B.D.

1968 Heisman Trophy Quiz: O.J. Simpson ran away with it, but the next four in the voting were big names in the sport, either for their college play or what they did at the next level. I’ll give you the initials. L.K., T.H., T.K., T.H. [Yes, two T.H.] Name ‘em. Answer below. 

What some call the greatest college football game of all time took place on this date, 8-0 Harvard vs. 8-0 Yale, the first time since 1909 the two entered this traditional contest undefeated. They ended up sharing the title after a 29-29 tie that was so dramatic, The Harvard Crimson ran the headline “Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29” after Harvard scored 16 points in 42 seconds to cap an historic comeback. 

From the editors of College Football Encyclopedia, Bob Boyles and Paul Guido, comes the tale. 

“Yale QB Brian Dowling (13-21/116y) scored on a run, passed to HB Calvin Hill and E Del Marting for TDs, and the Elis built a comfortable 22-0 lead. Desperate Crimson coach John Yovicsin beckoned sub QB Frank Champi from the bench to deliver 15y TD pass to E Bruce Freeman in last 39 seconds before half. Trailing 22-6, Harvard punted early in the 3rd quarter, and a rash of fumbles suddenly infected Yale. FB Gus Crim scored 3 plays after Harvard recovery of Eli fumble of punt. Yale still led 22-13, but coughed up 2 more fumbles in the quarter. Dowling’s 2nd running TD extended lead to 29-13, and, as the 4th quarter wound down, he drove Yale to the Crimson 32-yard line. Yet another fumble, Yale’s sixth, was lost on a screen pass at the Crimson 14-yard line. Harvard created a 14-play, 86-yard drive as T Fritz Reed made a big play by alertly scooping up and carrying Champi’s fumble for a 17-yard gain. Freeman caught his 2nd TD pass. Crim blasted over for 2 pts., so Harvard trailed 29-21 with 42 seconds left. The on-side kick was recovered by Crimson DB Bill Kelly at the Yale 49-yard line. Champi ran for 14 yards, and face-mask penalty put ball at Eli 20-yard line. Crim’s 14-yard draw was followed by two incompletions and a 2-yard loss. Four seconds remained. Champi ran in circles looking for an open receiver, finally spotting HB Vic Gatto way over in left sector of the end zone for the TD. With 0:00 on the clock, Champi hit tying 2-point pass to TE Pete Varney. Harvard fans ecstatically swarmed the field, and memory of The Game would never die.” 

“In some ways, the thrilling tie was the last flickering moment for the glory days of Ivy League football. With each succeeding season until Ivy administrators demoted their brand of ball to Division I-AA, but with disdain even for the I-AA playoffs, Ivy Leaguers were to draw more into their Ivy-covered towers and continue to preach against football as something that inhibited academic excellence. Football for Ivy Leaguers, since they pulled themselves into isolation in 1956, had come to define the symbol of athletic excess. Yet Ivy League schools continued to permit athletes from a wide variety of other unpublicized sports to participate in NCAA championships and travel far from the classrooms to compete. Somehow it is permissible to allow the rowing crews, generally an Ivy sport in which the ‘Ancient Eight’ had been and continues to be reasonably competitive on a national basis, to practice every single day of the school year. It is ironic even today that the very people who lead the chorus in singing praises of college providing a widely-expanded student horizon are the very same to have identified a Flat Earth Policy for the sport they invented.” 

Of course some of those participating in the above contest became quite famous. Yale running back Calvin Hill was a four-time Pro Bowler with the Dallas Cowboys and the father of basketball star Grant Hill. Yale QB Brian Dowling, the classic BMOC, was the inspiration for a young cartoonist on campus, Garry Trudeau, who created the character B.D. for his comic strip “Bull Tales,” which evolved into “Doonesbury.” As Dowling told the Wall Street Journal’s Allen Barra, “My 15 minutes of fame has lasted 40 years.” 

And on the other side, Harvard had a big celebrity in its starting lineup, though we didn’t know it at the time; offensive guard and future Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones (who roomed with Al Gore). 

Oh, one other note. As Barra reminds us, the year before, 1967, a cheerleader was arrested by campus police for tearing down the goal posts after Yale beat Princeton; George W. Bush. 

Here’s what it comes down to. Alabama will be playing Florida for the Southeastern Conference championship a week from Saturday. The winner will then play Oklahoma, assuming it defeats Missouri in the Big 12 conference title contest. 

First, Oklahoma has to get by a solid Oklahoma State team on Saturday. Then, should Texas beat Texas A&M and Texas Tech defeat Baylor, both highly expected, the Big 12 South title…and the right to play Missouri…goes to the team among the three with the highest BCS ranking next Sunday. 

