Once You’ve Been to the Summitt, It’s All Downhill

Pat Summitt, who proved testicles were not necessary to browbeat athletes into winning, has died of Alzheimer’s-related complications at the age of 64. When Summitt started her coaching career with the 1974-75 season, women’s college basketball was not yet an NCAA-sanctioned sport, with the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women serving as the governing body. She earned $250 a month, drove the team van and had to wash the team’s uniforms, which had been bought with the proceeds of a donut sale the previous year. After her second season at Tennessee, Summitt was co-captain on the women’s silver-medal winning Olympic team. She won gold as head coach in 1984, becoming the first to earn medals as both player and coach. Summitt took Tennessee to the Final Four of the first women’s NCAA Tournament in 1982, and reached at least the Sweet Sixteen every year thereafter until 2008-09. All told, she won 8 NCAA titles, the record at the time of her retirement, and is one of only 4 coaches to win more than 1,000 games, finishing with an all-gender record 1,098, never posting a losing record in 38 seasons as head coach. She won 7 NCAA Coach of the Year awards, and was named the Naismith Coach of the Century in 2000. She was so successful, that the University of Tennessee twice asked her to take over the men’s team. Of greatest satisfaction to Summitt, every player who completed her eligibility at Tennessee during her tenure graduated with a degree or is in the process of doing so.

Dead Wing

Or

Gordie Not

Or

And Howe

(Kudos to Monty)

Or

Brass Bone-anza 

(Props to Don)

Gordie Howe, who was a better hockey player at 52 than 99% of the players who’ve ever laced them up in the NHL, has died at the age of 88, delaying his next comeback. The only athlete whose nickname unironically encompassed an entire sport (though as Don observed, now that his Wings are broken, he may be better known as Mister Mister Hockey), Howe was the best all-around player in NHL history. He set records for seasons, goals, points, assists and for records set en route to 20 straight Top 5 scoring seasons, 4 Stanley Cup championships, 23 All-Star Games, and 6 Hart trophies as league MVP. After a brief retirement and his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, he spent 6 seasons with his sons Marty and Mark with the World Hockey Association’s Houston Aeros and New England Whalers, winning 2 Avco Cups and notching 2 100-point seasons in his mid-40s. After the WHA-NHL merger, he played one more season with the Whalers, notching 41 more points at the age of 52, then skated 1 short shift with the IHL’s Detroit Vipers at the age of 69 in 1997 to record his 6th decade of professional hockey. When not lighting the lamp, Howe was probably hitting someone, as unlike other stars, he had no issues with the physical aspects of the game, earning 1685 minutes in box, where he presumably did not feel shame. Howe was further immortalized as the namesake of the Gordie Howe hat trick – a goal, an assist and a fight in the same game – despite only doing it twice himself as he didn’t find a lot of takers for fisticuff action. Despite his status as one of the game’s all-time greats, the Red Wings took advantage of his trusting nature and paid him relative peanuts – after a career high 103-point season, he found he was the third-highest paid player on the team. When this became known, his linemate Ted Lindsay started the campaign that eventually led to the NHL Players’ Association. 

Monte Morte

Monte Irvin, one of the best baseball players ever raised in New Jersey, has died at the age of 96. With speed, a cannon for an arm and the ability to hit for power and average as a star for the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues, most of his contemporaries assumed Irvin was going to be the first player to make the leap to the major leagues. Unfortunately, in 1945 when Dodgers GM Branch Rickey decided to right one of the century’s great wrongs, Irvin was just out of the Army and not ready for high-level competition. Rickey tried to sign him in 1948, but he was under contract and Rickey wasn’t willing to pay for the privilege, so the Eagles ended up selling his contract to the New York Giants. The move would prove to be a rare misstep by Rickey. Irvin made his debut in 1949 and was in the majors for good in 1950, but at age 30, had lost his prime years in buses, small towns and barnstorming tours in the Negro Leagues. The 1951 season turned out to be momentous, as Irvin hit .312 with 24 HRs and a league-leading 121 RBI, helping to lead the Giants in their historic comeback to overtake the Dodgers and win the pennant. He then hit .458 in the World Series, stealing home in Game 1, as he watched the New York Yankees win another title. More importantly, he took a 20-year old rookie from Alabama under his wing, and Willie Mays regarded him as a mentor and second father, instrumental to his own Hall of Fame career. That season would be Irvin’s high-water mark, as age and injuries limited Irvin’s efficacy, although he did help the Giants to their upset win in the 1954 World Series. He became the first black executive when he joined the commissioner’s office in 1968 – a role that put him in Atlanta on April 8, 1974 as the only representative from MLB because prick bastard Bowie Kuhn had something better to do than witness Hank Aaron break the all-time HR record. Irvin was named to a Hall of Fame commission intended to open the Hall to Negro league stars in 1971. Coincidentally, that same commission elected him to the Hall in 1973. 

