Sports Then and Now

In December the 2010 college football landscape lays wasted after a full season of all-out assault featuring vicious sacks and bone-cracking tackles.

The aerial attacks landed bomb after bomb as receivers somersaulted into opponents’ end zones to light up the scoreboard.

Finally, the victors have risen through the ranks undefeated to lay claim to the No. 1 ranking. This year we are sure––there can be no lingering doubts about who has the best football team in the nation? That indisputable team will be crowned on January 10th. Right?

On then to the anachronistic bowl system which will provide further clarity to the overriding question of who deserves to be playing in the final game of the season. It will all be clear at the end, won’t it, since we have the computer rankings – the infallible BCS?

If you believe this propaganda, you live in Fantasy Land. The All-Seeing Zultan spits in the eye of the BCS and the hordes of college football analysts pocketing millions of dollars who hawk this meaningless bowl system as scientific. Pah-leez.

These network and cable drones know no more than hapless Zultan who––like Chris Fowler–– wishes to see a true play-off system in place.

Crowning a national champion remains largely one huge popularity contest based on tenuous circuitous thought processes. You have major college football conference opponents generally playing a slate of cupcakes during the non-conference season––followed by beating each other up during a hard-fought schedule of conference games.

Because all the meaningful contests during the college football season are held between conference rivals, the only thing we really know for sure is which teams are the best in their respective conferences.

Ranking the conferences against each other is all smoke and mirrors. This year we assume the SEC and the Big Ten are the two best.  Based on what?  Scant statistical evidence if you ask me.

Why not give a berth to each team that has better than a 500 mark in their conference and send them off into a playoff system.  Details could be developed to enhance and complement the current bowl system and money could be made once again for everyone except the players who provide the game.  The irony never escapes the All-Seeing Zultan.

In the current bowl system, Zultan complains vehemently, Michigan State and Boise State, to name two, got royally clipped. Michigan State at 11-1 has every right to play their way into a national championship game––just as does Boise State, Alabama, Stanford, Ohio State, Wisconsin, TCU and on and on.

All teams ranked in the top ten or even the top 25 deserve a chance to go for the Championship. Because, realistically, how excited do you think Oklahoma or Alabama  is going to be playing in the Acme Chipped Beef Bowl after working all season for a shot at the top spot?

Zultan ended his regular season gig spinning in the Toilet Bowl, going down 4-6 in his last forecast where once again he picked against Auburn. Click here to find out all the winners who scored well against the All-Seeing One throughout the 2010 season as well as all other prize winners.

But here it is again – the great Zultan’s Bowl Challenge––a whole new contest and a new chance to win something.

Click here to enter your picks and let us see who is better at selecting winners––you or me, the Mighty Zultan, who promises either to come to your house and sing the theme song for Goldfinger or give you a prize worth something.

Actually anyone who does better than the Big Z will be entered into a drawing for $100 PayPal card and everyone who enters will be entered into a drawing for one of three $15 iTunes cards. These prizes provided by our sponsor Sports Then and Now.

Let the games begin!

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It was quite a journey for Rocky Balboa from a Philadelphia meat locker to the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Since the day he first burst onto the boxing scene with his improbable performance against Apollo Creed on January 1, 1976, it was probably inevitable that one day Rocky Balboa would take his rightful place as a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Of course the only trouble with that hypothesis is the reality that Rocky Balboa was a fictional character created by actor Sylvester Stallone and not actually a real-life boxing icon.

So, instead of actually inducting Balboa, the Boxing Hall of Fame has done the next best thing and bestowed that honor on Stallone, who not only created the character, but then played Balboa in six installments of one of the greatest sports movie franchises in history.

Because all of the Rocky movies have now been on television so many times that even casual Rocky fans can recite most of the lines and the story line has been hijacked in countless other movies, it is easy to forget the initial impact of this Cinderella story.

When Sylvester Stallone wrote and starred in the original Rocky in 1976 he was not the internationally recognized action star he has become over the last 35 years.

