Sports Then and Now

The towering Selmon often overpowered defenseless quarterbacks.

When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the NFL in 1976 with their creamsicle colored uniforms and comical play on the field, they needed someone with credibility to signal to the rest of the league that while they might dress funny and make a lot of bad plays, they were a football team and they were out there trying to create a winner. That someone was the first player ever drafted by the Buccaneers, defensive lineman Lee Roy Selmon.

His death over the weekend following a stroke begs the recollection of the beginning of professional football in Tampa when the Buccaneers went from being a laughing stock to forging a level of respectability by winning two division titles and reaching the playoffs three times in a four year stretch.

For anyone (like me) who grew up on NFL Films, the early years of the Buccaneers can be summed up with two images from the vaults of video past. The first is of whimsical head coach John McKay expressing that he was in favor of his teams’ execution and the second of the 6-foot-3, 256 pound Selmon looking significantly larger than his listed size as he smothers an opposing quarterback.

The best of the three Selmon brothers (Lucious and Dewey were the others), Selmon excelled on and off the field as the University of Oklahoma won consecutive national titles in 1974 and 1975. He won the Outland and Lombardi Trophies and was also an Academic All-American.

After playing for one of the most successful programs in college football, he joined an NFL team that was destined to set a record for futility.

As the first draft pick in the 1976 NFL Draft, Selmon became the first draft pick of the Buccaneers. His brother, Dewey, was selected in the second round and would spend five years in Tampa. Read the rest of this entry →

Derrick Brooks was the defensive leader for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for 14 seasons.

Throughout NFL history, the linebacker position has typically been the glamor spot on defense. Players like Butkus, Nitschke, Huff, Singletary, Taylor and Carson all became household names and epitomized the ferocity of the NFL while roaming the field with reckless abandon.

Over the last two decades that tradition has been continued by players such as Brian Urlacher and Ray Lewis. However, perhaps the best linebacker of this generation has been a player whose name and image is not as familiar to most NFL fans as that of other players at his position.

For 14 seasons, Derrick Brooks patrolled from sideline to sideline for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers while serving as the leader of the best unit of his generation. During that time he never missed a game and earned 11 Pro Bowl trips and five times was named a first-team All Pro.

Yet, when most people think of the great Tampa Bay defenses of the 1990s and 2000s the images that often come to mind are those of Warren Sapp, Ronde Barber and John Lynch. While those three were often earning TV time with big sacks, hits or interceptions, Brooks was quietly making the plays that helped make the defense special. Read the rest of this entry →

Josh Freeman made his first start a memorable one as the Buccaneers rallied to defeat the Packers.

On a day when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers brought back their original orange creamsicle uniforms, first year head coach Raheem Morris and first time starting quarterback Josh Freeman got the Bucs in the win column for the first time this season with an improbable 38-28 comeback victory against the Green Bay Packers.

Tampa Bay wore the uniforms that they regularly donned from 1976-1996 to honor the 1979 Buccaneers, which were the first playoff team in franchise history. They also honored LeRoy Selmon, the first member of the Bucs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, by making him their initial honoree in the teams’ Ring of Honor.

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Just so you know, I love baseball and I love the major championships for tennis and golf and I love NASCAR (except when Jeff Burton is struggling like he is this year) and I’m somewhat infatuated with the NBA Playoffs, but I really LOVE football season.

So, you can imagine just how happy I am that the football season has finally started. For a while I wasn’t sure if it would ever start.

Before We Get Started
Since today marks the eighth anniversary of a tragic day in the history of our country and world, I would be remiss if I didn’t start my column with an acknowledgement that sports are wonderful, but in the larger scheme they are only games and entertainment. It is days like today when we must remember what is more important, family, friends, country, values, relationships and all the other things that we hold dear.

You will see on this site a couple articles that were submitted by regular contributors to this site. These are heartfelt stories and I hope you will read them with as much interest as any game story or player feature.

I especially encourage you to take a minute to read the amazing story written by Julia Civin, the 18-year old daughter of talented writer Todd Civin. You can see that his writing talent has not skipped a generation as she penned an amazing story called “When The World Decided To Share My Birthday” that is a must-read. It truly illustrates how the events of September 11 forever changed the world, even for a then-10-year-old girl.

Okay, now back to the sports.
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