THIRTY-EIGHT years after Alex Jesaulenko vaulted on to the shoulders of Collingwood ruckman Graham Jenkin to take the most famous mark in Australian football history, strangers still sidle up to him around Melbourne and utter the phrase: "Jesaulenko, you beauty!"

It's a measure of the moment and its impact in the football community. It is the most famous mark, taken at a pivotal point of the most famous single game in history, won by his Carlton team from an apparently insurmountable 44-point deficit at half-time. This is the territory that "Jezza" soared into on that day in September 1970. Already an icon, he is now officially a legend of the game at 62, and rightly so.

The words - "Jesaulenko, you beauty" - came from Mike Williamson, the television commentator who was so moved by his leap that remarkable day, and who later became godfather to the player's eldest daughter. Jezza's mark is a symbol for everything that is good about Australian football: the power and grace and athleticism, immortalised in a television advertisement two years ago and in newspaper photographs of the day.

Yet Jesaulenko, Carlton's mercurial, wispy-haired forward of the 1960s and '70s, was so much more than merely the taker of that mark. As a player, he could do anything, either in the air or at ground level. He was a magnificent ball-handler, with sharp reflexes and good leg-speed. "'A footballing genius" is how the Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers described him.

When he was recruited from Canberra in 1967, he played at centre half-forward. In 1970, Carlton's premiership year, he kicked 115 goals from full-forward. Later in his career, he carried out an expressed desire to play his football at half-back, winning a best-and-fairest award from that position.

He coached Carlton in 1978 and 1979, taking the club to another flag in the second year. He was probably the last premiership captain-coach. Then when the club's administration became bitterly divided, he sided with president George Harris and walked out. Jesaulenko ended up at St Kilda, and became coach there, too, without conspicuous success.

He retired in 1981 but returned to coaching at Carlton in 1989. It is as a Carlton man that he is remembered.

Jesaulenko's story also reflects the immigrant contribution to Australian football. His father was Ukrainian and his mother Russian, and he was born in Austria, coming to Australia at four years of age.

Growing up in Canberra, he preferred soccer, and when he first took to the indigenous game, he ran the length of the field carrying the ball before someone pointed out that he needed to bounce it. Jezza was a late starter, not setting foot in the old VFL until he was 22.

Sadly, the great man does not go to the footy much nowadays. Jesaulenko and his wife, Annie, run a marketing business, importing mango steen fruit from Asia. They have three children, and modern footy, he told The Age several years ago, he finds boring.

"They've made it too complicated," he said. "It's a simple game, it doesn't have to be rocket science. I hate flooding, chipping it backwards. It's more an exhibition of athleticism than a contest between two teams. I miss the excitement of contested marks."

Des Tuddenham's induction to the Hall of Fame was the other interesting point last night. "Tuddy" came from the same era as Jesaulenko. They were on opposite sides that day in September 1970, and the former has long been eligible for a spot in the pantheon. For evidence of his courage, balance and pizazz, watch his spinning goal in the 1966 grand final when he shrugs off a swinging arm to the head from a St Kilda opponent as though he is dodging a mosquito.

But 65-year-old Tuddenham was overlooked previously because of troubles with the law. He was convicted of handling stolen goods in 1980 and in 2004, a magistrate gave him a two-year suspended jail sentence after he was convicted of drink-driving for the third time.

Tuddenham's late induction is instructive, regarding Wayne Carey, whose absence was conspicuous.

Plainly, he will be made to wait, as Tuddenham was.