enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Ed Mazurek is in the Maine Legislature. Know what else? He played the second half of the 1960 season with the New York Giants. His Super Bowl favorite? “I’m going to have to root for the Patriots because they’ve been the team I’m following,” he said. “But it wouldn’t upset me too much (if the Giants won).”

enlarge 1962 Press Herald file

Roger Ellis, a former UMaine center, played in the AFL with the New York Titans after he was drafted by the Giants in 1959 and cut before the final preseason game.

He played for a Little League World Series champion, coached high school football, served as mayor and is now in the Maine State House.

Still, Ed Mazurek’s resume features another noteworthy item.

He played for the New York Giants.

“My glorious cup of coffee,” Mazurek said of his short stint in 1960. “It wasn’t what you call a stellar career. “Very brief, but at least I got up there.”

Mazurek spoke from Augusta, where he represents Rockland and part of Owls Head in the Maine House of Representatives.

He is one of a handful of Mainers, native and transplant, who can claim experience with either the Giants or Patriots. A defensive tackle who played the second half of the 1960 season with New York, he is “kind of torn” about who to root for in tonight’s Super Bowl.

“I’m going to have to root for the Patriots because they’ve been the team I’m following,” Mazurek said. “But it wouldn’t upset me too much (if the Giants won).”

Roger Ellis, 69, knows where his allegiance is. He will watch tonight’s game from his Brewer residence, cheering on Coach Tom Coughlin’s team.

“I have a soft spot in my heart for the Giants,” Ellis said. Ellis, a former UMaine center, never played a down in the regular season for the Giants. He was cut in preseason in 1959, but did participate in the only NFL game played on Maine turf when the Giants played a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers and their first-year coach, Vince Lombardi, on Sept. 5, 1959, in Bangor.

Manch Wheeler and Dave Cloutier attended that game. Both were Maine players and both reached the pros. Wheeler, a quarterback, spent time with the Buffalo Bills. He and Cloutier then entered the 1964 training camp with the Boston Patriots. Wheeler was cut, but Cloutier, a defensive back, played for a season.

Cloutier’s highlights included a 60-yard kickoff return, as well as running out of the tunnel at Fenway Park, which was one of the Patriots’ homes before they settled in Foxborough in 1971.

Dick Leavitt, who played for Edward Little High, Hebron Academy and Bowdoin College, hooked up with the Giants at the end of the 1976 season. He had been cut by the Raiders in preseason camp but joined the Giants for the final two games. Leavitt suffered season-ending knee injuries in preseason in both 1977 and 1978. He eventually got into coaching and became the Brunswick High football coach for 10 years, from 1995 to 2004.

Ed Mazurek grew up in Stamford, Conn. His Little League team won the World Series in 1951, beating Texas 3-0 after Texas had eliminated Maine champion Portland in the first round, 3-1.

After playing football at Xavier University, which has since dropped the sport, Mazurek was drafted in 1960 by the Chicago Cardinals in the NFL and the Boston Patriots of the newly formed AFL. He chose Chicago.

Mazurek was cut on the final day of preseason. He returned to Stamford to play semipro ball until another Stamford resident, New York Giants defensive end Andy Robustelli, called Mazurek. “They needed a replacement player,” Mazurek said. “It was a dream come true, just the experience of being there in Yankee Stadium and being around the players.”

In the offseason, Mazurek was traded to the Minnesota Vikings. He again made it until the last day of roster cuts. In 1962, the Patriots invited him to training camp but while driving to camp, Mazurek changed his mind.

“I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to go through this aggravation again,’” Mazurek said.

He made a U-turn, retired as a player and began teaching and coaching football. He moved to Maine in 1977 to coach Rockland High.

Roger Ellis left his Westwood, Mass., home to attend the University of Maine with no intentions of playing football. He weighed only 195 pounds and figured all college football players...