It’s Over

Or

Needs 6 Pallberras

(An epitaphany shared with Joe)

Or

Passed Ballplayer

(Solo props for Joe)

Or

Catcher in the Ground

(More jocularity from Joe)

Yogi Berra, the most beloved father of a coke dealing shortstop in major league baseball history, has taken the fork in the road, dying at the age of 90. Berra was a World War II veteran, landing on Normandy on D-Day, when he was so busy admiring the beauty of the Allies’ aerial formation that his sergeant had to advise him that if he intended on keeping his head, he’d better keep it down. The crucible of the World Series would be relaxing by comparison, which may help explain how in his 19 seasons, he played in 14 World Series, winning 10 and collecting 91 hits, both records unlikely to be matched. With jug ears and a perpetual grin, an awkward stance and a propensity to hit line drives on balls out of the strike zone, Berra looked more like a mascot than a ballplayer, but in a career that overlapped both Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, Berra won 3 MVPs, and finished in the top 4 in MVP balloting in 7 straight seasons, a feat unmatched in history. After he retired in 1963 as the leading HR career hitter among catchers, he was named the manager of the Yankees, leading the aging team to the last pennant of their golden age and was immediately fired after the season. Not his most ignoble exit from the Yankees, as George Steinbrenner fired him 16 games into the 1985 season, which led Berra to exile himself until Steinbrenner made an apologetic pilgrimage to his homestead in Montclair, NJ. In addition to forcing the Boss to prostrate himself, Berra endeared himself to fans through his unique usage of language. Oft-quoted Yogisms include “No one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded,” “It gets late early out there,” in reference to a dark outfield, concluding Yogi Berra Day in St. Louis with "Thank you for making this day necessary," and addressed the preponderance of faux Yogi-ism by noting, "I really didn't say everything I said." Years ago, when Berra’s wife asked him whether he wanted to be buried in his hometown of St. Louis, New York, where he had spent his career, or near his Montclair home, Yogi replied, “Surprise me.” 

All My Dowdy Friends are Here on Monday Night

Frank Gifford, Chuck Bednarik’s favorite tackling dummy, has died at the age of 84. Gifford played 12 seasons for the New York Giants, earning the 1956 MVP en route to leading the Giants to the NFL Championship, his only win in 5 tries. He also missed 18 months when a hard tackle by Bednarik forced a temporary retirement. He brought his distinctive monotone to Monday Night Football, where his 1950s blandness offered a welcome respite from the distinct personalities of Dandy Don Meredith and Howard Cosell. ABC eventually spread his gaffes into their Olympics coverage and Wide World of Sports. Gifford’s playing career also was notable for throwing 6 interceptions, tied for the most by a non-QB in NFL history. Not all his passes went for naught, as in 1997, the Globe thought that getting a video of an NFL broadcaster cheating on his wife with an ex-stewardess was worth $100,000 and set him up, effectively ending his broadcasting career. Unfortunately, it did not have the same effect on his wife Kathie Lee’s. 

Lach Less

Or

Punch Out

Elmer Lach, the José Carreras of the Punch Line, has died of a stroke at the age of 97. With Toe Blake on one side and Henri Richard on the other, Lach was the feisty anchor on one of the greatest lines in NHL history – so named for its offensive firepower – all of whom are in the Hall of Fame. In 14 years, all with the Canadiens, Lach somehow managed to only win 3 Stanley Cups, one of the least productive periods in team history. Lach’s OT goal in Game 5 gave the Canadiens the 1953 Stanley Cup, though his celebration with Richard left him with a broken nose. One of the more enjoyable of his many injuries. It has been said that a pictorial history of the NHL of the 1940s would have to include Lach’s X-rays – his sophomore season was ended when he shattered an elbow, broke a wrist and dislocated a shoulder, his nose was broken 7 times, he suffered a fractured skull, and his jaw was broken 3 times, the last time so badly it was held together for the rest of his life with a platinum wire. Of course being a hockey player, he usually skated through the pain – he didn’t mention one of the jaw fractures to his coach so he wasn’t pulled from the game, on another occasion, he stayed in a game despite two veins in his foot being severed by a skate blade until a teammate noticed the blood. Despite weighing just 165 pounds, he gave as good as he got, and was known for exploding under a player’s arms as he skated with the puck, hoisting him off his skates. Lach was a 5-time All-Star, won the league’s MVP in 1945, and earned 2 scoring titles, retiring as the league’s all-time leading scorer. He served as a mentor for Jean Béliveau, who replaced Lach in the lineup and would emerge as one of the greatest players in league history. 

