie Kosar is hanging up his cleats, saying he can’t give his all to football any more.

Kosar said he told Miami Dolphins’ coach Jimmy Johnson that he is retiring.

“I can no longer give all my attention to football, so I called Jimmy and told him of my decision,” Kosar said, according to Sunday’s Miami Herald.

Kosar, 33, ends his 12-year NFL career in Miami, where he gained national prominence as a University of Miami quarterback in 1983 and 1984.

Kosar’s wife Babette is expecting the couple’s third child. And Kosar is executive director of a telemarketing firm and part of a group trying to buy the new Cleveland Browns, expected to resume play in 1999.

It was with the Browns that Kosar made his impact in the NFL.

He was one of the most productive NFL quarterbacks, completing 1,994 passes for 23,301 yards with 124 touchdowns. He retires with the third-lowest career interception percentage of all time.

Former Alabama football coach Gene Stallings underwent hip surgery in Paris, Texas, after he was trampled by three horses on his ranch.

“I’ll probably be here four or five days,” Stallings told the Mobile Register from his room at St. Joseph’s Hospital. “I’m probably looking at a couple months of rehabilitation. But I’ll be fine.”

Tom Franckhauser, a cornerback on the first Dallas Cowboys football team, died of a heart attack while on a business trip to Houston. He was 59.

Franckhauser was drafted from Purdue University by the Los Angeles Rams in 1959 and came to Dallas in 1960 to play on the new Dallas franchise under coach Tom Landry.

He returned the opening kickoff in the Cowboys’ first regular season game, making him the first Cowboy to touch the ball in an official contest.

Michael D. Priest, 20, of Casper, Wyo., a football player for the University of Wyoming, died in hospital of head injuries after he passed out on the practice field in Laramie on Saturday, school and hospital officials said.