Sports History – January 22
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.
~Knute Rockne
1929 – The New York Yankees announced they would begin wearing numbers on the back of their uniforms – the first team to do so. The Cleveland Indians quickly followed suit. As it turned out, the Indians were the first team to take the field wearing numbered jerseys on April 16, 1929. The Yankees, whose first game had been rained out, introduced their uniforms the following day.
1960 – Paul Pender upset Sugar Ray Robinson in a 15-round split decision to win the middleweight boxing title.
1968 – Milwaukee and Phoenix were awarded NBA franchises.
1973 – In Kingston, Jamaica, 24-year-old George Foreman pulled off a stunning upset, defeating reigning champion Joe Frazier in four minutes and 35 seconds to win the heavyweight championship of the world. Using his greater size to advantage, Foreman slammed Frazier with uppercuts, knocking him down six times in two rounds. As shown above, one Foreman punch literally lifted Frazier off his feet.
1982 – Free agent Reggie Jackson left the New York Yankees and signed a four-year contract with the California Angels for close to $1 million a season.
1984 – The Los Angeles Raiders pounded the Washington Redskins 38-9, at Super Bowl XVIII. Raiders’ running back Marcus Allen (shown above) carried the ball 20 times for a then-Super Bowl record total of 191 yards and two touchdowns.
1988 – Mike Tyson stopped former champion Larry Holmes via a technical knockout in the 4th round to defend his heavyweight boxing title.
1989 – The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, 20-16 at Super Bowl XXIII. Down 16–13, San Francisco got the ball on their own eight-yard line with 3:10 on the clock and marched 92 yards down the field in under three minutes. They then scored the winning touchdown on a Joe Montana pass to John Taylor with just 34 seconds left in the game. After winning his third Super Bowl as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, Bill Walsh retired.
2006 – Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers scored 81 points in an NBA game versus the Toronto Raptors. It was the second highest total in NBA history, surpassed only by Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in1962.
2012 – Joe Paterno, head football coach at Penn State from 1966 to 2011 before being dismissed as a result of the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, died of lung cancer at the age 85.
At the time of his death, Paterno had accumulated 409 total collegiate wins, but on July 23, 2012, NCAA rulings officially vacated 111 of Paterno’s wins based on the findings of the Freeh report regarding his involvement in the child abuse scandal – although Paterno was never accused of being an active part of the scandal. But he, along with other university officials were found to be at fault for empowering “Sandusky to attract potential victims to the campus and football events by allowing him to have continued, unrestricted and unsupervised access to the University’s facilities and affiliation with the University’s prominent football program.”
The 111 wins were returned to Joe Paterno on January 16, 2015 as a part of a settlement between the NCAA and Penn State. Those 111 wins make Paterno the most victorious coach of all time in FBS NCAA football.
Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2016 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.