The Road To The 1985 Final Four’s Big East Feast
What happened on Monday night in Lexington was nothing short of electric. Villanova played the game of its life.
sports history articles
The 1985 Los Angeles Lakers Make A Boston Breakthrough
Los Angeles and Boston spent all year on a collision course. The Celtics won 63 games, while the Lakers won 62. Larry Bird won this third MVP award with a 29 points/10 rebounds/7 assists per-game average. Magic Johnson averaged 18/6/13 in pacing the Lakers. They split their two regular season meetings. It looked dead even.
1985 Kansas City Royals: A Championship That Was A Long Time Coming
…this 1985 championship had been secured first with a late season run at the Angels, then three straight must-win games in each postseason series. The Royals haven’t seen October baseball since that epic autumn, but they left plenty of memories along the trail.
1976 Stanley Cup Finals: Montreal, Philadelphia & The Changing Of The Guard
The Philadelphia Flyers were the kings of the NHL in the early-to-mid 1970s, as the Broad Street Bullies won consecutive Stanley Cups in 1974-75. The Montreal Canadiens were the league’s most storied franchise, and on the cusp of another run of greatness. These two teams met in the 1976 Stanley Cup Finals, a series that might have been low on drama, but stands out in history as a changing-of-the-guard moment.
1976 Oakland Raiders: John Madden Finally Wins The Biggest One
Madden’s Raiders saw their season stop in the AFC Championship Game in 1970. They lost the “Immaculate Reception” play in the divisional round in Pittsburgh in 1972. Then came three straight AFC Championship Game losses from 1973-75, the last two to the Steelers who were en route to Super Bowl wins. Even in the relatively calmer media climate of the 1970s, the “can’t win the big one” tag was being hung on Madden and quarterback Ken Stabler. One can only imagine how intense the media shouting would be toda
The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers: The Last Perfect Team
When you hear about the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers it can seem as though their perfect season was almost a fait accompli, coming off the disappointment in 1975. The record shows the reality as quite different. This was a team that was beatable and in repeated situations where they might have lost, right up to the bitter end.
The 1987 Washington Redskins & A Strange Path To Making History
Russell Wilson became the second African-American quarterback to win the Super Bowl when he led the Seattle Seahawks past the Denver Broncos on Sunday. The first one to do it was Doug Williams—oddly enough it was also against the Broncos, back in 1987 when Williams quarterbacked the Washington Redskins.
But Williams had a more interesting path—he spent the bulk of the year as the backup and didn’t become the starter on the playoffs. It was an interesting path in an interesting year—to put mildly—in the NFL. Let’s look back on the 1987 Washington Redski
1998 Boston Red Sox: Laying The Foundation For Great Things
The Boston Red Sox have become one of baseball’s model franchises in the early part of the 21st century, with three World Series titles (2004, 2007, 2013) and being a regular in the postseason. It was the end of the 1990s that saw the groundwork laid for that success and the 1998 Boston Red Sox were where the foundation was put in place.
1992 Pittsburgh Steelers: The Cowher Era Begins
The 1992 Pittsburgh Steelers came into the year ready for a fresh start. Chuck Noll, the head coach who had led the franchise to four Super Bowls in a six-year period from 1974-79 had stepped aside and was replaced by Bill Cowher, a young coach hungry to prove myself. The franchise needed just such a shot in the arm
1984 Chicago Bears: Ditka Puts A Proud Franchise Back On The Map
The Chicago Bears had spent the better part of the Super Bowl era being irrelevant, at least when the early 1980s dawned. Other than a playoff appearance and quick exit in 1977, the Bears had never even been on the national radar. The organization shook things up prior to the 1982 season by hiring one of its legends, Hall of Fame tight end Mike Ditka, to be the head coach.
Ditka went 3-6 in the strike-shortened year of 1982, but improved to 8-8 in 1983 and finished that year off with a win over the Green Bay Packers that kept the Bears’ archrivals out of the playoffs. The 1984 Chicago Bears were the team that took the next step, and put their franchise back into the postseason.
The Path To The 2008 Florida-Oklahoma BCS National Championship Battle
The Florida Gators and Oklahoma Sooners each had recent national championships under their belt, in 2006 and 2000 respectively. The 2008 season didn’t always go smoothly for either program, and each hit a bump in the road. But they ended in Miami, playing each other for the BCS National Championship. Here’s a look back on how we arrived at the 2008 Florida-Oklahoma game, and how it unfolded.
The 2008 Tampa Bay Rays & The Great ALCS Battle
The Tampa Bay baseball franchise underwent a makeover in 2008. The franchise had never won more than 70 games in its history. On the surface they tweaked their nickname, going from “Devil Rays” to simply “Rays.” The renunciation of the devil worked wonders, as a more substantial makeover took place on the field. The 2008 Tampa Bay Rays stunned the baseball world with a trip to the World Series.