Right now, Texas is No. 2 in the BCS, ahead of Oklahoma, but Oklahoma will gain major points if it defeats Oklahoma State, compared to Texas, which is a 35-point favorite to whip A&M [this contest is Thursday.] 

Texas Tech, though, wins the Big 12 South title if OSU upsets OU, because Texas Tech beat Texas in their head-to-head. 

There is also still the possibility that if Alabama or Florida lose, or win unimpressively, that you could have an Oklahoma-Texas rematch for the national title. 

In other words, time to settle back with a six-pack of domestic and let it all play out on the flat screen. 

–The Detroit Lions…heading into the traditional Thanksgiving Day game. 

31-92 since they went 9-7 in 2000. No team has ever gone 0-16. Tampa Bay was 0-14 in 1976 before the advent of the 16-game schedule. 

–What a strange deal on Sunday in Philadelphia, as Eagles coach Andy Reid benched quarterback Donovan McNabb at halftime. McNabb had committed three turnovers, but the Eagles were only trailing a solid Baltimore Ravens team by 10-7. Baltimore then went on to win 36-7 as McNabb hopelessly looked on. [And as his replacement, Kevin Kolb, struggled mightily.] 

What makes this a story, though, is the fact Andy Reid didn’t personally tell McNabb he was benched, leaving it up to quarterbacks coach Pat Shurmur to do so. Hey, McNabb’s best days would appear to be long in the past, but he did lead them to a Super Bowl and six playoff appearances. 

Rich Hofmann / Philadelphia Daily News 

“Andy Reid has affected any number of personae over the years: smart, smug, stubborn and silent, to name four. Never desperate, though. Never desperate. Yet this had all the appearances of a desperate act, the benching of Donovan McNabb. 

“The coach has just touched the third rail of American sports and there is no way to untouch it – and the fact that Kevin Kolb was just as bad as McNabb in the Eagles’ 36-7 rollover against the Baltimore Ravens just underlines that reality. Reid has identified himself as a man without answers. He is officially flailing…. 

“By not telling McNabb directly at halftime…Reid has made himself appear unnecessarily disrespectful to someone who has shared the griddle with him for a decade.” 

Alas, McNabb is back as starter against Arizona on Thursday night. As Philly sports fan Mark R. told me, the goodwill generated from the Phillies’ World Series triumph is quickly dissipating. 

–I liked this bit by William C. Rhoden in the New York Times following the Jets win over previously unbeaten Tennessee last Sunday. 

“(The) Jets, once again behind Favre, gave Tennessee such a sound beating that the Titans now have to re-evaluate their season. 

“Among other things, Sunday’s game underlined the distinction between two veteran quarterbacks: Kerry Collins, who is being asked to manage games for Tennessee, and Favre, who is being asked to win them. Favre was asked about the difference between managing and winning. 

“ ‘I don’t know if I like the term ‘managing games,’’ Favre said. ‘I think that’s a polite way of saying, Don’t lose it for us.’” 

–The last week for your EXCLUSIVE football picks. I’m not into picking conference championships and bowl games, you understand. So at 20-20 this year, I’m suggesting the little ones raid their parents’ remaining pension funds and just go for it. 

Take Buffalo, giving 9 to Kent St.
Take Boise State, giving 21 to Fresno St.
Take Wake Forest, giving 4 to Vanderbilt
Take Texas Tech, giving 20 to Baylor
Take Missouri, giving 14 to Kansas 

–Not for nothing, but Ball State whipped a solid Western Michigan team, 45-22, to move to 12-0 and a MAC title contest versus one of the other good stories of the year, Buffalo. It’s not going to happen, but it would be nice to see Ball State get into a decent bowl game, assuming they beat Buffalo on Dec. 5. Or if Boise State gets shafted and doesn’t receive a BCS bid, why not match up BS and BS in Boise on their ghastly blue field?! 

–The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke on Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis. 

“After Saturday’s football game, in keeping with tradition, the Notre Dame marching band played the ‘1812 Overture’ as a tribute to its head coach. 

“For most of the last four years during that song, devoutly loyal students have further honored Charlie Weis by forming a ‘W’ with their hands. 

“On Saturday, for the first time, it felt like an honor for a goner. Some of those hands formed into fists. Some cupped  around mouths that booed. Some formed around snowballs and flung them. Only a handful of those hands formed a ‘W,’ with most students instead trying to figure out how to shape an ‘F.’ 

“That’s the only letter that suits their coach these days. ‘When he came here our freshman year, with all of our blissful Notre Dame pride, we loved Charlie Weis,’ said Joey Brown, Notre Dame senior class president. ‘But now I’d say he’s lost us.’ 

