SPORTS DIGEST | N.Y. Giants former PR director dies at 86

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.

Ed Croke, the New York Giants’ former public relations director, died Wednesday. He was 86.

The NFL team said Croke died at his home in Jupiter, Fla.

Croke joined the Giants in 1965 as director of promotions and was public relations from 1972 until retiring in 1993.

Before joining the Giants, he was a police reporter and feature news columnist for the Herald Statesman in Yonkers for three years, and sports editor and columnist for the Reporter Dispatch in White Plains for six years.

Croke earned all-league honors in football, basketball and baseball at North Tarrytown High School in New York. He attended Iona College on a basketball scholarship and lettered for three seasons. He also was a three-year letterman as a pitcher on the baseball team, and pitched briefly in the North Atlantic League before entering the U.S. Army.