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Showing posts with label Roy Firestone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roy Firestone. Show all posts

Saturday, June 18, 2016

My Muhammad Ali update, with great insight into him from two longtime favorites of mine, Roy Firestone and Maureen Dowd; @RoyFirestone @NYTimesDowd



#MuhammadAli thru prism of an avid, teenage sports fan in 1970's #Miami. #transcendent #SoFL
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/remembering-muhammad-ali-thru-prism-of.html

 I have seen and read so many great and inspiring things about Muhammad Ali since my initial blog post of June 3rd about him and my memories of him from the 1970's while I was growing-up in Miami and South Florida, where he spent so much time -inc. the time I actually received an award from him- that I initially thought I'd have a lot of trouble deciding what to be sure to include in any update I ever did.

 In the end, though, I decided to keep it simple, something that I don't always do here on the blog.

 I decided to include the contributions from two hyper-observant people that I've both long admired and have come to know to a small extent over the intervening years since first leaving South Florida for college in Bloomington and my life thereafter.
Each person, uniquely, with their own personality clearly shining through, shares some insight and reflections about Ali and what to me made Ali such a unique character in American and world history: Maureen Dowd and Roy Firestone.

 I really encourage anyone who has NOT read my earlier post to do so first, since they'll gain some very useful context on me and my observations about Ali that I think will well serve you to better appreciate the three of them. Trust me, you'll be glad you did!

 That June 3rd post of mine also includes a great video of Roy talking about Ali that as I have said and written elsewhere, has the great advantage of not only being funny and sweet, but 100% true.
#perceptive doesn't even begin to describe it.
I've posted it below, too.

 Ironically, as it happens, I also once shared an early film review of Will Smith as Ali with Maureen Dowd in the lobby of the NY Times Washington bureau, where she works as a columnist.
That's the same lobby where for SO many years during the 15 years I lived and worked in the D.C. area, until 2003, that I used to spend a LOT of time after work with friends who not only worked upstairs at the Times, but also well-informed media-centric friends who worked nearby in downtown D.C., right around the corner of the Baltimore Orioles team store, another longtime haunt of mine.

 (For those of you who are new to the blog, the Orioles store is where, on 9/11, hours after it happened, I first saw video of the Twin Towers coming down, after my colleagues and I were ordered to evacuate earlier that morning from our office, then located across the street from the FBI and Dept. of Justice on Pennsylvania Avenue, due to growing concern about the exact location of a "missing" airplane. The airplane which we subsequently came to know and grieve for which carried the very brave passengers and crew of United #93. 
Knowing that one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers that morning had originated out of Boston had filled me with dread all day because... on 9/11, one of my former Arlington housemates was a flight attendant who worked out of Logan Airport, so...) 

 There in the lobby of the Army-Navy Building on Eye Street is also where, as I have blogged about previously, Maureen Dowd and I picked up our respective copies of Variety's Daily Gotham edition, Monday thru Friday. That edition is the one seldom seen in 99% of the country, and has the green masthead on the top to differentiate it from its much-larger weekly edition with the red masthead.

 Even in a large and important city like D.C., there was a very tiny delivery window for the handful of people who subscribed to Daily Variety and could get it hand-delivered on a same day basis, at no extra cost, and luckily for me, 1627 Eye Street was one of them.
It helped enormously that the Motion Picture Association of America, MPAA, the U.S. film industry's trade association has its lobbying HQ in D.C. just down the block on Eye Street, which is how it came to be so many times over my 15 years there that I saw and even had a chance to talk sometimes to its iconic leader Jack Valenti, often while he was making his way down to the nearby CVS.

 Sometimes, in her haste to get upstairs, depending upon who swung by the concierge's desk in the lobby first that particular morning, Maureen would grab my copy by mistake, so I'd have to take the copy with her name on the mailing label.
Which, as I've remarked here previously, occasionally, got me some pretty quizzical looks on my Metro ride home later to Arlington. :-)











Roy Firestone remembers Muhammad Ali on Good Day LA. with hosts Steve Edwards and Maria Sansone. He talked about his first interview ever, and it was interviewing Muhammad. He was only 21 years old.
FOX 11 Los Angeles YouTube Channel video, Uploaded on June 10, 2016
https://youtu.be/NKguJRUCIx0
Muhammad Ali's Procession
The New York Times YouTube Channel, Uploaded on June 10, 2016
https://youtu.be/G5ZDZMLfgqY


