A Brief History On August 9, 2012, Shannon Eastin became the first woman to referee an NFL football game. Like many professional football officials, she started out as a referee in high school and then college football games. Digging Deeper Eastin got her big break when the NFL and the referee union had contract troubles and the regular refs were locked out in 2012. Some sports writers and the NFL Referees Association objected to her employment by the NFL, especially since she had participated in the World Series of Poker, and pro sports are highly sensitive to anyone with ties…
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A Brief History On July 31, 2012, Ukrainian gymnast, Larisa Latynina, was passed as the most prolific Olympic Medal winner, when American swimmer Michael Phelps won his 19th Olympic medal. Digging Deeper Larisa dominated Olympic gymnastics from 1956 to 1964, winning 9 Olympic Gold medals and a total of 18 Olympic medals. No gymnast, male or female, has surpassed her total of Gold medals, and her total medal record lasted for nearly 5 decades before broken by Phelps. A remarkable athlete, Phelps won a total of 28 Olympic medals from the 2000 Summer Olympics, in which the 15 year old…
A Brief History On July 24, 1980, a quartet of Australian swimmers took the Olympic Gold Medal in the Men’s Swimming 4 by 100-meter medley relay race, the only time an American team failed to win this particular event. Digging Deeper While the US has dominated this particular event, the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, USSR, was plagued by politics and the US along with 65 other countries boycotted the games due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Australians, certainly among the greatest swimming nations, produced the “Quietly Confident Quartet,” a self-named crew consisting of Mark Kerry, Peter Evans, Mark…
A Brief History On June 19, 1960, the first auto race under the NASCAR banner was run at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. NASCAR is the premier stock-car racing circuit in the US and the world, as its official name, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, implies. Digging Deeper While Europe was the venue of many prestigious stock-car races early in the 20th Century, the US took the lead on the sport with the emergence of Daytona Beach as a mecca for fast drivers. While originally using actual production model cars, hence the name of the sport, in…
A Brief History On June 9, 1973, Secretariat, often called “Big Red,” won the final round of horse racing’s Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, by an unprecedented and unequaled 31 lengths! In fact, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont all in record times that still stand 50 years later! Digging Deeper Secretariat was a big, strong horse, 16 ¾ hands high and weighing in at 1155 pounds. With a stride of 24 feet 11 inches, he could cover ground at a top speed of 49 miles per hour carrying a jockey, even faster if unburdened. His…