NCAA Football Quiz: 1) Who is Ohio State’s #2 career rusher
behind Archie Griffin with 3,768 yards? 2) Who was the starting
quarterback from 1982-84, leading Ohio State to three
consecutive 9-3 seasons, and later played in the NFL? [Art
Schlichter’s last season was 1981.] 3) Who am I? I rushed for
2,910 yards in my career at Oklahoma and my initials are L.C.
4) Who was Oklahoma’s leading receiver, 1972-75, including the
national championship squads of 1974-75? 5) Who was the QB
on those two title teams? Answers below.
BCS
1. Ohio State, .9588
2. LSU, .9394
3. Virginia Tech, .8703
4. Oklahoma, .8572
5. Georgia, .8392
AP Top Ten
1. Ohio State 11-1
2. LSU 11-2
3. Oklahoma 11-2
4. Georgia 10-2
5. Virginia Tech 11-2
6. USC 10-2
7. Missouri 11-2
8. Kansas 11-1
9. Florida 9-3
10. Hawaii 12-0
Yet another crazy weekend in what has been the most
spectacular season ever for college football with Pitt shocking #2
West Virginia, and Oklahoma blasting #1 Missouri.
What happens from here is anti-climactic. I won’t watch more
than three or four bowl games, myself, and the BCS title game,
LSU vs. Ohio State, will stretch until about 12:30 in the morning
on Jan. 7, and I’ll probably fall asleep at 11:00, it being a school
night and all.
And of course everyone is bitching that Division I college
football is the only sport on the planet without a playoff system,
to which I say, this is what’s fun…the chaos. Get over it.
Because of the bowl system, and all the money involved, you
aren’t going to get one.
You also had to love USC’s Pete Carroll, who in complaining his
team wasn’t selected to face Ohio State, said “There were a
number of teams who had great seasons.”
Huh? There were a bunch of teams that lost twice! And an 11-1
Kansas squad whose best win was over St. Mary’s High School,
or something like that.
It was a year of great games, instead, and not of great teams; but
I’ll take great games over two 12-0 squads any time.
So here’s what I will watch, aside from the first half of LSU-
Ohio State. I’m fired up for Hawaii-Georgia in the Sugar Bowl,
and if that game is close, even though it’s a school night, too, I’ll
stay up for it.
But in all honesty, the rest of the match-ups bore the hell out of
me, except Wake Forest-UConn. Not because it’s my Demon
Deacons, but it’s just a good contest on paper between two
evenly matched teams. [I’m not going to this one like I did last
year’s Orange Bowl.]
—
December 3, 1967
On this day, South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard
performed the first human heart transplant. Here’s a piece I did
about six years ago upon his passing.
Christiaan Barnard was born in 1922, the son of an Afrikaner
preacher. He went to medical school both in South Africa as well
as the University of Minnesota. When he settled back in Cape
Town, at Groote Schuur Hospital, he began experimenting on
heart transplantation, mostly with dogs. By the fall of 1967,
Barnard and his team were convinced that they had performed
enough research to try the procedure on a human.
Of course Barnard needed the perfect patient, as well as a donor.
The patient was Louis Washkansky, a 55-year-old with diabetes
and incurable heart disease. Washkansky was first told about 3
weeks before the transplant that Barnard thought he was a good
candidate. Years later, Barnard wrote of the decision that
Washkansky faced.
“For a dying man it is not a difficult decision because he knows
he is at the end. If a lion chases you to the bank of a river filled
with crocodiles, you will leap into the water convinced you have
a chance to swim to the other side. But you would never accept
such odds if there were no lion.”
Barnard also said at the time, in a matter of fact way, “We didn’t
see the heart as the seat of the soul. The cessation of the heart
did not mean the end of life. We knew that.”
A few days before December 3, 1967, a donor was found, but
died too soon for the operation to take place. Then, on the 2nd, a
24-year-old by the name of Denise Darvall was brought to
Groote Schuur Hospital with massive injuries suffered in an auto
accident. It was clear she wasn’t going to live, yet most of her
vital organs were in good shape, particularly her heart and
kidneys. The blood and tissue types also matched what Barnard
needed.
But the doctor first needed approval from Darvall’s father. Poor
Mr. Darvall had also lost his wife in the same accident (she died
instantly). The father gave permission for the transplants
(Denise’s kidneys were transplanted into a 10-year-old at another
hospital nearby).
Darvall died and the doctors had to act fast (within 30 minutes of
her death), to transplant her heart into Washkansky. [This
occurred after midnight on the 3rd.]
A team of 20 surgeons and nurses took five hours to complete
the operation. Said one surgeon, “It was like watching a
bullfight. Certain classical maneuvers had to be done before the
grand finale.”
