Chicago Bears Quiz: 1) Passing yards, game? 2) Passing yards,
season? 3) Passing yards, career? 4) Interceptions, career?
Answers below.
Folks, I just returned from a week of punishing myself on the
golf courses of Ireland, and, perhaps most appropriately, in the
pubs as well, so I’m more than a little jet lagged. Thus, you’ll
have to excuse me as I go back to the archives for a piece this
week.
But first, you have to picture that I wasn’t able to go online at all
due to technical difficulties in the land of the pint (i.e., the hotels
I was in didn’t have Net connections in the room), and with a
paucity of USA Today’s, it was tough keeping up. I still can’t
get the editors at the Irish Times to publish football and baseball
scores.
Ergo, I need to clear the table of a few items from the past two
weeks or so.
Gerald M. from Port Huron, MI was shocked, shocked I tell you,
that I had failed to mention Penn State’s whipping of Nebraska.
Gerald is right, of course, but I was protecting Ken S. from
Nebraska. Well, it turns out that Gerald had once worked for
Ken so he was looking forward to sticking it to him. Now the
record is straight. But, alas, Gerald is suffering because his
Michigan State Spartans were dealt another crushing defeat, this
time at the hands of Notre Dame. Boy, I just read a summary of
this contest. What an ending. It’s already been an exciting
college season.
Speaking of exciting, how about my Wake Forest Demon
Deacons? Sorry, Purdue, but us Deacs can breathe a sigh of
relief that this season might not be a washout after all.
Other items:
–I see where the Florida panther population now exceeds 100.
Yup, exciting stories coming to a Bar Chat near you, though I’ll
try to be discreet with the victims.
–I have been trying to find American Enterprise magazine on the
newsstand for weeks now, and I couldn’t find the appropriate
article from same on the web, but thanks to John Leo of U.S.
News, I now have the information I was trying to pass along to
you all.
In surveys of professors at various colleges in America, now we
have actual numbers behind what you and I knew for, oh, about
the past 200 years, that being our leading academics are not just
liberal, they are freakin’ left-wingers who pollute our kids minds
with garbage. Well, perhaps I’m taking it too far, because when
I was in school, I always thought I had a brain of my own, but
anyway, following are the numbers of registered Democrats (or
another party of the left) vs. the number of registered
Republicans (or another party of the right) for the following
institutions (again, survey of professors).
Cornell: 166 reg. as Dems, 6 reg. as Republicans.
Univ. of Colorado-Boulder: 116-5.
Stanford: 151-17.
Brown: 54-3.
Berkeley: 59-7.
And Williams College: No more than 4 Republicans out of over
200!
–Ryder Cup: The Irish papers were all fired up, with 5-7 page
spreads on this weekend’s competition. But I saw a piece in the
Associated Press that details the golf ball that each player is
using, so I pass this along for you fellow hackers, in the hopes
that this information may knock a stroke or two off your score, as
well as a few bucks off the old net worth.
Paul Azinger – Nike Tour Accuracy DD
Mark Calcavecchia – Titleist Pro V1
Stewart Cink – Nike Tour Accuracy TW
David Duval – Nike Tour Accuracy DD
Jim Furyk – Strata Tour Ultimate
Scott Hoch – Titleist Pro V1
Davis Love III – Titleist Pro V1 Star
Phil Mickelson – Titleist Pro V1
Hal Sutton – Hogan Apex Tour
David Toms – Titleist Pro V1
Scott Verplank – Titleist Pro V1
Tiger Woods – Nike Tour Accuracy TW
Thomas Bjorn – Srixon
Darren Clarke – Titleist Pro V1
Niclas Fasth – Callaway HX Red
Pierre Fulke – Callaway CTU 30 Blue
Sergio Garcia – Titleist Pro V1
Padraig Harrington – Callaway HX Blue
Bernhard Langer – Hogan Tour Apex
Paul McGinley – Titleist Pro V1
Colin Montgomerie – Callaway CTU 30 Red
Jesper Parnevik – Titleist Pro V1
Phillip Price – Callway HX Red
Lee Westwood – Titleist Pro V1
As for yours truly, I play with whatever I find in looking for my
original ball. In fact, this past week at Ballybunion, I managed to
play 6 holes in a row with a beaten up Callaway I found on the
first! Now is that great playing or what?
