It Ain't Over Until It's Over

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Yogi Berra was credited with saying "It ain't over until it's over."

Yogi played — and then managed — in major league baseball, but the saying is appropriate for football, too.

It certainly was appropriate 45 years ago today.

On this day in 1968, the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders were playing a football game. Joe Namath and the Jets went on to play in — and win — the Super Bowl in January. And, late in the game that was played 45 years ago today, it sure looked like the Jets were going to beat the Raiders.

Except that they didn't.

It had been a back–and–forth affair in Oakland that day, but, with 1:05 remaining, the Jets took a three–point lead. Worried NBC executives cut away from the game, and the network began its regularly scheduled broadcast of a made–for–TV movie that was based on the children's book "Heidi."

What happened next changed the relationship between professional football and television.

The Raiders scored not one but two improbable touchdowns and won the game, 43–32. The western half of the United States saw the full game; the eastern half was watching a little girl on a Swiss mountain and had no idea the Raiders had won.

"Television missed one of football's most exciting and exhausting minutes of emotion," wrote Bob Valli in the Oakland Tribune. "In that minute, Oakland fans saw despair turn to delirium."

Football fans were enraged when they learned what they missed. Viewers who tuned in for the movie were enraged when NBC ran the score on the screen in the middle of one of the movie's most dramatic moments. "Short of pre–empting Heidi for a skin flick," wrote sportswriter Jack Clary, "NBC could not have managed to alienate more viewers that evening."

As a result, television changed its football broadcast policy.

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Future contracts would include explicit language pledging that all games would be shown to their completion. If a game ran long, regularly scheduled programming would be delayed.

NBC implemented that policy immediately. It is standard procedure with all commercial networks today.

To its credit, NBC poked fun at itself over the incident. Three weeks later, when the network was scheduled to show "Pinocchio" on a Sunday night, NBC's promotional advertising showed Pinocchio assuring football fans that he would rather cut off his nose than "have them cut off" the game before it was over.

And a week after that, when a game ran late, NBC announced that the regularly scheduled program, an episode of The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, would be delayed.

A Silent Protest in Mexico City

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If there was anything that could be said without hesitation about 1968, it would be that it was a year of protests.

The nation had already seen riots in every major city after the assassination of Martin Luther King, clashes in the streets between protestors and police during the Democratic convention in Chicago and a protest at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City — and those were merely the most prominent. There were countless smaller scale protests throughout the year.

Thus, it really wasn't a surprise when a protest — albeit a silent one — occurred during the Summer Olympics in Mexico City. At least, it shouldn't have been a surprise. Folks were still outraged, though.

There were others who applauded the gesture — and that is what it was, really. A gesture. Not a demonstration. Not a riot.

It was like everything else in 1968. It had a polarizing effect.

On this day in 1968, two black athletes from the United States raised their fists during the playing of the national anthem at the medal ceremony for the 200–meter race. Little is remembered about that race, but much was made at the time of the behavior of two of the athletes during the ceremony.

Gold medalist Tommie Smith raised his right fist, and bronze medalist John Carlos raised his left. The silver medalist, Peter Norman of Australia, did not raise his fist, but he wore a human rights badge on his jacket as did the other two.

At the time, there was much talk of Smith and Carlos' "black power salute," but Smith later insisted in his autobiography that it was actually a "human rights salute."

Originally, the salute was intended to be delivered with Smith and Carlos wearing black gloves, but Carlos left his in the Olympic Village. Norman was the one who suggested that Carlos wear Smith's left–handed glove — and that is the reason why the athletes raised opposite fists.

All three stood in solidarity with each other. When Norman died seven years ago, Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral.

In 1968, neither probably expected to be alive too much longer. They each received death threats.

For his part, Smith saw nothing negative in what they had done. "We were just human beings who saw a need to bring attention to the inequality in our country," he told a documentary maker. "There was nothing but a raised fist in the air and a bowed head, acknowledging the American flag — not symbolizing a hatred for it."

Peggy Fleming's Triumph

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I'm not precisely sure when my family got a television set for the first time.

But I'm pretty sure we had one 45 years ago this month.

I say that because I can remember my mother gathering my younger brother and me in front of the TV to watch Peggy Fleming skate in the 1968 Winter Olympics, which began in Grenoble, France, on Feb. 6. We were both very young at the time. I'm reasonably sure I had no idea who Peggy Fleming was — nor, for that matter, did I know what the Olympics were — and I am almost positive that my brother knew nothing about either as well.

But Mom definitely knew who Fleming was, and what I remember most of that occasion was Mom watching our tiny (by modern standards) black–and–white TV in rapt silence. Whenever I started to ask her anything, she would hold up one hand to quiet me, her eyes never leaving the screen.

I have fleeting memories of watching Fleming skate that night. I have since watched film of her performance, and each viewing serves to confirm what I remember. She was brilliant, and she, probably more than anyone, was responsible for the explosion in popularity of the Olympics in America.

Well, ABC's coverage of those Games — including extensive reports on Fleming and French skier Jean–Claude Killy — had a lot to do with it, too.

As far as American audiences were concerned, though, Fleming was the clear star. She was the only American to win a gold medal in the Grenoble Olympics.

