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?

"Never been an athlete whose basic decency has come easier to him"; Gary Shelton on Lee Roy Selmon and the giant shadow he cast on a Florida community

"I appreciated the game, and I wanted to play it with my best effort, but I didn't want it to define my life." -Lee Roy Selmon

A Florida community grieves for someone whose performance was legendary and whose word was golden.

Early on Sunday morning, following a head's up from a friend in New York who works for a TV network, I read this terrific column online and knew that it captured perfectly the man and the sad mood of people I know throughout the U.S. who know and love college football and the NFL, and who know the real deal when they see it. And Lee Roy Selmon was the real deal.

St. Petersburg Times

The measure of Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Lee Roy Selmon's greatness is off the field

By Gary Shelton, Times Sports Columnist

In Print: Saturday, September 3, 2011

The measure of a man is not in the games he plays. Deep down, to the twisted pits of your soul where you feel pain over Lee Roy Selmon, you know that. He was a great football player, a terrific, inspired football player. There is no arguing that. Selmon was perhaps the best to play in Tampa Bay, and perhaps the best to play in Oklahoma, one of the best to play anywhere. He won awards, and he reached halls of fame, and he defined excellence. You can choose that definition of Selmon, if you wish. Or you can remember something greater about a man who has been far more than a football player.

The measure of a man is not in the money he makes. It is not whether he has an expressway named after him, or a restaurant, or if his name is in the Bucs' Ring of Honor. It is not a bust in the Hall of Fame, or a statue that may be built on his college campus, or in the memories of a thousand black and white photographs from his playing days.

In the case of Selmon, the measure of him and his meaning should be measured by the shadow he has cast. By the lives touched. By the grace shown.

Read the rest of the column at

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/football/bucs/former-tampa-bay-bucs-great-lee-roy-selmon-dies-two-days-after-suffering-a/1189808

The sad cover story in today's Times, at top, was penned by Rick Stroud.

St. Petersburg Times

Former Tampa Bay Bucs great Lee Roy Selmon dies two days after suffering a stroke

By Rick Stroud, Times Staff Writer

In Print: Monday, September 5, 2011

TAMPA

As stunned as his loved ones, friends and colleagues were about the suddenness of his death, it was the graceful, dignified and exemplary life of Lee Roy Selmon that they remembered most on Sunday.

The first player drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their only member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame died at St. Joseph's Hospital on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 4, 2011) surrounded by family and friends, only two days after suffering a stroke at his Tampa home. Mr. Selmon was 56.

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/football/bucs/former-tampa-bay-bucs-great-lee-roy-selmon-dies-two-days-after-suffering-a/1189808

NFL Films video: Top 100 Greatest Players #98 Lee Roy Selmon - HD, HQ

http://youtu.be/-Ve6WIxalp0

I shudder to think about what this area will be like the day legendary former Dolphins head coach Don Shula passes away.

This area will be convulsed and I have no doubt whatsoever THAT will be the biggest Memorial/funeral in the recorded history of South Florida.

By far...

"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