Muhammad Ali's Funeral
The New York Times YouTube Channel, Uploaded on June 10, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bYFb97j7Ro




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Saturday, June 4, 2016

Remembering Muhammad Ali thru the prism of an avid, teenage sports fan in 1970's South Florida. To me, for so many reasons, Ali truly was "The Greatest"


As a kid with a Sports Illustrated subscription starting when I was ten in 1971, I can definitely say today, just as I could ten years ago, that this is my favorite Sports Illustrated cover -EVER.
December 23, 1974 Muhammad Ali, Sportsman of the Year




Remembering Muhammad Ali thru the prism of an avid, teenage sports fan in 1970's South Florida. To me, for so many reasons, Ali truly was "The Greatest"
This has been a very sad day for me that I've been dreading for a very long time.

Since at least the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, when Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic Torch, and so many Americans who hadn't thought of him or seen him in years, suddenly saw how Parkinson's Disease had begun to rob us of a transcendent and uniquely American personality who was both the source of so many shared joyful moments, as well as the subject of so many heated political arguments over kitchen tables and airwaves from coast-to-coast for years.


















Muhammad Ali, Miami came of age together in the 1960s

Growing-up in South Florida in the 1970's, because of my interests and personality, I was fortunate enough through circumstance and by taking full advantage of opportunities I created to be able to talk fairly regularly to South Florida sports reporters and columnists of the era, many of whom spoke to and interviewed Muhammad Ali regularly whenever he was in Miami, especially those times when he was training at the Fifth Street Gym on South Beach, which was later named for another native of Kentucky who left her positive mark on Miami, Elizabeth Virrick.

A 1982 photo of Elizabeth Virrick and Muhammad Ali in a gym named in her honor.

The following video is a combination of genius and heart and will make you laugh AND cry!


(As some of you readers know, I've long thought that Roy Firestone was a genius, but then, I'm biased on that score. I first met Roy when I was a twelve-year old kid in 1973 at the Bob Griese-Karl Noonan boys summer sports camp in Boca Raton, the first of my three summers there, when Roy was one of my camp counselors while still attending the University of Miami, later becoming a friend and common sense sounding-board of sorts.
Roy is someone I've long been planned on writing about here on the blog, with several great anecdotes including a few of the "Only in Miami" sort that South Florida residents can especially appreciate! 
Roy is also the first person to ever explain to me what makes the the film The African Queen magical, before I saw it for the first time more than forty years ago in Boca Raton. 

Years later, when he was doing the Noon and Weekend sports at Miami's WPLG-TV, the ABC-TV affiliate in South Florida, before he left for LA, when it came time for me to consider where to go to college, Roy urged me to go to Syracuse instead of Indiana University, where I eventually went, or USC, which I had always planned on attending all throughout my days at North Miami Beach Senior High School. That is, until Christmas of my senior year, when the reality of the gap in money needed for making that trip across the country to USC and my dreams of living and networking in LA, an unreachable goal. :-(
Roy suggested Syracuse in part due to the growing prestige and dynamism being attached to what was going on at the Newhouse School of Communications there, which in 1979, was before many of the more-recent but well-known grads there were actually attending. 
Perhaps if I'd gone there, I'd personally know all the very annoying Syracuse grads we all see at
ESPN and the nets, the ones who always want to tell you about how they used to make audition tapes when they were kids. Yes, we know, we know!)

What those journalists shared with me always stayed with me over the years, but I often was able to tell them a thing or two that they didn't know or were unwilling or unable to publicly acknowledge about the reality of the South Florida we lived in, as well as share Ali anecdotes that ABC Sports TV sportscaster Howard Cosell had written about in his own books, which I'd read over-and-over so much that I could practically quote entire paragraphs, to the eternal frustration of my friends and family. (Cosell's account of his times is still great books to read, all these years later.)

But then for people my age, it was hard to think of Muhammad Ali without also immediately thinking of Howard Cosell, the most popular TV sportscaster of his era, to the chagrin of many print reporters and his detractors, but the one person that well-informed sports fans like me could always count on to have the ability to make an #event a #happening -and later tell you why.








I still recall how over-the-top and angry the Miami supporters of the Nation of Islam (NOI) were regularly portrayed by the South Florida news media -esp. Miami TV stations- in ways that would 
be considered completely unacceptable now, even if what they reported then was factually true.
There'd be lots more use of "allegedly"!