“Thus, when the Super-Bowl-ring-bearing, sarcastic-scowl-wearing boss of college football’s most mystical program leads Notre Dame into the Coliseum on Saturday against USC, he will be dead Irish walking. 

“If Weis doesn’t coach a competitive game against USC – and he won’t; his team has already quit on him in ways Rudy never would – expect Notre Dame boosters to shake a few couch cushions and dig up the $15 million or so that it would take to buy him out. It could be among the most expensive breakups in the history of sports.” 

–Interesting move by Kansas State to bring back 69-year-old coach Bill Snyder, under whom the Wildcats had their best run, 1993-2003, when Snyder led them to 11 straight bowl appearances. Turning around a moribund program, former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer stated that he was as impressed with Snyder’s work as any in recent college history. “Hell, he’s not the coach of the year or the coach of the decade. Bill is the coach of the century.” And now Snyder will be the only active Division I coach to coach in a stadium named after himself, Snyder having received that honor in 2005 after he announced his retirement.  

–The NCAA took the extraordinary step of banning former Oklahoma/Indiana basketball coach Kelvin Sampson from coaching a college program for at least five years (a five-year “show-cause” penalty) for Sampson’s acts while at both schools. 

In 2006, Indiana stupidly hired the ethically challenged Sampson from Oklahoma, where he had been cited by the NCAA for making all manner of impermissible recruiting phone calls, and then he did the exact same thing at Indiana, which resulted in his being forced to resign last February after an internal investigation. 

Indiana itself received three years’ probation, in addition to penalties it previously levied against itself, though the Hoosiers, now under former Marquette coach Tom Crean, can still participate in the postseason; but with just nine scholarship players, thanks to sanctions the school imposed on the program, there is little reason to believe the Hoosiers are going to any big dances come March. 

–Strange game on Tuesday as 24th-ranked Davidson took on Loyola, Md. In attempting to stop superstar Stephen Curry, who had scored 44, 30 and 39 points his previous three games, Loyola employed a triangle-and-2 defense against him and held Curry scoreless as he went 0-for-3 from the field in 32 minutes. 

But Loyola lost 78-48, prompting Davidson coach Bob McKillop to say, “It seemed to me they were willing to risk the game at the expense of locking Steph up. When you put two people on somebody and you do it for 30 minutes and at the end of the game, you have to wonder what the reasons for that are.” 

As the AP reported, “it didn’t take long for Curry to figure out the strategy. He spent some possessions just standing in the corner with two defenders around him while his teammates had a constant 4-on-3 advantage.” 

Loyola’s coach Jimmy Patsos said, “We had to play against an NBA player tonight. Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I’m a history major. They’re going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?” 

What a freakin’ idiot! This is what Curry had to say in joking he had the best seat in the house. 

“Every dead ball I asked them how long they were going to do this. They really didn’t say anything. They weren’t very conversational about it.” 

‘Unreal,’ mused the editor as he slid the story into the December file, Patsos now being a candidate for “Idiot of the Year.” 

“As he took the most unsteady walk of his 25 years, away from his team and into an uncertain future, Delonte West had no idea the leader of the pack was advancing from behind. 

“Quietly, LeBron James had followed him off the practice floor, into the hall, all the way to the elevator that would carry West to a nearly two-week absence from the Cleveland Cavaliers last month to tackle a years-long struggle with depression. 

“ ‘Whatever you’ve got to do, I want you to know that we’ll be right here, waiting for you,’ James told his teammate. They hugged, and West went off to begin treatment with a thought he didn’t mind sharing, weeks after his return. 

“ ‘LeBron’s a better person than he is a basketball player,’ West said, before James and the Cavs laid a 119-101 beating on what’s left of the reconstituted Knicks on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.” 

Before the game, LeBron served out free hot dogs to fans outside the Garden, as some of us dream of him in a Knicks jersey come 2010 when he becomes a free agent. 

–Buick dumped Tiger Woods and an endorsement deal believed to be worth $7 million as Woods became another victim of the depression in the auto sector. But since 2000 when Woods signed on with them, Buick sales in the U.S. have dropped 54%. Global sales, though, rose 17%. 

–The process has begun in earnest for Michael Vick to return to football next year. Vick pleaded guilty Tuesday to a state dogfighting charge, which makes him eligible for early release from prison, possibly July 20, 2009, after which he would serve three years’ probation. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is willing to consider Vick’s reinstatement, while the AP contacted all teams and six did not shut the door on the possibility of acquiring Vick from Atlanta, which retains his rights. 

Clinton Portis, Washington Redskins running back: “He’s got so much talent, it would be a shame if he didn’t play again.” 

