Since today is the anniversary of the JFK assassination, I looked at the games that the NFL chose to play that weekend. While even Pete Rozelle later admitted he made the wrong call in playing, all but one of the games (49ers at Packers) were competitive contests:
Cowboys at Browns: Browns win 27-17, but they only led 13-10 entering the fourth. Ross Fichtner's pick-six changed the momentum.
Bears at Steelers: Bears salvage a 17-17 tie thanks to Ditka's 63-yard tackle-breaking run on 2nd-and-32, although some of the Steelers said he should have been whistled down/stopped.
Cardinals at Giants: Cardinals win in an 24-17 upset, with a sack of Tittle (when NYG were in the red zone) sealing the win with less than two minutes left.
Colts at Rams: Rams win 17-16 as the Colts blow three chances to win it in the fourth quarter.
Lions at Vikings: Vikings win 34-31, thanks to a 67-yard drive that got them the winning TD with less than three minutes left,
Redskins at Eagles: Redskins win 13-10, though Eagles had trailed 10-0 before a comeback that got them to the Skins four-yard-line. It stalled, but the chip-shot FG missed with less than four minutes left.
The Games of 11/24/63
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SixtiesFan
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Re: The Games of 11/24/63
My local high school (JFK carried the town in 1960) played basketball Friday Night, November 22. The NBA played that night. College football played its games Saturday, November 23.
The idea in 1963 was to Carry On. It was felt JFK would have wanted it that way.
The idea in 1963 was to Carry On. It was felt JFK would have wanted it that way.
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Rupert Patrick
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Re: The Games of 11/24/63
It did used to be the idea to carry on, at least until 9/11, or maybe before until Grief Counselors became a job that every school district had to hire in their employ due to all the school shootings. I remember early in my senior year in high school (fall of 1981), a popular teacher at my high school was stabbed by a student in front of his class early one Friday morning, and died a couple hours later in emergency surgery; I was in a classroom about four doors down from where this occurred and heard the kids screaming. Even though everybody was understandably shattered by what happened, the football team still suited up and played that night, and they understandably got whipped (we lost 28-12 to Berea) because their heads and their hearts were in a different place. These days, the game would have been cancelled or postponed until another week. School was cancelled the following Monday for the students to attend his funeral, and when we went back on Tuesday, there were no grief counselors to be seen. We carried on.
To bring it back to football, Mike Ditka had one of the three or four greatest games of his career on 11/24/63. A weird bit of trivia about Ditka and that particular date, 11/24/63, is that is also the date Lee Harvey Oswald died, and that Ditka and Oswald were both born on the same day, 10/18/39. As Paul Harvey would say, and now you know the rest of the story.
To bring it back to football, Mike Ditka had one of the three or four greatest games of his career on 11/24/63. A weird bit of trivia about Ditka and that particular date, 11/24/63, is that is also the date Lee Harvey Oswald died, and that Ditka and Oswald were both born on the same day, 10/18/39. As Paul Harvey would say, and now you know the rest of the story.
"Every time you lose, you die a little bit. You die inside. Not all your organs, maybe just your liver." - George Allen
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BD Sullivan
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Re: The Games of 11/24/63
Actually, the NBA did postpone games on 11/22, but played games the following two nights. The NHL did the same. The two Grey Cup playoff games went on as scheduled, which is less surprising considering it is a different country.SixtiesFan wrote:My local high school (JFK carried the town in 1960) played basketball Friday Night, November 22. The NBA played that night. College football played its games Saturday, November 23.
The idea in 1963 was to Carry On. It was felt JFK would have wanted it that way.
Wake Forest and NC State played a football game the night of 11/22.
Re: The Games of 11/24/63
SixtiesFan wrote:My local high school (JFK carried the town in 1960) played basketball Friday Night, November 22. The NBA played that night. College football played its games Saturday, November 23.
The idea in 1963 was to Carry On. It was felt JFK would have wanted it that way.
I was a senior in high school when 9/11 happened, and we played our game three days later on that Friday. Won 35-7, I was 9-13 passing for 157yds, 2 TD's, but threw my first int of the season (of the two I threw that entire season) which was disappointing. The school we played is the high school basically the entire rest of my family went to. Before the game both teams starters combined to hold a large U.S. Flag on the field. Think a student took it but they took a blurry picture. I still like the picture because it's me and my friends, in my home stadium in my hometown, playing the high school my family went to representing their home city, a big American flag and my house is in the background because I grew up in a house with the backyard on the 40-yard line of the HS field (a fence separating obviously, but grew up watching HS football and many HS playoff games and middle school games and youth football games played on that field, from my back yard) so the picture combines pretty much everything important, family, football, friends, home, country.Rupert Patrick wrote:It did used to be the idea to carry on, at least until 9/11, or maybe before until Grief Counselors became a job that every school district had to hire in their employ due to all the school shootings. I remember early in my senior year in high school (fall of 1981), a popular teacher at my high school was stabbed by a student in front of his class early one Friday morning, and died a couple hours later in emergency surgery; I was in a classroom about four doors down from where this occurred and heard the kids screaming. Even though everybody was understandably shattered by what happened, the football team still suited up and played that night, and they understandably got whipped (we lost 28-12 to Berea) because their heads and their hearts were in a different place. These days, the game would have been cancelled or postponed until another week. School was cancelled the following Monday for the students to attend his funeral, and when we went back on Tuesday, there were no grief counselors to be seen. We carried on.
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rhickok1109
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Re: The Games of 11/24/63
Nov. 22, 1963, was my last day as sports editor of the Celina, OH, Daily Standard. I was free to leave for the New Bedford, MA, Standard-Times at about noon, after my sports pages were put together. I decided to hang around for a little while to say goodbye to my friends and colleagues after the rest of the paper was put to bed.
That happened at 12:30 and, just as the presses were about to start rolling, the bell on the national teletype machine rang 3 times, the signal that an important bulletin was coming in. Of course, it was the JFK shooting. I spent the next two hours working with our publisher, managing editor, and wire editor to take the old edition apart and put together a totally new one.
About 400 miles away, my father was doing the same thing at the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
That happened at 12:30 and, just as the presses were about to start rolling, the bell on the national teletype machine rang 3 times, the signal that an important bulletin was coming in. Of course, it was the JFK shooting. I spent the next two hours working with our publisher, managing editor, and wire editor to take the old edition apart and put together a totally new one.
About 400 miles away, my father was doing the same thing at the Green Bay Press-Gazette.