Nobody Wants a Charlie in the Box

Or

Concrete Shoes Charlie

Or

Ground Chuck

Chuck Bednarik, star of the last Philadelphia Eagles team to win a championship, has died at the age of 89. The last two-way star of the NFL, his bad assery was legendary, and despite playing on both offense as center and defense as a linebacker for much of his career, he missed just 3 games in 14 seasons – two of those games in his rookie season. In an exhibition game, his bicep tore away from the bone, falling into his forearm. He pulled it back into place and used tape to hold it in place. In a 1960 game, he hit Frank Gifford so hard he missed the rest of the season and the entire 1961 season, and was never the same player. That was also the year the Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers for the NFL Championship – the only title game that Vince Lombardi ever lost. At 35, Bednarilk was the oldest player on either team, but was on the field for 139 of the total 142 plays – 58 of the game’s 60 minutes – and made the game-saving tackle on Packer’s fullback Jim Taylor at the 9-yard-line, holding him on the ground as time expired, before telling Taylor “You can get up now, this fucking game is over.” Bednarik had worked in steel mills growing up, then flew bombing missions over Germany in World War II. Putting the GI Bill to use, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he excelled as a center, linebacker and occasional punter, earning All American honors twice, finishing 3rd in the 1948 Heisman trophy voting and winning the Maxwell Award, en route to being the top pick in the 1949 draft. Bednarik was elected to both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame, and he is the namesake for the award given to the Best Collegiate Defensive Player. By extension, he was also the most accomplished concrete salesman in Pennsylvania, his offseason job throughout his time with the Eagles, earning him the nickname Concrete Charlie. Bednarik had little regard for modern NFL players, calling them “pussyfoots” (in his more generous moments), who "suck air after five plays." When Deion Sanders earned comparisons to Bednarik because he played offense and defense as wide receiver and cornerback, Bednarik was incensed and said that he "couldn't tackle my wife Emma." While earning him a bit of a “get these kids off my lawn” reputation, such blunt talk endeared him all the more to Philadelphia fans.

Shark Left

(Mad props to Joe Wright)

 

Or

Runnin’ Rebel without a Pulse

Towels everywhere breathe a sigh of relief as Jerry Tarkanian, scourge of the NCAA, has died at the age of 84. Nearly as brilliant as Dean Smith on the court and virtually his opposite off it, Tarkanian built a program out of nothing in the desert, turning UNLV into a high-scoring, fiercely defending powerhouse that made 4 Final Fours and won the 1990 National Championship (and America’s hearts) by routing Duke in the Final. He won more than 700 games in the NCAA, of which about 37 of them remain after NCAA sanctions. He did so by recruiting (frequently improperly) players of dubious academic prowess and moral certitude, largely junior college players that major programs disdained. He had Frank Sinatra stop by the house of a potential recruit with an Italian mother. He drove a recruit to his girlfriend’s house and waited in the car while the young ‘uns worked on their ball-handling drills. Three of his players were photographed in a hot tub with a convicted sports fixer. Lloyd Daniels was recruited, then abandoned after a cocaine conviction. Tarkanian recruited Clifford Allen from behind the glass at the El Paso de Robles Youth Correctional Facility, and was repaid when Allen stole a car and was returned to incarceration, never playing a minute of college basketball. Challenging any of his players to Scrabble would have been an exercise in futility. Whereas Smith was proud of the graduation rate for his players, Tarkanian noted that most of his players found lucrative employment in Las Vegas’ hospitality industry. Such shenanigans left him at constant odds with the NCAA, and all 3 of the college programs he led – Long Beach State, Fresno State and the aforementioned Slots U – were put on probation by the powers that be. Even the pre-David Robinson San Antonio Spurs, where Tarkanian spent a 20-game sabbatical in 1992, were prohibited from tournament play. Whereas for most people the NCAA’s hypocrisy and capriciousness is like the weather – everyone talks about it, but no one does anything - Tarkanian twice sued the NCAA for violating his right to due process, taking one case to the U.S. Supreme Court and losing, but winning a $2.5 million settlement in the other, all the while firing off observations such as:  

"I always like to get transfers, especially from the Pac-10. They already have their cars paid for."