It seems like a couple of times a year I'd hear my Dad, a longtime Dade County police officer, say something to the fact that they'd heard some rumors about the NOI Mosque on 7th Avenue & 53rd Street -the Mosque that Ali worshipped at when in Miami- and it was seldom something positive.

Though the powers-that-be in Miami may well deny it now, the truth is that there was always LOTS of concern among the Police and the Miami Establishment of the time that something bad would happen to Ali whenever he was in Miami, due to the myriad NOI personality/turf/power wars, which were generally acknowledged by people who knew the facts, though NOT for public attribution, of course.

My understanding was that very possibility, however remote it may seem now to us from a distance, really ate at some people within Metro Police who had to think about such things, and be prepared to deal with it. As if that were even possible.
Given Miami's unique and unfortunate history with riots, and its multi-ethnic populace's complete willingness to take to the street at the drop of a hat without waiting for all the facts to come in on a situation, something I have been witness to myself, you can well understand why that was a concern.

There were also always plenty of rumors sprinkled with facts about the NOI's involvement with organized crime, their curious easy access to weapons, as well as concern about how frequently NOI members in South Florida seemed to manage to get out of trouble at the last minute, just like in a film, where the audience always knows something the Police don't.
There were, therefore, concerns about possible "leaks" within Metro Police, which were not nearly as unfounded as you might imagine, given the facts-on-the-ground at the time.

In 1975, when I was in Eighth Grade at JFK Junior High in North Miami Beach,  one Spring night, just a few months after the Sports Illustrated cover above, I was surprised to receive a Dade County (Junior High) Track & Field Championships ribbon -Second place- from Muhammad Ali at a Dade County Schools sports award ceremony in downtown Miami, where Ali's appearance came as a complete thunderbolt to everyone -especially the kids! 
And my Dad, who drove me there.

People were, quite literally, in hushed tones in that small auditorium all night, anxious that they would not miss anything Ali said or did, and it will probably not surprise you to learn that the number of the people in the auditorium only increased at the night went on, as word about who was there, in-the-flesh, continued to circulate.
Pre Cell phone, pre-Twitter.

Trust me, if I'd known in advance that Muhammad Ali would be there, me being me, I'd have made plans to have LOTS of photos of that moment! 
Even if by now they were largely faded Polaroids! 

Every year in August on my way to the Cream and Crimson of IU in Bloomington, I'd drive and drive and drive by myself from Miami north to the Midwest, but no matter how much I knew to expect it, every time I first saw the highway signs letting me know that I'd soon be near Muhammad Ali Boulevard in Louisville, it always caught me by surprise.
I'd immediately think back to that surprising and amazing moment in 1975 when I met him in person for the first time, and shook his hand.
Calm when I did it, but slightly abuzz once back in my seat.
Just like all the other kids there, but probably the only one there who, pre-VCR, could name whom Ali had fought and where going back for several years, since retaining information and trivia of that sort was seemingly hard-wired into my brain.
Still is, if you hadn't noticed.











Muhammad Ali , coming and going...



#MuhammadAli #transcendent

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Friday, December 27, 2013

For a whole generation of Oriole fans like me, Paul Blair was the living embodiment of The Oriole Way. So very, very sad at the news that my all-time favorite Oriole, the baseball player I most patterned myself on as a CF, died Thursday night. THE player I studied so intensely so many days and nights at O's exhibition games at Miami Stadium in the 1970's, looking for any hint of how to do things the right way -The Oriole Way. He was always smiling, always friendly to fans, always hustling and always a great teammate. R.I.P. # 6 #Class; Roy Firestone

For a whole generation of Oriole fans like me, from South Florida up I-95 to Maryland/southern PA, and knowledgeable baseball fans from coast-to-coast who appreciated players who paid attention to detail and did the small things in a game that make the difference between winning and losing, Paul Blair was the living embodiment of The Oriole Way.


So very, very sad at the news Thursday night that the former Oriole legend and masterful centerfielder died Thursday night while bowling in suburban Pikesville.

 Paul Blair was my all-time favorite Oriole, the baseball player I most patterned myself on as a Centerfielder in Little League and Pony League in North Miami Beach's Optimist League, just as it often seemed to me years later that Ken Griffey Jr. would pattern himself on years later -playing shallow in CF- after watching Paul while his Dad and Paul were teammates on the Yankees of the late '70's, which earned paul two more World Series rings for a total of four.

