No Mas

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"It would require a deal of convincing to shake the conviction here that Duran had to be sick or injured because Roberto Duran was not, is not and never could be a quitter."

Red Smith

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The Belfast Telegraph recently published a list of the 10 greatest fighters of all time.

The sixth–greatest fighter, the Telegraph said, was Roberto Duran, and he beat the fifth–greatest fighter of all time, Sugar Ray Leonard, for the welterweight title in Montreal on June 20, 1980.

They met in a rematch in New Orleans on this day in 1980 in what became one of the most famous fights ever. It is known to history as the "No Mas fight" because that is what Duran said to the referee at the end of the eighth round, indicating that he was conceding the fight. In case you aren't fluent in Spanish — and I certainly am not — "no mas" is Spanish for "no more."

After the fight, Duran tried to save some face by insisting that he was suffering from stomach cramps, but I always thought it was because he just couldn't reconcile the Sugar Ray he fought in New Orleans with the fighter he fought in Montreal five months earlier.

It was a moment that really defined both men.

My memory of Leonard is that he was like Muhammad Ali, light on his feet in the ring, always moving. But Leonard, in the face of Duran's prefight taunting, adopted more of a flat–footed style and went toe to toe with Duran in that first fight. He wanted to beat Duran at his own game. He didn't. Duran won by a decision.

Five months later, they met again in New Orleans, and the old Sugar Ray appeared to be back.

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Gone was the plodding flat–footed style. It was like watching an entirely different fighter in the ring, one who looked like that other Sugar Ray Leonard but certainly didn't fight like him.

Apparently Duran was baffled by it as well. He shouldn't have been, though — if he prepared for that first fight by observing footage of Leonard in the ring. That Leonard was back.

Leonard was always the good guy in the equation. Duran was the bad guy, known at one time as the meanest man in boxing. He was said to have knocked out a woman and a horse.

Boxing is a macho sport, and Duran, with his cold, demonic eyes, was the most macho man in boxing 35 years ago. My guess at the time was that Leonard didn't just want to win the fight. He wanted to seize the crown of most macho fighter from Duran as well.

I didn't see either fight in progress; I saw them after the fact, in replays on TV, but what stands out in my mind about that first fight was that, even before it was over, the announcers were talking about how they could see a rematch coming in the final rounds, when Leonard tried desperately to retake ground he lost to Duran in the early rounds — resuming the style with which he had succeeded in the past. But it was too late.

Not long after he lost the fight, Leonard actively pursued a rematch. Duran had been celebrating his victory in New York, partying and overeating. Leonard felt a key to winning the rematch would be to have it as soon as possible — before Duran could lose the celebratory weight he had gained.

Nevertheless, by the time of the fight, both men were in great condition.

Millions of dollars were offered to both fighters for a rematch, and the agreement was reached. The fight would be in the New Orleans Superdome.

Once the fight was in progress, it seemed pretty even — until the seventh round, when Leonard began to openly taunt Duran, and Duran had no answer for it. He seemed lost, and Leonard appeared to be in control.

It was a part of fighting that a lot of people overlook — the psychological fight. Sure you hear people speak about fighters getting inside each other's heads, but I think a lot of people just see that as descriptive speech, allegorical — when it is much more accurate than most people probably want to believe. On this night in 1980, Leonard wasn't toying with Duran. He was implementing part of his strategy, just as he did when he used the bolo punch.

He was turning the tables on Duran, making him the object of the laughter instead of the other way around. For five months, Leonard had felt as if people were snickering at him over his loss to Duran. He wanted to make Duran the object of the ridicule he had been feeling — and probably imagining. I don't recall hearing anyone — in my personal conversations or in boxing programs I saw on television — who thought any less of Leonard for going the distance with Roberto Duran and losing.

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In the eighth round, Duran had had enough. He looked at the referee and said, "No mas."

