Dallas LB Chuck Howley Super Bowl V may have been the strangest of all of the 44 NFL title games played since the Super Bowl began. It was played following the 1970 season, the first year the NFL and AFL merged into one league with 2 conferences, after Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Baltimore were transferred … Read More
Feature Stories
NFL – Super Bowl Coaches And Quarterbacks
When the careers of head coaches and quarterbacks in the NFL are ultimately judged, winning – or at least reaching – Super Bowls is one of the important measuring sticks that is used. For some reason, though, perceptions of those players and coaches vary. Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw both won four Super Bowls, and … Read More
NFL – Super Bowl Reading
Since this is Super Bowl week, the annual week of megahype leading up to the National Football League’s championship game, Rayonsports.com will feature posts having to do with the big game. I’ve always felt that the game has become such a circus-like event, with the stands full of corporate sponsors and the over-the-top halftime shows, that … Read More
NFL – 20th Anniversary of “Wide Right”
Today – Thursday, January 27th, 2011, is the 20th anniversary of a game that lives on in Buffalo sports history as “Wide Right”, the Buffalo Bills’ first-ever appearance in the NFL’s Super Bowl following the 1990 season, that ended in heart-breaking fashion with kicker Scott Norwood missing a 47 yard field goal that would’ve won the … Read More
Black Athletes In The 1960s
My perspective on African American athletes in the 1960s was pretty much formed by whatever was written about them in the press at the time. It was a very impressionable time for me, and the gang I grew up with, and I remember we idolized many pro athletes and didn’t really make much of what … Read More
Remembering Bob Feller
Baseball lost one of it’s greatest players, and greatest ambassadors of the game, this week when Bob Feller passed away at the age of 92. Feller joined the Cleveland Indians in 1936 at the age of 17, and pitched for 18 seasons with the Tribe, anchoring one of the sport’s greatest starting pitching rotations ever. … Read More
NFL – Remembering Don Meredith
It’s a shame that a lot of younger football fans don’t even remember Don Meredith, who passed away on Monday of a stroke, as an original member of the Monday Night Football broadcast team, yet alone his playing career as a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. Meredith backed up Eddie LeBaron at QB in Dallas in the … Read More
Remembering Bill Walsh
On this day in 1931, legendary NFL head coach Bill Walsh was born in Los Angeles, California. I recently read a short biography of Walsh and it reminded me of a fact that seems lost in today’s NFL – that the greatest coaches of all time are the ones that are the best teachers, not … Read More
Turkey Trot Mania
One of the highlights of Thanksgiving Day each year is the running of the Turkey Trot in various cities around the country. They are very popular as people anticipating eating the large Thanksgiving feast run the race, usually a 5K, to burn off calories in advance of eating all that food. In researching this post, … Read More
NFL – Classic Thanksgiving Games – Part II
Inaugural Dallas Thanksgiving Game vs. Browns in 1966. Detroit has had the honor of hosting the NFL’s annual Thanksgiving Day game since 1934, but in 1966, the league added a second Turkey Day game, awarding the honor to the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys played the Cleveland Browns in their inaugural game that year, … Read More