Y. A. Tittle
American football player (1926–2017)
Yelberton Abraham Tittle Jr. (October 24, 1926 – October 8, 2017) was an American professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for the San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants; he also played for the original Baltimore Colts of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) until the franchise folded a year after joining the NFL. Known for his competitiveness and leadership, Tittle was the centerpiece of several prolific offenses throughout his 17-year professional career from 1948 to 1964.
Tittle played college football for Louisiana State University, where he was a two-time All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) quarterback for the LSU Tigers football team. As a junior, he was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the infamous 1947 Cotton Bowl Classic—also known as the "Ice Bowl"—a scoreless tie between the Tigers and Arkansas Razorbacks in a snowstorm. After college, he was drafted in the 1947 NFL draft by the Detroit Lions, but he instead chose to play in the AAFC for the Colts.
With the Colts, Tittle was named the AAFC Rookie of the Year in 1948 after leading the team to the AAFC playoffs. After consecutive one-win seasons, the Colts franchise folded, which allowed Tittle to be drafted in the 1951 NFL draft by the 49ers. Through ten seasons in San Francisco, he was invited to four Pro Bowls, led the league in touchdown passes in 1955, and was named the NFL Player of the Year by the United Press in 1957. A groundbreaker, Tittle was part of the 49ers' famed Million Dollar Backfield, was the first professional football player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and is credited with having coined "alley-oop" as a sports term.
Considered washed-up, the 34-year-old Tittle was traded to the Giants following the 1960 season.
The public source identifies “Y. A. Tittle” as american football player (1926–2017). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tittle, American and football.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q354741. VIAF identifies the subject as 78029082. The Library of Congress control number is n95070355. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 2017, 1948 and 1964.
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This entry incorporates text from “Y. A. Tittle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.