"Nine out of 10 schools are cheating. The other one is in last place."

"The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky it's going to give Cleveland State two more years probation."

Super Slo Mo

(Props to Greg)
Ed Sabol, whose obsessive approach to covering the NFL meant there were more cameras chronicling the Cleveland Browns’ 7-0 win over the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 1, 1974 than documented the Allies’ invasion of Normandy, has died at the age of 98. With Sabol at the helm of the company he founded, every angle of every game got the NFL Films touch, with the omnipotent intonations of John Facenda giving untold import to every 3-yard gain. In his 31 years running the show, NFL Films won 52 Emmys, while putting microphones on players, coaches and referees so fans could hear every illegal procedure penalty and groin pull in Sensurround. In 2011, Sabol was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is sort of like sending your wedding videographer on the honeymoon. 

Running the Four Coroners Offense

(Can I get a whoop whoop for Joe?)

Dean Smith, whose success on the court was matched only by his graciousness off it, making it virtually impossible to lay the snark (the prick bastard), has died at the age of 83. In 36 years at the University of North Carolina, Smith made 11 Final Fours, won two national championships and a then-record 879 games, then kept busy during the 1976 offseason by coaching the men’s Olympic gold medal-winning squad. More impressively, 96.6% of his players graduated. Even given that his kids were taking gut courses at a state school, in modern college athletics, that’s still an accomplishment. Smith kept his program clean and desegregated, signing the school’s first black player and using his status as a local legend to push for equal treatment for blacks in local businesses. Smith is athletically descended from basketball greatness, having learned the game from University of Kansas legend Phog Allen, who had learned the game at Kansas from Dr. Peach Basket himself, James Naismith. In turn, Smith passed on his gift for hoops, if not his commitment to a program, to itinerant 1,000-game winning coaches Larry Brown and George Karl, two of his former players.

 

Let’s Play None

Or

Banks Liquidated

(Props to Joe)

Or

Not Too Big To Fail

(Additional accolades for Joe)
Ernie Banks, perhaps the longest suffering of the Cubs faithful, has died of a heart attack at the age of 83. Ironically, he died in this, the year of the Cubs’ World Series championship, as foretold by Back to the Future II. A former shortstop with the Kansas City Monarchs, Banks was the first black player for the Chicago Cubs. Mr. Cub played all of his 19 seasons for Chicago, earning 14 All-Star nods, finished his career with 512 HRs, including a then-record 277 at shortstop, and was the first National Leaguer to win consecutive MVP awards in 1958 and 1959. But more than any set of numbers, Banks was renowned for his unsurpassed joy at playing the greatest game, made all the more profound for having toiled so long in the place where summers go to die. 

Noll Set

Or

Grounded Chuck

(Props to Mark)
Chuck Noll, the man who stuck football fans everywhere with that moron Terry Bradshaw by building an idiot-proof system en route to 4 Super Bowl wins as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, has died at the age of 82. In 1969, with Joe Paterno firmly committed as an enabler at Penn State, the woeful Steelers tapped the 1968 NFL Champion Baltimore Colts’ defensive coordinator as their next head coach. The team responded by losing 13 of 14 in his first year. The Steelers’ draft positions put the team in position to rebuild, and every year the Steelers’ draft was a preview of Induction Weekend at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, starting with Joe Greene as Noll’s first pick, and including Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Ham, and the unprecedented or repeated 1974 draft that produced 4 Hall of Famers: Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Jack Lambert and Mike Webster. Despite his success and unmatched 4 Super Bowl titles, Noll didn’t win Coach of the Year honors until 1989 when he took a team that lost its first 2 games by a combined score of 92-10 to the playoffs, winning its first game. 