Then came the moment of truth. Electrodes were applied to
Washkansky’s new heart and it resumed beating. Said a member
of the team, “It was like turning the ignition switch of a car.”
At this moment Barnard was reported to have said, “It’s going to
work. I need a cup of tea.”
Right after the operation Barnard also said, “If it had not been for
(Washkansky’s) courage and will to live the operation would
never have succeeded.”
But one of the many amazing things about this historic moment
in time was that Barnard was so nonchalant he didn’t even take
pictures of the operation.
I read an account of the transplant in the December 4, 1967,
edition of the New York Times. [Barnard wasn’t even
mentioned until about the 20th paragraph of the story.] A
spokesman for the hospital commented then:
“The longer Washkansky goes on, the better, although the body
could decide in 5 or 10 years’ time that it doesn’t want this
heart.” Washkansky, himself, was kept “dead quiet” in the
recovery room…no one said a word while he was being
monitored.
But, unfortunately, Washkansky didn’t live 5 or 10 years. He
died 18 days later from double pneumonia as a result of his
suppressed immune system; his courage and place in medical
history, however, well-established.
Washkansky’s death didn’t discourage Barnard, though, and his
second heart transplant patient, Philip Blaiberg, lived for 18
months. Later on, another, Dirk van Zyl, lived 23 years before
dying of diabetes – unrelated to his heart condition.
As you might imagine, Christiaan Barnard became an instant
world celebrity, and the fame got to him. Initially, he enjoyed it
immensely, partying with the likes of Sophia Loren, Audrey
Hepburn, Richard Burton and Peter Sellers. His affair with Gina
Lollobrigida was said to have contributed to the divorce from his
first wife (he would marry 3 times), but he later shied away from
the limelight.
About 70,000 heart transplants have now been performed over
the last 40 years. 90%+ survive the operation, with 70-75%
living for 5 years thereafter. Among today’s more famous
patients is Vanguard Group’s John Bogle.
[Dr. Denton Cooley was the first to perform a transplant in
America; 17 in 1968 alone, with his first patient living 204 days.]
Evel Knievel, RIP
A staple of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” in the 1960s and
‘70s, daredevil Evel Knievel was certainly an American original.
Richard Severo / New York Times
“Mr. Knievel amazed and horrified onlookers on Dec. 31, 1967,
by vaulting his motorcycle 151 feet over the fountains of Caesars
Palace in Las Vegas, only to land in a spectacularly bone-
breaking crash….
“Performing stunts hundreds of times, Mr. Knievel repeatedly
shattered bones as well as his bikes. When he was forced to
retire in 1980, he told reporters that he was ‘nothing but scar
tissue and surgical steel.’
“By his own account, he underwent as many as 15 major
operations to relieve severe trauma and repair broken bones –
skull, pelvis, ribs, collarbone, shoulders and hips. ‘I created the
character called Evel Knievel, and he sort of got away from me,’
he said.”
Knievel was born in Butte, Mont., and acquired the name Evel as
a boy after being arrested for stealing hubcaps. [‘Evil’ was
changed to ‘Evel’ because Knievel thought it looked better.]
As a boy he was a fan of the famous stunt-car driver Joie
Chitwood and Knievel’s first motorcycle was one he stole when
he was 13.
Severo:
“In 1965 he formed a troupe called Evel Knievel’s Motorcycle
Daredevils and began barnstorming Western states. He later
began performing alone and hit the big time in 1968 with his
much-publicized jump over the fountains at Caesars Palace. ‘It
was terrible,’ he said afterward. ‘I lost control of the bike.
Everything seemed to come apart. I kept smashing over and over
and ended up against a brick wall, 165 feet away.’
“The accident left him with a fractured skull and broken pelvis,
hips and ribs. He was unconscious for a month. Shortly after his
recovery, he jumped 52 wrecked cars at the Los Angeles
Coliseum.
“In 1974, Mr. Knievel decided he would jump 1,600 feet across
the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. Before thousands of
spectators and thousands more on a closed-circuit television
broadcast, he took a rocket-powered motorcycle up a 108-foot
ramp at 350 miles an hour and soared some 2,000 feet over the
canyon floor.
“But his parachute opened prematurely, and he and the cycle
drifted to the canyon floor, leaving him without serious injury.
For his efforts, he made $6 million.”
In latter years, Knievel had all kinds of problems with the law.
But as he put it in a May 2006 interview with the AP, “No king
or prince has lived a better life. You’re looking at a guy who’s
really done it all. And there are things I wish I had done better,
not only for me but for the ones I loved.”