Other American women achieved stardom as Olympic figure skaters in the years to come, but Fleming, while not the first, blazed the modern–day trail. It was Fleming who truly made it possible for Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi, Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes to claim Olympic gold.

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She overcame the loss of her coach in an airplane crash in Belgium almost exactly seven years earlier. That plane crash decimated the American skating program, and it must have been devastating for Fleming, who was 12 at the time. Nevertheless, Fleming rose to Olympic prominence from the ashes of that crash, in large part because of her unusual style.

Even though Christine Brennan writes in USA Today that there is no dominant American woman in figure skating today, it seems to me that modern American observers, being as provincial as they are, long ago grew accustomed to the idea that an American woman will be among the favorites at the Winter Olympics. It's taken for granted by some.

But that is a relatively recent phenomenon.

By 1968, only five American women had ever won medals for figure skating since the Winter Olympics began six decades earlier — and only two won gold. Four U.S. women have won gold since, and none of them really carried the national burden that Fleming did.

(Perhaps the 1980 U.S. hockey team did, but no single individual has — at least not in the Winter Games.)

When she ascended the podium to receive her gold medal, Fleming was joined by silver medalist Gabriele Seyfert of East Germany and bronze medalist Hana Mašková of Czechoslovakia. It was, as I say, the United States' only gold medal of the Winter Olympics.

That made her the darling of the Olympics as far as Americans were concerned.

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I didn't fully understand the significance of Fleming's triumph at the time. I was just too young.

But, as young as I was, I could see that it had a great impact on my mother. I always felt that Mom looked at Fleming as a role model, a symbol of what a woman could achieve.

Mom seldom spoke of it, but she always made a point of watching Fleming when she was on TV; sometimes I watched with her.

And sometimes she asked me if I remembered watching Fleming win her gold medal.

I always told her I did, but the truth was that my memory was spotty.

The truth also was that I clearly saw a lot of pride in Mom's eyes — and I heard a lot of pride in her voice — when she spoke of Fleming.

It made me realize how symbolic these triumphs were to young women in America.

Such symbolic victories, though, are accomplished through a lot of hard work and dedication. That was the thing I didn't appreciate at the time.

But I do appreciate it now.

Lombardi's Super Swan Song

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The second–ever Super Bowl, which was played 45 years ago on this day, was an emotional game for the eventual winners, the Green Bay Packers.

Their coach, Vince Lombardi, hadn't officially announced his retirement yet, but there were suspicions — on the street and in the Packers' locker room — that the game against the Oakland Raiders would be his last.

In his book about the 1967 NFL season, "Instant Replay," guard Jerry Kramer wrote about the days leading up to the Super Bowl and his thoughts and observations — and growing suspicions that Lombardi would be leaving.

At the team's afternoon meeting a couple of days before the game, Kramer wrote that Lombardi became unaccountably emotional as the team broke into smaller groups. Afterward, a teammate asked him what he thought it meant.

"Looked like there's no question about his retirement," Kramer replied.

Two days later, after the Packers beat the Raiders, 33–14, Kramer was one of the players who helped carry Lombardi off the field.

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Earlier, Kramer had recorded Lombardi's pregame speech — his last, or so everyone thought at the time. Lombardi would return to the sideline a couple of years later to coach the Washington Redskins, and he gave pregame speeches to motivate the 'Skins in the 1969 season, but he would never again deliver another speech before a Super Bowl.

It may have been on this day in 1968 that I began my lifelong attachment to the Packers. I grew up in the South — never, to my knowledge, ever got close to Green Bay, Wisconsin — but I've been a Packer fan as long as I can remember.

I think my family may have had a TV set on this day 45 years ago, but I'm not really sure about that. I remember that we did have a TV the following month because that was the month that Peggy Fleming won Olympic gold in figure skating, and my mother insisted that we eat our dinner in front of our TV set when figure skating was on.

But that's another story to be told at another time.

I kind of think I may have watched this game at my friend Larry's house. His family had a color TV, and not too many people had those in 1968. My family sure didn't. We had one of those old black–and–white portables (with a screen that was probably 13 or 15 inches) with the rabbit ears, and that was our family television.

My family lived in the country, and Larry's house was about a mile or so from ours so, if the weather was nice that day, I probably rode my bike to Larry's house, and if the weather wasn't so nice — if there was ice or snow on the ground (and there probably wasn't because we hardly ever had ice or snow in central Arkansas) — I probably walked all the way.

I have spotty memories of seeing Lombardi and the Packers on TV when I was small so I can't be sure I watched the game at Larry's. I only suspect that I did. Larry was probably my best friend in those days, and he was a Packer fan, too. If we watched the game together, I'm sure we were whooping and hollering all afternoon.

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For the second straight year, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr was named the game's most valuable player — even though his numbers would pale next to the numbers that subsequent players piled up. He completed one pass for a touchdown and racked up a little more than 200 yards through the air.

That woulddn't have bothered me, though. Starr was my favorite player.

It's really a shame I don't have more of a memory of that afternoon because I had to wait 30 years to see the Packers play in another Super Bowl. The memory of the game that was played 45 years ago would have had to sustain me for three decades.

As it was, I spent most of that time not entirely sure that I saw the Packers play in that first or second Super Bowl — and wondering if I ever would see them play in one again.