{"id":117744,"date":"2026-10-03T07:04:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T11:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117744"},"modified":"2026-10-03T07:04:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T11:04:34","slug":"jeff-van-note-dies-at-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/bgodinspired-sports-news\/jeff-van-note-dies-at-80\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Van Note Dies at 80: 18 Years of Giving the Ball Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>8 Minute, 50 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p>Jeff Van Note had one of the strangest jobs in sport. For 18 years, whenever his team had the ball, he was the first person to touch it on almost every play. And his job was to give it away.<\/p>\n\n<p>Van Note was a center for the Atlanta Falcons, an American football team. In that game, every play starts the same way. The ball sits on the grass. One player, the center, crouches over it, and at the signal he passes it backwards between his legs to a teammate. Then he blocks, so the people chasing that teammate can&#8217;t get to him. The center almost never scores. Most fans never learn his name.<\/p>\n\n<p>Jeff Van Note did that job better than almost anyone, for longer than almost anyone. The Falcons announced on Friday, 2 October 2026, that he had died. He was 80. The team did not share a cause of death.<\/p>\n\n<h2>Who Was Jeff Van Note?<\/h2>\n\n<p>He was born in New Jersey in 1946 and played college football at the University of Kentucky. Here is the first surprise: he wasn&#8217;t a center there. He played running back and defensive end, two positions that get a lot more attention.<\/p>\n\n<p>In 1969 the Falcons picked him in the 11th round of the draft, the yearly event where professional teams choose new players. He was the 262nd player taken. Today the draft only has seven rounds. An 11th-round pick is so far down the list that the round doesn&#8217;t even exist anymore.<\/p>\n\n<p>They picked him as a linebacker, a defensive player. Then the head coach, Norm Van Brocklin, moved him to center, a position he hadn&#8217;t played in college. Van Note would spend the rest of his career there.<\/p>\n\n<p>And what a career. He played 18 seasons, from 1969 to 1986, all for the same team. He played in 246 games and missed only four. He was picked for the Pro Bowl, the league&#8217;s all-star game, six times. In 2006 the Falcons put his name in their Ring of Honor, the team&#8217;s highest tribute to a former player.<\/p>\n\n<p>After he stopped playing, he moved into broadcasting. He spent years as a commentator on Falcons and Kentucky games, and many fans in Atlanta knew him as a voice on sports radio long after they had stopped seeing him on the field.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>The Job Nobody Watches<\/h2>\n\n<p>Think about what a center actually does all day.<\/p>\n\n<p>He is the one player who is guaranteed to touch the ball on almost every play. And he is the one player who is guaranteed not to keep it. His hands are on it for less than a second. Then it belongs to someone else, and so does the credit for whatever happens next.<\/p>\n\n<p>If he does his job perfectly, nothing happens that anyone notices. The quarterback gets a clean ball. The runner finds a gap. The crowd cheers for them. The only time most people notice a center is when something goes wrong: a ball snapped too high, a defender who slipped past him.<\/p>\n\n<p>It is a job measured almost entirely by what goes well for other people.<\/p>\n\n<p>Van Note did it for 18 seasons. He retired more than ten years before the Falcons reached their first championship game, the Super Bowl. He never got the trophy. What he got was the respect of the people who were close enough to see what he was doing.<\/p>\n\n<p>Arthur Blank, who owns the Falcons now, said Van Note &#8220;embodied toughness, resilience, humility, and an unwavering commitment to his team.&#8221; Notice the third word. It is not usually the first thing anyone says about a six-time all-star.<\/p>\n\n<h2>He Handed Things Off Off the Field, Too<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here is a part of his story that most of the tributes this week only mention in passing.<\/p>\n\n<p>In the early 1980s, Van Note became a leader in the NFL Players Association, the union that represents the league&#8217;s players. He was its first vice president in 1982 and its president in 1983 and 1984. Alongside his teammate Mike Kenn, he made the Falcons one of the most organised teams in the union.<\/p>\n\n<p>Whatever you think about unions, look at the shape of that work. The stars of the game did not need someone to speak for them. The players who did were the ones at the bottom of the list: the backups, the late picks, the guys one injury away from being out of a job. Players, in other words, a lot like the 262nd pick in 1969.<\/p>\n\n<p>He spent his playing career making the play work for someone else. Then he spent some of his spare time trying to make the whole game a little fairer for people who would never be famous.<\/p>\n\n<p>That is a pattern. It&#8217;s the same instinct, showing up in two different places.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What Jeff Van Note&#8217;s Life Says About Being &#8220;Just&#8221; the Helper<\/h2>\n\n<p>A lot of people quietly worry that they are only useful for what they do. You are the one who drives everyone. The one who covers the shift. The one who fixes the problem so someone else can present the result. Somewhere inside, a small voice asks: if I stopped doing the job, would anybody see me at all?<\/p>\n\n<p>Jeff Van Note&#8217;s career is a pretty good answer to that voice.<\/p>\n\n<p>He was the 262nd pick. He was moved into a position he&#8217;d never played. He spent 18 years doing the least visible job on the field. And at the end of all that, the word people reached for to describe him was not &#8220;useful.&#8221; It was &#8220;beloved.&#8221; The owner of the team called him &#8220;one of the most respected and beloved players in our history.