Personally, like so many of us of a certain generation, I watched
all his jumps on “Wide World of Sports,” and remember
listening to the radio to find out the result of the Snake River
Canyon leap. A lot of events were on closed-circuit in those
days, including the Indy 500 and major title bouts, so the only
way to find out the result was through a news radio station, pre-
ESPN.
So we quaff an ale to Evel Knievel, one of those quirky
characters who add a little spice to life.
Stuff
–Stu W., a k a Stu Baby, passed along a note that while he is a
long-time Jets fan, and while Joe Namath is responsible for our
only moment of glory, he was also way overrated. Stu asked me
to look up some statistics on his contemporaries, so I just present
the following.
John Brodie, 1957-73, 214 TD passes / 224 interceptions, 55.0%
Sonny Jurgenson, 1957-74, 255-189, 57.1%
Joe Namath, 1965-77, 173-220, 50.1%
Bart Starr, 1956-71, 152-138, 57.4%
Fran Tarkenton, 1961-78, 342-266, 57.0%
Johnny Unitas, 1956-73, 290-253, 54.6%
Another thing that Stu points out is the fact that running back
John Riggins was way underutilized while a Jet, 1971-75, and a
look back at Riggins’ record before he went to Washington
indeed bears this out as Riggins only carried the ball about 12-15
times a game in New York. Excellent point, Stu.
But I still love gun-slingers and there was no one more fun to
watch than Joe Willie. Of course these days his stats would be
enough to get him booed out of town, I imagine.
[A movie on Namath’s life is in the works, by the way. I want
the role of a bartender at Bachelors III.]
–It’s rumored that George Mitchell’s report on steroids in
baseball may contain as many as 50 names. More fodder for
your holiday gatherings!
–Mark R. told me to check out Philadelphia Inquirer columnist
David Aldridge’s take on the Sean Taylor case.
“Black men, I need your attention. This means you, Jimmy
Rollins. Mr. Cosby, give me a minute….
“I’m tired of seeing young black men go into the ground. Tired
of seeing lives ruined by guns, and by drugs, and by bad choices,
and by people like me who sit idly by while it happens, because
it isn’t happening to us.
“Rich men, poor men, athletes, beggars, journalists, L.A., D.C.,
Detroit, Chicago, it doesn’t matter.
“I’ve just spent two days with the Redskins, who are trying to
deal with the fact that one of their best players and team leaders,
a young, complicated black man named Sean Taylor, is dead at
24, because someone broke into his home at 1:30 in the morning
Monday and murdered him.
“There are those, including colleagues I respect, who say they’re
not surprised, and infer that Taylor had it coming, because he had
had a beef with some bad people two years ago that led to
brandished guns and cars shot full of holes. And, thus, it was
inevitable that he had to die, like life is a Shakespearean play or
something….
“As black men, we cannot allow ourselves to be defined by
anyone – by the media or by ourselves – and accept the premise
that one beginning means only one possible ending.
“Sean Taylor, while no saint, was not a ‘thug.’ He didn’t grow
up in the ‘hood. He went to private schools before college. And
even if he was a thug – whatever that is – or embraced that
culture during one part of his life, that doesn’t mean he deserved
to die in front of his child and fiancée, in his home, bothering no
one.
“I’m angry that people cry about Sean Taylor’s death because he
was an outstanding football player, as if his death has extra
meaning because he had great closing speed. This is not about
sports.
“We have buried 200 Sean Taylors in this city this year. We
don’t know what would have come of their dreams and hopes.
They deserve our tears, too, for they may have been anonymous
to you, but they weren’t to their mothers and fathers, their best
friends and lovers, their teachers and mentors.
“I’m angry that, as of 2004, according to the Centers for Disease
Control, homicide is the No. 1 cause of death among black men
ages of 15 to 34. I’m angry that the Justice Policy Institute found
more black men in prison than in college.
“I’m angry that young brothers who like school and want to learn
are accused of ‘acting white,’ and have to make the awful choice
of sticking with their education or sticking with their boys. It
happened to me when I was 5. I’ve never gotten over it. How
does one mend a heart broken by those who look most like him?
“I’m tired of nodding in agreement as I did yesterday when Brian
Westbrook talked about how he has to be extra careful these
days, because he knows that, all-pro or not, he’s a target when he
steps off the field, and his celebrity provides no shield.
“ ‘I feel as though everybody’s vulnerable, to a certain extent,’
he said. ‘You have to watch the company that you keep. You
have to watch the situations that you put yourself in…You can’t
put yourself in a situation where your friends are doing dirt or
bad things, and then you hang around those people. ‘Cause at
some point, karma catches up with you.’
