It was 1987 when the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, made Larry Csonka one of its own. He had grown up on a farm a half hour north in Stow, Ohio, one of six kids in a Hungarian family of modest means. They made their own butter. When nature called, you went out back and used the outhouse.
Had his talent for football never been discovered or encouraged, had America never known of “Zonk,” he imagines he might have become a Merchant Marine. Always had an adventurous side.
“Or I probably would have lit out for Alaska,” he says. “Always had a yen to go there. Was attracted to the wilderness. As a kid it was Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. The frontier was romantic to me.”
