Fran Tarkenton life and biography

Francis Asbury "Fran" Tarkenton is a former professional football player, TV personality, and computer software executive.

Fran Tarkenton was born in Richmond, Virginia, and later attended the University of Georgia where he was the quarterback on the football team. The Minnesota Vikings drafted him in 1961. He came into his first NFL game (also the first game for the Vikings) against the Chicago Bears and led the Vikings to a victory.

Tarkenton played for the Vikings from 1961 to 1966, during this time he developed the nickname scrambler as he ran around the backfield to avoid being sacked by the opposition. Tarkenton was traded to the New York Giants in 1967 and played there until 1972 when he was traded back to Minnesota. He played in three Super Bowls with the Vikings losing all three. He retired after the 1978 season and held every career quarterback record in the National Football League at that time.

Career highlights and awards

* 9× Pro Bowl selection (1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1976)
* 2× First-team All-Pro selection (1973, 1975)
* 1× Second-team All-Pro selection (1970)
* 1975 NFL MVP
* 1975 NFL Offensive Player of the Year
* 1975 UPI NFC Player of the Year
* 1975 Bert Bell Award
* 1964 Pro Bowl MVP
* Minnesota Vikings #10 Retired

Records

* Vikings Career Passing Yards Leader with 33,098
* Vikings Career Passing Touchdowns Leader with 239


Fran Tarkenton later appeared on the television show That's Incredible and also worked part time on Monday Night Football. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Tarkenton later appeared on the television show That's Incredible! and also worked part time on Monday Night Football. He also guest-hosted Saturday Night Live on January 29, 1977.

Tarkenton was also a pioneer in computer software, and founder of Tarkenton Software, a program generator company. He toured the United States promoting CASE or "computer-aided software engineering" with Albert F. Case, Jr. of Nastec Corporation, but ultimately merged his software firm with James Martin's KnowledgeWare, of which Tarkenton was president until selling the company to Sterling Software in 1994.

Since then, Tarkenton has been seen promoting various products and services including Tony Robbins and 1-800-BAR-NONE. He also founded GoSmallBiz.com , a small business consulting website, which is sold exclusively through Pre-paid Legal Services, Inc. His most current company is an annuity marketing firm called Tarkenton Financial. Tarkenton also wrote the motivational self-help business book titled What Losing Taught Me About Winning,

In 2009, Tarkenton made national news for his harsh criticism of Brett Favre's indecision on whether or not to come out of retirement to play for the Minnesota Vikings. Tarkenton, however, himself was similarly indecisive on his retirement during the last seven years of his playing career. Ironically, Tarkenton forced the Vikings to trade him away in 1967, even though head coach Norm Van Brocklin, with whom he had had a dispute, had already resigned. Tarkenton's departure caused the Vikings to go on a five-year search for a starting quarterback (Joe Kapp, Gary Cuozzo, Ron Vander Kelen, Norm Snead, and Bob Lee were all Vikings' starters between 1967 and 1971), before Tarkenton badgered the Giants into trading him back to the Vikings in 1972.

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