One of the men who helped make Baltimore a football city is gone.
Raymond Berry, the Hall of Fame wide receiver whose partnership with Johnny Unitas helped build the Baltimore Colts into champions and turned Memorial Stadium into the center of the football world, died May 25 at his home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
He was 93.
Officials made the announcement on Monday.
For generations of football fans in the DMV region, Berry represented something bigger than statistics.
Long before the Ravens arrived. Before Ray Lewis. Before Lamar Jackson.
There was Berry.
A Baltimore Colt through and through, Berry spent all 13 seasons of his playing career with the Colts, helping lead the franchise to NFL championships in 1958 and 1959 and becoming one of the most respected players of his era.
The Ravens, who later inducted Berry into their Ring of Honor as part of Baltimore’s football legacy, called him “a football icon” whose impact on Baltimore sports “will endure forever.”
Berry’s journey to football greatness wasn’t supposed to happen.
The Colts selected him in the 20th round of the 1954 NFL Draft after a college career at Southern Methodist University that hardly predicted stardom. He lacked blazing speed. He battled poor eyesight. He wore a back brace because of a spinal misalignment and used special shoes because one leg was shorter than the other.
What Berry lacked physically, he made up for with preparation.
He became famous for his relentless attention to detail, studying film long before it became commonplace, cataloguing routes, practicing every type of catch imaginable, and squeezing Silly Putty to strengthen his hands and fingers.
“The name of the game for Raymond was preparation,” his family wrote in his obituary.
That preparation helped create one of the greatest quarterback-receiver combinations in NFL history.
After Johnny Unitas arrived in Baltimore, the pair spent countless hours working together, building a connection that became the foundation of the Colts’ offense and one of football’s most legendary partnerships.
“People said Raymond Berry was not blessed with the size or speed of other receivers in the National Football League, but no one worked harder to refine his skills and master his craft,” Pro Football Hall of Fame President Jim Porter said. “The chemistry he developed with quarterback Johnny Unitas through hours of route-running and thousands of repetitions in practice created a dynamic tandem that thought with one mind on game days.”
Their defining moment came in the 1958 NFL Championship Game against the New York Giants.
Known today as “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” the showdown ended in a 23-17 Colts victory in sudden-death overtime and is widely credited with helping launch the NFL into America’s most popular sport.
Berry was at the center of it all.
He caught 12 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown, setting a championship-game receptions record that stood for more than five decades. Three consecutive catches on the Colts’ final drive in regulation helped force overtime. Two more receptions set up the winning score.
Pro Football Hall of Famer Raymond Berry, a key player in “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” died.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
By the time Berry retired in 1967, he was the NFL’s all-time leader in receptions and receiving yards.
He finished his career with 631 catches for 9,275 yards and 68 touchdowns, earned six Pro Bowl selections, three All-Pro honors and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 in his first year of eligibility.
Yet those who knew Berry best often spoke less about football and more about the man.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft remembered him as “humble, faithful, kind and deeply respected.”
Former teammates and players described him as a gentleman, mentor and teacher. Berry personally answered fan mail throughout his life and developed mentoring relationships with young people who attended Colts practices in Baltimore.
His family said he devoted himself to his Christian faith after becoming a follower of Jesus Christ at age 27, and spent decades sharing that faith with others.
After his playing career, Berry remained in football as a coach, leading the New England Patriots to the first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history during the 1985 season.
But for many Maryland football fans, Berry’s greatest legacy will always be tied to Baltimore.
He helped create the city’s first football dynasty. He helped define an era. And decades after the Colts left town, Baltimore never stopped claiming him as one of its own.
Berry is survived by his wife of 65 years, Sally, three children, and nine grandchildren.
“Luck is something which happens when preparation meets opportunity,” Berry once said. “One play may make the difference in winning or losing a game. I must be prepared to make my own luck.”