It only SEEMS like forever! 41 long & wistful years since Super Bowl success & Vince Lombardi Championship trophies for #Dolphins & #SoFL. I like the plucky #Patriots by at least 10 over the #Seahawks in Super Bowl 49 Sunday

"It's why you play the game!" -Herm Edwards

Above, Vince Lombardi Championship Trophies from Miami Dolphin victories in Super Bowl VII and VIII, at Dolphins HQ, Davie, FL; April 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez 

The Sport of the '60's

Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi; December 21, 1962

"...He stood for everything that was solid and successful in American sports. He remains for many, the very heart of pro football, pumping hard right now. Every year the winner of the Super Bowl is awarded the Vincent Lombardi Trophy. His legacy is the greatest prize the game can offer."

-John Facenda for NFL Films

Seven years later to the date of this cover, Lombardi coached his last game, a losing effort for the Redskins. Nine months later he'd be dead of intestinal cancer at age 57. The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University is named for him.
See http://lombardi.georgetown.edu/

http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/member.aspx?PLAYER_ID=132

The first sports-related piece of clothing I ever had was a shirt that I wore in the Fall as a kid living in Memphis in the mid-sixties, age five or six, which my father had bought at a Dept. store. It was made with what I'd now call sweatshirt-quality cotton and was certainly far too heavy to wear in the oppressive summer heat that Memphis excelled in producing -with no sweat!

It was sort of an oatmeal/mustard combination of a color with green stripes on the shoulder, with a big green 5 on the front and back.
Yes, The Golden Boy, Paul Hornung!
http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/paul-hornung-5/

I wish I still had that shirt now!

Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota

Larry Csonka, January 21, 1974

Miami All The Way

Bob Griese, January 22, 1973

1972 Miami Dolphins team photo at The Orange Bowl

 

This is identical to the photo of the 17-0 Undefeated Team that for six happy years, rested in a frame on top of my bedroom dresser at my home in North Miami Beach. There it stayed 'till that fateful day in August of 1979, when I began packing for my new life in Bloomington.
The photo made the trip to Bloomington intact, where it remained on my desk in my room, Briscoe Quad 427-A, for two very eventful years at IU, the latter being 1981, the year we beat North Carolina for the NCAA basketball title. 
I placed it right below my 8'' x 11'' b&w glossy of the Miami Herald's All-County Gymnastics team. That squad was a tremendous team that featured many talented friends of mine from all around Dade County, as well as my own talented friends and classmates at North Miami Beach High School, where my senior year, under the leadership of our beloved head coach, Peter Saponaro, we won the Florida state championship.

Even today, I can still name every player and coach on that amazing Dolphins team.

Building For The Super Bowl

Miami Coach Don Shula, December 11, 1972As most of you regular readers to Hallandale Beach Blog know by now, the Dolphins' Perfect Season of 1972 was my first year as a Dolphins season ticket holder, and I was there for every single moment at the Orange Bowl: pre-season, regular season and playoff.
The most scared I ever was of the team losing was the Cleveland Browns divisional playoff game the day before Christmas, a 20-14 win. The tension was palpable.

What does everyone pictured on the magazine above have in common?
Correct, they're all inductees in the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, located just 49 miles from my dad's hometown of Steubenville, Home of The Big Red, the part of Ohio where my paternal ancestors have lived for well over 200 years.

http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/
http://www.nfl.com/videos


I like the plucky New England Patriots by at least 10 over the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl 49 Sunday. http://www.nfl.com/

#Irrelevant #RealityCheck - How many current #Dolphins players were even alive when team last played in #SuperBowl XiX 30 years ago?

NFL Films and The Travel Channel combine for new series premiering tonight: NFL Road Tested: The Cleveland Browns on The Travel Channel @ 10 p.m. Eastern/9 Central on DirecTV Channel 277; @NFLFilms

"See what it takes to travel with an entire professional football team from city to city and game to game during the regular season with our unprecedented access."
Tonight's episode is "NY Giants and Ravens"
http://www.travelchannel.com/video/let-the-games-begin

NFL Road Tested airs every Tuesday at 10 pm. Eastern/9 Central.