 One year, when one of my Pony League teams got new uniforms but all the numbers started in the fifties -like we were all minor league pitchers who'd only be at spring training for a few weeks before going back to our minor league teams- I quickly grabbed #51 out of the box and ripped-off the shrink wrap because 5 + 1 = 6, Paul Blair's jersey number.

 My last two years of playing NMB Optimist Football in the mid-1970's, for the 115-pound team, though I was primarily a defensive end and special teams player, I also wore #6 because... 
Plus, like him, I was the fastest player on my team.

Photo of Paul Blair at Orioles spring training HQ at Miami Stadium, Miami, FL.

 Paul Blair was the one player I studied intensely on so many days and nights at O's exhibition games at Miami Stadium in the 1970's -with family and friends- when they were in their glory days, and I was looking for any hint of how to do things the right way -The Oriole Way, because that's how I wanted to do it, too. 

Once they closed camp and left for baltimore, I listened to the team and his personal exploits via Chuck Thompson and Bill O'Donnell's expert play-by-play and color commentary, back when the O's affiliate in Miami at the time, WGBS-AM, carried ALL their games. 

I'd listen to those games no matter where I was -which my parents didn't always appreciate- and l'd fall asleep at night with my small brightly-colored Radio Shack transistor radio under my pillow listening to West Coast road trips, back when the A's really were the Amazing A's.
(If they'd won that ALCS series with the A's in 1973 and '74, they'd have played in the World Series 5 out of 6 years and I definitely think they'd have beaten the Mets in '73 and the Reds in '74.)

Asd I have written here on the blog before, I was such a big Orioles fan that I not only had every Orioles yearbook from 1970 until I left for college in 1979, agonizing when they lost to Pirates in the World series, but in February and March, at least once a week, I'd catch buses at the 163rd Street Shopping Center out to Biscayne College where the Orioles' minor league teams trained, always hoping to see the new/next Don Baylor or Bobby Grich in-person.
In those pre-Internet days, I'd always hope to run into a Baltimore area media type who could point out who was who, esp. someone like John Steadman.

Every family car we had in the 1970's I made certain had the circular bumper sticker of the cartoon Oriole at bat, so everyone would know, esp. on vacations, like up to Asheville in the summer of 1972, when they were part of the O's minor league system, that I/we were real Oriole fans.

Paul Blair was always smiling, always friendly to fans, always hustling and always a great teammate. 
R.I.P. #6 #Class
-----




Photo of Paul Blair and son at Memorial Stadium, Baltimore, MD.





Above, former Baltimore Colt RB/Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinee Lenny Moore, broadcaster Roy Firestone and former Orioles center fielder Paul Blair on Brooks Robinson Day, for the unveiling of the larger-than-life bronze sculpture of the Oriole Hall of Fame third baseman outside Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Sept. 29, 2012, Baltimore, MD.
Few would know how true this was more than Roy, whom I first met 41 years ago.
As I've written here before, at the time, Roy was a University of Miami student and was also working for Channel 4 Sports back when it was still Ralph Renick's WTVJ-TV, and their Sports Dept. was the class and envy of the state.
I was an 11-year old camper at the Bob Griese-Karl Noonan boys sports camp up in Boca Raton, where Roy was a counselor who soon became a friend because of his sense of humor, common sense and amazing knowledge of the same things I was most-interested in: sports, journalism and films.

When I was a senior at North Miami Beach High School and he was already working out in Los Angeles at KNX-TV, Roy was also one of the many people I spoke to and respected who recommended that I attend Syracuse and the S.I. Newhouse School of Communication, the home of so much of ESPN and the sports television and marketing establishment of the past thirty years.

But after things didn't work out financial aid-wise for my longtime first choice, The University of Southern California (USC) -who offered me a great deal of financial aid , but still not enough for me to swing it financially from Miami to Los Angeles, especially given how expensive it was to fly back and forth from LA to Miami back then- I went to IU, knowing only one person in the whole state of indiana, and they weren't in Bloomington. 
Syracuse just seemed too cold and isolated for me.
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Tuesday, December 9, 2008

College football news and memories; National Football Foundation honoring Wilber Marshall






I'm watching this now!
-----------------------------------
Some college football news worth reading about from some emails I received over the weekend straight from the National Football Foundation.