Noll Set

Or

Grounded Chuck

(Props to Mark)

Chuck Noll, the man who stuck football fans everywhere with that moron Terry Bradshaw by building an idiot-proof system en route to 4 Super Bowl wins as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, has died at the age of 82. In 1969, with Joe Paterno firmly committed as an enabler at Penn State, the woeful Steelers tapped the 1968 NFL Champion Baltimore Colts’ defensive coordinator as their next head coach. The team responded by losing 13 of 14 in his first year. The Steelers’ draft positions put the team in position to rebuild, and every year the Steelers’ draft was a preview of Induction Weekend at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, starting with Joe Greene as Noll’s first pick, and including Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Ham, and the unprecedented or repeated 1974 draft that produced 4 Hall of Famers: Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Jack Lambert and Mike Webster. Despite his success and unmatched 4 Super Bowl titles, Noll didn’t win Coach of the Year honors until 1989 when he took a team that lost its first 2 games by a combined score of 92-10 to the playoffs, winning its first game.

Deep 76ed

Jack Ramsey, the basketball genius who sent Wilt Chamberlain out of Philadelphia, has died of cancer at the age of 89. Dr. Jack, so named after getting a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania, started out coaching St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, making 10 postseason appearances in 11 seasons, highlighted by a 1961 Final Four appearance. Moving on to become the GM of the Philadelphia 76ers, Ramsey led the team to the then-best record in NBA history and the NBA title in 1966-67, his first season, and made 4 more playoff appearances as a head coach. A stint in Buffalo and more playoff appearances followed, then he took his basketball prowess and sartorial splendor national with his first coaching championship, in 1977 with the Portland Trail Blazers. All told, in 20 NBA seasons as head coach, he made the playoffs 16 times, earning induction into the Hall of Fame in 1992, then spent 30 years trying to convince people that a game consisting of grown men running around in their underwear and not playing defense was a sport worth watching. 

Hey Buffalo Bills, Who Did You Kill?

Ralph Wilson, the last member of the Foolish Club who founded the American Football League at $25,000 a pop, has died at the age of 95. While his fellow fools opted to establish their sports empires in sunny climes like San Diego or great cities like Boston, Wilson opted to make a name for himself in the godforsaken tundra of Buffalo, embracing the 9 months of lake-effect snow a year in the hopes that taking up in a town no visiting team wanted to visit would give him an unbeatable homefield advantage. The strategy met with some success, with back-to-back AFL titles in 1964 and 1965, and an NFL record 4 straight Super Bowl appearances, each of which ended as miserably as a February day in Buffalo. Despite being the 3rd most worthless franchise in the NFL, valued at a scant $870 million, Wilson kept the tiny market of Buffalo in the major league fraternity for more than 50 years. Other highlights included keeping O.J. Simpson off the streets for more than a decade, and ensuring that football fans everywhere would suffer through a half century of Al Davis by floating him a $400,000 loan in 1962 to keep the team afloat. 

He is Gone, Goodbye

Or

Kiner Koffin Korner

(An epitaphany shared with Phil)

Or

Cruel to Be Kiner 

(Tip o’ the cap to Phil)

Or

No Longer Finer to Be Kiner

(Props to Phil)

Or

He Just Malapropped Dead

(Phil, going for the grammatically correct, but punny)

Ralph Kiner, who attacked National League pitchers and the English language with equal fervor, has died at the age of 91. Kiner was one of baseball’s most feared sluggers for the first 8 years of his career, winning HR titles in each of his first 7 and joining Babe Ruth as the only players at the time to hit 40 HRs in 5 consecutive seasons. But his career ended after only 10 seasons with some of the NL’s worst teams – the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs – due to a back injury, and he narrowly secured election to the baseball Hall of Fame, with just 2 votes more than the minimum required in his final year of eligibility. The lack of appreciation extended to his own front office, where after leading the league in HRs for the 42-112 Pirates in 1952, he got a pay cut, with General Manager Branch Rickey explaining, “We finished last with you, we can finish last without you.” For most, Kiner is more readily recognizable for his decades in the broadcast booth with the New York Mets, where he was famed for his malaprops, calling Gary Carter “Gary Cooper” and suggesting that “If Casey Stengel were alive, he’d be spinning in his grave,” for his lack of awareness, taking a call from a Mr. “Al Kahalic” during a post game segment of Kiner’s Korner, and for not nipping McCarver’s broadcasting career in the bud before he could escape and harm others. Kiner did submit a classic line, referring to Philadelphia Phillies’ Gold Glove Center Fielder Garry Maddox: “Two thirds of the earth is covered by water, the other third is covered by Garry Maddox.” 