On this night in 1980, Leonard avenged his loss. Duran couldn't even go the distance. Leonard frustrated him, bewildered him. He got inside his head. It was not allegorical. It was definitely real.

The outcome was unheard of. Boxers just don't quit. They'll let their heads get beaten to mush, and they still won't quit.

Yet the most macho fighter on the planet quit. And when he did, everyone forgot his triumph over Leonard five months earlier. Few people remember it today. If you speak to a boxing fan about Leonard and Duran, the phrase "no mas" comes springing to mind, not images from that night in Montreal.

When Bradshaw Secured His Legacy

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On this day in 1980, Terry Bradshaw became the first quarterback to win four Super Bowls.

"He couldn't spell cat if you spotted him the C and the A," Dallas' Hollywood Henderson had said a year earlier, just before Bradshaw's Steelers beat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XIII. As Henderson learned, you don't have to be able to spell to be a Super Bowl–winning quarterback.

In the 35 years that have passed since, only one other quarterback, Joe Montana, has won four Super Bowls. It took him eight years to become the second member of the club.

If New England's Tom Brady wins the Super Bowl a week from Sunday, he will be the third member of the club, but he will have required 13 years to accomplish it.

But on this night, Bradshaw stood alone at the top of that mountain.

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Victory did not come easily. The Steelers' opponents, the Los Angeles Rams, were making their first appearance in the Super Bowl and refused to go quietly against the Steelers, who were making their fourth appearance in six years.

Actually, Super Bowl XIV was almost like a home game for the Rams. The game was played in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. At that time, the Rams played their home games in nearby Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which is where the University of Southern California also plays its home games. Perhaps the Rams had an unacknowledged home field advantage.

The Rams and Steelers took turns seizing the lead through three quarters. The astonishing Rams led, 7–3 after the first quarter, 13–10 at intermission and 19–17 at the end of the third quarter.

But then the Steelers sprung to life. Bradshaw hit wide receiver John Stallworth for a 73–yard touchdown pass with 12:15 to play, then Franco Harris put the game on ice with a one–yard touchdown run with 1:52 remaining.

Bradshaw received his second consecutive Super Bowl MVP award.

The 10½–point favorite Steelers covered the spread with a 14–0 fourth quarter, but the Rams, who had been 9–7 during the regular season, had proven that they could trade punches with the big boys.

For there was no bigger boy in the NFL at that time than the Pittsburgh Steelers.

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And it seemed at the time that the Steelers were poised to dominate the NFL in the foreseeable future.

As it turned out, though, the Steelers did not return to the Super Bowl for 15 years — and they did not win one again until February of 2006, more than a quarter of a century later.

The Rams, as I recall, were mostly seen as a flash in the pan — good enough to continue to dominate what seemed to be a weak division but unlikely to return to the Super Bowl any time soon.

The Rams did not return to the Super Bowl soon. It took them 20 years. But they rarely won their division in the years after their first Super Bowl appearance, either.

Herb Brooks' Inspiring Life

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"You're looking for players whose name on the front of the sweater is more important than the one on the back. I look for these players to play hard, to play smart and to represent their country."

Herb Brooks (1937–2003)

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Yesterday, I was surfing my cable channels, and I landed on an airing of "Miracle," the re–creation of the U.S. hockey team's triumph over the mighty Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.

It is one of my favorite sports movies of the last 25 years — along with "Eight Men Out" and "Secretariat." I'm not a hockey fan, but I do remember watching that game when it happened. My heart was beating as if I had been a hockey fan all my life.

Trust me, whatever one was the rest of the time, on Feb. 22, 1980, every American was a hockey fan. I recall Al Michaels saying that most observers probably "don't know the difference between a blue line and a clothesline." There was a lot of truth in that.

Many of us — myself included — couldn't explain any of hockey's rules, but we were all chanting "U–S–A! U–S–A!" before that game ended.

I know I was.

