A Brief History On February 13, 1919, American football legend Eddie Robinson was born in Jackson, Louisiana. Digging Deeper Eddie was born into a working family and earned his BA in English from Leland College at Baker, Louisiana while playing quarterback on their football team. He later earned his MA at the University of Iowa in 1954. In the meantime, Eddie compiled an incredible record as the football coach at Grambling State University in Louisiana, from 1941 to 1997, amassing a record of 408 wins, 165 losses, and 15 ties. Robinson retired in 1997 and died at the age of…
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A Brief History On February 11, 1990, Iron Mike Tyson went into his match against James “Buster” Douglas as a 42 to 1 favorite. Not only did Tyson, undefeated and undisputed as the Heavyweight Champion at the time, lose the fight, he was knocked out in the 10th round! Digging Deeper While Douglas’s surprise victory is largely considered the biggest upset in boxing history at any weight class, some of the other major heavyweight upsets include: James “The Cinderella Man” Braddock over Max Baer, 1935 Max Schmeling’s knockout of Joe Louis in 1936 Muhammad Ali’s knockout of Sonny Liston in…
A Brief History On January 20, 1947, only 3 months before Jackie Robinson broke the “color barrier” and became the first African American major league baseball player, the famous catcher and slugger from the Negro Leagues of baseball, Josh Gibson, died at the young age of 35 of a stroke brought on by a brain tumor. Digging Deeper Gibson is now recognized by Major League Baseball as having had the highest single season batting average of all time, .466 in 1943. As of 2020, MLB recognizes Negro League statistics as belonging in “major league” category. Gibson also slugged about 800…
A Brief History On January 17, 2013, renowned American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted on Oprah’s Next Chapter, a prime time television show, that he was, as suspected and accused, a cheater that won 7 consecutive Tour de France bicycle races through the assistance of banned drugs. Digging Deeper Professional and amateur athletes have been using performance enhancing drugs for decades now, including stimulants such as cocaine and amphetamines and a variety of hormones, usually characterized as “steroids.” Other banned substances include “blood doping” agents that increase the ability of blood to carry oxygen and even gene manipulation to enhance performance. …
A Brief History On January 15, 1967, the NFL Champion Green Bay Packers faced off with the American Football League Champion Kansas City Chiefs, defeating the Chiefs 35-10 in a game later called “The First Super Bowl.” Digging Deeper Back when there were 2 major professional football leagues, the people running those leagues got the bright and money-making idea to have a championship game between the respective league champions. If you are too young to recall, that “First Super Bowl” was actually called the “AFL–NFL World Championship Game,” and the term “Super Bowl” did not come into use until the…