–We note the passing of the great Bob Hayes, a past profile in
this space. “Bullet” Bob was just 59, but had been suffering
from kidney disease and other ailments. At the Tokyo Olympics
in 1964, Hayes won the 100 meters in 10.05, tying the world
record. But it was in his anchor run in the 400-meter relay at the
same Games that he was said to have run an unofficial 8.6 split,
which some have described as the greatest sprint of all time.
[Remember, in the relay you have a running start.]
Hayes was drafted by the Cowboys and burst on the scene in
1965 by snaring 46 passes for 1,003 yards…a 21.8 average…
with 12 going for touchdowns. For his career, he caught 371
passes, 71 for scores, to go along with an incredible 20.0 yards
per reception.
In 1972, Hayes became the only athlete to win an Olympic gold
medal and a Super Bowl ring, a distinction he still holds to this
day. Later, he served time for narcotics dealing, a fact that
severely hurt his chances to be inducted into Pro Football’s Hall
of Fame. It’s a shame that the Veterans Committee is now
considering his nomination and Bullet Bob won’t be around to
receive his just reward.
–We also note the passing of Pittsburgh Steelers great Mike
Webster, who died the other day at age 50. His latter years
were filled with drug abuse and depression, but we choose to
remember the great center, “Iron Mike,” who once went 10 years
without missing a game, as well as an incredible six seasons
without missing a snap! Webster was chosen as the center on the
All-Time NFL team in 2000 and was a 1997 Hall of Fame
inductee.
–And then there is dirtball Randy Moss, the Minnesota Vikings
superstar wide receiver who just spent a night in jail for slowly
pushing a traffic officer a half-block, stopping when she fell to
the ground, as the female agent attempted to prevent Moss from
making an illegal turn on a downtown Minneapolis street. This
guy should be suspended for a year, at the very least.
—
And now, a golden oldie from our own Johnny Mac [first posted
12/22/00]
Bud Wilkinson
Ask the casual fan for a list of great college coaches and some
usual suspects will turn up; Bear Bryant, Joe Paterno, Knute
Rockne, Eddie Robinson, Tom Osborne and Bobby Bowden.
But rarely will you hear the name of Bud Wilkinson. History is
strange sometimes, because Charles Bud Wilkinson compiled
one of the finest records in all of college football.
Born April 23, 1916 in Minnesota, Bud was an athlete from an
early age. He played as a youth for a neighborhood team known
as the “50th Street Tigers,” who were quarterbacked by future
golf-great Patty Berg. Quite a feat for those days, wouldn’t you
say? When Bud was just 6, he and his mother were in an
accident that seriously injured her. She passed away a year later
and Bud’s father decided to send him away to high school,
Shattuck Military Academy in Fairbault, MN. The military
training he received would have a direct effect on his style of
coaching years down the road. Bud played football, basketball,
hockey and ran track here.
He then enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 1933 to play
for Coach Bernie Bierman, who was very well regarded at the
time. The Gophers were a national power, winning 3 national
titles during Bud’s time at the school as he played guard and
quarterback, a strange combination I’ll grant you. He was a good
enough QB to lead the college all-stars to a win over NFL
champion Green Bay in 1937. While at UM he also played
goalie on the hockey team and captained the golf squad. Bud
was offered the co-captaincy of the football team in 1936, but
decided to defer to a teammate who was suffering scholastic
problems. Bud thought the honor would help motivate the other
player and was an example of the sort of behavior that would
typify Wilkinson’s career.
Bud was the Big Ten medal-winner for athletics and academics
in his senior year, after which a short stint in his father’s bank
helped him decide on a career in coaching. Wilkinson served as
an assistant at Syracuse and Minnesota before joining the Navy
in 1943, where he was a hangar deck officer on an aircraft carrier
as well as the football coach for the Iowa Pre-Flight team. After
the war ended, Jim Tatum asked him to join his staff at
Oklahoma in 1946, but Tatum left the next year for Maryland,
so, at the ripe old age of 31, Bud Wilkinson assumed the Head
Coach and Athletic Director duties at OU.