If you ask people who watched that game on TV what their most memorable moment was, you'd probably get a variety of responses. Some would say it was Michaels' astonished comment in the final seconds, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

For me, the most memorable moment came at the end, when the U.S. players were celebrating on the ice, and the Russians stood in a silent line, some leaning on their sticks, and watched the celebration. Some seemed genuinely bemused by the scene. And why not? That Soviet hockey team didn't lose very often.

That game came at the right time in America's history, a time when Americans were feeling helpless and knocked around by the rest of the world. Brooks and his hockey team gave the whole country a shot in the arm. It was a different place in the days after the United States beat the Soviet Union than it had been for weeks, months, even years before.

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Many people mistakenly believe the Americans won the gold medal when they beat the Soviet Union that day. But the fact is that they still had to play the gold–medal game a couple of days later against Finland. The Americans, who were given virtually no chance to earn a medal before the Games began, did go on to defeat Finland, of course. It wasn't like boxing, where you win the title if you beat the champ. It was a tournament, and beating the defending champ only meant that you advanced to the next round — unless you beat the champ in the final round, and that was not what happened in 1980.

It seemed rather anticlimactic to most Americans, I guess, but it was still a shared national experience that Americans were reluctant to see end.

And they didn't have to, at least not at first.

Coach Herb Brooks made the obligatory appearance on The Tonight Show, of course. He was an instant celebrity, as was Mike Eruzione, the team captain who may have been the most recognizable player for ordinary viewers who knew little about hockey and next to nothing about the members of the team. At the time, everyone knew Eruzione had scored what proved to be the winning goal against the Russians.

A few of the other players were sort of minor celebrities, I guess, and the entire team was commemorated on Wheaties boxes.

(It is still possible to buy those boxes, too, but if you get one and it has any Wheaties in it, I would not recommend consuming the contents. Nothing against Wheaties, but 33–year–old Wheaties can't possibly have the radioactive half life of, say, a Twinkie ...)

I don't recall if the Olympic hockey team paid a visit to the White House the way Super Bowl champs and World Series champs do now. President Carter was kind of busy in those days.

Anyway, the movie brought all those memories back. It was so vivid that, even though I knew how the game ended, I was on the edge of my seat hoping the Americans could hold on to their one–goal lead for 10 more minutes.

They did, of course, and the photo of their celebration became the only cover in Sports Illustrated's history that had no text with it — other than the magazine's nameplate, the date of publication and similar stuff.

But no headline. None was needed.

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When the movie's final credits rolled, viewers were informed that it was dedicated to the memory of Brooks. He was killed in a car accident 10 years ago today, after the conclusion of filming but before the final product made its debut in theaters.

"He never saw it," the screen message said. "He lived it."

His life story was certainly compelling. As a young hockey player, he had been a member of the U.S. Olympic hockey team in 1960, but he was cut a week before the Games started.

The Americans went on to win the gold medal that year. The Soviets won the gold in every Olympics after that and didn't lose to the Americans again — until 1980, when Brooks guided the U.S. to the gold medal, finally winning the gold that had been denied to him 20 years earlier.

The year before he died, Brooks coached another U.S. Olympic hockey team, this time to a silver–medal finish. On the 22nd anniversary of the miracle on ice, the Americans defeated the Russians in Salt Lake City.

Talk about a storybook ending to a storybook life — a life that was filled, as most are, with disappointment and sadness but also a life that experienced joy and redemption.

It made me reflect, as I often do, about lives that are more inspiring than anything any fiction writer could make up.

Herb Brooks' was such a life.

He never saw "Miracle." He lived it.

And, because he lived it, the rest of us did as well.

The First Wild Card to Win It All

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It might have been appropriate if the New York Jets had won the AFC championship on Sunday.

Why? Well, because it was 30 years ago today that a wild card team first won a Super Bowl.

If the Jets had beaten the Steelers on Sunday, the Super Bowl would have been played between two wild–card teams. I don't think that has ever happened before.

