4-Deep-6 Defense

Buddy Ryan, the head coach with the temperament most well suited to his home city in NFL history, has died at the age of 85. Ryan coached the New York Jets defensive line in Super Bowl III and the Minnesota Vikings’ Purple People Eaters. He was then named defensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears where he developed the 46 defense that carried the Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX. Much to Mike Ditka’s chagrin, the Bears then carried Ryan out on their shoulders after pasting the New England Patriots. From there it was on to Philadelphia, where in his second season, during the 1987 strike, Ryan sided with his players and refused to be involved in selecting or coaching the replacement players. The overmatched scab squad endured 3 embarrassing defeats, including a game against the hated Dallas Cowboys where Ryan felt Tom Landry had run up the score. In the first game after the strike, also against the Cowboys, with the Eagles up 30-20, Ryan had Randall Cunningham fake taking a knee, then fire a long TD pass in the closing moments. Funny quotes and hating the Cowboys would only go so far, and in Ryan’s 3rd season, he led the Eagles to the NFC East title for their 1st playoff appearance in 7 years. The Divisional Playoff game was against Chicago and Ryan’s old nemesis Ditka, so the day before the game, he had the team buses circle Soldier Field as a victory lap. The lap was premature as a heavy fog settled over the game, limiting vision to 15 yards and negating Cunningham, the Eagles’ lone offensive weapon, as the Eagles lost 20-12. Two more 1st round playoff exits followed, and Ryan was fired. His next job was defensive coordinator for the Houston Oilers, whose Run and Shoot offense Ryan had previously derided as Chuck and Duck. In the last game of the season, offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride continued calling passing plays rather than running out the clock. When an ill-advised pass attempt led to a fumble that put his beleaguered defense back on the field, the 62-year-old coach tried to punch Gilbride in the jaw before they were separated. 

Escape Claus

An obituary that probably went unnoticed for most of you was Frank Olivo, who worked a number of jobs in the Philadelphia area and died at 66 of diabetes-related complications. But you’ve all heard his story – in the last game of the 1968 season, with snow falling and the Eagles putting the finishing touches on a 2-12 season, Olivo, a 19-year-old kid in a dirty Santa Claus costume and a fake beard was asked to walk onto Franklin Field while Here Comes Santa Claus was played on the PA because the intended Santa was snowed in. Olivo faced a deluge from the stands – first boos, then snowballs. And forever more, Philadelphia would be renowned for having bad fans because they booed Santa. The ignored parts of that story – while the Atlanta Falcons have to pipe in crowd noise and the city has twice lost NHL teams to smaller Canadian cities, while the NFL had to finally rescind its blackout rule so that Chargers fans could occasionally see their team playing at home, while the Rays and Marlins have gone to World Series while playing in half-empty ballparks, while NHL teams are dictating what can be worn to games because fans can’t create enough of a home-ice advantage, more than 54,000 Eagles fans braved the snow and cold to watch an awful team going nowhere. And while Dodgers fans beat a Giants fan in the parking lot so severely he was left with permanent brain damage, while White Sox fans in separate incidents attacked an umpire and caused permanent eye damage to first base coach Tom Gamboa, while a Brewers fan tackled and punched Astros right fielder Bill Spiers, while New York Giants fans threw ice and sent a San Diego Chargers coach to the hospital, while a Chicago Cubs fan charged Randy Myers on the mound, while New York Rangers fans rocked an ambulance with concussed Pat Lafontaine inside and chanted “Buy a Porsche” at Flyers goalie Ron Hextall the season after goalie Pelle Lindbergh was killed while driving a Porsche, Philadelphia has bad fans because they booed a skinny kid with a bad fake beard in a grubby Santa Claus costume.

Van-ished

Steve Van Buren, the greatest Honduras-born player in NFL, has died of pneumonia at the age of 91. The power running back was the last member of the Philadelphia Eagles first championship, a 7-0 triumph in the 1948 NFL title game, played in one of the worst blizzards Philadelphia had ever seen. Van Buren had to walk to Shibe Park because the snowfall shut down the city’s mass transit options, then scored the lone touchdown of the game on a 5-yard run after the Chicago Cardinals had fumbled at their own 17-yard line, as best as anyone could tell, as the snow obscured yard markers, late in the 4th quarter. In warmer, though not much better weather conditions, Van Buren racked up 196 yards in the rain and mud as the Eagles repeated as NFL champions in 1949. When the Hall of Fame back retired after the 1951 season, he was the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing yards with 5,860, rushing attempts at 1,320 and touchdowns with 69.