You'll note that former Gator great Wilber Marshall is among the new class,whom I watched and followed closely with the great Super Bowl-winning Bears and Redskins teams while I was living in Chicago/Evanston in the mid-'80's, and then later in Washington, D.C.
He was such a joy to watch!

Just the sheer anticipation of the hits he was about to deliver used to get my friends literally jumping out of their chairs when we'd watch them on TV.

I'd love to see a game b/w that '85 Bears team and the '91 Redskins team that was so methodical and powerful. Having seen both in person, at Soldier Field and RFK Stadium, it'd be a hell of a game to watch.

Now that I think about it, that's one of those match ups that ESPN should've thought of a few years ago when they had that series that incorporated contemporaneous film footage to have teams of different eras play one another to determine who was better.
I usually avoided watching those qhen they were on TV, mostly because I disagreed with the selection of the teams, since it always seemed to have the bias that because the great Pittsburgh Steelers and San Francisco 49ers won the Super Bowls, they'd win the fantasy games.

But the problem is, as we know, that the best team doesn't always win, which is why having the 1968-69 Baltimore Colts team that lost to the Jets in Super Bowl III play the Len Dawson-led Chiefs team that won the Super Bowl a year later against the Vikings, would've been a great match. Don Shula and Unitas/Morrall against Hank Stram and Len Dawson?
Or what about the the great high-powered Vikings team with Randy Moss that choked against the Giants in the NFC championship, actually play the Ravens team that won that year?
Hell, I'd watch those games now!

See Jon Saraceno's great USAT column on Wilber Marshall before the Bears-Colts Super Bowl downpour down here: Marshall's torments not likely to fade

I'm someone who from an early age, while growing up in San Antonio, then Memphis and finally Miami, followed college football more closely than just about anyone I ever met, reading Sports Illustrated and SPORT magazine from cover-to-cover, devouring all the books, films and videos on the subject and its history, while also meeting lots of people involved in it from the 1970's on.

That also included someone who played for one of the best teams of the era, the University of Michigan Wolverines, who was also football family royalty of a sort.

The person in question is Dave Elliott, a Wolverine defensive back from the early 1970's and the son of former Illinois and later U-M head football coach Pete Elliott, who himself later became the Executive Director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, who was one of my counselors when I attended the Bob Griese-Karl Noonan sports camp up in Boca Raton, three summers in a row from 1971-'74.

His personality and mine were somewhat similar, so we spent a lot of time talking about what it was like to play at a prominent big name school like Michigan, where there were always big expectations, plus, having a family name that was as well known as his was in the Midwest.
Plus, of course, his name was Dave, also.

He was also a key witness to my making an interception of Bob Griese in a flag football game and running about 80 yards for a touchdown, using my speed and moves to twice fake out a lunging Griese, who was my then-idol.

This was back in a time and place when I and all the fellow campers there in pre-cable, pre-ESPN America also knew where every single pro athlete who was at camp had gone to school, with Big Ten schools Purdue and Iowa being most prominent because that's where Griese and Noonan had gone and starred.

(This is the same camp where I first met future Emmy-winning sportscaster Roy Firestone, who I'd stay friends with for years -and who recommended I go to Syracuse- back when he was a U-M student who also toiled at Ralph Renick's WTVJ-Channel 4, back when they had the best sports talent in town under Bernie Rosen.
Roy and I kept in touch for many, many years, even after he left Miami and was doing very well out in LA. When it came time to consider schools, after the financial aid situation made it clear that USC was untenable, much to my disappointment, Roy recommended Syracuse to me over IU because of the growing pub of the Newhouse School of Communication, and the possible synergy b/w my own personality and career interests.
I stuck with IU and dropped him a line every so often of what was going on in Hoosierville as Coach Knight made college basketball relevant to someone who grew-up when the U-M didn't have a team.

Years later, when Roy came back for a family visit to Miami, and I was home from Bloomington for either the summer or Christmas, I showed up unexpectedly with my mother at WKAT over on Miami Beach -which had been the Braves weekend affiliate- when Chris Myers -now of FOX-TV- had a radio show, and had announced the night before that Roy would be a guest.
I figured I'd just say hi and talk for a few minutes before he had to go inside.
To Roy's surprise and mine, because Chris and I and the producers had chatted for a bit before the show, Chris surprised me by inviting me -and my mother- to go on the air with Roy for about an hour, as he recalled one great Roy anecdote after another, and I threw in a few when I could.
It was quite a blast.
Even now, I still recall a younger Roy up in Boca Raton going back and forth with Earl Morral's son, Matt, also a counselor, about whether the rock group Deep Purple would remain a studio band, or would tour. Odd the things your brain remembers!)

