I read somewhere yesterday where someone said that NFL75 was the best NFL season of the 1970s. Well, we'll see. Let's start with how it ended ...
Friday, August 20, 2021
NFL75: Super Bowl X
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I read somewhere yesterday where someone said that NFL75 was the best NFL season of the 1970s. Well, we'll see. Let's start with how it ended ...
In going back over how the Steelers and Cowboys got to Super Bowl X, Pat Summerall notes how Dallas upset Minnesota when Roger "Staubach threw what he called a 'Hail Mary' pass" to Drew Pearson.
ReplyDeleteThat would be really cool if Roger Staubach is the one who actually coined the phrase.
I'm pretty sure that's the first time the phrase was used -- I remember that the term was a big deal at the time.
Delete56 degrees at the Orange Bowl.
ReplyDeletePat reports that Lynn Swann's dad reports that Lynn Swann is not feeling well today.
ReplyDeleteTom Sullivan, backed by Up With People, is doing the national anthem. It's wonderful.
ReplyDeletePat: "That young man who just sang the national anthem, Tom Sullivan, is blind, but I don't think, Tom Brookshier, I've ever heard it done any bettera."
Tom: "That is so strong, and perhaps it makes me think about people like Vince Lombardi and the late Bert Bell, and that's about the last time we're going to get to have a soft remembrance brought because both teams are out there ..."
It's amazing how different the history of the NFL is for people like us who don't remember Vince Lombardi.
DeleteOh, my gosh, Dallas runs a reverse on the opening kickoff return--Preston Pearson hands to a retreating Thomas Henderson, and he races 52 yards down his left sideline before being taken down by Steelers kicker Roy Gerela. I did not remember that play.
ReplyDeleteDallas had gone 8-6 in 1974, and missed the playoffs for the first time in years. Then in 1975, they came storming back, and pulled two upsets to make the Super Bowl. This year was probably the peak for Tom Landry's reputation as a genius.
DeleteOh, my gosh! And then on the first play, preceded by all sorts of standard-Dallas motion choreography, L.C. Greenwood breaks free into the backfield and separates Staubach from the ball. John Fitzerald recovers for the Cowboys, but it's a big first-down loss.
ReplyDeleteDallas can't dig out of the hole and has to send on Mitch Hoopes, who, Pat says, pronounces his name both "hoops" and "hups."
ReplyDeleteRocky Bleier takes a quick-trap handoff from Terry Bradshaw for the game's first down, and I'm pretty sure that play is depicted in 1980's honestly fabulous Fighting Back: The Rocky Bleier Story.
ReplyDeleteThen Pittsburgh is also forced to try to punt--but fails. "Fumbled snap by the veteran kicker, Bobby Walden. Dyn-o-mite!" reports Tom, apparently a Good Times and/or Bazuka fan.
ReplyDeleteBoth this game and the even-more-famous Super Bowl XIII game between the Steelers and Cowboys are riddled with errors. One reason that Gibbs and Walsh dominated the 1980's is that their teams were much better at avoiding mistakes.
DeleteBut one reason that fans have such fond memories of football in the 1970's is that teams in that decade played a more high-risk style, with lots of long passes and turnovers.
DeleteAnd on the first play back for Dallas, from the Pittsburgh 30, Staubach fakes a handoff to Preston Pearson and hits Drew Pearson over the middle. He races to the end zone, and are the Cowboys on their way to their third-straight postseason upset?
ReplyDeletePittsburgh grinds right back down the field and evens things at 7, still in the first quarter.
ReplyDeleteIs Preston Pearson the only NFL player to ever play for Don Shula, Chuck Noll and Tom Landry all as head coaches? Bet he is.
ReplyDeleteOK, Dallas leads, 10-7, at the half.
ReplyDeleteI was rooting for Dallas in this game. After all, I lived in Kentucky and they were America's Team.
