JANUARY 2, 1969
MIAMI WINS PRO GRID CROWN
UPSTART NFA EARNS BRAGGING RIGHTS WITH FIRST TITLE The 1968 professional football season proved to be a historic one for a couple of reasons. Primarily, the year can be marked down as when the young National Football Association landed firmly on equal footing with the established American Football Association. The Miami Mariners, class of the NFA and playing in their third consecutive AFA-NFA title game, finally earned a victory over the AFA, giving the five-year-old NFA its first title. Some suggest that second NFA team could also more than hold its own with the best of the established loop. And that is where the second historic happening comes into play.
Just a short eighteen months ago the city of Seattle did not have a single pro team. Now they have three. First it was the Emeralds, a Federal Basketball League expansion team that began play last October and then in April FABL's Kansas City Kings moved to Seattle. Now the city is home to the latest football expansion team, called the Seattle Roughnecks and the Roughnecks created quite a stir in becoming the most successful expansion team pro sports has ever seen.
The Roughnecks went 11-3 in their debut campaign, easily posting the best record in the NFA and tying the Houston Drillers for the top record in all of pro football. Houston had held the distinction of being the best expansion club but even the Drillers could not dream to accomplish what Seattle did in its debut.
Seattle General Manager Kevin Christenson struck gold in the expansion draft, with a focus on veteran talent that could make his club competitive right from the get-go, rather than looking for prospects to build around slowly. The result netted the Roughnecks some very talented players with none better than Doug Lucy. Now 36, the Philadelphia Frigates elected not to protect Lucy despite his 15 seasons of great success in the City of Brotherly Love. The Frigates figured Lucy was living on borrowed time at his age, but Seattle felt the veteran still had something left in the tank and they were rewarded when Lucy ran for 1,254 yards. Seattle also struck backfield gold with the selection of George Bauman from Buffalo. Bauman playing sparingly with the Red Jackets but he shared a backfield with Lucy and joined the veteran in surpassing the 1,000 yard rushing mark for the first time in his career. Seattle also disregarded age in building a strong defense as it was anchored by 34-year-old Billy Board, a long-time New York Star, and former Houston defensive back Rick Bolton, who turned 36 during the season.
It wasn't all oldtimers in the Pacific Northwest. The other key acquisition for the Roughnecks was rookie quarterback Richard Cole. The former Tempe College star was selected first overall in the draft and, while he had some stumbles along the way, Cole went on to have an outstanding season despite leading the league with 14 interceptions.
*** Drillers Rule the AFA ***
The Houston Drillers, a relatively new squad as well having debuted in 1961, proved to be the best of the American Football Association. Houston could put points on the board but the key to the club was its defense, led by lineman John Padgett. The 29-year-old from Darnell State had an impact on the league immediately after being selected in the second round by Houston in its first AFA draft. He entered the season with 3 Defensive MVP awards to his credit and added a fourth one after recording 25 sacks, one shy of the league record that was set 16 years ago. That showing boosted Padgett's career sack total to 123. No other player had more than 98 and Padgett looks like he has at least another half dozen seasons to add to his totals.
The Houston offense was again led by Miller Bogert as the Drillers quarterback led the league with 2,502 passing yards and had two talented targets in wideouts John Keim (54 catches) and Randy Renbarger (53 catches). Houston was pressed all season by the Los Angeles Tigers for top spot in the Coastal Division and only clinched the division title on the final day of the season when the Tigers lost in St Louis.
The Pittsburgh Paladins led the in the Capital Division with halfback Swat Deskins being the key player. The 30-year-old had his best season since 1964 in rushing for 1,252 yards and scoring 23 touchdowns which left him tied with Los Angeles kicker Emilio Brewer for the scoring lead with 138 points. Deskins was named football's Player of the Year. The New York Stars and St. Louis Ramblers were the winners in the Century and Central Divisions. Each was the only club in its respective division to finish above .500.