My conversations with Dave Elliott and his descriptions of what it was like to live in a real Midwestern college town like Ann Arbor, plus all the other stuff I had observed and absorbed by osmosis, are one of the reasons that I always knew from junior high school on, that I'd leave South Florida in the rear view mirror when it came time to go to college.
I wanted a college experience that was more like the ones I saw broadcast every Saturday on ABC's college football broadcasts with Keith Jackson and Chris Schenkel, than the all-too apathetic and blase reality of late '70's South Florida.
Bloomington offered me all the things I wanted -and much more.

I was totally captivated by the college experience that ABC presented in their three hours and knew that was exactly what I wanted, and that while Gainesville or Tallahassee might be fine for some of my friends, I and most of my smarter friends were getting the hell out of Florida, toute-de-suite!
That's why we headed to Princeton, Charlottesville and Boulder...

I recall having game programs of the Liberty Bowl games when I was six, asking my father's friend to get the game program for me for the 1968 Alabama at U-M game at the Orange Bowl, the first night college football game ever televised in color, and years later, when I was at North Miami Beach, seeing the photos of the NMB head football coach and an assistant coach who had played for that Hurricane team.

At my South Beach Hoosier blog, http://www.southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/ I mention the following under the split-U logo and Sebastian the Ibis:

South Beach Hoosier's first U-M football game at the Orange Bowl was in 1972, age 11, against Tulane in the infamous "Fifth Down" game.
In order to drum up support and attendance for the U-M at the Orange Bowl, that game had a promotion whereby South Florida kids who were school safety patrols could get in for free IF they wore their sash. I did.
Clearly they knew that it was better to let kids in for free, knowing their parents would give them money to buy food and souvenirs, perhaps become a fan and want to return for future games.

The ballgame made an interesting impression on The New York Times, resulting in this gem from the "View of Sport" column of Oct, 14, 1990, labeled 'Fifth Down or Not, It's Over When It's Over.'
"In 1972, aided by a fifth-down officiating gift in the last moments of the game, Miami of Florida defeated Tulane, 24-21. The country and the world was a much different place that fall because The New York Times took time and space to editorialize on the subject.
''Is it right for sportsmen, particularly young athletes, to be penalized or deprived of the goals for which they earnestly competed because responsible officials make mistakes? The ideal of true sportsmanship would be better served if Miami forfeited last week's game.'

South Beach Hoosier hardly needs to tell you that this was YET another New York Times editorial that was completely ignored!

Before going to my first U-M game at the Orange Bowl in 1972, a friend's father often would bring me home an extra 'Canes game program. That's how I came to have the Alabama at U-M game program from Nov. 16, 1968, which was the first nationally-televised college football night game in color. (A 14-6 loss to the Crimson Tide.)

After that first ballgame against Tulane, as I often did for Dolphin games if my father wasn't going, I'd get dropped off at the Levitz parking lot near the 836 & I-95 Cloverleaf in NMB, and catch a Dade County Park & Ride bus, going straight to the Orange Bowl.
Once onboard, I'd get next to the window and listen to WIOD's pre-game show on my Radio Shack transistor radio.

A few times, I was just about the only person onboard besides the bus driver, which was alright by me. Once at the Orange Bowl, if I didn't already have a ticket, I'd buy a game program for myself and one or two for friends or teachers before heading to the ticket window, since you usually couldn't find a program vendor once inside.

I probably had a friend or my father with me for just under 40% of the U-M games I ever went to, but you have to remember that the team, though blessed with several talented players, like Chuck Foreman and Burgess Owens, was just so-so to average at best, and the games were usually played on Friday nights, so it wasn't exactly high on every one's list of things to do.

Depending upon the opponent, if I was alone, I'd often have entire areas of the Orange Bowl to myself. (Wish I had photos of that now!)
For instance, I had a good portion of the East (open) End Zone to myself against Oklahoma in the mid-70's, when the Boomer Schooner and the Schooner Crew went out on the field after an Oklahoma TD, and the Schooner received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from the refs, as would happen years later in an Orangle Bowl Classic game. (Against FSU?)