DeleteThis YouTube video includes some but not all of the original commercials. They don't seem to be especially fancy commercials, and it makes me wonder when it became a thing to roll out new commercials during the Super Bowl.
ReplyDeleteThe first year I remember it being a really big deal was when Apple did that commercial for McIntosh in January 1984.
DeleteRocky Bleier has a commercial for the NFL's participation in USO tours.
ReplyDeleteNow Irv Cross, Phyllis George and Brent Musburger are here to summarize the first half. They are in headsets and sit behind a small table with a blue-and-gold "CBS Sports" tablecloth. The table appears to be in the Orange Bowl stands, and fans surround them. And I mean the fans behind them appear to be perhaps two rows of bleachers behind them. The fans in front and to the sides of them peek around the table to listen to the announcers. One guy is propping his elbow on the table at Irv's end. There are two uniformed police officers there, but there doesn't appear to be much need to maintain order--the fans almost all appear to be in rapt attention.
ReplyDeleteBest studio team in NFL history. Has never been seriously challenged.
DeleteHere's Up With People ...
ReplyDeleteIs this the Up With People performance associated with the old yarn that Pete Rozelle told his staff during a halftime show that there would be no more Up With People at Super Bowls? (And does "yarn" mean that the story could be true?)
ReplyDeleteThough I'm not the biggest fan in the world (my father-in-law might well have that title), I honestly do like Up With People (I also enjoyed Kaleidoscope). And I would be willing to declare that this early-Bicentennial-year performance is absolute peak Up With People. It's a huge show--tons of perky young people in brightly colored outfits (Phyllis George told us earlier that 40 states were represented by individual performers), all sorts of pigments, all sorts of hairstyles, all beaming, breathing heavily and seemingly totally in the moment. When Matt Groening had the idea for "Hooray For Everything," he needed to show his writers and animators no more than this eight or 10 minutes to convey exactly what he was wanting to spoof in The Simpsons.
ReplyDeleteI loathed Up With People. I think this moment did a lot to make people like Bill Murray and David Letterman very, very rich.
DeleteIt opened with a real foot-tapper, perhaps called "Upbeat Main Street Good-Time Neighborhood" (though I didn't quickly discover it in this Up With People catalog). I think you might be surprised just how well you remember the next song, "200 Years and Just a Baby." And then they move on with a fast-moving medley of established and emerging American fare: "Wabash Cannonball," "Rock Around the Clock," "City of New Orleans," "Get Along Home, Cindy, Cindy," "Philadelphia Freedom" and so forth. The big closer is "America the Beautiful," against beautiful, wide shots of the blue sky over Miami, the marching formations across the full field and a big release of red, white and blue balloons.
ReplyDelete"America is celebrating her 200th birthday, which isn't very old compared to the ancient civilizations of Asia, Africa and Europe," the Orange Bowl public-address person announces during the program. "Some folks say we've come a long way. Others say we've got a long way to go. And, you know, probably both are right."
Ugggh.
DeleteIt's a brilliantly executed performance that Brent comes back to say instills "confidence in the next 200 years." Of course, I'm certain the line was written in advance, but I also think he is right.
ReplyDeleteIt's also an indisputably cloying performance that is trying super, super hard to herd under one tent a bunch of people who since Super Bowl IX have been processing scenes like this, this, this, this and this.
Apparently unafraid of Tom Shales or other monitors of schlock, CBS then tosses to Phyllis to introduce a rerun from earlier in the season of a wordless feature on the Green Bay Packers. It's all sorts of familiar, grainy clips of Vince Lombardi and the old gang, along with new pictures from the first (4-10) season of the head-coaching era of (former CBS analyst) Bart Starr, that plays to unabridged "Memory" by Barbra Streisand.
ReplyDeleteIf you grew up in the 1970's, you constantly heard about Lombardi and the Beatles.
DeleteTotal barn-burner of a halftime.
