Monday Night Football 39 years ago - who remembers?

[ColoradoBills]

 

[bbb]

16 minutes ago, ColoradoBills said:

 

 

Jeez - I knew Brett Favre played a long time but I didn't know it was THAT long!  

[CSBill]

8 hours ago, cwater10 said:

No flames.  A few tears perhaps, but no flames...  "Imagine all the people, living life in peace"...  For whatever your personal experience of John Lennon was, for whatever magic that was there that for some reason you were not experiencing, you missed something damn special.  John Lennon changed the world, but not every individual in it.

 

I honestly never viewed Lennon's death in the context of nixing a reunion and I don't know anyone that did.  Sure, we may have observed that it would no longer be possible, but that was very far removed from what the moment was about, or what it meant.  It was only ever about the tragic and violent loss of a legend, an icon, and a rare cultural world leader.

 

Again, no flames, I always enjoy your posts.  More power to you and your insights.  This one simply dropped my jaw and reinforced John's own words:

 

"Yeah we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun."

 

  - John Lennon (after he left The Beatles)

 

 

 Thanks CWater, I appreciate your thoughtful post. 

[dollars 2 donuts]

19 hours ago, Stallions said:

There were three seconds left in the game, score tied at 13, and million of viewers watching "Monday Night Football" as New England Patriots kicker John Smith trotted onto the Orange Bowl field 39 years ago.

Frank Gifford and Howard Cosell called the famous "Monday Night Football" game the night John Lennon was shot and killed.

 

 

 

For those who remember the next few moments of that night, Dec. 8, 1980, Smith and the game itself have become historical and cultural markers overshadowed by but forever connected to Howard Cosell's announcement that John Lennon had been shot and killed.

 

"Remember, this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses," Cosell told TV viewers. "

 

Players and fans inside the stadium were not aware of what Cosell had just announced on national television. There was no public-address announcement or murmur through the crowd, like there would have been today with people scanning social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

 

Instead, fans inside the stadium watched as Smith's kick was blocked, disappearing into the aqua and orange of Miami's defensive line. The Dolphins scored on the first possession of overtime to win 16-13. 

 

 

 

My parents were upstairs in bed.  I was watching the game alone.  I was excited about the turn of events and what it meant for the Bills and then I just remember being stunned.

[bbb]

6 hours ago, cwater10 said:

I seem to remember it being reported in the aftermath of the SD playoff loss.  It's all hazy now.  If I am mistaken, blame it on some tainted bash from a 4th Dev floor party/exorcism.  I was actually three floors down in Shay.  When I think of 4th Shay, I can only think of a dude we just called Grateful Kevin! Good man!

 

Haha.  That damn tainted bash!.....................Actually, Grateful Kevin lived on either 2nd or 3rd.  He was quite the entrepreneur!  

[H2o]

The first tragedy I remember was that of the Challenger Space Shuttle exploding on live TV. I was in 4th grade and they had been talking about it so much because of the school teacher on board, Christa McAuliffe. We had no idea what we would witness that January morning in our classroom. 

[bills and clippers fan]

I was 2 years old and yes I remember it vividly.

 

Just kidding.  

[row_33]

11 hours ago, CSBill said:

I know I'll be in the minority here, but I'm old enough to remember the Beatles and Lennon and all, so I'll say it to all you younger types, Lennon was overrated! His death was tragic, and what it met most to people then was the hoped for Beatles reunion would never happen.

 

But as a musician, he was good, but nothing special. He was odd and his music was hard to listen to once he left the Beatles. Again, no one deserves to die the way he did, but his death and the way it occurred did more to make him an icon than his music did--at least his music post-Beatles.

 

There, I said it, you can flame away at me now . . .

 

we've done this on the Beatles thread on Off the Wall... 

[nickrage]

I don’t as I am only 37.

i do however remember this as the day the metal died for it is the same day Dimebag Darrell was murdered onstage, 3 days after watching him perform in Albany.

[Billznut]

15 hours ago, bbb said:

 

 

After a decade of rooting against the Dolphins, I was forced to root for them.  I used to say I'm never doing that again.  Last time I did that, they killed John Lennon.

 

 

So, every time I've seen U2 in Buffalo, Bono talks about that night.  And, he did again the other night, in Seoul.  But, this is what he said (WTF?!?)