PLAYOFFS
Seattle proved too much for the rest of the NFA in the regular season, but the Roughnecks stumbled in the playoffs, falling 20-18 to Miami in the opening round. The Mariners kicked two field goals in the final four minutes to pull out the narrow victory. Miami made the playoffs as a wildcard after finishing second in the NFA East Division but after the comeback victory over Seattle, they proceeded to down East Division regular season champion Cincinnati to reach the title game for the third consecutive season.
In AFA opening round action Miller Bogert threw for 211 yards and a touchdown to lead Houston past St. Louis 23-15 in one opening round matchup while Pittsburgh nipped the New York Stars 28-27 in the other but only because they executed the two-minute drill to perfection. Paladins quarterback Chuck Girard drove his team 77 yards in 90 seconds culminating with a 4-yard touchdown toss to Alan Grubb. Mike Purnell's extra point proved the margin of victory.
It was an even more exciting game the following week as the AFA champion was declared but it required overtime. Houston staged an improbable comeback to prevail 30-24. The Drillers trailed 24-10 in the closing minutes of the game but Miller Bogert and John Keim combined on a pair of touchdown passes -the last one coming with just 19 seconds remaining in regulation- to force overtime. In the extra frame the Pittsburgh offense never got on the field as Bogert engineered a 10-play drive that concluded with a third touchdown toss to Keim and sent Houston back to the AFA-NFA Classic game for the second consecutive season.
AFA-NFA CLASSIC GAME
Unlike a year ago when Bogert and his Houston offense shredded the Miami defense for 44 points; this game was much more of a defensive struggle. After Houston accomplished very little on its first possession the Mariners had a 9-minute drive that ate up much of the first quarter and culminated in a 23-yard Ron Featherston field goal to open the scoring. Featherston would add a second field in the second quarter to make the score 6-0 Miami at the break. Houston had only managed 28 yards of total offense in the opening half.
The third quarter started in much the same way as the first two, with Featherston ending another Miami clock-eating drive with a field goal to put the NFA champs ahead 9-0. Houston continued to be stymied as the Drillers managed just one first down in the third quarter.
The Houston defense bent, allowing those 3 field goals, but never broke and continued to give their offense a chance as the game entered its final 15 minutes. However, Houston's first two possessions of the fourth quarter went nowhere and time was running out. With 5:13 remaining the Drillers took over on their own 11 yard line and finally strung together some positive plays. Bogert hit tight end Robert Sperry for 13 yards and then connected with Keim twice - first for 14 yards and then in Houston's biggest gain of the game a 41-yard catch and run. That set up another big pass and once more it was John Keim on the receiving end, as he caught a 17-yard Bogert throw for a touchdown. It cut the Miami lead to 9-7 but time was running up with just over two minutes remaining in the game.
The Drillers never got the ball back as Miami was able to run out the clock and become the first NFA team to beat an AFA club in the championship game.
FEAR THE REAPERS
INDIANA A&M WITH HISTORIC DOUBLE TITLE
A collegiate football national champion has been declared every year since 1906 and the AIAA basketball tournament has been around since 1909 but never before had a school won both the grid and cage national title in the same year until 1968 when the Indiana A&M Reapers pulled off the feat.
The Reapers run through the field to the college basketball crown was unexpected, but was nothing like the shock pulled off by the football team with the first perfect season in school history. Entering the 1968 football season the grid Reapers had never played in a classic game and were just two years removed from a dismal 2-8 season. 1967 was a much better showing as a freshman quarterback by the name of Terry Bergeron and an improved defense led by another freshman in defensive end Jamie Metzler helped the Reapers to a 7-4 campaign and 24th in the final polls, marking just the second time in a decade the school had been ranked at the end of the season.
As impressive by Indiana A&M standards as the 1967 season was, it was nothing compared to what the Reapers had in store for 1968. Led by the passing of Bergeron and his favourite target in senior wideout Oscar Hoover along with the rushing of sophomore Thomas Tackett the Reapers strung together win after win.
Bergeron threw for 178 yards and a touchdown in a season opening road victory over a strong Mississippi A&M Generals eleven. It was followed up by a skin of their teeth 17-15 victory over conference rival St. Magnus in which the margin of difference was an unsuccessful 2-point conversion attempt by the Vikings in the final minute. The winning streak reached six with four relatively easy victories over Commonwealth Catholic, Wisconsin State, McKinney State and St. Ignatius.
