Wise Up (10/12/09)

Football

"¢ Apple Macintosh was introduced to Americans in 1984 in a TV commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. The commercial opened with the face of Big Brother projected hugely on a TV screen, telling the zombie-like masses, "œFor today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth." As Big Brother speaks, a woman carrying a sledgehammer runs into the room of zombies as she is pursued by the Thought Police. She throws the sledgehammer into the TV screen, which explodes. The commercial ends with the announcer saying, "œOn Jan. 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'"

The commercial was almost not shown during the Super Bowl. The directors of Apple disliked the commercial, and wanted the advertising agency to sell the two Super Bowl time slots it had purchased for commercials. The agency, Chiat/Day, sold one slot, but lied and said it could not sell the other. The commercial ran in that slot, and it was wildly successful in launching Macintosh.

"¢ In 1923, an unconscious player won a football game. Texas Christian University defeated Terrell Prep 63-0, but for a while it looked as if it would have to forfeit the game because of a lack of players on the field. Texas Christian had only 20 players, and many of them had been injured and were sitting on the bench. Late in the game, only 10 healthy players remained, and a referee informed the Texas Christian coach that unless he could put 11 players on the field, his team would be forced to forfeit the game. One injured player, Ernest Lowry, volunteered to go in the game, but due to his injuries, he fainted when he stood up. Thinking quickly, the coach placed Mr. Lowry's body on the football field, barely inbounds and far from the action, but still behind the line of scrimmage. The closing seconds ticked away, and Texas Christian won the game.

"¢ When Paul "Bryant" Bryant coached for the University of Kentucky, a fumble occurred in a game against the University of Tennessee. Unfortunately, the fumble occurred near the Kentucky bench, where a box of footballs was knocked over. The footballs rolled onto the playing field, and the football players recovered them. Because the referees had no way of telling which football was the real game ball, they awarded possession to the University of Tennessee - whose players had recovered five of the nine footballs on the field.

"¢ The first football was a human head. At one point in the 8th century, the Vikings invaded England and were defeated. The English soldiers decapitated the Viking leader and used his head to play a kicking game. Later, the same game was played with a blown-up cow bladder. Because the cow bladder kept popping, pigskin was used to cover it and give it durability. Today, the inside rubber bag of a football is known as a bladder, and the football is known as a pigskin.

"¢ During a football game, a player was hit hard. Watching the player being carried off the field, TV announcer Tom Brookshier asked color man Tucker Frederickson, "Say, Tuck, I bet you used to be involved in plays like that when you starred for the Giants." Mr. Frederickson admitted that he had. Mr. Brookshier then said, "You used to hit like that, right, Tuck?" "No," replied Mr. Frederickson, "I used to be carried out like that."

"¢ In January of 1993, media reported that on Super Bowl Sunday violence against women increased and as many as 40 percent more women would be battered that day than on any other day. However, this turned out to be a hoax. Researchers who had actually studied violence against women had NOT discovered that violence against women increased on Super Bowl Sunday.

"¢ Someone once called in to speak to the coach of Louisiana State University football game on a talk show. The caller asked, "Who was that knucklehead who missed the field goal at the end of the game?" The coach was loyal to his players, and he replied, "One of the young men I coach, and we both are going to try to do better next time."

"¢ Although the forward pass in football became legal in 1906, at first it was not much used. However, in 1913, Notre Dame played against Army, a team with much bigger and much stronger players. Rushing was not effective against such a physically superior team, so the Notre Dame team started throwing the forward pass - and won, 35-13.

"¢ Maury Maverick, Jr. was raised to be polite and not use bad language in letters. While he was a student at the school that became the Texas Military Institute, he felt that he should have received a letter in football. When he wrote home that he did not receive it, he wrote that he had been "sexually intercoursed" concerning the letter in football.

"¢ Lakia Washington was the only girl player on the Groton School football team. The male members of the team supported her, and they always told her not to take off her helmet until after the game - when the other team would discover that one of the people who had been running touchdowns against them was a girl.

"¢ In the middle of the last century, Iowa beat Purdue in football by the odd score of 4-0. Afterward, Iowa coach Eddie Anderson joked, "We had them licked with that first safety, but we wanted to run up the score."

"¢ "Before I sing the national anthem, I'd like to say that college football drains funds that are badly needed for education and the arts." - Lisa Simpson

"¢ Before a football game, Yale telegraphed Harvard, "May the best team win." Harvard telegraphed back, "May the better team win."

"¢ "Football combines the two worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings." - George Will