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p>You do not get called beloved for being a tool. You get called beloved because the people around you knew that you chose to put them first, again and again, when nobody was making you.<\/p>\n\n<p>There is a very old idea about this. Two thousand years ago, a group of friends got into an argument about which of them was the most important. Their teacher didn&#8217;t tell them to stop wanting to be great. He told them that whoever wanted to be great should become the one who serves everyone else. People who believe in God have been finding that same pattern in the world ever since: that the hands that give things away are not the small hands in the story. They are the ones that hold it together.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>A good place to start:<\/em> <strong>The Beginner&#8217;s Guide to Feeling God&#8217;s Presence Every Day<\/strong>. A short video guide and PDF with a simple 3-step rhythm for noticing God in the ordinary parts of your day. <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/free-video-course-feeling-gods-presence\/?utm_source=wordpress&amp;utm_medium=article-inline&amp;utm_content=hero\">Get the free guide<\/a>. Free.<\/p>\n\n<h2>The Helpers Are the Story<\/h2>\n\n<p>Sport is full of people like this, and their stories have a way of coming out only at the end. A few weeks ago it was <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/relationships-and-family\/matt-suhey-walter-payton-left-in-charge\/\">Matt Suhey, who spent eight years clearing the way for Walter Payton<\/a> and then spent 27 more looking after Payton&#8217;s family. Earlier, it was the long goodbye of a radio voice, and <a href=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/sports-and-faith\/howie-rose-retirement-voice-you-cant-see\/\">what it means to trust a voice you can&#8217;t see<\/a>, which is the job Van Note himself moved into after he stopped playing.<\/p>\n\n<p>None of them were the headline when they were working. All of them turned out to be the part people remembered.<\/p>\n\n<p>Jeff Van Note leaves behind his children, Beau, Ben and Blaine, and a career that&#8217;s easy to sum up. For 18 years he picked up the ball and handed it to someone else, so that they could go and do something with it. It turns out that is not a small life. It might be the shape of a great one.<\/p>\n\n<h2>A Question Worth Discussing<\/h2>\n\n<p>Who is the &#8220;center&#8221; in your world: the person who makes everything work but rarely gets the credit? Tell us who came to mind, and what you think they&#8217;d say if someone finally noticed, in the comments.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"convertkit-form wp-block-convertkit-form\" style=\"\"><script async data-uid=\"6491fb8269\" src=\"https:\/\/bgodinspired.kit.com\/6491fb8269\/index.js\" data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" data-no-defer=\"1\" data-no-optimize=\"1\" nowprocket><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n<h2>Share This<\/h2>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Jeff Van Note was the 262nd pick in his draft, moved to a position he&#8217;d never played, and spent 18 years handing the ball to someone else. The word people used for him at the end was &#8220;beloved.&#8221; https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/bgodinspired-sports-news\/jeff-van-note-dies-at-80\/<\/li>\n<li>A center touches the ball first on almost every play, and his whole job is to give it away. Jeff Van Note did that for 18 years. This is a lovely tribute to the people who make everything work and rarely get the credit: https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/bgodinspired-sports-news\/jeff-van-note-dies-at-80\/<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;ve ever felt like you&#8217;re &#8220;just&#8221; the helper, read this. https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/bgodinspired-news\/bgodinspired-sports-news\/jeff-van-note-dies-at-80\/<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<h2>Questions People Ask About Jeff Van Note<\/h2>\n\n<p><strong>Who was Jeff Van Note?<\/strong><br>\nJeff Van Note was an American football center who played 18 seasons, from 1969 to 1986, all for the Atlanta Falcons. He played in 246 games, was selected for the Pro Bowl six times, and was inducted into the Falcons Ring of Honor in 2006. After retiring he worked as a broadcaster on Falcons and University of Kentucky games and on Atlanta sports radio. He died on 2 October 2026, aged 80.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>How did Jeff Van Note die?<\/strong><br>\nThe cause of Jeff Van Note&#8217;s death has not been made public. The Atlanta Falcons announced on Friday, 2 October 2026, that the former center had died at the age of 80, and the announcement did not include a cause.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>What round was Jeff Van Note drafted in?<\/strong><br>\nJeff Van Note was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in the 11th round of the 1969 NFL Draft, 262nd overall, out of the University of Kentucky. He was drafted as a linebacker, and head coach Norm Van Brocklin moved him to center, a position he had not played in college, where he had been a running back and defensive end.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>How many Pro Bowls did Jeff Van Note make?<\/strong><br>\nJeff Van Note was selected to six Pro Bowls as the Atlanta Falcons&#8217; center, in 1974, 1975 and each year from 1979 to 1982. He was also named second-team All-Pro in 1979 and 1982.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Was Jeff Van Note president of the NFL Players Association?<\/strong><br>\nYes. 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For 18 years his job was to touch the ball first, then give it away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5227,12887],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bgodinspired-sports-news","category-sports-and-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117745,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117744\/revisions\/117745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}