I was there for the wins and losses under Pete Elliott, Carl Selmer & Lou Saban, and the huge on-field fight in '73 when under eventual national champion Notre Dame (then under Ara Parseghian), they called a time-out with less than a minute to go, and already up 37-0.
Their rationale? To score another TD and impress the AP football writers; final score 44-0.
Well, they got their wish and beat Alabama 24-23 for the title at the Sugar Bowl.
A year later, thanks to my Mom's boss, who had tickets he couldn't use, she and I saw Ara's last game as head coach of the Irish in the Orange Bowl Game from the East End Zone -in front of the Alabama cheerleaders!!!- in an exciting 13-11 Notre Dame win over Bear Bryant's Alabama Crimson Tide, and a rematch of the '73 national title game.

I was also present for the U-M's huge 20-15 win under Pete Elliott against Darrel Royal's Texas Longhorns, the week Sports Illustrated's College Football preview issue came out with Texas on the cover, above.
I was also present for lots of wins against schools called College of the Pacific, UNLV and Cal-Poly San Luis Obsispo, which I'd then never heard of before.
__________________
excerpt
from Philip Marwill Dec 5
MEDIA ADVISORY
Contacts: Phil Marwill, the National Football Foundation
Email: pmarwill@footballfoundation.com
Dan Sabreen, CBS College Sports Network Email: dsabreen@cbs.com
THIS JUST IN...... from CBS College Sports Network
CBS College Sports Network announced today that the network will broadcast live the National Football Foundation's press conference for the 2008 NFF Annual Awards Dinner, including the induction of this year's College Football Hall of Fame Bowl Subdivision Class.

The press conference will air live from the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9 from 9:30 - 11:30 AM, ET.

CBS College Sports Network will also provide live streaming video of the press conference available for free to all fans.

The press conference features National Football Foundation Chairman Archie Manning, 2008 Distinguished American Award recipient T. Boone Pickens, NFF Gold Medal recipient John Glenn, NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell and the 2008 College Football Hall of Fame Class, which includes Troy Aikman (UCLA), Billy Cannon (LSU), Jim Dombrowski (Virginia), Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern), Wilber Marshall (Florida), Rueben Mayes (Washington State), Randall McDaniel (Arizona State), Don McPherson (Syracuse), Jay Novacek (Wyoming), Dave Parks (Texas Tech), Ron Simmons (Florida State), Thurman Thomas (Oklahoma State), Arnold Tucker (Army) and coaches John Cooper and Lou Holtz.

CBS College Sports Network is available through local cable operators and nationally via satellite on DIRECTV Channel 613 and Dish Network Channel 152.
For more information on how to watch or subscribe to CBS College Sports Network, log on to http://www.sportsline.com/cbscollegesports/ _________________________________________
MEDIA ADVISORY
Dec. 9 Press Conference for NFF Annual Awards Dinner & College Football Hall of Fame Bowl Subdivision Inductees

WHO: Former U.S. Senator John Glenn, 2008 NFF Gold Medal recipient
T. Boone Pickens, 2008 NFF Distinguished American Award recipient

2008 College Football Hall of Fame Class - Football Bowl Subdivision (See list below)

2008 NFF National Scholar-Athlete Class (See list below)

Archie Manning, NFF Chairman Steve Hatchell, NFF President & CEO

WHAT: Press Conference with access to John Glenn, T. Boone Pickens, the members of the 2008 hall of fame and scholar-athlete classes and the announcement of the Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year Finalists.

WHERE: The Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria, 301 Park Ave., New York, NY, 10022
WHEN: December 9, 2008 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. EST
HOW: * In person * Conference call by clicking here to register.* Live satellite feed from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (See below for coordinates) or clean feed via a Vvxy line at Circuit #1847 at the Waterfront (Ascent Media) in NYC. You may also contact your news service (ABC NewsOne; NBC NewsChannel; CBS Newspath; Sports News Service, CNN Newsource, Fox Feed, etc.) for specific footage. Permission is granted for use for news purposes only.

NOTE 1: Live satellite and clean feed available of dinner ceremonies starting at 7:30 p.m. (See below for coordinates) or clean feed via a Vvxy line at Circuit #1847 at the Waterfront (Ascent Media) in NYC. You may also contact your news service to request specific footage. Permission is granted for use for news purposes only. The Draddy Trophy winner will be announced live between 8:30 and 9 p.m. during this feed.