 

“Let’s turn this concrete sky arena into a cathedral,” Bono said. “We think about a great peacemaker we lost December 8th, 39 years ago tonight: John Lennon. We lost John Lennon, great peacemaker, great soul. This band were right outside of New York City when we heard the news. We still feel it.” (To be more exact, the band was in Buffalo, New York, playing a gig at Stage One when it happened. They’d just played their first American show two days earlier at the Ritz in New York City to about 25 people.)

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/watch-u2-dedicate-pride-to-john-lennon-at-first-ever-south-korea-concert-924048/

 

 

I was a freshman at Bona!.........My favorite team ever, too...........I was at the library and was told the Dolphins scored, so I went back to 4th Shay to watch the rest in the only room on the floor with a TV.  I get in the room, with about 15 hallmates crammed in there, and they say "Did you hear what happened??"   I said Yeah, the Dolphins scored...........No, John Lennon got killed!

 

How do you know that Fergy's foot was broke?  I always heard it was a badly sprained ankle.  

Don’t worry, You are right. It was a high ankle sprain, not a broken foot. 

20 hours ago, RiotAct said:

whoa, I just watched the Barbara Walters “American Scandals” episode on HULU the other day that has her jailhouse interview with Chapman.

Chapman has been held for years right here in WNY, in Alden. 

[Albany,n.y.]

I was watching on a small black & white TV in my apartment on River Road in Tonawanda, just over the Buffalo (Riverside) city line.  I have no memory of the game itself, just Howard Cosell telling the story of John Lennon's shooting with his final sentence in Howard's voice "...dead on arrival."  I didn't get a color tv until I moved out of River Road into an apartment in Kenmore where I got cable tv for the 1st time in 1981.  

[Albany,n.y.]

9 hours ago, Greg S said:

When it comes to death in the music industry 8/9/95 was the hardest one to take.

Only for Deadheads.   Bill Walton shares your pain.  

[HOUSE]

I can't remember where I parked my car

 

[row_33]

i would have much enjoyed having John around the last 39 years

 

 

[Beast]

I remember because it was a HUGE game in the outcome of the AFC East title.

 

Rooting for Miami sucked but I was so happy the Fish won. 
 

I hate to admit it but I was a kid, only 13, and didn’t really care much that John Lennon was killed. I certainly care more today and am sorry it happened but that night I didn’t even know who he was.

[Rico]

I was away at college, watching it while working on homework. I remember calling friends who didn’t watch football, an all-time bummer of a night.

[Chicharito]

The only “historic” event I recall from my childhood was the OJ bronco chase.

[LB48]

20 hours ago, Tcali said:

I loved that Chuck Knox era....as usual we get a great coach in and Ralph...welll...is Ralph.Chuck wanted to stay but couldnt see 'eye to eye' with mr wilson.

He wouldn't build an indoor practice facility and Knox split.  Back then to practice on grass we went to Chestnut Ridge Park - no joke.

19 hours ago, Gugny said:

My mom woke me up the following morning for school.  She told me the news.  I was 5 weeks short of my 10th birthday.  I was heartbroken.  I came downstairs to the Beatles being played on the radio.  I cut the article out of the newspaper and taped it to my wall in my bedroom.  To this day, I swear that his picture on that newspaper clipping glowed some nights.

 

Every year, my son and I do a long weekend in Manhattan.  Every year we pay our respects at the Dakota and at Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

 

He wasn't even my favorite Beatle (Paul).  But his death had a lifelong impact on me.  He was not a perfect man, but he turned out to be a wonderful man.  The world could use more like him.

 

RIP

Agree and understood

[cwater10]

3 hours ago, Billznut said:

Don’t worry, You are right. It was a high ankle sprain, not a broken foot. 

 

Sprained and broken!  The man who owns the foot says it was broken.

 

"We taped that ankle up as much as we could," said Ferguson in Legends of the Buffalo Bills . "But it really hurt. I just couldn't get going with it. When I got back home and had it examined a final time, it was discovered that the ankle had been sprained, torn, pulled and stretched. And there was a cracked bone in the back of my ankle to top it off."

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2011/7/9/2263975/buffalo-bills-joe-ferguson-1980-nfl-playoffs 

 

 

 

[Just Jack]