Steve Bartkowski was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1952. When he was 10 his family moved to Santa Clara, California where he became a star high school quarterback, receiving over 100 scholarship offers when he graduated. Steve decided to stay close to home and attended the University of California at Berkeley, earning All-American honors in both baseball and football. He played so well there that the Atlanta Falcons selected the quarterback with the first overall pick in the 1975 NFL draft.
Bartkowski did not disappoint, he ended up being the Falcons starting quarterback for the next eleven years. Bartkowski was a All-Pro twice (in 1980 and 1981), led the Falcons to their first division titles (in 1980 and 1982), and still holds many Falcon passing records, including most yards passing (23,468), most passing yards in a season (3,829), most touchdown passes in a season (31), and most career touchdowns (154).
Bartkowski played until 1987, until several knee injuries ended his career in football. Here are his career stats.
Year TM G Comp Att PCT YD Y/A TD INT RTG
1975 ATL 11 115 255 45.1 1,662 6.52 13 15 59.3
1976 ATL 5 57 120 47.5 677 5.64 2 9 39.5
1977 ATL 8 64 136 47.1 796 5.84 5 13 38.4
1978 ATL 14 187 369 50.7 2,489 6.75 10 18 61.1
1979 ATL 14 204 380 53.7 2,505 6.59 17 20 67.3
1980 ATL 16 257 463 55.5 3,544 7.65 31 16 88.2
1981 ATL 16 297 533 55.7 3,829 7.18 30 23 79.2
1982 ATL 9 166 262 63.4 1,905 7.27 8 11 77.9
1983 ATL 14 274 432 63.4 3,167 7.33 22 5 97.6
1984 ATL 11 181 269 67.3 2,158 8.02 11 10 89.7
1985 ATL 5 69 111 62.2 738 6.65 5 1 92.8
1986 LAR 6 61 126 48.4 654 5.19 2 3 59.4