2003: A Juice Odyssey

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Forty years ago today, my father was finishing up his sabbatical in Nashville, and my family was about to return to my hometown in Arkansas.

I remember that my brother and I had just finished school and been dismissed for the Christmas holiday, and we had been withdrawn from school by my mother. We would enroll in school for the spring term in my hometown in January.

Most of our furniture (except for our beds) was rented because we knew we would only be there four months, but we had many personal possessions to pack.

The plan was to leave Nashville around Monday or Tuesday, drive home and unload all our personal possessions, then (after returning the U–Haul trailer) hit the road for Dallas to spend Christmas with my grandmothers.

We were making progress in packing our things, but on this day, which was a Sunday in 1973, we stopped what we were doing to watch O.J. Simpson of the Buffalo Bills try to do what no one had ever been able to do before — run for 2,000 yards in a season.

Actually, the emphasis was on setting a single–season rushing record. Finishing the season with 2,000 yards was viewed, right up to kickoff, as a still possible but far from probable outcome.

No matter how it may seem from the perspective of 40 years later, Simpson needed nearly 200 yards in the final game of the season to make it to 2,000. He had done that before during the 1973 season but not in his earlier match with the New York Jets, one of the Bills' division rivals and their opponent that day. Two hundred yards didn't seem a realistic goal. His realistic objective that day was to pass the legendary Jim Brown, who ran for 1,863 yards in a single season 10 years earlier.

Simpson needed only 60 yards to match Brown, and common sense said he could get that with ease. Simpson ran for twice as many yards when the teams met back in the third week of the season. Only the defending Super Bowl champion Miami Dolphins and their no–name defense had held Simpson to fewer than 60 yards in a game.

Momentum was clearly on Simpson's side. He had run for more than 100 yards in each of the last four games (would have been five, but he fell a single yard short against the Cincinnati Bengals in mid–November).

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As I say, he needed nearly 200 yards to break the 2,000–yard barrier, and most observers dismissed that as unrealistic. True, he had run for more than 200 yards the week before, but that was against another division rival, the New England Patriots, and Simpson had run for more than 200 yards against the Patriots in the season opener as well — but he hadn't managed to do it against anyone else.

In a steady snowfall, it was clear early that Simpson would set a new single–season rushing record. The next obvious question was whether he could reach the barrier of 2,000 yards against the Jets, who were 4–9.

Simpson was more dramatic on that one, going down to the wire before finally notching his 2,000th yard late in the fourth quarter of the last regular–season game.

The argument can be made that the Jets had nothing for which to play, but the same could be said of the Bills.

And, mind you, I make no excuses for anything Simpson may have done since his playing career ended. Forty years ago, he was the hottest thing in football, virtually the Johnny Football of his day. Whatever role he may or may not have played in the murders of his ex–wife and her friend and the crimes of which he was convicted in Nevada, they were still more than 20 years in the future.

Others have broken that 2,000–yard barrier since then. But Simpson is the only one to achieve it in 14 games. All the others ran for 2,000–plus yards in 16–game seasons.

O.J.'s is an accomplishment that may never be duplicated.

History's Spotlight

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Perhaps it is fitting that this year's Heisman Trophy race is expected, by many observers, to be one of the closest ever.

Whoever the winner turns out to be, it's likely to be fodder for one of those "what–if" debates.

I suppose that is the most intriguing thing about the study of history — the wide variety of the "what if" questions.

You can find them taking many shapes in every human endeavor — politics, religion, sports, the arts, everything.

Most of the time, they are along the lines of the road not taken — sort of like the Burt Lancaster character in "Field of Dreams." But sometimes there are the tragic tales of those who did not live long enough to realize their full potential.

Today is the 50th anniversary of such a milestone in one such life story.

On this day in 1961, Ernie Davis was the first black man to be awarded the Heisman.

That isn't a "what–if" — unless you're thinking of the guys who were on the ballot with Davis.

It was the second–closest vote in Heisman history, with Davis beating the runnerup, Ohio State fullback Bob Ferguson, by only 53 votes.

Texas' Jimmy Saxton, Minnesota's Sandy Stephens and Alabama's Pat Trammell rounded out the top five.

It capped what must have been one of the greatest football careers of all time. In 1959, as a sophomore, Davis led Syracuse to a national championship and was named MVP of the Cotton Bowl. In 1961, as a senior, he was MVP of the Liberty Bowl, and everyone thought his career would continue into the NFL.

Davis seemed to be a great natural talent for whom the NFL was the next logical step. If the Super Bowl had existed at the time, speculation probably would have centered on when, not if, he would play in it — and how many times he would return.

In 1962, he was drafted by the Washington Redskins, who quickly dealt him to the Cleveland Browns. The Redskins were owned by George Preston Marshall, who was known to be racist.

The Redskins were the last NFL franchise to resist signing black players, which Marshall defended as being based on sound business strategy. He said he wanted to maintain good relations with the Southern market.

In Cleveland, Davis was expected to be paired with Jim Brown to form what may well have been the most potent running game in NFL history.

But no one will ever know how great that backfield could have been. In the summer of 1962, Davis was diagnosed with leukemia, and he died the following year at the age of 23. He never played a down in the NFL.

Brown was Syracuse's star halfback before Davis came along; in fact, Brown helped recruit Davis, who went on to break all of Brown's school records.

And Cleveland was reasonably successful even without Davis in the early to mid–1960s — until Brown retired. More than 40 years later, Brown was recognized as the greatest pro football player of all time by The Sporting News.

But other teams, most notably the Packers, climbed the mountain ahead of the Browns.

Davis played at a time when freshmen were not allowed to play varsity ball. In the three years that he could play varsity ball, he was named first–team All–America twice.

How much greater could the Browns have been with Davis in the backfield?

It may not be one of history's greatest "what–if" questions, but it's got to be near the top of the list for sports.