After a slow 2-2-1 start, his team ran off five-straight to take
what was then the Big Six title. This started a string of 13
consecutive conference championships and the Sooner dynasty
was taking shape. They went to the Sugar Bowl in ’48 and ’49,
posting wins over North Carolina and LSU, then Oklahoma
opened up 10-0 in 1950, running their victory streak to 31. A
loss to Kentucky in the Sugar Bowl snapped the run, but the
Sooners captured their first national title anyway.
That was but a taste of the streak to come. After a loss to Notre
Dame and a tie with Pitt in the 1953 season, Oklahoma beat
Texas to start what would eventually become a 47-game winning
streak. Undefeated in ’54, ’55 and ’56, the Sooners won two
national titles before losing to Notre Dame in November 1957.
The 47-straight is a major college record. Oklahoma dominated
their opponents over this period, averaging 34.5 points per game
while allowing just 6.
The Notre Dame game was the lone loss in ’57 and Oklahoma
ended up 10-1, as they would in ’58. They went to the Orange
Bowl both years, defeating Duke and Syracuse. So, overall,
from 1948 through 1958, Bud Wilkinson’s charges posted a 107-
8-2 mark…107-8-2!! Unfreakin’ believable.
Oklahoma would slip a bit the next few years and Bud retired
after the 1963 season, still a young man of 47. Before stepping
down, he was named by John F. Kennedy as the first director of
the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. This whetted his
political appetite and Bud made a run for the Senate in 1964. A
conservative by nature, he picked a bad year to run as a
Republican. LBJ won in a landlside, yet Bud lost his own race
by a mere 21,000 votes to Democrat Fred Harris.
Wilkinson became a TV analyst in 1965 and was named a special
consultant to President Nixon in 1969. But at age 61, Bud was
inexplicably lured back to football by the St. Louis Cardinals,
who tabbed him to coach in 1978. As is the case with many
successful college coaches, he found the pro game a totally
different animal. Bud lost his first 8 games, as many as he had
lost in that great run at OU. By 1979 he was fired, having
compiled a 9-20 record.
Wilkinson did some TV work afterwards and passed away in
1994 at the age of 77. He will always be remembered as a
coaching legend, because he did it the old-fashioned way… hard
work, perseverance and innovation. He preached preparation
and recruited players of high intelligence and character.
Wilkinson also valued academics and conditioning and was
known as a master motivator and communicator, ruling with his
wit and intellect as opposed to intimidation. In addition, Bud
recruited Oklahoma’s first African-American in 1956, years
before other schools would follow suit. That player, Prentice
Gautt, would credit Wilkinson with helping him cope with all the
problems inherent in being ‘the first.’
Wilkinson is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and
the National Football Coaches Hall of Fame. In 1975, at age 59,
he married Donna O’Donnahue, who was 27 at the time. That
puts him in my personal Hall of Fame.
[Sources: “Bud Wilkinson: An Intimate Look,” Jay Wilkinson;
ESPN Biographies of the Century.]
Top 3 songs for the week of 9/26/70: #1 “Ain’t No Mountain
High Enough” (Diana Ross) #2 “War” (Edwin Starr) #3
Lookin’ Out My Back Door” (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
Chicago Bears Quiz Answers: 1) Passing yards, game: Johnny
Lujack, 468 in 1949. 2) Passing yards, season: Erik Kramer,
3,838 in 1995. 3) Passing yards, career: Sid Luckman, 14,686
(1939-50). 4) Interceptions, career: Gary Fencik, 38 (1976-87).
*Hey, I couldn’t do any rushing questions now, could I? If you
got those wrong you’d never make it through the weekend.
–Greatest regular season comeback in NFL history was on
12/7/80. San Francisco came from down 35-7 to beat New
Orleans 38-35 in OT.
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday, as our crack staff takes a look at the just
completed regular season in baseball…plus some thoughts from
Harry K.
**Thanks to Dr. Bortrum for posting some articles while I was
away.