ReplyDeleteAnd then a promo for "Popi, who holds two jobs to support three sons but still makes you laugh, premieres Tuesday right after Good Times on CBS."
ReplyDeleteThat show, which I don't remember at all, does not appear to have been preserved on YouTube, which sounds like is probably just fine with star Hector Elizondo.
CBS comes back to Brent, Irv and Phyllis for some additional first-half analysis before second-half kickoff. (By now, it appears that some fans of a mood that we more typically associate with the rise of the Steelers have found their way to the perimeter of the booth, and now the police officers appear to be a little busier.) The first clip that Irv wants to talk about is Pittsburgh's Bobby Walden's mishandling of an adequate punt snap early in the game, and that's going to turn out to be a meaningful choice.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, this time in England represents the absolute peak of football hooliganism. Next year, Chris Chambliss won't be able to circle the bases after his home run to win the American League. It was a wild time for fans, and the NFL handled it better than almost anyone.
DeleteThe last thing Irv talks about is Lynn Swann. In the second half, says Irv, "watch out for bombs away from the Steelers."
ReplyDeleteAnother meaningful choice.
Boy, if you were a 7-year-old kid in January 1976 still sort of on the fence about which sport you were going to be most excited about for the rest of your life, Super Bowl X is making a pretty compelling case for football.
ReplyDeleteThe 1975 World Series was fantastic, and the 1975 NCAA Basketball Tournament was one of the best ones ever played. And in 1976, you get the Olympics and the famous Celtics-Suns final. These were very good years to be an American sports fan.
DeleteRereading this whole thing is just getting me all excited about sports again!
DeleteIt's not exactly a good comparison because the Cowboys actually were really good. But the whole flashy, multiple-motion, run-plays-from-the-sideline, in-your-face way that Tom Landry's Cowboys conduct themselves vs. the smash-your-face way that Chuck Noll's Steelers conduct themselves totally reminds me of this Seinfeld.
ReplyDeleteWe're early in the fourth quarter, and it remains 10-7, Cowboys. And, yet, Pat Summerall says, "Dallas is in trouble here, I think."
ReplyDeleteWikipedia has a good description of the scoreless third quarter (including the great Roy Gerela/Cliff Harris/Jack Lambert confrontation).
Early in the fourth, field position flipped in Pittsburgh's favor. Not only did the Steelers get the wind at their backs, they also got the ball out to midfield from deep in their own territory when Terry Bradshaw, sprinting out of the pocket, threw on target to Franco Harris about 25 yards up the right sideline. Harris would've raced for a go-ahead touchdown, but he stepped out of bounds after catching the pass.
Then, Bradshaw tried to strike the iron, sending John Stallworth on a post. Stallworth was open, but Bradshaw missed. After Jethro Pugh stuffed Harris for a loss of two, Randy White--who I actually think might've been the best single player in the NFL from about midway through NFL75 and until Earl Campbell (and maybe a few years beyond)--chased down Bradshaw for an amazing sack that effectively ended the Pittsburgh threat. It also cost the Steelers 14 yards of field position.
Now, as Irv Cross well knows, Bobby Walden is not having his best day--he fumbled the punt snap early and has had two others nearly blocked--but he got off a terrific punt here. His 59-yarder was not returned, and Dallas took over at its own 19.
Landry tries some razzle dazzle. He has Staubach hand off to a running back, who pitches back to Staubach for a long try to Drew Pearson. Except the play never gets that far. Pat tells us that J.T. Thomas, who had an interception early in the third quarter, has Pearson smothered downfield, and, so, Staubach chucks the plan and tries to dodge and weave through Pittsburgh's oncoming defense. Steve Furness, playing for Joe Greene for some reason, is credited with a sack and loss of one. On second down, Dallas gets the yard back, but that is all as Furness stops Doug Dennison. And on third, L.C. Greenwood sacks Staubach for a loss of three. So, let's be clear here: Pittsburgh's defense, even playing without Joe Greene on this possession, gets Roger Staubach and the Cowboys off the field in three plays and a minute and a half for a net of minus-three yards.