Rocky was filmed on a budget of $1 million and shot in 28 days. But this dark-horse movie immediately struck a cord with the American public and made over $225 million (a huge box office gross for 1976).

The film was so well thought of that it received 10 Oscar nominations and won three statues, including best picture.

History now tells us that the studio originally looked at such big-time stars as Robert Redford, James Caan and Burt Reynolds for the title role. I contend that had they decided to cast an already established actor the movie would never have reached the iconic level it enjoys today. Read the rest of this entry →

On December 8, 1987, Ron Hextall became the first goalie in NHL history to score a goal.

Today is the anniversary of one of those interesting sports footnotes that were truly unique and deserve to be remembered. It was 23 years ago that Philadelphia Flyers goalie Ron Hextall did something that had never previously been accomplished in an NHL game.

When you watch the replay, it doesn’t seem all that difficult a feat to accomplish, but before Hextall whipped a shot the length of the ice into an empty net on December 8, 1987, no goalie had ever actually scored in an NHL game.

The accomplishment came at the end of a contest against the Boston Bruins. With Philadelphia leading 4-2, the Bruins pulled their keeper, Rejean Lemelin, to add another offensive player. After Hextall picked up a loose puck near his goal, Hextall whipped it the length of the ice and it easily nestled into the net.

Hextall would repeat the accomplishment on April 11, 1989 in a playoff game against the Washington Capitals to become the first goalie to score in a playoff game.

Interestingly, Hextall was not the first goalie credited with a goal.  Because of hockey’s score keeping rule that credits a goal to the last offensive player to touch the puck, on November 28, 1979, Billy Smith of the New York Islanders  was the first NHL goalie to be credited with a goal even though he didn’t actually shoot the puck into the net. Smith was awarded the goal during a game against the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies’ goaltender left the ice for an extra skater after a delayed penalty was called on the Islanders. During the ensuing play, Smith made a save, then a Rockies player passed the puck to a vacant point, and it traveled the length of the ice into the empty net.

There have been a total of 11 goals credited to goalies in NHL history with six of them resulting directly from a goalie shooting the puck into the net. Following the two goals by Hextall, the next to accomplish the feat was Chris Osgood in 1996. Martin Brodeur, Jose Theodore and Evgeni Nabokov are the others with Nabokov being the last to do so in 2002.

Below is a look at Hextall’s historic goal.

One of the most memorable moments in the 2009 NFL season was the Indianapolis Colts scoring a last-second touchdown to pull out a 35-34 victory against the New England Patriots after the Patriots were stopped on 4th-and-2 at their own 28-yard-line, despite holding a six-point lead  with about two minutes to play.

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s decision to go for the first down in this game was reminiscent of former Cowboys head coach Barry Switzer’s gamble to go for a first down in his team’s own territory with the game tied in the final minutes of a December showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles.

The former Oklahoma head coach became head coach of the Cowboys following the departure of Jimmy Johnson after the 1993 season.

Johnson had led the Cowboys from a 1-15 season in his first year in Dallas to two straight Super Bowl titles, behind the famed “Triplets”; quarterback Troy Aikman, wide receiver Michael Irvin, and running back Emmitt Smith.

In Switzer’s first season, the Cowboys finished with a 12-4 record but were knocked off by the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game.

In 1995, the Cowboys jumped out to an 8-1 start before being humiliated by the 49ers 38-20 in Dallas, leading owner Jerry Jones to come out and say that the team was outcoached.

The Cowboys would win the next two games before dropping another home game, this time against the Washington Redskins, as they entered their late-season showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Under first-year head coach Ray Rhodes, the Eagles had complied a 8-5 record entering this game,  but had gone 7-2 ever since Rhodes had benched starting quarterback Randall Cunningham and replaced with veteran backup Rodney Peete.

Still, Rhodes played the “no respect” card for the Eagles as they hosted the Cowboys on a 13-degree afternoon in Veterans stadium, with a wind chill of minus seven degrees. Read the rest of this entry →