Still crazy after all these years

Copyright: St. Francis University … and yet it was not the biggest win of the season When I was asked about a decade ago to join the selection committee of the St. Francis University Hall of Fame, I gave a list of names of people whom I would recommend. On it I had names like Joe Aston, Sandy Williams, and Jack Phelan, among others like Jay Roberts. When I talked about those three, the people on the committee looked at me with blank stares — they had no clue who I was talking about. They had no sense of St. Francis athletics history. They represented all segments of the campus, alumni, academics, admissions, and so on, so they were diverse — but clueless about SF history. How could they not know about Jack Phelan, the player who established the single-game scoring record at St. Francis in a scintillating performance against a tough Duquesne team in January 1977? I have seen hundreds of St. Francis basketball games, some awesome, more forgettable, but this was the most exciti...

Jay (40) and Justin (22) Roberts in their St. Francis days, circa 1974 … Jay, Jerry, Justin, Joe Jay Roberts will be inducted into the St. Francis Athletics Hall of Fame Friday night, and as I wrote in the Altoona Mirror, he had been overlooked for a number of reasons for many years.  http://www.altoonamirror.com/sports/local-sports/2019/07/roberts-time-has-finally-come-earned-football-glory-the-hard-way-at-sfu/ Jay’s numbers were tremendous. In his four-year career from 1971 until 1974, he rushed for 3,824, just under 4,000. If the Red Flash had played its full nine games in his senior year — St. Vincent’s dropped football before the season started — then he might have hit the 4,000-yard mark. Jay also started as a defensive back and did the punting and placekicking duties. He was offered a chance to compete for the World Football League after finishing his career with the Red Flash, but demurred. In short, he had a storied career in the early years of the program und...

… the rule has not worked At the end of last season, some were shocked when five black head coaches in the NFL were fired, leaving the league with just four. The lamentation was that the Rooney Rule that was intended to promote diversity in a league dominated by black players had failed. One coach was avoided the axe was one who was hired as a result of the Rooney Rule: Mike Tomlin, who ironically, was hired by the Rooneys. Dan Rooney, who succeeded his father as owner and then CEO of the Steelers, was the one who proposed the rule. Art Rooney II was in on the hire, too. The story about Tomlin’s hiring has been repeated many times. The Steelers were set on hiring Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera. However, in order to comply with the Rooney Rule, one black head coach has to be interviewed. That has been the rule for 13 years. That led to the interview of Tomlin, who had been a defensive coordinator for only one year — with the Minnesota Vikings — and did not have a very ...

Thanks to everyone who has been reading my blogs, particularly the past two-and-a-half years when these numbers grew significantly. As of this morning, I officially passed the quarter of a million, eclipsing the 250,000 number of page views. Here is the breakdown of the most popular stories and where my readers live. Figures as of noon, CDT, July 16 HughBradyConrad         200,045 http://hughbradyconrad.blogspot.com Sports blog                       50,895 http://hce1947.blogspot.com Total                                 250,940 Top Stories Hugh Brady Conrad                                                                  Total         ...

… many like Reggie Wayne are high on the second-rounder The reviews for James Washington after the Steelers selected him as their second-round pick, the 60th overall, in 2018, were superb. After his 2017 season at Oklahoma State, he received the Biletnikoff Award that is emblematic of the top college receiver in the country. He caught 226 passes for 4,472 yards and 39 TDs in his college career. Many of those were from Mason Rudolph, whom the Steelers also selected in the third round of the same draft. Nevertheless, Washington fell to the seventh receiver selected in the 2018 draft. Why? Washington lacks some physical tools Primarily, he fell because of size and speed. He is only 5-11, and his speed is just about 4.5 in the 40-yard dash, and those are not impressive numbers. A story about how few 5-foot, 11-inch receivers, actually sub 6-foot receivers, in Pro Football Reference noted that only two receivers under that since 2000 have been drafted, In fact, the last time the combi...

… buried in Blue Knob near his childhood home I've been there before because his sister is buried there. It's on top of a hill. It's beautiful there. I was just really impressed when we were there when his sister was buried on the side of the mountain. I always loved it there. I found out all of his brothers are buried there. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Joanne Chappell, widow of Len Chappell Len Chappell traversed the country during his life, an odyssey that was propelled by his excellence in basketball. However, as he started to reminisce in his later years, the most accomplished athlete in Portage High School history always discussed the joy of his formative years in Portage. After his four years playing college basketball in Winston-Salem (N.C.) and his 11 in the N.B.A., Chappell settled in Milwaukee, where he started a successful business with his wife, Joanne. Nevertheless, when Portage named its basketball facility “Len Chappell Gymnasium”...

[Originally posted on Thursday, March 16, 2017] ... one of the best players ever from Cambria County  Legend has it that he practiced his soft jump shot in a family barn located in the Martindale / Puritan area of Portage Township. That is the reason that it had a somewhat flat trajectory to it. However he practiced it, Len Chappell became one of the greatest players in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and one of its most prolific scorers, eventually winning the ACC Player of the Year Award twice as well as becoming a two-time All-American at Wake Forest University. It was a long trek from Martindale to Winston-Salem, N.C., but the 6-8, 240-pound center attracted the attention of a coach by the name of Horace (Bones) McKinney. A smooth communicator, McKinney sweet-talked Chappell with his lore about the ACC being the greatest conference in the country -- and why he should experience it with the Demon Deacons. After playing for Coach Jim Hess and scoring 2,240 p...

[Repost from 2018] … passed away on Thursday at 77 Great athletes abound in the United States. Those who were great athletes but also great people are not as common. Yet, Len Chappell was both, and a few stories will explain why that is the case. I was fortunate to have interviewed Len on three occasions, and I came away with a portrait of the man, not just the athlete. Born in the Martindale area of Portage Township, Chappell was blessed with physical skills, growing to 6-feet, 8-inches and about 240 pounds when he finally took the floor as a Demon Deacon at Wake Forest in 1958. Chappell left his mark at Portage, scoring an incredible 977 points in his senior season, 2,240 in three years for Coach Jim Hess. He led the Mustangs into the nationally-known War Memorial Invitational Tournament in his senior season, matching up against one of the most powerful schools in Pennsylvania, Overbrook, in the opening game. Overbrook featured its own big star, Wayne Hightower, and the two big men...

… little known football history In the early days of the Pittsburgh Steelers history, Art Rooney, Sr. never envisioned that his football team, or the National Football League, would become the behemoth that it eventually did. However, the NFL had always wanted a professional football team in Pittsburgh during the 1920s because of the popularity of football in Pennsylvania, and because of the success of the then powerful Panthers of the University of Pittsburgh. However, the big problem is placing a team in Pittsburgh was the conservative Christians who insisted that the state have “Blue Laws” that required that no sporting events of any kind, or at any level, could take place on Sundays. However, in the years of the Depression, that changed just at the same time as Prohibition was repealed, which drove the Christians wild but made Art Rooney, Sr. very happy. In 1933, Rooney was able to scrape up a fee of $2,500 to the NFL for a franchise in Pittsburgh — and the rest is history. H...