Now Mitch "Hups/Hoops" Hoopes is coming on to punt into the wind from his 16 with a three-point lead against the defending champs in the Super Bowl, and Pat Summerall, gentlemen, has seen a few football games in his day.
It's midway through NFL77, not NFL75 (his rookie year), that Randy White is going to take off. I mistyped. At this point, the Cowboys are still planning on White being Lee Roy Jordan's eventual successor at middle linebacker, and he hasn't yet settled in at defensive tackle.
DeleteIt was quite a defense. In 1976, the Steelers won the last nine games of the regular season. Five of those games were shutouts. In two other games, they allowed only three points. And in one game, they allowed only six points. They were amazing.
DeleteCBS cuts to a Pittsburgh fan in a red hard hat, standing up, pumping his fist and yelling, "DEFENSE!"
ReplyDeleteSteve Furness is having a good day. Randy White is having a good day. Up With People is having a good day. CBS is having a good day.
Blocked.
ReplyDeletePat: "Out of the end zone! It's 10 to 9!"
ReplyDeleteReggie Harrison gets the block. Per the Arlington (Virginia) Sports Hall of Fame, "Reggie Harrison (Kamal Ali Salaam-El) is a 1969 alumnus of Washington-Lee High School and a member of the Washington-Lee Athletic Hall of Fame. He set numerous football and track and field records at W-L. As a senior running back, Reggie attained W-L immortality by scoring six touchdowns in the final 'Old Oaken Bucket' game of W-L’s long rivalry series with Alexandria’s George Washington High School. In the same senior year, he broke the Virginia state record in the shot-put."
ReplyDeleteWashington-Lee H.S. is now Washington-Liberty H.S. In other news, T.C. Williams H.S. -- of "Remember the Titans" fame -- is now Alexandria City H.S.
DeleteThen Hoopes comes back out to punt back to Pittsburgh after the safety, and Mike Collier returns 25 yards to the Dallas 45. (Mike Collier, originally of Baltimore, "now resides in Hagerstown, Maryland with his two children, his wife Lisa, one granddaughter and works at a local Martin's grocery store as a manager," reports Wikipedia.)
ReplyDeleteFranco ... Rocky ... Franco ... Rocky ... four handoffs to Pittsburgh's running backs get the Steelers down to the Dallas 28. Then Bradshaw keeps it, bottlegging right, through Cowboy linebacker D.D. Lewis and into cornerback Mark Washington. On third-and-1, Bradshaw calls Franco's number again, but, in spinning around to hand off the ball, he also spins into Harris. The play goes for no gain, and now Noll has a decision. Gerela, who was injured on the game's first play tackling "Hollywood" Henderson on the reverse kick return, has already in this game missed field-goal tries from 36 and 32 yards. But both of those attempts were into the wind.
ReplyDeleteNoll elects to send Gerela to try another 36-yarder, this time with the wind. And it's good! Steelers 12, Cowboys 10. Nine minutes and five seconds to play. Collier and several other members of Pittsburgh's special teams celebrate with Gerela as he gets ready to kick off back to Dallas.
The Sporting News quoted Reggie Harrison as saying he didn't realize until the Steelers were lining up for the kickoff here that his punt block a bit earlier had resulted in the safety and two points for Pittsburgh--that he was surprised to look up at the scoreboard and see that Gerela's field goal put the Steelers ahead and didn't just tie the game.
DeleteThe Cowboys take over at their 15, and, on first down, Staubach fakes a handoff and throws over the middle toward Drew Pearson among three Pittsburgh defenders. Safety Mike Wagner (of Waukegon, Illinois) is the one who comes out of the scrum with the interception and returns to the Dallas 7.
ReplyDeleteSo far in the fourth quarter, the Cowboys have had two possessions and five offensive plays: sack, 1-yard run, sack, blocked punt and interception.