More information at:
http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/nfl-road-tested-the-cleveland-browns

On 40th anniversary, NFL Network revisits "NFL's Longest Game" in a special tonight at 6 p.m. on Dolphins-Chiefs classic for the ages

SUDDEN DEATH AT KANSAS CITY

Above, capturing THE moment of one of the most amazing NFL games ever played, the moment the Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27-24 in double-overtime at Municipal Stadium, December 25, 1971, as "Miami's Garo Yepremian Ends the Longest Game"; the placekick holder is Karl Noonan. 
Sports Illustrated of January 3, 1972.
And only one of the most joyous days of my life!


Must-see TV! 
Today on the 40th Anniversary of NFL's "Longest Game" between the Dolphins and Chiefs, a divisional playoff game I remember like it was yesterday, the NFL Network will air a special commemorative program at 6 pm tonight, with old NBC-TV footage from the ballgame, and, apparently, sideline conversations, which I can only imagine will be augmented by NFL Films footage.


Teaser alert: watch out for Marv Fleming, #80, in the end zone on this next play. 
Just saying...


As of today, Sunday morning at 1 a.m., according to DirecTV's on-screen schedule, there is no scheduled encore of this program scheduled, so make sure you have your DVR/VCR's at the ready.
But if you know how many times they will run a special program over-and-over, they'll do it -eventually.


Two short sneak peeks of the one-hour program are here; sorry, no embedding possible because that's how the NFL rolls. 
You have to go to their sites so that way you have to see the advertising of their partners.
Sort of makes you wonder if they've never heard of blogs, since they can load the ads into the video if they want.  

(Code Red head's-up to Google and Blogger: Blogger is NOT one of the NFL Network's listed "SHARE" partners. Why?) 


http://www.nfl.com/videos/auto/09000d5d82558093/Remembering-The-Longest-Game-Ever 


http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/09000d5d825454f4/The-Longest-Game-Ever-sneak-peek 


In that afternoon game on Christmas Day 40-years ago today -the Christmas where my family finally got into the 20th Century and bought more than just a half-way decent stereo system- the pressure from the game got to be so much for my father.
He had to walk out of our apt. in North Miami Beach and pace out in the hallway, refusing to watch with me and my mother and two sisters as Garo attempted his winning 37-yard field-goal.


Less than an hour after the game, my family and I and tens of thousands of other Dolfans from all over South Florida had driven out to Miami International Airport to greet the team on their Eastern Airlines charter.
We had lived in South Florida for three years by then and I heard South Florida yell that day like I'd never heard it before.

One of the most joyous times of my life!!!



Chiefs running back and return man Ed Podolak's performance that day was one of the greatest individual football performances that I ever saw in my life, ranking at the top with there with watching a very sick Bob Griese go from Mercy Hospital to throwing some long bombs to Paul Warfield, in-person at the Orange Bowl, in a 1971 MNF comeback win against Pittsburgh; watching O.J. Simpson make one amazing move after another against the Dolphins, in-person at the Orange Bowl in the mid-'70's; Bert Jones, Roger Carr and the Baltimore Colts throttle a good Dolphins team at the Orange Bowl, showing amazing athletic ability and speed at the ballgame in 1975 where the stadium was used as footage for the film, Black Sunday that had a story-line involving Middle East terrorism and the Goodyear blimp possibly crashing into a stadium during the Super Bowl; and finally, in 1981 up in Bloomington at Memorial Stadium, seeing Marcus Allen personally destroy IU with 274 yards rushing, the year he won -and earned!- the Heisman Trophy.


As one of the many Dolphin fans who purchased the record albums that WIOD put out after the 1971 season and the 1972 Perfect Season, I have listened to that call by Rick Weaver about a thousand times.
"Noonan to hold..."


They were stolen from my apt. while I was attending IU, along with my high school ring,  my beautiful blue satin NMB Soccer Florida State Champs jacket, my NMB letterman patch for gymnastics for being the manager of the Women's team that won the 1979 State championships at a meet I ran and coordinated at NMB, easily one of the lowest days in my life, to say nothing of the money that got stolen.
It was like I was having my identity stolen before it was the thing to do on the Internet...  


