NFL Defensive Player of the Year Quiz: The AP began selecting one in 1971. Who were the nine winners that decade. Of course you get some hints. One won it twice. Two were linebackers, one safety, and one cornerback….leaving you know what. Six different teams were represented, 3 NFC, 3 AFC. Two players’ last names begin with ‘G’. Answer below.
NFL Playoffs
Drew Brees, 2-2; Brett Favre, 13-10; Peyton Manning, 8-8; Mark Sanchez, 2-0.
“Along the way, there were moments that tested everyone’s belief. The night before the Carolina game, the Jets were 4-6 and Ryan felt the season slipping away. ‘I thought we had the talent, the chemistry and to waste the opportunity, that would be a mistake,’ he said.
“So Ryan asked the players to raise their hands if they had Super Bowl rings. Only a couple of Jet players raised them. Ryan did, too, with his Ravens’ ring. Point taken.
“ ‘Of course he raised his big hand up,’ Shaun Ellis was saying Monday. ‘You play the game for two reasons. To win a ring and to get money. A lot of people get money, but not a lot of people get a ring.’”
And a last look back at Jets-San Diego…Bill Plaschke / Los Angeles Times
“For the final four months of every year, they are the finest attraction in America’s Finest City, sunny and blue and positively electric.
“Then, for four hours every January, they become the San Diego Boo.
“It happened here again Sunday, 70,000 screaming fans falling headfirst into football’s biggest tourist rap, the San Diego Chargers suckering everyone into finally believing that they could hang with postseason pressure.
“Well, once again, the Bolts bolted. They ran from an 11-game win streak. They ran from the league’s most talented offense. They ran from everything that made them one of the Super Bowl favorites until they bloodily banged into the hard wall of their history.
“The team with the rookie quarterback and rookie coach and weary players scored 17 points.
“The team with the home advantage and rest advantage and manpower scored 14 points.”
And I just have to correct the record. Chargers kicker Nate Kaeding, the most accurate in NFL history, had hit 69 consecutive field-goal attempts from 40 yards or closer before he missed two in that range.
But let’s go back to the days of Broadway Joe, Joe Willie Namath, as told by Brad Hamilton of the New York Post.
It’s 1965, and Namath had recently signed a then-staggering $427,000 contract for four years with the Jets with Broadway Joe getting a penthouse pad on East 76th Street – “a love shack he equipped with a leather bar, mirrored bed and llama rug whose shaggy strands were so long they looked like flowing tentacles.”
It’s October of the same year, and Namath, very much a rookie, and the Jets are in Southern California preparing for a game against the Chargers.
While Namath is running drills, “a Hollywood icon rolled up in a powder-blue Caddy, top down so as to flutter her platinum locks. She stepped out, shorts hugging hips, her sweater ‘unbuttoned down to here,’ recalled a player.
“It was Mamie Van Doren, star of ‘Sex Kittens Go to College’ and seducer of Elvis, Clark Gable and Steve McQueen. She had come to make a pass.
“ ‘It was probably the most disorganized practice we had all week…Even the coaches were watching her,’ his teammate said.
“After the workout, Joe Cool sauntered over to Mamie and, still in uniform, slid into her ride. As the two motored off, his coaches waved farewell: ‘Have a good time, Joe. See you tomorrow.’”
Mark Kriegel, who wrote a best-seller titled “Namath,” noted, “It wasn’t just about him being a bachelor. The Jets and NBC needed a leading man, a star who could do for Sunday afternoons what other stars had done in prime time. They took the real person and made Broadway Joe, sex symbol. No one had ever seen anything like it.’”
Talk about ladies man, there was the time in 1969 when Namath and two pals, Tad Dowd and Tom Jones, were at a Manhattan hotspot called the Phone Booth. They were leaving when they spotted “two devastating dames” seated at a table with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones.
“The girls grabbed their purses and followed Broadway Joe out the door. ‘What were they going to say?’ Dowd asked. ‘You want to be with Jagger and the Stones? Or you want to be with Joe Namath?’”
Later in ’69, Namath was paired with his pal “and fellow hard-drinker Mickey Mantle for a celebrity golf tournament in California. While out on the links, their cart picked up a tail: a pair of buxom blondes with a cache of cold beer. The press was waiting to interview him in the clubhouse.