But Dallas's defense is great, too, and the Steelers stall at the Dallas 1. Gerela comes back on for another field goal: 15-10, 7:04 to go ...
ReplyDeleteFurness chases down Robert Newhouse from behind after an outlet pass, and then he joins Greenwood and Ernie Holmes on a sack of Staubach, ruining the next Cowboys possession before it really starts.
ReplyDeletePittsburgh takes over at its 30 with 4:25 to play.
ReplyDeleteTom: "OK, you used to room with Charlie Connerly. What's a quarterback thinking now? ..."
Pat: "I'm thinking about not throwing an interception, not turning it over--without getting too conservative."
After two handoffs to Harris, Bradshaw drops back from his 36 on third-and-4 and, with multiple Cowboys closing in, lets fly the famous 64-year-old bomb to Swann for a touchdown. It's not the one you know from this game where Swann is falling over the Cowboy defender and taps the ball to himself in the middle of the field; it's the one you know where the ball is perfectly dropped over well-covered Swann's left shoulder at about the Dallas 5. I cannot imagine there's ever been a better pass in the history of the NFL.
As a general matter, it was very difficult to score in the 1970's version of the NFL. The rules were favorable to the defense, and many of the best coaches -- Landry, Noll, Shula -- were guys with a defensive background. One result of this was that playoff touchdowns tended to be very memorable. This play is a really good example of that.
DeleteHome runs were similarly rare and exciting in the 1970's.
DeleteWalden, who has had a hard time catching punt snaps, and Gerela, who has had a hard time making kicks, come on for the extra point. And it's missed: 21-10, Steelers, with 3:31 to play.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, I was fascinated that the Steelers had gotten to 21 points with two touchdowns (12 points), two field goals (6 points), one extra point (1 point), and a safety (2 points).
DeleteHank Stram comes out of nowhere--I don't believe I've heard him before now during this game--and suggests that Dallas started playing too conservatively too early with its lead.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how Hank Stram and Tom Landry got along, and I'll bet this book would give us a pretty good idea.
Landry had the lead in the fourth quarter of the Ice Bowl and lost. He had the lead in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl V and lost. I wonder if Stram thought Landry was too conservative in those games.
DeleteStram is in the booth to relieve Brookshier, who has left with a camera crew to go the winning locker room.
ReplyDeleteNot so fast, Tom! Mel Blount falls down as Percy Howard--a rookie from Austin Peay who had zero receptions this season before today--whizzes by him to the corner of the end zone. Howard turns back to execute a tumbling basket catch of Staubach's 34-yard throw, and, after Toni Fritsch's extra point, the Cowboys are back within 21-17 with 1:56 to play.
Super Wikipedia:
Howard attended Dillard High School where he lettered in basketball, football and track, specializing in the 100 and 200 yard dash. In football, he had 13 touchdowns receptions at wide receiver and 9 interceptions at safety.
He accepted a basketball scholarship from Austin Peay University, where he averaged 12.4 points and 7.3 rebounds per game during three varsity seasons (1972-73 through 1974-75). The 6-4, 215-pound forward was an All-OVC selection in 1974-75 and averaged seven points and seven rebounds per game in four NCAA Tournament contests in 1973 and 1974. ... Although Howard didn't play football at Austin Peay University, the Dallas Cowboys saw a tremendous athlete and signed him to an undrafted free agent contract in 1975. ...
Howard was the third receiver on the Cowboys during the 1975 season. Unfortunately for him, the top two receivers Drew Pearson and Golden Richards played virtually every offensive snap, and the Cowboys did not use formations with three receivers. He played primarily on special teams during the regular season, and his only statistical contributions were a pair of kickoff returns for 51 total yards.
That season the team reached Super Bowl X, which ended up being something of a homecoming for Howard, because the Cowboys were encamped in Fort Lauderdale. In fact, when the Dallas chartered flight landed at the airport, the Dillard High School marching band was there to greet him. ...