Four other wild–card teams have won Super Bowls since the Raiders did it 30 years ago, and three of them have done so since the dawn of the 21st century.

But, even in 1980, wild cards weren't new to pro football. They had been part of the playoff landscape for a decade by the time the Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans on Jan. 25, 1981. And a wild card made it to the Super Bowl for the first time five years later.

But until this day 30 years ago, no wild card team had ever won a Super Bowl. The Dallas Cowboys came close back in Super Bowl X (which was also played in New Orleans), but they eventually lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

What seemed to surprise people the most about the Super Bowl that was played 30 years ago today was not necessarily the fact that the wild card won it — although that was surprising.

It was the relative ease with which the Raiders cruised to a 14–0 lead at the end of the first quarter — and ultimately prevailed, 27–10. When you consider who they were playing, that was positively stunning.

The Eagles had been one of the NFL's elite teams in the 1980 season, racing to an 11–1 start. Ron Jaworski was the top–ranked quarterback in the NFC. The Eagle defense kept all its opponents from scoring more than 24 points (and held most of their foes under 20) until Dallas scored 35 against Philly on the final day of the regular season.

The Raiders, on the other hand, caught just about everyone by surprise. They had made a lot of changes during the offseason, and I think most observers just wanted to wait and see how all the new parts would function together. They got off to kind of a sluggish start (2–3) and had to deal with the loss of their starting quarterback to a broken leg, but then Jim Plunkett came in, the Raiders won six in a row, and Oakland actually finished tied with San Diego atop their division.

But San Diego was awarded the division crown on a tiebreaker — which meant that, when the teams played for the AFC title, the game was played in San Diego. When they played there in the second week of the season, the Raiders lost in overtime. When the AFC title was on the line, however, Oakland surged to a 21–7 lead in the first quarter and never looked back.

It was more of the same two weeks later when the Raiders and Eagles faced each other in the Super Bowl.

The Eagles came into the game favored by three points. That surprised me because I really felt that most people believed the Eagles would win by a wider margin.

But that, of course, was not what happened.

When the game was over, everyone praised the Raiders' performance — and the Raiders did deserve that praise — but I recall less attention being given to what may well have been Jaworski's worst performance as a pro.

It was certainly his worst performance on a postseason stage. He completed fewer than half of his passes and was intercepted three times.

And by the time he threw his only touchdown pass in a Super Bowl, the Raiders had built a 24–3 fourth–quarter lead.

It was the greatest defeat, I have no doubt, of Jaworski's career.

But the flip side was that it must have been the pinnacles of the careers of the many castoffs whose careers were revived by Al Davis. The Raiders' bombastic owner picked up guys like Plunkett, Kenny King, John Matuszak and many others who asked only to be given a chance to prove that they could still contribute.

Plunkett threw three touchdown passes — two to Cliff Branch and one to King that covered 80 yards, a record that still stands. He was named the game's MVP.

What became of the team that cut Plunkett earlier in 1980? Well, I guess you could say they did all right.

That would be the San Francisco 49ers, An up–and–coming quarterback named Joe Montana emerged as their quarterback in 1980 and wound up taking San Francisco to — and winning — four Super Bowls in the '80s — starting the next year.

But that's another story.

The Miracle on Ice

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There are moments in life that are unique.

Sometimes it's obvious. You know when they happen that you will always remember where you were and what you were doing when those moments occurred.

Most of the time, they seem to be moments you wouldn't want to repeat — like September 11 or the JFK assassination. But, from time to time, a moment comes along that is so inspirational, so uplifting that you wish you could experience it again and again.

Today is the 30th anniversary of such a moment. It was on this day in 1980 that the U.S. Olympic hockey team upset the powerful Soviets in Lake Placid, N.Y., and went on to win the gold medal a few days later.

I really thought somebody would show the movie "Miracle" today, but, if it is being shown, I haven't been able to find it in the listings. At the very least, I thought ESPN Classic would show a replay of the game, but that doesn't seem to be the case, either.