“ ‘But then they make a turn, go up a hill, leave the golf carts and disappear with the girls for about an hour,’ recalled sportscaster Sal Marchiano. ‘Finally, they come back down, half-crocked. The girls are still with them.’ He added: ‘We all had this feeling that Joe could get laid any time he wanted. He was the bachelor.’”
Oh, and Namath had Raquel Welch when there was no one hotter on the planet.
And then there was Bar Chat “American Babe of the Century,” Peggy Fleming, who had ripped Joe in print for being a “mess.”
Fleming, of the squeaky-clean image, was booked as a guest on Namath’s TV show, “and one of his producers pulled out the offending newspaper clip and showed it to him just as Fleming arrived for the taping. Did the host still want her to go on? ‘Sure,’ Joe said. ‘I don’t care.’ As the cameras rolled, the 20-year-old ice queen, wearing a mini-skirt and looking like a ‘green-eyed China doll,’ according to one account, revealed that she grew up a tomboy, playing baseball and climbing trees.
“ ‘There’s no trouble telling that you’re a girl now,’ said a smiling Broadway Joe. Fleming blushed.
“After the show, she pulled out two copies of his book, ‘I Can’t Wait for Tomorrow… ‘Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day,’ and asked him to sign them for her sister. He obliged and asked, ‘Say, Peggy, by the way, what are you doing tonight?’”
And so some of us hoist a stein of premium to Joe Willie Namath…Broadway Joe. The rest probably think he was a mess.
AP Men’s Poll
1. Texas…but, see below
2. Kentucky…only remaining unbeaten
3. Kansas
4. Villanova
5. Syracuse
6. Michigan State
7. Duke
8. Tennessee
9. Pitt
10. Kansas State…defeated Texas Monday night after release of poll
11. West Virginia
14. BYU
20. Northern Iowa
24. North Carolina
As the Wall Street Journal’s Darren Everson notes, the Pac-10 has fallen so far that it’s possible only one team will be selected for March Madness. How bad would that be?
“Since 1985, none of the current major conferences – the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten and SEC being the others – has failed to have at least two teams participate in the NCAA men’s tournament. In each of the past three seasons, the Pac-10 has landed six tournament spots.”
AP Women’s Poll
1. UConn…won 57th straight in destroying Duke, 81-48
2. Stanford
3. Tennessee
4. Notre Dame
5. Ohio State
6. Duke
7. Nebraska
8. Georgia
9. Texas A&M
10. Baylor
1. Alabama
2. Oregon…Bar Chat Pick to Click…bet the ranch (if you have one)
3. Ohio State
4. Boise State…that’s where they need to start out the season to have shot at title
5. Georgia Tech
6. Miami
7. Florida
8. TCU
9. Nebraska
10. Wisconsin
“A mystery surfer has been hailed as a hero after he paddled out two surfboards to save a six-year-old boy and his family from a rip on a NSW (New South Wales) beach.
“The 35-year-old Callala Bay man was surfing at secluded and exposed Target Beach…when he noticed four people in trouble in the water. Police said a rip had carried the six-year-old boy out to sea.
“It is understood the boy’s 21-year-old sister, 41-year-old father and 69-year-old grandfather dived in to help but they got into trouble as well and couldn’t get back to shore.
“The surfer paddled out two boards to the family and gave one to the boy’s father, who paddled in with his son and daughter.
“The surfer then rescued the boy’s grandfather and paddled back in.”
–Uh oh…another anaconda story. From Jacqui Goddard of the London Times:
“When ducks and chickens disappeared from the East Lake Fish Camp in Kissimmee, Florida – and then a prize-winning goose called Templeton [Ed. Shades of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”] – the locals assumed that alligators were to blame.
“It was only when an officer from the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department tried to force his horse to step across an open drain at the resort, and the horse refused to budge, that the true culprit was discovered.
“The officer dismounted and peered into the drain – and found himself face to face with a 13-foot green anaconda.”
You see, sports fans, I’ve been relaying the stories about Burmese pythons and African rock pythons proliferating in the Florida Everglades and all points north, south, east and west, but this was the first instance of a green anaconda, which is normally found in the Amazon River. It’s also the world’s largest snake and can grow to more than 28 feet! “They constrict their prey, which has been known to include human beings.”
Whereas rock pythons are relatively easy to find, anacondas love the water so “all you would see is a pair of eyes.”