The big win that proved this would be a special year for Indiana A&M came in mid-October when the Reapers shocked Central Ohio in Columbus by a 17-16 margin. Kicker Cecil Wilson split the uprights with a 41-yard field goal with less than 2 minutes remaining in the contest to give the Reapers just their second victory over the Aviators in their last 12 meetings. It would prove to be Central Ohio's only loss on the season.
The Reapers rounded out the regular season schedule with conference victories over Lincoln, Western Iowa, Whitney College and Minnesota Tech, earning the school its first Great Lakes Alliance title since well before World War II. All that was left was a trip to Santa Ana for New Year's Day and the Reapers completed the dream season with a 31-27 victory over the Mammoths in the East-West Classic. Thomas Tackett led the way with 113 yards, to put the sophomore over the 1,000 mark for the season, while also scoring a pair of touchdowns.
Is it a one year wonder? Will Indiana A&M slip back into the middle of a deep pack in the Great Lakes Alliance, happy just to enjoy this one miracle run? Some suggest no as while the Reapers will suffer some heavy losses to graduation on the offensive line and lose their top receiver, the defensive core along with quarterback Bergeron and halfbacks Tackett and Brant Benefield will all be back next year.
*** Great Lakes Alliance Takes Three of Top Five Spots ***
Another commonality between last spring's collegiate basketball season and the fall football campaign was the overall success of the Great Lakes Alliance. Three GLA teams made the basketball tournament semi-finals and the same number of football clubs from the conference cracked the top five in the final rankings.
Central Ohio, which dropped out of the top ten for the first time this decade last year, rebounded and finished third in the rankings following an 11-1 campaign that culminated in a 27-24 nailbiter victory over Eastern Oklahoma in the Sunshine Classic. The lone blemish was that tough loss to Indiana A&M. Meanwhile Detroit City College, which has endured some up and down years, qualified for its fourth Classic game in a decade and finished ranked fifth in the final polls at 10-2. The Knights ended their season with a 23-17 victory over Tom Bowens CC Los Angeles Coyotes in the Bayside Classic.
The other two spots in the top five were claimed by the two Deep South Conference powers from the state of Georgia in the Georgia Baptist Gators and Noble Jones Colonels. The 11-1 Gators cracked the top ten for the 8th time in the past ten years, finishing second following a 31-14 victory over Southwestern Alliance champion Amarillo Methodist in the Oilman Classic. Noble Jones College, which lost in the basketball finals to Indiana A&M, finished fourth in the football rankings. The Colonels destroyed Charleston Tech 38-3 in the Cajun Classic to finish the season with a 10-2 record. Both losses were heartbreakers as Gerry Callahan returned an interception 38-yards in the final two minutes for the game winning touchdown to lift Central Kentucky past the Colonels 20-13 in late September before the Gators won the annual Thanksgiving weekend between the two in-state rivals by a 21-20 score after Gators quarterback Brian Eagle teamed up with wideout John Sanders on a 28-yard touchdown pass with three seconds remaining in the game.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL NOTES
- Georgia Baptist senior offensive tackle Robert Herrick became just the third player to win two Ipswich Trophy's as the top lineman in collegiate football. Herrick first won the award three years ago as a freshman and joins former Noble Jones College lineman Josh Ackerman and Northern California great R.C. Pickard as the only two-time winners.
- CC Los Angeles returned to the top ten for the first time since 1959 following a 9-3 season. Senior wideout Tom Bowens Jr. capped a stellar college football career with 25 receptions for 351 yards. Bowens, a two-sport star, still has a season of collegiate basketball left before he turns pro. The son of the CCLA football coach, Bowens Jr. may well be drafted in both sports but odds are he elects to play football and follow in his father's footsteps.
- Christopher Spain of Ferguson tied a record for kick-off returns for touchdowns in a season. The freshman ran three of them back this year, tying Dale Dejesus' 1966 record with Northern California.