And who would steal THOSE two Dolphin albums?
That's what made me think it was personal -the items stolen versus what was left behind.


By the way, I still have all my Dolphin PRO game programs, starting from the first game I went to in December of 1970 against Buffalo, a 45-3 win that clinched a playoff spot, their first ever, to the last Dolphin game I saw before leaving for college at IU in August of 1979.
Plus, I also have the various pro football annuals like Street & Smith and Athlon, great for reading on car trips to North Carolina seven months after this ballgame, still smarting from the Super Bowl loss to the Cowboys and seeing Roger Staubach on the face of every guide cover.
I probably have about 100 of the programs and guides in total.


And to think, about 25-years ago, I almost sold them -my precious memories!
Thank goodness I didn't!

"Lombardi. A certain magic still lingers in the very name. It speaks of duels in the snow and cold November mud..."; Packers will win by at least 8!

"...He stood for everything that was solid and successful in American sports. He remains for many, the very heart of pro football, pumping hard right now. Every year the winner of the Super Bowl is awarded the Vincent Lombardi Trophy. His legacy is the greatest prize the game can offer."
-John Facenda for NFL Films

The Sport of the '60's

Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi; December 21, 1962

Seven years later to the date of this cover, Lombardi coached his last game, a losing effort for the Redskins. Nine months later he'd be dead of intestinal cancer at age 57. The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University is named for him.
See http://lombardi.georgetown.edu/

http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/member.aspx?PLAYER_ID=132

The first sports-related piece of clothing I ever had was a shirt that I wore in the Fall as a kid living in Memphis in the mid-sixties, age five or six, which my father had bought at a Dept. store. It was made with what I'd now call sweatshirt-quality cotton and was certainly far too heavy to wear in the oppressive summer heat that Memphis excelled in producing -with no sweat!

It was sort of an oatmeal/mustard combination of a color with green stripes on the shoulder, with a big green 5 on the front and back.
Yes, The Golden Boy, Paul Hornung!
http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/paul-hornung-5/

I wish I still had that shirt now!

Vince Lombardi Championship Trophies

"It's why you play the game!" -Herm Edwards

Vince Lombardi Championship Trophies from Miami Dolphin victories in Super Bowl VII and VIII, at Dolphins HQ, Davie, FL; April 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez

Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota

Larry Csonka, January 21, 1974

Miami All The Way

Bob Griese, January 22, 1973

1972 Miami Dolphins team photo at The Orange Bowl

This is identical to the photo of the 17-0 Undefeated Team that for six years, rested in a frame on top of my bedroom dresser at my home in North Miami Beach. There it stayed 'till that fateful day in August of 1979, when I began packing for my new life in Bloomington. The photo made the trip to Bloomington intact, where it remained on my desk in my room, Briscoe Quad 427-A, for two very eventful years at IU, the latter being 1981, the year we beat North Carolina for the NCAA basketball title. I placed it right below my 8'' x 11'' b&w glossy of the Miami Herald's All-County Gymnastics team. That squad was a tremendous team that featured many talented friends of mine from all around Dade County, as well as my own talented friends and classmates at North Miami Beach High School, where my senior year, under the leadership of our beloved head coach, Peter Saponaro, we won the Florida state championship.

Even today, I can still name every player and coach on that amazing Dolphins team.

Building For The Super Bowl

Miami Coach Don Shula, December 11, 1972As most of you regular readers to Hallandale Beach Blog know by now, the Dolphins' Perfect Season of 1972 was my first year as a Dolphins season ticket holder, and I was there for every single moment at the Orange Bowl: pre-season, regular season and playoff.
The most scared I ever was of the team losing was the Cleveland Browns divisional playoff game the day before Christmas, a 20-14 win. The tension was palpable.
What does everyone pictured above have in common?
Correct, they're all inductees in the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, located just 49 miles from my dad's hometown of Steubenville, Home of The Big Red, the part of Ohio
where my paternal ancestors have lived for over 200 years.

http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/
http://www.nfl.com/videos


I like the Packers by at least 8 over the Steelers in Super Bowl 45 tonight.
http://www.nfl.com/
http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/45