12 rock pythons, one with a 21-inch girth, have been discovered in the Everglades, raising the prospect that they’ve established a breeding population. Reminder, rock pythons are the vicious ones, in case you see one while filling up the gas tank along I-95.
And as for the condition of the anaconda that was found, now at a serpentarium, he isn’t doing well because he got too cold, plus he ate something that didn’t settle. Said Rosa Van Horn of Reptile World, “We think it was a goose.”
—Tiger Woods is not only evidently at some sex addiction clinic in Mississippi, but The National Enquirer reports that best friend Michael Jordan is not only defending Elin, he’s getting kind of chummy with her.
Back to the clinic, one fellow who has been to the Mississippi facility told the Daily News that sex addiction is no less crippling than a bout with booze or drugs.
“You can put down a drink or a drug and not have to see it for awhile, but you can’t go anywhere without your genitalia or your brain – those are attached to you.”
Huh. Never thought of it that way.
—Lane Kiffin, continued…Ben Bolch / Los Angeles Times:
“Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton said Tuesday the university investigated rumors that have recently appeared on the Internet that Lane Kiffin had been drinking and was with female students at the time of a car accident last summer, but ‘we were never able to substantiate any of that.’”
Kiffin admitted to being in an accident and falling asleep at the wheel. USC has their hands full.
–From Army Times:
“New research from the University of Florida suggests that a simple phone call – to or from anybody – could become therapy for wounded troops.”
Hall of Valor
Pfc. Bryant Homer Womack
“Womack, a 20-year-old combat medic, was awarded the Medal of Honor for treating the wounded in an ambushed night patrol even after having his arm blown off March 12, 1952, in Sokso-Ri, Korea.
“He was the only medic attached to the patrol when it was hit by an overwhelming number of enemy troops. The unit quickly sustained a number of casualties. Womack began treating his comrades, which exposed him to devastating fire. He was seriously wounded during the fight but continued to tend to his fellow soldiers, refusing medical treatment for himself.
“Several minutes later, Womack’s right arm was blown off by an enemy mortar. Without hesitation, he got back on his feet, refused treatment a second time and began directing the treatment of the unit’s other stricken members because he was unable to do it himself.
“Womack was the last man to withdraw from the ambush. He walked until he collapsed from blood loss. His comrades came to him, lifted him up, and as they carried him from the battlefield, he died in their arms.
“Womack is buried in his hometown of Mill Spring, N.C.”
—Yogi Berra, 84, on a topic he seldom brings up, the fact that he fought on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944.
“It was like Fourth of July. No kidding. I was only 18 years old. And the invasion was going and there was only five men and an officer on the boat. And we went in first.”
“Berra was a gunner’s mate in the Navy, and was based aboard the USS Bayfield, APA-33, which was the flagship for the landing at Utah Beach, according to Navy documents.
“ ‘I know my officer told me, ‘You better get your head down here,’’ Berra said. ‘I was looking up and it looked like the Fourth of July. I thought nothing could happen to me.’”
Yogi is hosting the Bob Hope Classic PGA Tour event this weekend. He also said that Mark McGwire waited too long to apologize and it’s unlikely he’ll get in the Hall of Fame.
–Speaking of McGwire, USA TODAY Sports Weekly polled its readers and 62% said the Hall of Fame “should never let him in.”
But the fans of St. Louis gave him a standing ovation in his first public appearance in the city since admitting steroid use. The rest of us are far less-forgiving. I get more ticked off by the minute thinking of the a-hole.
“(True) atonement isn’t intertwined with a victory parade. It’s a private reckoning – with your conscience and with those you’ve harmed. What makes McGwire’s coming out now most disturbing is how self-serving it is: His confession was a career move. The redheaded slugger had never told his son, Matt, whom he hoisted at the plate after he wrapped his biceps around homer number 62 in September 1998. Had he used Matt as a prop throughout the phony joyride? He had never told Roger Maris’s children, who had to grieve the loss of their father’s single-season home run record with grace and dignity from the front row that same season. How could McGwire have put them through that? He had never told St. Louis manager Tony La Russa, whose smarty-pants don’t quite fit the same after he depicted McGwire to be as pure as spring water all these years. How willfully ignorant does the manager look now? Of course, if every ball the Cards hit looks as if it’s hitched to a comet next season, the collateral damage of McGwire’s lies will be largely forgotten. He’ll be Big Mac again in a happy Hollywood ending. ‘There is no sacredness to [sports] anymore,’ says Charles E. Yesalis, a retired Penn State professor who has written books on PEDs. ‘The games and the players are seen as another form of entertainment. Look, I like Spielberg movies, and I know there are special effects, but all I want is the movie. I don’t want to see how the special effects are made during it. It would wreck it.’