The 34 yard touchdown catch in Super Bowl X, turned out to be Howard's only career reception and his last game in the NFL.
What an amazing story.
DeleteWith Bradshaw sidelined by an apparent concussion from his fantastic last play, Noll sends out Terry Hanratty to hopefully run out the clock after Dallas's unsuccessful onside-kick try.
ReplyDeleteHarris runs for a loss of two. Timeout, Cowboys.
ReplyDeleteHarris runs for two. Timeout, Cowboys.
Bleier runs for one. Timeout, Cowboys.
There is 1:28 to play. Dallas has no more timeouts. Pittsburgh has a four-point lead, and, with its second-string quarterback on the field, it faces fourth-and-9 from the Cowboys' 41.
ReplyDeleteGerela probably wasn't much of a consideration here. As a rookie with Houston in NFL69, he tried five field goals of 50 or more yards and made one of them. He has had four other tries of that distance in the five years since--all with Noll since Gerela joined the Steelers for NFL71--and he has missed them all. Plus, he was hurt on the game's first play and has missed two field-goal tries in this game, as well as an extra-point try just a few minutes ago.
ReplyDeleteWalden, the 37-year-old punter from Boston, Georgia, has been with Pittsburgh since NFL68, the year before Noll arrived. He was selected to the Pro Bowl in Noll's first, 1-13 season with the Steelers. Noll, who coaches his own special teams, has brought in competition for the veteran punter over the years, but Walden has held down the job. He has become especially known for hang time and failing to give opportunities to the league's best punt returners. Back in Week 8 of NFL75, Noll awarded Walden a game ball after Pittsburgh improved to 7-1 by beating Houston and limiting rookie sensation Billy "White Shoes" Johnson to only one return on six Walden punts.
ReplyDeleteIn this game, Walden had the fumbled snap. But he also had a great 59=yarder among four other punts.
ReplyDeleteNoll keeps Hanratty and the offense on the field. CBS, the Cowboys and even Noll's own assistants are obviously surprised by the move and have to quickly shuffle their plans for the play.
ReplyDeleteHanratty gives to his old Notre Dame teammate, Bleier. Ed "Too Tall" Jones, who has been terrific all day, tackles Bleier after a two-yard gain. And on comes Roger Staubach, trailing four, with 1:22 to go. The Cowboys are at their own 39 ...
Pat: "That's one we've got to ask Chuck Noll about."
ReplyDeleteStaubach, in the shotgun formation, fields a bad snap on one hop and scambles through the middle of Pittsburgh’s defense for 11 yards. But we are down to 50 seconds by the time he receives the next (low again) shotgun snap …
ReplyDeleteStaubach checks down to Preston Pearson, and it's a gain of 12. But instead of turning left toward the sideline, Pearson turns right back into the middle of the field. And there are 19 seconds to go when Staubach receives the next (low again!) shotgun snap ...
ReplyDeleteTom says Billie Joe Dupree was open deep down the middle of the field here.
DeleteStaubach finally recovers the bouncing loose snap, and then, with a Pittsburgh blitzer teeing him up, he fires over the middle toward a receiver about five yards outside the end zone. The pass is way high, however, and the clock shows 12 seconds remaining ...
ReplyDeleteThis would've been the second career NFL catch for Percy Howard. He was the only Dallas receiver among several Pittsburgh defenders.
DeleteThe Sporting News reported that Percy Howard said he was interfered with on the play by Mel Blount.
DeleteGood snap this time. Staubach throws a moon ball toward the right corner of the end zone. Incomplete. Three seconds ...
ReplyDeleteInterception, Glen Edwards. Final: Steelers 21, Cowboys 17.
ReplyDeletePrayers for Glen Edwards, age 74, of Saint Petersburg, Florida.