Vonnie Holliday, Miami Dolphins defensive end: “All the opportunities Pacman Jones got, why can’t Michael Vick?’ 

It turns out the Bucs signed two 20-year-old pitchers, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, neither of whom had picked up a baseball until earlier this year. They are believed to be the first athletes from India to sign professional baseball contracts outside their country. [India isn’t known for its athletics, in case you forgot.] As the AP’s Alan Robinson writes: 

“Singh and Patel came to the United States six months ago after being the top finishers in an Indian reality TV show called the ‘Million Dollar Arm’ that drew about 30,000 contestants. The show sought to find athletes who could throw strikes at 85 miles per hour or faster.” 

Despite the fact neither threw hard enough to earn the $1 million prize, the pitchers staged a tryout on Nov. 6 in Tempe, Ariz., that was attended by 30 major league scouts. One has hit 90 on the radar gun, the other 84, though higher in informal workouts. 

–When I was at the Olympic Track and Field Trials last summer in Eugene, one of the big local stories concerned Galen Rupp, who at 22 made the U.S. team in the 10000 and then finished 13th in Beijing. But some view him as an underachiever, even though distance runners don’t normally reach their peak until they’re around 30. Well, Rupp did come through the other day in winning the individual NCAA Div. I Cross Country Championship as he led his Univ. of Oregon teammates to their second consecutive team title. Big deal for the folks back in Eugene, as I can now appreciate. It’s all about channeling Steve Prefontaine. 

–Drat! Maryland won its third NCAA Division I field hockey title in the last four years, defeating my Demon Deacons for the title. It was Maryland’s sixth title overall. Wake Forest has won three. 

–Phil W. passed along this highly important story from Raleigh, N.C., and the Charlotte Observer. 

“Authorities say a shopper clubbed an alleged carjacker with a frozen turkey as he tried to steal a woman’s car in a grocery store parking lot Sunday. 

“Police say 30-year-old Fred Louis Ervin of Raleigh stole money from a gas station before running across the street to a Harris Teeter store in Garner, just south of Raleigh. Police say he began beating Irene Moorman Bailey while stealing her car. 

“Other shoppers came to her rescue, including one who hit Ervin with the turkey. 

“Despite serious head injuries, Ervin got away in Bailey’s car and hit several other cars as he fled. Police arrested him a short time later.” 

–This is a Christmas for the Slinky Toy, it being affordable after all, and so we note the passing of Betty James at the age of 90, Mrs. James being the one who came up with the name for the product. 

As the New York Times’ Dennis Hevesi wrote, “Paging through a dictionary in 1944, Mrs. James put her finger on the word slinky because she thought it best described the sinuous and graceful movement and the soft sound of the expanding and contracting metal coil her husband, Richard, had fashioned.” 

Richard was an engineer at a Philadelphia shipbuilding company in 1943 “when a torsion spring fell off a table and flipped end over end on a ship’s deck.” 

The couple made 400 and before Christmas 1945, convinced Gimbels department store in Philadelphia to let them set up a ramp in the toy department. They sold the 400 at $1 each in 90 minutes. Today, more than 300 million have been sold, including the Slinky Dog. 

But it needs to be noted Mr. James was a total dirtball, running away in 1960 to join a religious cult in Bolivia, leaving his wife and six children and the company. He died in 1974. 

–The New York Post and “Access Hollywood” report that Alex Rodriguez is ditching his kids this Thanksgiving for Madonna, according to Cynthia, who is in the final stages of her divorce from A-Rod. Said Cynthia of Madonna, “She called and he ran on her command back to New York City…Gross!” 

–This Thanksgiving in the New York area there will be one main topic…can the Giants and Jets both make the Super Bowl! Never have we had a better shot at it, and it’s a good way for us to keep our minds off the putrid economy. 

“Sinatra was one of those guys where he liked you or he didn’t. So when he asked me to work with him, I got a bit nervous because I’d heard the stories. But we hit it off immediately, and I got to know the Frank that nobody wrote about, the guy who visited Billie Holiday in the hospital to make sure her bills were paid and who took care of Amos and Andy when they were down on their luck. He was a stand-up guy who didn’t see color, and that was rare back then.” [Newsweek] 

–I meant to say last time I thought “24: Redemption” was outstanding. I’ll be there in January. And I loved the “Entourage” finale. If you didn’t know, it’s been renewed. 

–Something a little different….the #1 songs on November 27 for: 

2. Leroy Keyes (HB/DB, Purdue) 3. Terry Hanratty (QB, Notre Dame) 4. Ted Kwalick (TE, Penn State) 5. Ted Hendricks (DE, Miami)