When Joe Tiller arrived in West Lafayette to take over the Purdue Boilermakers in 1997, the football program was on hard times. They hadn’t enjoyed a winning season since 1984. No consecutive bowl appearances since 1978-80. The last piece of a Big Ten title had been in 1967 and the last Rose Bowl trip was […]
This is part of a series of sports history articles aimed at preserving the best moments of the modern sports era, from 1976 to the present. The focus is team sports—college & pro basketball and football, major league baseball and hockey. This article offers a snapshot of 1986 sports, a year highlighted by baseball drama, a great Super Bowl champ and two historic college championship battles.
The 1986 college football season was marked by the first time in recent history that the nation’s top two ranked teams were not tied to any of the then-major bowls (Cotton, Rose, Sugar, Orange). Miami and Penn State were both independents. They would play a game that is not only one of the great college football games ever played, but marked a historic shift in the sport’s postseason landscape.
For a team that had won NBA championships in 1980, 1982 and 1985, the 1987 Los Angeles Lakers entered the season with a surprising amount to prove. Their repeat bid in 1986 had ended in the conference finals when they were taken apart by the Houston Rockets and it was said that the Lakers were […]
When baseball fans think of 1986, the first thought that comes to mind is a certain ground ball in the World Series, the heartbreak of the Boston Red Sox and the triumph of the New York Mets. But what cannot be overlooked is that the World Series was set up with a pair of League Championship Series that ensured the 1986 MLB postseason met whatever criteria there is for “epic.”
The 1985 MLB season was one of the best we’ve seen in TheSportsNotebook’s historical period of 1976 to the present. Three of major league baseball’s four divisions had races that came down the final week and all three were settled with head-to-head series. We of course keep in mind that pre-1994, that was the era when a division race was winner-take-all with no wild-card cushion.
The 1986 NFL season produced one of the league’s great champions in the New York Giants. A dominating defense led by Lawrence Taylor keyed the Giants’ sweep through the postseason. In this blog compilation, you’ll read the game-by-game narratives of not only the Giants, but nine other consequential teams this season… *The Denver Broncos got […]
Paul Pierce was the easy vote for 2008 NBA Finals MVP after the Boston Celtics finished off the Los Angeles Lakers with a 131-92 rout in Game 6. If you just quickly glanced at a stat sheet, Pierce was the Celtics’ leading scorer for the series. He was a longtime Boston athlete who’d labored for […]
The 1982 baseball season has some hidden gems in MLB history. The final day of the regular season produced an epic head-to-head battle. Game 5 of the American League Championship Series—then the decisive game, in this era of best-of-five LCS play—produced a similar dramatic ending. A future Hall of Fame manager made his first appearance on the October stage. And none of the teams involved in any of the above ultimately won the World Series. Here’s the rundown…
It would be Crum’s last dance on college basketball’s biggest stage. Krzyzewski was just getting started. Their ships passed in Dallas in 1986.
The 1986 Boston Celtics were the third and last of the championship teams led by Larry Bird. They were also by far the best. The Celtics drive to a third NBA title in six years was so overwhelming it seemed almost a foregone conclusion much of the way.
The Philadelphia Phillies, Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees were LCS regulars from 1976-78. All three teams took a step back in 1979, but the 1980 MLB season saw them all again win their divisions and return to the League Championship Series. This time though, the plot had a different ending.