Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: Vince Lombardi traded a player five minutes after learning the player had hired an agent to represent him in contract negotiations with the Packers.

Vince Lombardi was the larger-than-life head coach of the Packers from 1959-1967 who won five National Football League (NFL) championships (plus the first two Super Bowls) in that time span.

Soon before he died, former New York Giants placekicker (and longtime NFL announcer) Pat Summerall released a book (co-written by Michael Levin) about what he learned from his time spent with Lombardi and Tom Landry when both coaches were assistants on the Giants, Giants: What I Learned About Life from Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry, Summerall discussed how different it was for players when they tried to negotiate their contracts during the 1950s and 1960s:

Negotiating didn’t always work out, though. As I’m sure you’ve heard, one year, Jim Ringo, the all-pro center for the Packers, went into negotiations with Lombardi when he was the Packers’ head coach. He brought his agent to the meeting. Lombardi said, “I don’t negotiate with agents. Hold on, let me make a phone call.” He turned away, picked up the phone, and the moment he hung up he said, “I told you I don’t negotiate with agents. You’ve just been traded to Philadelphia.” Ringo was one of his best players and all-pro for several years, but Lombardi chose to trade him rather than deal with his agent. I think it was sort of an unwritten rule at that time not to bring others into negotiations because nobody had agents or other people speaking for them.

Summerall is correct in noting that this is a very popular story, but it also happens to not be true.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The deed to Kenan Memorial Stadium required that the stadium never rise above the pine trees that surround the stadium.

Kenan Memorial Stadium is the home to the Tar Heels, the football team of the University of North Carolina (UNC). The stadium is nestled in a cluster of pine trees towards the middle of the Chapel Hill, North Carolina campus. It is one of the most beautiful college football stadiums that there is, particularly due to the way that it fits in so well with the landscape that surrounds the stadium. Built in the late 1920s, for decades the stadium never rose above the pine trees that surrounded it. This has led to an interesting “fact” about the stadium, that the man who funded the building of the stadium, William Rand Kenan, Junior, specifically required (either in the deed to the stadium or in a contract with the University) that the stadium never rise above the surrounding pine trees.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about basketball and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the basketball urban legends featured so far.

BASKETBALL URBAN LEGEND: A 2001 game between Michigan State and the University of Virginia was canceled due to a bizarre situation with the floor of the court.

Every year since 1999, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten Conference have held a yearly basketball match called the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, where teams from the ACC are matched up against teams from the Big Ten and the conference who wins the most games is deemed the overall winner (the ACC won the first ten challenges).

In 2001, the Big Ten’s Michigan State Spartans were set against the ACC’s University of Virginia Cavaliers in the Cavaliers’ home court of Richmond Stadium…

The game was held on November 28, 2001.

At least, they TRIED to hold it on November 28, 2001…
Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about baseball and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the baseball urban legends featured so far.

BASEBALL LEGEND: Garry Maddox’s hair style was due to an accident during his time fighting in the Vietnam War.

Garry Maddox was one of the most acclaimed defensive center fielders of the late 1970s/early 1980s.

He won the Gold Glove Award (for fielding excellence) a remarkable EIGHT times!

He was a big part of the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies, who won the first championship in team history.

As you can see from above, Maddox was well known for his thick facial hair.

Oddly enough, his hair was not actually a fashion thing (although obviously there was SOME fashion involved).
Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about baseball and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the baseball urban legends featured so far.

BASEBALL LEGEND: For a few seasons, the Philadelphia Phillies were known as the Philadelphia Blue Jays.

The Phillies were a bit of a hot potato, when it came to owners, in the first half of the 20th Century.

After John I. Rogers sold the team to James Potter in 1903, Potter sold it to the team’s business manager, Bill Shettsline, in 1905. Shettsline sold it to Horace Fogel in 1909, who was kicked out of baseball in 1912 (for claiming that the umps intentional ruled against his team). William Baker owned it from 1913 until his death in 1930. Baker left half of the team to his wife and half to his secretary. The secretary’s husband, Gerald Nugent, became the head of the team (a role he solidified when Baker’s widow passed away in 1932).

However, Nugent, being just a normal guy, did not have the money to keep the team afloat (as he was pretty much just stuck using box office receipts, and as this was the Great Depression and all, times were tough).