NOTE 2: Limited media opportunities at a 4:30 p.m. photo session in the Empire Room and the 6:30 p.m. Awards Dinner (Black Tie Required) in the Grand Ballroom. Previous notification required to Phil Marwill to cover all events.

PHOTOS
For Media Only: The National Football Foundation has established a Web site to distribute photos taken by its photographers during the NFF Annual Awards Dinner and surrounding events on Dec. 9 in New York City. Photos will be provided at no cost for one-time use and for news purposes only with a proper photo credit to: "The National Football Foundation." All other rights will be reserved. High resolution photos will continuously be posted throughout the day. To obtain access and/or to be placed on the email list for alerts when particular photos are available, please contact NFF Photographer Gene Boyers

Dec. 9 Press Conference Coordinates(Waldorf-Astoria Empire Room, New York)
9:30-11:30 a.m. ESTG 16 Transponder 6 Slot ADownlink 11804 VSymbol 3.978723Data 5.5FEC 3/4

Dec. 9 Dinner Coordinates (Waldorf-Astoria Grand Ballroom, New York)
19:30-23:30 p.m. ESTG 16 Transponder 6 Slot ADownlink 11804 VSymbol 3.978723Data 5.5FEC 3/4

Note: The morning press conference will provide sound bites from each member of the 2008 College Football Hall of Fame Class, U.S. Senator John Glenn, and T. Boone Pickens. Time permitting several interviews with the NFF National Scholar-Athletes may occur during the morning feed. The dinner feed will feature all of the honorees accepting their awards.
The 2008 Hall of Fame Class: Troy Aikman (UCLA), Billy Cannon (LSU), Jim Dombrowski (Virginia), Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern), Wilber Marshall (Florida), Rueben Mayes (Washington State), Randall McDaniel (Arizona State), Don McPherson (Syracuse), Jay Novacek (Wyoming), Dave Parks (Texas Tech), Ron Simmons (Florida State), Thurman Thomas (Oklahoma State), Arnold Tucker (Army). Coaches: John Cooper and Lou Holtz.

The 2008 NFF National Scholar-Athlete Class: (Football Bowl Subdivision) Chase Daniel (Missouri); Graham Harrell (Texas Tech); Quin Harris (Louisiana Tech); Jeff Horinek (Colorado State); Alex Mack (California); Ryan McDonald (Illinois); Darryl Richard (Georgia Tech); Brian Robiskie (Ohio State); and Louie Sakoda (Utah). Football Championship Subvision: Andrew Berry (Harvard); Ryan Berry (South Dakota State); and Casey Gerald (Yale). Division II: Ryan Kees (St. Cloud State, Minn.). Division III: Brian Freeman (Carnegie Mellon, Pa.); and Greg Micheli (Mount Union, Ohio).
The 2008 Major Award Winners: Former U.S. Senator John Glenn (Gold Medal Recipient); T. Boone Pickens (Distinguished American Award) ; Bill Battle (Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award); Gene Smith, Ohio State (John L. Toner Award); Thomas Robinson, long-time WAC/Mountain West official (Outstanding Football Official Award); and Bob Curtis of Idaho and posthumously Dick Galiette of Yale (Co-recipients of the Chris Schenkel Award).

ABOUT THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL FOUNDATION & COLLEGE HALL OF FAME
Founded in 1947 with leadership from General Douglas MacArthur, legendary Army coach Earl "Red" Blaik and immortal journalist Grantland Rice, The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame, a non-profit educational organization, runs programs designed to use the power of amateur football in developing scholarship, citizenship and athletic achievement in young people. With 121 chapters and 12,000 members nationwide, NFF programs include the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind., the NFF Hampshire Honor Society, Play It Smart, the NFF-FWAA Football Forum, the NFF Gridiron Clubs of New York City, Dallas and Los Angeles, and scholarships of over $1 million for college and high school scholar-athletes.


The NFF awards the MacArthur Trophy, the Draddy Trophy, presented by HealthSouth, and releases the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) Standings.

______________________________
Orange Bowl Stadium, 1501 N.W. 3rd Street, Miami, FL 33125

Memorial Stadium, Indiana University, 1001 East 17th Street, Bloomington, IN 47408

Liberty Bowl Stadium, 335 South Hollywood Street, Memphis, TN 38104
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