Super Bowl XXVII : THROUGH THE YEARS : Footnotes To History : V : RON GARDIN : BALTIMORE COLTS

The record reeks of tentativeness. For 22 years, Ron Gardin has been one of only five punt returners in Super Bowl history to call for three fair catches in one game.

But if you had fumbled your first punt return and been cursed by teammates, you might spend the rest of the game calling for fair catches, too.

“Yes, I remember I hold a record, but I’m trying to forget it,” said Gardin, a fleet manager for an automobile dealership in Phoenix. “All I know is, I’m glad we won the game. If we didn’t win the game, it might have been tough to go through life knowing what happened.”

And to think that early in the Colts’ 16-13 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V, Gardin thought he was going to make history.

Just as Ron Widby lifted a high punt for the Cowboys, Gardin saw an opening down the right sideline. Eighty yards worth of opening.

“I catch that punt, I score a touchdown, and everybody is talking about me forever,” said Gardin, who was one of the league’s top punt returners. “As sure as I’m talking to you know, I can see those 80 yards, wide open.”

Had he only followed the ball. He made his first step to the right just as the ball was supposed to fall into his hands.

But the ball arrived a split second late and bounced off his arm. It was quickly recovered by the Cowboys, and the Colts, now representing the AFC, had made one of six turnovers.

The Cowboys did not score on the ensuing series, but Gardin was hurt for the rest of the game.

“I wanted to crawl underneath the grass,” he said. “You have to remember, a lot of my teammates were the same guys who had been embarrassed by the New York Jets a couple of years earlier. They didn’t want it to happen again.

“I came off the field and I heard more than one guy curse me out.”

Gardin said that fielding the next punt was the most difficult thing he did in his professional career.

“I saw my whole life flash before my eyes,” he said. “I ran hard to the ball, grabbed it and dove to the turf. There was no way I was going to let anything happen to that ball.”

* 1971 AT MIAMI

Baltimore 0 6 0 10 -- 16 Dallas 3 10 0 0 -- 13

Dal--FG Clark 14

Dal--FG Clark 30

Bal--Mackey 75 pass from Unitas (kick blocked)

Dal--Thomas 7 pass from Morton (Clark kick)

Bal--Nowatzke 2 run (O’Brien kick)

Bal--FG O’Brien 32

A--79,204

Winning Coach--Don McCafferty

MVP--Chuck Howley