Apparently, though, some people are trying to recapture the feeling. Craig Custance of The Sporting News wrote the following about yesterday's victory over Canada in the Olympics: "If the Americans can play the role of favorite as well as they have the underdog, they're a serious threat to win [the gold medal]."

Fortunately, some people kept their perspective. "USA Hockey's win over Canada was hardly 'Miracle 2.0,' " writes Dan Shanoff.

With all due respect to the 2010 U.S. Olympic team and what it has accomplished so far, this is not 1980 and the Canadians are not the fearsome foes that the Soviets were — although, in some ways, the times are similar.

It's kind of hard to explain — if you aren't old enough to remember it — what a shot in the arm that victory was for the entire country. It was more than a game. It was about a beaten and bloodied America bouncing back in spite of the hostages in Iran, in spite of a recession and high unemployment.

Seems like a lot for a bunch of college kids to carry on their shoulders, but that was what those hockey players represented to millions of Americans who wanted to feel good about their country again. That became their mission, at least as far as the American public was concerned. They were standing in for the millions of Americans who had had it up to here, who were mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore.

After the U.S. hockey team prevailed over the heavily favored Soviets, the accomplishment was dubbed the "Miracle on Ice." Two years ago, when the International Ice Hockey Federation marked its 100th anniversary, it chose the U.S. victory as the #1 international hockey story of the century.

I don't believe that anyone who watched that game could ever forget it — or how they felt as sportscaster Al Michaels counted down the final seconds and uttered his legendary call as time ran out: "Do you believe in miracles? YES!" Just watching the clip at the top of this post brings the memories rushing back, and I feel the same chill run down my spine that I felt on that Friday 30 years ago.

I've never been a hockey fan. Most Americans probably wouldn't call themselves hockey fans. But the members of that U.S. team — Jim Craig, Mark Johnson, Mike Eruzione, coach Herb Brooks and all the rest of the squad — became latter–day American heroes. And, after that game, everyone in America was a hockey fan.

Until the end of the Olympic Games, anyway.

Two days after the Americans beat the Russians, I recall watching Jim McKay talking on ABC as the network prepared to televise the gold medal game. He told the audience about a conversation he had had with his wife earlier that morning. "This will be a first for you," he said he told his wife, "watching sports on TV on a Sunday morning."

He smiled as he recalled her reply: "I know — and to watch hockey!"

How big was it? When Sports Illustrated ran the picture of the Americans celebrating, there was no caption or headline. That's the only time in SI's history that a cover photo did not have any "cover language." "It didn't need it," the photographer said. "Everyone in America knew what happened."

A year later, a made–for–TV film about the U.S. hockey team was shown on the small screen. It was OK, although even casual hockey observers could tell that Karl Malden was more than two decades older than Brooks. If it had anything going for it, it was the way it incorporated actual game footage, giving viewers an opportunity to relive a moment when they not only felt free to dream again but also to hope again.

It wasn't until nearly 25 years later that the story of the U.S. hockey team finally made it to the big screen with a cast that was plausible. I thought the movie was great. But I couldn't help wondering why it took a quarter of a century for someone to make a genuine dramatization of that accomplishment. Surely there were times in the intervening years when America needed the inspiration that hockey team provided the Americans of 1980.

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Well, a recession has hammered America in the last couple of years, leaving more people filled with self–doubt than I have seen in my lifetime. Perhaps now, 30 years after that truly amazing achievement, this generation's hockey team will step forward and do the unthinkable — and inspire us to rise above our circumstances.

Beating Canada yesterday was big, but it wasn't really comparable to the win over the Soviets 30 years ago — even if the Canadians were wearing red uniforms.

At the end of "Miracle," some text appears on the screen dedicating the film to Brooks' memory. The film had been completed just before Brooks was killed in a single–vehicle crash at the age of 66.

Brooks never saw "Miracle," the dedication read. "He lived it."

And so did we all.