“We can continue to throw our hands up and blame others or we
can stop this genocide and deal with the recriminations later.
“In an otherwise demagogic campaign advertisement in 1964,
Lyndon Johnson said, ‘These are the stakes. To make a world in
which all of God’s children can live or to go into the dark. We
must either love each other or we must die.’
“What’s it gonna be?”
–Bobby Bowden is 78 and I can’t believe Florida State is
considering a contract that could allow Bowden to continue
coaching as long as he wants. The guy doesn’t even know his
players’ names, for crying out loud.
–There is one man in college football you just have to love and
that’s Nebraska’s Tom Osborne. Ken S. first alerted me to the
story Osborne made himself interim head coach so he could go
out and recruit while a replacement for Bill Callahan is found.
But in order to get out on the road, Osborne had to pass an
NCAA certification test on his first try, which he did. Several
recruits who committed to Nebraska have said they are
reconsidering.
[Wake Forest fans can relax. LSU defensive coordinator Bo
Pelini was selected for the Cornhusker position.]
–For ages it’s been a mystery what Penn State coach Joe Paterno
earned. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that his
salary should be made public after a Harrisburg, Pa., newspaper
asked the State Employees’ Retirement System to release the
information.
So, Joe Pa earned about $500,000 this year, after being paid
$490,000 in 2006. As Paterno himself said, “I’m paid well, I’m
not overpaid.” There were no special bonuses, either.
I have to admit this surprised an awful lot of folks, including me.
Nick Saban of Alabama is the highest-paid in the college game at
$4 million, and Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops makes over $3 million.
–HBO plans to make a movie out of the book “Game of
Shadows.” Word is that Wesley Snipes might play Barry Bonds.
I was thinking more on the lines of Warren Sapp.
–The other night the Knicks were annihilated by the Celtics,
104-59. If they hadn’t hit a three at the buzzer, it would have
been New York’s lowest point total, ever, since the advent of the
shot clock.
Of course those of us who love to hate the last few editions of
this team couldn’t have been happier.
And it’s awesome that the Knicks just rolled over. Boston’s
Kevin Garnett said on the national TNT broadcast, “You don’t
just come out and quit. You have to have a reason or someone
has to make you quit.”
Sadly, the Knicks won their next game. I’d prefer a 20-game
losing streak.
–I seem to be the only Mets fan who is satisfied with the trade
sending prospect Lastings Milledge to Washington for Brian
Schneider and Ryan Church. I’m telling you, Church is going to
be a very solid performer for us. 20 homers, 85 ribbies, and solid
defense. And Schneider will drive in 60 and be a great field
general. Now if Milledge hits 40 homers, I reserve the right to
change my opinion, which is allowed under the guidelines of the
International Web Site Association.
[Of course my brother just said that when Milledge hits his first
home run off the Mets, he’ll jog around the bases backwards.]
–Who is going to be Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year?
This column is being posted prior to the announcement, but I’ll
say Peyton Manning. Tiger, who won in 1996 and 2000, needed
to win a second major, and Tim Duncan was a winner in 2003.
Now if A-Rod had lead the Yankees to the World Series, he
would’ve been a shoe-in. You know who should be in the top
three, though? Try Jimmie Johnson for his 10 wins on the way
to the Nextel Cup. Then again, Roger Federer has yet to win it.
He’s obviously deserving. I’m changing my mind…the winner
is Federer.
And the 2008 winner will either be Tom Brady or A-Rod.
–Sports Illustrated interviewed actor Michael Imperioli, who is
playing a Mets catcher in the movie version of Mitch Albom’s
novel ‘For One More Day.’ I loved this tidbit.
SI: Did athletes reach out to you to say they like ‘The Sopranos?’
Imperioli: The best was when I got a call two years ago from
Muhammad Ali saying, ‘Muhammad wants to meet you. He’s a
fan of the show.’ I was stunned. I invited them to the set, but I
kept thinking. This is not going to happen. But Ali came! I
brought him in, and he got an ovation from the whole crew.
Everyone stopped working for a half hour. Some people were
crying. He went up to everyone, shook hands; it was
unbelievable. I don’t think people would have reacted the same
way if it were the Pope.
SI: Did Ali get an audience with Tony Soprano?
Imperioli: It was the season when James Gandolfini was in the
hospital with a coma. He was in bed and had all the tubes in
him. Jimmy didn’t know Ali was there, so Ali and I snuck up on
him. Gandolfini turned his head and said, ‘Holy, s—!’”
–The PGA Tour is instituting its new drug-testing policy this
coming year, commencing with random testing in July. Every
player will get tested at least once the rest of the year.
