USC has always, in varying degrees, played good football throughout the long history of its program. But the Trojans were never more dominant than under head coach John McKay. Arriving in Los Angeles in 1960, McKay won a national title by 1962. He won another one in 1967. A third championship came in 1972. The […]
Charles McClendon came to Baton Rouge in 1962 and inherited an LSU program that was thriving. The Tigers had won a national title as recently as 1958, with the legendary Billy Cannon in the backfield. That was part of a run where LSU finished in the national top 5 three times in four years. And […]
The glory days of Texas Longhorns football came when the great Darrel Royal was on the sidelines. Royal came to Austin in 1957. He won a national title in 1963. And by the late 1960s and early 1970s, the program was peaking. Another national championship came in 1969. The Longhorns won an outright league title […]
Don Shula’s Miami Dolphins were riding high, having won three consecutive AFC championships and two straight Super Bowl titles. But there was a lot of rockiness in the waters of South Beach, from player dissatisfaction off the field and some injuries in it. The 1974 Miami Dolphins were still very good, and it took one […]
1972 had been a historic year, for both football in Miami, and in the NFL. The Dolphins not only won the Super Bowl in their seventh year of existence, they did with an undefeated season. The 1973 Miami Dolphins didn’t run the table, but they did win a repeat championship. And given the fact they […]
In 1970, Don Shula took over Miami’s four-year old expansion franchise and immediately put them in the playoffs. One year later, they went to a Super Bowl. The 1972 Miami Dolphins not only took the final step, they did it in historic fashion—the only undefeated season in league history that was capped off with a […]
In their sixth year of existence, and in the second season under head coach Don Shula, the 1971 Miami Dolphins were seen as a team on the rise. Shula had put the Fish in the playoffs in his first year of 1970. Now, Miami was looking to take the next step. They did just that, […]
Pro football came to Miami in 1966 with the creation of the Dolphin franchise. After four losing seasons that were basically predictable, the organization hired Don Shula. Already a successful coach in Baltimore, Shula would make his legend in Miami. And he immediately turned the 1970 Miami Dolphins edition into a playoff team. The success […]
Even by the often-chaotic standards of college basketball in March, 2011 had some unique storylines. It isn’t often you use the seemingly contradictory phrase “repeat Cinderella”. But that’s what Butler was. It isn’t often a proud blueblood like Kentucky has to pull consecutive upsets to make the Final Four. But they did. It was—and remains—unprecedented […]
The national championship in 2010 came down to a battle between a Blueblood and a Cinderella. It came down to a single shot from halfcourt. In the end, there was no Cinderella ending and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski won his fourth NCAA title. Here’s a look back on the paths that Duke, along with Butler, West […]
The 2009 Final Four brought together three teams who had won relatively recent national championships—North Carolina in 2005, Michigan State in 2000, and UConn in 2004. They were joined by Villanova, no stranger to the winner’s circle themselves, with a historic 1985 title run. Here’s a look back at the road these teams took to […]
The Subway Series had once been a concept that defined baseball, especially in the late 1940s and through much of the 1950s. That was when the Dodgers and Giants joined the Yankees as New York’s teams. When the former two teams moved west, the Subway Series stopped, even as the Mets became the Big Apple’s […]