DeleteIt seems to me that since the 1970's, teams have gotten much better at scoring in these late game situations. I don't know if that's a function of the rule book or weaker defenses, but it's unusual these days to see this type of defensive stand at the end of the game.
DeleteThe first thing Brent wants answered is why Noll didn't punt.
ReplyDeleteNeither Tom nor Sonny Jurgensen choose to interrupt the party in Pittsburgh's locker room with such a question.
ReplyDeleteGary Bender does ask Landry about Noll's decision: "Well ... I was a little bit surprised. ... If we had made a few of those plays and gotten out of bounds--we didn't get out of bounds--we might've pulled it out right at the end."
DeleteLater in the program, Tom did grill Steelers owner Art Rooney: "You're one of the great people of all time."
DeleteRest in peace, Bobby Walden (1938-2018). "ou never had to wonder where you stood with 'Big Bobby'. If he liked you, he loved you. He was honest, sometimes brutally, and always full of down home wisdom. Bobby put family first and enjoyed sharing stories from back in the day. In his off season, you could find him hunting or fishing or some combination of the two. No child ever encountered Bobby Walden without knowing he was really a child at heart. Those same children could count on 'Mr. Bobby' to get their tails out of a crack if it came down to it."
ReplyDeleteRest in peace, Tom Landry of Mission, Texas (1924-2000). "A playoff shutout at home in 1985 was followed by a losing season in '86, Landry's first since 1964. Landry had vowed to remain the coach until things turned around, but a combination of bad draft picks and poor personnel decisions sunk the team. Dallas went 3-13 in his final season. 'People will forget me quick,' Landry said at the time of his firing."
ReplyDeleteRest in peace, Tom Brookshier of Roswell, New Mexico (1931-2000). "A New Mexico native who played college football at the University of Colorado, Mr. Brookshier came to Philadelphia when the Eagles selected him in the 10th round of the 1953 NFL draft. In the years that followed, he fell in love with Philadelphia, according to his wife, Barbara. "After he broke his leg in 1961 and his career was over, we were going to go back to Denver," Barbara Brookshier said. "That was our dream place. But then when it was time to go, we looked at each other and said, 'We can't leave Philly.'"
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, at the Phoenix Open, Bob Gilder is leading Lee Trevino by one shot on the back nine, reports Vin Scully.
ReplyDeleteBob Gilder won that tournament by two shots over Roger Maltbie. It was his first PGA Tour win. He also won the 1980 Canadian Open, the 1982 Byron Nelson Golf Classic, the 1982 Westchester Classic, the 1982 Bank of Boston Classic, and the 1983 Phoenix Open.
DeleteWikipedia notes that Bob Gilder (of Corvallis, Oregon) won the 1973 Western Athletic Conference golf tournament after walking on to the Arizona State golf team.
DeleteBet Bob Gilder enjoyed watching the majors this year.
Vin throws back to Brent with Irv and Phyllis in the Orange Bowl stands (now things are starting to resemble a ESPN College GameDay scene), and Brent says he has just gotten word from the Pittsburgh locker room that it was Hanratty who suggested to Noll that the Steelers go for or it on fourth down--that a blocked punt would result in much better field position for Dallas.
ReplyDeleteSo I wonder where Terry Hanratty stood with Big Bobby.
That's a good point by Hanratty. If I had the Steel Curtain, I'd be more worried about a blocked punt then about letting Dallas start from its own 39. The Cowboys need a touchdown to win anyway. Plus, if Pittsburgh gets the first down they win the game. I'm pretty sure that the modern analytics guys would all say that Pittsburgh made the right call here.
DeleteThe Sporting News reported after the game that Walden "made no move" from the sideline on the play, as though he expected Noll to go for the first.
DeleteThe Steelers in the runup and through Super Bowl X stayed at the Miami Lakes Inn, which is now Shula's Hotel and Golf Club.
ReplyDeleteSo, in a way, the Dolphins also won Super Bowl X.