“To see the reality is to ruin the escapism in sports. So offenders of all kinds are routinely welcomed back to the land of make believe. A St. Louis Dispatch headline last Friday read, MCGWIRE GETS BACK TO WORK; RELIEVED AND “READY TO MOVE ON.” I get the need for closure, and certainly there’s a place for forgiveness. But only if it is earned through personal accountability and not merely bestowed as a welcome-back present. Shouldn’t atonement require more than a staged television event in which the actor takes a deep breath, dabs his eyes and says, ‘Bless me, Bob Costas, for I have sinned?’”
—Minor league ballplayers have had their per diem pay increased from $20 to $25. Major leaguers receive $89.50.
—Rachel Alexandra defeated Zenyatta for Horse of the Year, at which point Zenyatta sneered, “Meet you on the track, [Rachel].”
–We note the passing of Erich Segal, best known for penning “Love Story” and the line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” though I remember him for something else.
Segal was a marathoner, at a time when running was just beginning to take off, and he was the commentator for the 1972 marathon at the Munich Olympics that Frank Shorter won; only an imposter entered the track before Shorter did and Segal was screaming about it.
–As I go to post Wednesday pm, the New Jersey Nets have taken their 3-37 record to Phoenix. It really is pretty remarkable that they are solidly on pace with the 9-73 Philadelphia 76ers of 1972-73 fame. Then, coach Roy Rubin was fired when Philly fell to 4-47 but the “Seventy-Sickers” as they were called in the local media won five of seven in mid-February to improve to 9-60, only to lose their last 13.
–So this dude, Martin Bromage, decides he’s going to fly around the world in a microlight craft, traveling 11,000 miles, but instead he dunked himself in the English Channel five hours after take-off and drowned. As Brad K. wrote, guess you gotta give the guy an ‘A’ for effort. And at least his body wasn’t swallowed by a whale.
“A California woman died in a Colorado heli-skiing accident after she fell into a creek and apparently drowned when her helmet got stuck between two rocks.”
—Emmanuelle Chriqui, who plays Sloan on “Entourage,” is the most desirable woman in the world this year, according to a poll by AskMen.com. I have no problem with the selection. No problem at all.
–And country music star Carl Smith died. He was 82. Smith was a hitmaker, scoring 58 consecutive Top 40 hits from 1951 to 1965, including the No. 1 singles “Hey Joe!,” “Loose Talk” and “Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way.”
Carl Smith was born March 15, 1927, in Maynardville, Tenn. (classic name), a rural mountain hamlet that was also the birthplace of Roy Acuff. His rugged good looks were tailor made for the television medium that was beginning to take hold.
The thing is I had totally forgotten about the guy, as I’m sure many of you had, because he basically retired by 1975, becoming a horse breeder. Gotta respect that. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2003.
Top 3 songs for the week 1/24/76: #1 “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where The Premium Is)” (Diana Ross) #2 “I Write The Songs” (Barry Manilow) #3 “Love Rollercoaster” (Ohio Players….yow…say what?)…and…#4 “Love To Love You Baby” (Donna Summer…uhh) #5 “I Love Music” (O’Jays) #6 “You Sexy Thing” (Hot Chocolate) #7 “Convoy” (C.W. McCall) #8 “Times Of Your Life” (Paul Anka…I’m a sap…like this tune) #9 “Walk Away From Love” (David Ruffin….easily in my all-time top 40) #10 “Sing A Song” (Earth, Wind & Fire)
NFL Quiz Answer: AP Defensive Players of the Year, 1971-79.
1971: Alan Page, DT, Minnesota
1972: Joe Greene, DT, Pittsburgh
1973: Dick Anderson, S, Miami
1974: Joe Greene, DT, Pittsburgh
1975: Mel Blount, CB, Pittsburgh
1976: Jack Lambert, LB, Pittsburgh
1977: Harvey Martin, DE, Dallas
1978: Randy Gradishar, LB, Denver
1979: Lee Roy Selmon, DE, Tampa Bay