- College of Omaha senior quarterback Tim Hirsch graduates having set the AIAA career record for pass completions. Hirsh completed 110 out of 180 passes this season to give him 400 for his career, one more than former Charleston Tech signal caller Allan Ott recorded.
- Baton Rouge State snapped an 80-game losing streak with a win in the season opener a year ago. The Red Devils ended up 3-8 last season. This year's club also avoided getting shutout in the wins department by finishing 2-9 including a victory over 0-11 Opelika State to keep the Red Devils out of the Deep South Conference cellar.
- Senior halfback Tim Gray of Noble Jones College rushed for 1,655 yards and was named to the All-American team but for the first time in recent memory that All-American halfback did not claim the Christian Trophy. It instead went to Marvin Epperson of American Atlantic, who gained 1,603 yards and scored 17 touchdowns.
ROBINSON RETIREMENT LEAVES HW TITLE VACANT
As we look towards 1969 boxing's premier division is without a champion, something that has not happened since 1951 when the legendary Hector Sawyer retired. It was Norm Robinson who decided to retire will holding the title this time around, leaving the heavyweight division in search of a new champion.
Robinson held the title from 1964 until being outpointed by Will Flowers in the spring of 1967. The Los Angeles native decided at that point to retire but was convinced to step back into the ring when he was given a title shot 17 months later against Ben Brumfield. Brumfield, a 26-year-old who hails from New York City, claimed the title when he knocked out Will Flowers in April. In his August defense against Robinson, both fighters came out throwing haymakers and Robinson caught the new champ with a devasting combination that ended the bout in the fourth round. The fight, it turns out, had taken a toll on Robinson as well as the fight veteran had suffered a pretty serious concussion but continued to fight for the victory. Following a meeting with doctors shortly after the bout, Robinson confirmed that this retirement was going to be a permanent one.
Both the middleweight and welterweight belts changed hands in 1968. Horace Zimmerman became an unexpected champion as the 25-year-old native of Bakersfield, CA., claimed a controversial split-decision victory over fight veteran Lyman King, putting a quick end to King's third turn as middleweight champ. Meanwhile, former welterweight champ Brandon Dart, 29-year-old Welsh born fighter who calls New York City his home, regained the crown with a knockout of previously undefeated Billy Love in the opening round of their October title fight.
The Year That Was
Current events from 1968
- January 23 – North Korea captures the American intelligence ship USS Pueblo and its crew, sparking an international crisis that lasts nearly a year.
- January 30–February 24 -Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launch a massive surprise attack across South Vietnam during the Lunar New Year. Though a military setback for the communists, it shocks Americans and turns public opinion against the war.
- March 12 – Eugene McCarthy surprises in New Hampshire as the anti-war senator wins a strong share of the Democratic primary vote, revealing President Lyndon Johnson’s vulnerability and energizing anti-war Democrats.
- March 16 - U.S. troops kill hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai. The atrocity is kept from the public until 1969, but it becomes one of the darkest chapters of the war.
- March 31 -In a dramatic televised address, President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not seek re-election, stunning the nation.
- April 4 – Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated. The civil rights leader is shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee, sparking grief, outrage, and riots in cities across the United States.
- June 5 – Robert F. Kennedy assassinated. Senator Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles after winning the California Democratic primary. His death shatters hopes of a unifying Democratic candidate.
- August 20–21 -Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, ending the liberalizing “Prague Spring” reforms and reinforcing the Cold War divide.
- August 26–29 -Violent clashes erupt between police and anti-war demonstrators in Chicago as Democrats nominate Vice President Hubert Humphrey, leaving the party deeply fractured.
- October 31 -In a late attempt to promote peace talks, President Johnson announces a complete halt to U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.
- November 5 -Richard Nixon narrowly defeats Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, promising to restore order at home and seek “peace with honor” in Vietnam.
- December 24 - Apollo 8 orbits the Moon. NASA astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders become the first humans to orbit the Moon. Their Christmas Eve broadcast, including the famous “Earthrise” photo, captivates the world.