Football and pitted black olives on Thanksgiving. Corralling my siblings to make construction paper, toilet paper tube, and crayon holiday table decorations for Pilgrims + Indians, and Cornhuskers vs. Sooners. For many years this Big 8 Conference rivalry held the gridiron centerpiece on Thanksgiving Day, right after the parades. The 1971 meeting was dubbed the "Game of the Century." In my mind Jeff Kinney is not the famous creator of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, but the Cornhusker teammate of Jerry Tagge and Johnny Rodgers.
GO BIG RED
1971 The Husker offense was led by junior flanker Johnny Rodgers, a future Heisman Trophy winner, senior quarterback Jerry Tagge, and bullish senior tailback Jeff Kinney; the latter two were first round picks in the 1972 NFL Draft. The Sooner defense was anchored by all-Big 8 defensive tackle Derland Moore, a future All-American and NFL Pro Bowler.[
In 1971, in what has become known as college football's "Game of the Century," Rodgers returned a punt 72 yards to score the first touchdown which set the tone for his team's 35-31 victory over the University of Oklahoma Sooners. ESPN describes Rodgers' performance as "unforgettable." However, some observers consider his greatest single performance to be in the 1973 Orange Bowl when he led his team to a 40-6 victory over the University of Notre Dame. Rodgers ran for three touchdowns, caught a 50-yard pass for another touchdown, and threw a 54-yard touchdown pass to a teammate. He did all this before leaving the game with 21 minutes still to play.[1]
Brand new at the library, Chuck Carlson's book about the "Ice Bowl" of New Year's Eve, 1967, set off this personal pigskin reverie. Bart Starr was my favorite as a kid growing up in the Vince Lombardi/Bob Devaney years. Good was good. (Evil was Oklahoma). That the game was played at minus 45 degrees was abominable evidence that grownups made some questionable decisions -- and not just your father's necktie.
Perhaps a book about the "Heidi Bowl" will be next. Joe Namath vs. alive-hilled Alps. November 1968. Curt Gowdy announcing. The network leaving the tense game to show the scheduled family movie, "Heidi."Practiced a "mountain meditation" in class Tuesday. We imagined a mountain, observed every detail of the mountain through the hours of the day and the seasons of a year. Then we brought the mountain inside ourselves. I felt very calm and heavy and immovable. No goats, cheese, or embroidered aprons on my mountain.
And because this is a post-Thanksgiving post, I will leave you with the Leon Lett fumble in the 1993 Classic between the Cowboys and Dolphins in the snow and sleet in Dallas -- view here.