Will Brook No Further Discussion

Tom Brookshier, an all-pro defensive back on the last Philadelphia Eagles championship team, has died of cancer at the age of 78. Renowned as one of the best tacklers in the NFL, following his playing career, he turned to broadcasting, and preceded John Madden as CBS’ top announcer and partner of Pat Summerall, a former rival with the New York Giants that Brookshier once tackled hard enough to break his helmet. So great is the affection for the 1960 Eagles team that locals are willing to forget he also hired Angelo Cataldi to launch the all-sports talk format on 610 WIP that to this day ensures every ill-tempered, ill-informed, unemployed Philadelphia sports fan has a forum for his inane rantings.

The Defense Rests

Jim Johnson, defensive coordinator emeritus for the Philadelphia Eagles, has succumbed to melanoma at the age of 68. Renowned for his blitzing techniques, his defenses led the Eagles to 5 NFC Championship games in the 10 years since being named defensive coordinator. In 2001, the defense became the 4th team in NFL history to not allow 21 points in a game, and eventually ran their streak to 34 games, second best in history. Over the course of his tenure, Eagles defenders racked up 26 Pro Bowl selections. Prior to joining the Eagles, he helped Notre Dame win the 1977 National Championship as defensive backs coach, and was later promoted to defensive coordinator and assistant head coach.

Pinko and Ringo

Better Dead Than Red
Milo Radulovich, a symbol of the excessive anti-Communism of the 1950s, has died at the age of 81. Radulovich had spent 8 years in the Army Air Force, including top secret work in Greenland, and was serving in the Air Force Reserve when he was removed as a security risk. Radulovich’s offenses: a father who had read a Slavic language newspaper considered to be pro-Communist and a sister who had picketed a Detroit hotel that refused to admit Paul Robeson, who had publicly praised Stalin. Radulovich’s story was told by Edward R. Murrow on See It Now, although the program’s sponsor was nervous and pulled advertising, leading Murrow and producer Fred Friendly to spend their own money to promote the show. Viewer response was overwhelmingly in favor of Radulovich’s case, helping to earn his reinstatement, and buoyed Murrow and Friendly to take on Joe McCarthy in two more broadcasts. Now, this is just a historical footnote, because no modern politicians would ever falsely overstate a serious situation to inflate American’s fears for the purposes of political gain nor would they create enemies of the state out of thin air. And if they did, surely America’s media would have the courage to expose such actions.

Late that Night, No One Could Save the Life of Ringo
Jim Ringo, an undersized center who set a record for consecutive games played and went on to be named All-Pro seven times for the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles has died at the age of 75. Ringo’s contributions to the power sweep helped the Packers to championships in 1961 and 1962, but his attempt to gain a raise from $12,000 to $15,000 before the 1963 season made for one of the great negotiation stories. Ringo brought an agent to his negotiation, surprising Lombardi, but the Packer legend encouraged the men to make themselves comfortable in his office while he took a quick phone call. Moments later he told them, "Gentlemen, you're talking to the wrong team. Jim Ringo now belongs to the Eagles."

Bowled Over

After 33 years, 100 million visitors, and several billion boos, Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium is no more. Once hailed as an architectural marvel, in recent years the Vet has become better known for leaks, smells you couldn’t quite place, a wild kingdom of rats and feral cats, collapsing concrete that left a cadet with a broken neck at the 1998 Army-Navy Game and the worst AstroTurf in baseball or football, which shredded both of Chicago Bears wide receiver Wendell Davis’ knees on the same play. In its day it hosted three World Series, two MLB All-Star Games, and two conference championship games, one of only five stadia in sports history to accomplish that feat. At 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning, Greg Luzinski depressed the detonation plunger, and 62 seconds later the era of multi-purpose, cookie-cutter stadia was all but over. Only St. Louis’ Busch Stadium, slated for replacement in 2006, remains. But Broad and Pattison wasn’t just a concrete bowl with mostly empty earth-toned seats and some truly awful baseball teams – it was the place many of us grew up and learned about baseball, how to elevate profanity to an art form and how to appreciate a slightly orange chili dog.