So he was forced to sell in 1942, and the team was purchased by lumber broker, William B. Cox. Cox was a hands-on owner who had a minor problem – he did not know that you were not allowed to, you know, bet on your own team. So when it turned out that he was doing just that, he was banned from baseball. The team was then sold to Bob Carpenter, Sr., who let his son, Bob Jr., run the team.

The Carpenters owned the Phillies until 1981, finally adding some stability to the franchise.

But not before Carpenter Jr. put into place a rather odd idea.

He changed the name of the team!!!!!!
Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about the Olympics and Olympians and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the Olympic urban legends featured so far.

OLYMPIC URBAN LEGEND: Through strange political circumstances, the very first Chinese delegation to the Summer Olympics was a single athlete.

In 1932, China entered its first delegation to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, USA.

Aside from a few officials, the delegation consisted entirely of ONE person, sprinter Liu Changchun!

How did a country of 400 million people come to send only ONE athlete to the Olympics?
Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The Saints kicker who held the NFL record for longest field goal for four decades inspired the NFL to come up with a new rule because of the special shoes he wore due to having no toes on his kicking foot!

One of the most memorable Saints victories in their early years occurred on November 8, 1970, in a game against the Detroit Lions.

The Lions were leading 17-16 with just a few seconds left on the game clock. The Saints seemed well out of field goal range, as Saints kicker Tom Dempsey would have to hit a 63-yard field goal to win the game.

But that’s exactly what Dempsey did, giving the Saints a nearly impossible 19-17 victory! The kick set a new record for longest field goal, breaking the SEVENTEEN year record held by the Colts’ Bert Rechichar, whose record field goal was 56 yards!

Now this should have been a perfect period in Dempsey’s life, especially considering the obstacles he had to face in his life. You see, Dempsey was born without any toes on his right foot or fingers on his right hand.

Here he is in action…

You can see his hands in that photo clearly.

And here is the special shoe Dempsey would use…

While you would think that this would be a happy occasion, a player overcoming adversity to set a record (a record that stood for over 40 years until Matt Prater kicked a 64-yarder in 2013, although Denver kicker Jason Elam TIED the record in 1998), some owners took issue with the special shoe Dempsey used. Could it perhaps be HELPING him too much?
Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The Saints’ field caught fire in the middle of a game!

On November 10, 1991, the Saints were hosting the San Francisco 49ers.

At halftime, there was a fireworks display inside the Superdome.

As the third quarter got underway, it turned out that the fireworks had set a small fire on the rafters of the Superdome. A valiant worker was sent out to extinguish the flames with a blanket…

Eventually, he seems to have put out the fire…

However, NO HE DID NOT!
Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about football and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the football urban legends featured so far.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND: The Saints got their name because they were founded on All Saint’s Day.

Dave Dixon passed away in August of 2010. Dixon was a major part, heck, you could say he was the driving force (his obituaries say it) of the Saints getting a professional football franchise, just as he helped get the Superdome built. Dixon is all the way in the right of this photo of then-Saints owner John W. Mecom Jr (on the left) and then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle (in the middle).

New Orleans getting a football team was announced on November 1, 1966. As you might well know, November 1 is a Catholic holiday known as All Saints Day and is a big deal in New Orleans (which has a large Catholic population). So as the story goes, the team got its name (which was not official until January of 1967) due to the team getting announced on All Saints Day.

Now, this is a bit tricky, because clearly, yes, the holiday DOES play a role in the name of the team. But just what role it has is the question.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet

This is the latest in a series of examinations of urban legends related to golf and whether they are true or false.

GOLF URBAN LEGEND: A golfer once climbed a tree to make a shot during a tournament.

Bernhard Langer has the distinction of being the very first golfer ever to be ranked #1 in the Official Golf Rankings that began in 1986. He remains the only German golfer ever to have that distinction (and seeing as how there have only been seventeen players to be ranked #1 since the rankings began in 1986, it’s a great honor PERIOD).

Early in his career, he played pretty much only in Europe, so he was not widely known in the United States. That changed one day in 1981 while he was competing in the Benson and Hedges (B & H) Open in England.
Read the rest of this entry »