The RMA’s featured speaker for Wednesday, Jan 11 is Peter Gogolak. The event starts promptly at at 11:00am at theFirst Presbyterian Church, 37 Lafayette Place, Greenwich.
The program will also be available via Zoom: https://bit.ly/30IBj21
Gogolak and his family escaped from Communist Hungary during the 1956 revolution. It was a daring fight for freedom and opened a new world for the 15-year-old Gogolak and his younger brother Charlie.
Within eight years of arriving in America, Peter was making football history. He introduced soccer-style place kicking in both college and professional football.
At Cornell University, he made 54 consecutive extra points, a college record.In 1964 he was overlooked by the NFL but drafted in the last round by the AFL Buffalo Bills. The Bills won the 1964 and 1965 AFL Championships and Peter made the Sporting News All AFL Team. He was the first to switch from the AFL to the NFL, sparking the “war between the leagues” when he signed with the New York Giants, which led to the eventual merger of the two leagues.
Gogolak is still the all-time leading scorer of the New York Giants and in 2010 he was inducted into the Ring of Honor at Giant Stadium. In 2006 he was asked by the White House to be the US Citizen Representative in Budapest at the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution.
After his playing career, Gogolak was a long-time sales executive with the financial printing firm RR Donnelly.
The Greenwich Retired Men’s Association offers a free program every Wednesday at 11:00am. For additional information see www.greenwichrma.org or contact us them email at [email protected].