I agree with the Wall Street Journal’s John Paul Newport. As
clean as golf likes to say it is, there is bound to be a scandal or
two. Rocco Mediate told Newport: “We’re as clean as it gets,
and we always have been. There’s [no drug] out there that helps
you hit it 300 yards and straight.”
But Charles Yesalis, the author of “The Big Steroids Game” and
professor emeritus of health and human development at Penn
State, says:
“Clearly, a golfer doesn’t want to develop the physique of a
Division I linebacker. That would be detrimental. But a 170-
pound player could use low doses of steroids or a testosterone
cream to help him add 15 pounds of lean, flexible muscle to his
body. Please tell me how that wouldn’t help him to hit the ball
farther.”
[Personally, I use ‘the clear’ to improve my typing performance.
Who wouldn’t, if you were in my position?!]
John Paul Newport adds, “The most likely candidates would be
young, low-profile pros scrambling for any advantage to make it
to the Tour, or to stay there. The culture among young pros is
already gym-oriented, and the financial incentives to push the
envelope are high.”
You got that right. I’ve also seen cheating first hand when I
attended Q-School a number of years ago. From my discussions
with a few folks there, it’s rampant on the mini-tours. I’m
talking pure golf ethics. So if guys are cheating with the rules,
no doubt, as Newport says, more than a few are using steroids.
[I just have to add that at the PGA Tour level, when it comes to
rule-breaking it’s virtually non-existent. For starters, you have
galleries and lots of rules officials, compared to the mini-tours
where you often have neither.]
–The year end world golf rankings
1. Tiger, 21.87
2. Phil, 9.65
3. Furyk, 7.33
4. Steve Stricker, 7.02……….Steve Stricker?! Great story.
–Bill Willis, one of the first black players in the modern game of
football, died. He was 86. Willis was part of Paul Brown’s first
Browns team in 1946, along with teammate Marion Motley.
Kenny Washington and Woody Strode were the other two blacks
to play that year. Willis was elected to the Pro Football Hall of
Fame in 1977.
–Someone stole 450 kegs of beer from the St. James’ Gate
Guinness brewery in Dublin in what is believed to be the first
such raid, ever, in 250 years! Some are comparing it to
Goldfinger knocking off Fort Knox. Others are musing, “What
could they possibly want with all that beer?” 450 kegs is the
equivalent of 40,000 pints.
–Here’s a reason to like Alicia Keys, who just released her third
studio album, “As I Am,” which I have to check out. Keys is a
big fan of Marvin Gaye. No one better than him. Do you realize
he’d still just be 68 today? Incredibly, it’s also been over 23
years since he was killed by his father.
Top 3 songs for the week 12/5/70: #1 “I Think I Love You”
(The Partridge Family) #2 “The Tears Of A Clown” (Smokey
Robinson & The Miracles) #3 “Gypsy Woman” (Brian Hyland)
…and…#4 “I’ll Be There” (The Jackson 5) #5 “We’ve Only
Just Begun” (Carpenters) #6 “Fire And Rain” (James Taylor) #7
“One Less Bell To Answer” (The 5th Dimension…incredibly
depressing song…makes you want to commit hari-kari…or drink
beer and watch football to help you forget you heard it) #8 “No
Matter What” (Badfinger) #9 “Heaven Help Us All” (Stevie
Wonder) #10 “Share The Land” (The Guess Who….now that’s a
great top ten, sports fans. Yes, #7 is still outstanding. And of
course Marilyn McCoo was one of the ten most beautiful women
of the 20th century)
*Nov. 29 was the 6th anniversary of the death of George
Harrison. I was as bummed when he passed away as with any
other celebrity (save Johnny Carson and Carroll O’Connor),
primarily because he not only was a musical genius, but just
seemed like a real good guy. I’ll note what would have been his
65th birthday next Feb. 15, but I just have to add that his 1971 hit
“What Is Life” is in my personal top ten.
NCAA Football Quiz Answers: 1) Eddie George is Ohio State’s
#2 career rusher with 3,768 yards on 683 carries, 1992-95. 2)
Mike Tomczak was the starting QB for the Buckeyes, 1982-84.
3) Lydell Carr starred at running back for Oklahoma, 1984-87.
4) Tinker Owens was Oklahoma’s leading receiver, using the
term loosely, from 1972-75. He had 70 receptions for 1,619
yards, total, in his career. 5) Steve Davis quarterbacked
Oklahoma to back-to-back titles, 1974-75, though the two years
combined he was just 45 of 119 passing as the Sooners ran the
option/wishbone attack. However, in ’74, when Davis was 26 of
63, 11 went for touchdowns.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