Ace in the Hole

Ace Parker, who played football in the days of leather helmets and two-way players on the gridiron for 60 minutes at a stretch and never whined about concussions – at least that he remembered – has died at the age of 101. After a career at Duke University that would earn him a spot in the College Football Hall of Fame, back when Duke won more than 3 games a year, Parker embarked on a path to Canton. Until recently the oldest living member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Parker was one of the last tailback stars in the single wing, the predecessor to the T formation, which relied heavily on the run. Befitting the era, he also passed, received, punted, place-kicked, blocked and played defensive back, starring for the NFL’s Brooklyn Dodgers  when franchise naming was still too complex to have more than one team name per city. He was the NFL MVP in 1940, despite wearing a 10-pound brace on his injured ankle for part of the season. After World War II, Parker played a season with the Boston Yanks, then the New York Yankees of the All-American Football Conference. Before settling for a lesser sport, Parker signed with the Philadelphia Athletics out of college, and played under the legendary Connie Mack. He hit a pinch-hit homer in his first major league plate appearance in 1937, but for his career hit just .179 in 94 games. He was one of two players still alive who had shared the field with Lou Gehrig, leaving Bobby Doerr as the last living larrupee. 

Donovan’s Grief

Art Donovan, the oral historian of Baltimore Colts football, has died of a respiratory ailment at the age of 89. The only member of the worst defense in NFL history to make the Hall of Fame, Donovan spent 12 years in pro football, then spent the rest of his life telling people about it with tales of gridiron glory from the time when concussions were cool and not Exhibits A-XYZ and the NFL was populated by "oversized coal miners and West Texas psychopaths." Donovan’s grandfather, Mike, was a world middleweight champion who gave boxing lessons to Teddy Roosevelt, his father, Arthur Sr, was a referee inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and Donovan got shot in the ass on Okinawa during World War II, so he had a lifetime of stories even before he sacked a drunken Bobby Layne in the middle of a game. Each of the first 3 pro teams Donovan played for folded before he found a permanent home in 1953 in Baltimore, where he was All-NFL for four straight years, played in five consecutive Pro Bowls and helped win consecutive world championships in 1958 and 1959.

Sacked

Deacon Jones, who helped inspire the series Glee by defending Peter against some bullies who almost goaded him into quitting the glee club, has died at the age of 74. As a member of the Fearsome Foursome, the collection of giant All-Pros on the Los Angeles Rams defensive line, Jones was credited with coining the term sack, and was retroactively credited with 194.5 of them, as it wasn’t recorded as an official statistic until 1982. His unofficial totals of 26 in 1967 and 24 in 1968, both in 14-game seasons, both surpass Michael Strahan’s NFL record, and he did it without having Brett Favre going down easier than Lindsay Lohan. 

Turn out the lights, the Pardee’s over

Jack Pardee, the Don King of NFL head coaches, has died of gall bladder cancer at the age of 76. Pardee started in Coach Bear Bryant’s infamous “Junction Boys” camp at Texas A&M and after being one of only 35 (from 100 who entered) to survive the 10 days of brutal drills in oppressive heat, he emerged as a College Football Hall of Fame linebacker and fullback. After a 13-year pro career that included 2 All-Pro seasons, he had stints coaching the Chicago Bears, returning the Bears to the playoffs for the first time since George Halas, and Washington Redskins, where he won Coach of the Year honors, but never made the playoffs. He returned to the college game as a coach at the University of Houston, employing a Run and Shoot offense that netted Andre Ware a Heisman Trophy. In the NFL, he made the playoffs 4 years in a row with the Houston Oilers, making Warren Moon a star, but is probably best remembered for arranging sideline fisticuffs by putting Buddy Ryan and Kevin Gilbride on the same coaching staff. In addition to the NCAA and NFL, Pardee also was a head coach in the USFL (1984-85 Houston Gamblers, 1986 New Jersey Generals), World Football League (1974 Washington Ambassadors/Virginia Ambassadors/Florida Blazers) and the Canadian Football League (1995 Birmingham Barracudas), making him the only man to get second-guessed in such a varied collection of sports leagues.