Above is a video I used to like a lot which features MacEnroe’s wife.

_________________________

The tennis players Björn Borg and John McEnroe met 14 times at the regular tour during their careers with their on-court rivalry highlighted by their contrasting temperaments and styles.^[1] Borg was known for his cool and emotionless demeanor on court, while McEnroe was famed for his court-side tantrums. Their rivalry extended between 1978 and 1981, with each player winning seven times against the other.^[2] Because of their contrasting personalities, their rivalry was described as “Fire and Ice”.^[3]

In 1980 McEnroe reached the men’s singles final at Wimbledon for the first time, where he faced Borg, who was aiming for an Open Era record fifth consecutive Wimbledon title. At the start of the final McEnroe was booed by the crowd as he entered Centre Court following his heated exchanges with officials during his semi-final clash with Jimmy Connors. In a fourth set tie-breaker that lasted 20 minutes, McEnroe saved five match points (seven altogether in that set) and eventually won 18-16. However, he was unable to break Borg’s serve in the fifth set and the Swede went on to win 8-6. This match is widely considered one of the greatest tennis matches ever played. McEnroe exacted his revenge by defeating Borg at the US Open final the same year in five sets.

In 1981 McEnroe returned to Wimbledon and again faced Borg in the men’s singles final. This time it was the American who prevailed and defeated Borg to end the Swede’s run of 41 consecutive match victories at the All England Club. At the US Open in the same season, McEnroe was again victorious, winning in four sets. Borg retired shortly afterwards, having never won the US Open, despite reaching four finals. Their final confrontation came in 1983 in Tokyo at the Suntory Cup (exhibition tournament), with Borg prevailing 6-4, 2-6, 6-2.

USC-ND ’74 – The Anthony Davis Game

Uploaded by sckego on Aug 6, 2006

Today on August 27, 2012 I got to hear John Robinson speak at the Little Rock Touchdown Club, and I got to ask him a question. “Do you remember John McKay’s halftime speech at the 1974 Notre Dame at USC game?”

John Robinson responded that he remembered being down 17-0 and McKay called a play on 4th down and 1 that John Robinson knew would fail because Notre Dame had their goal line defense in. Sure enough it lost three yards.

Down 24-6 at half, McKay talked to the players in a calm voice and told them that he was prouder of this team than any other that he had ever coached. He told them to calm down and they were playing like they had a case of the jitters.

The second half was history and USC scored on the first play (100 yard kickoff return by Anthony Davis) and scored again and again till they won 55-24.

Here are some comments from the website redroom:

For Trojan fans, it was not a game, it was a sighting. It was Fatima, Lourdes and the Burning Bush combined. 

For Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian, it was the Seventh Circle of Hell. 

It was a 17-minute Southern California earthquake, epicentered at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a fall Saturday in 1974. 

Notre Dame 24, USC 0. Then USC managed a touchdown on a swing pass from quarterback Pat Haden to tailback Anthony Davis with 10 seconds left in the first half. 

“We had dominated the first half,” said legendary Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian.  After Davis scored, “that didn’t bother me that much, because we had done very well in the game. “ 

“I said gentlemen, we’re behind,” USC coach John McKay once recalled of his halftime speech, “and two guys who were math majors put up their hands and said, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ ” 

In a 2000 interview McKay said if Davis ran the second half kickoff back for a touchdown, “we would win the game.” Over the years, McKay’s remarks were changed to “Davis will run the second half kickoff back for a touchdown,” but like everything else that day, his words are now legend and myth. Fertig was a myth-teller par excellence. According to his story, McKay stated, “And I’ll tell you one other thing, we’re gonna return the second half kick-off.” 

Fertig further stated McKay told special teams blocker Mosi Tatupu “there’s no rule in this game against blocking,” and “if you’ll get off your rear end” and David Farmer also would block, “if you two will hit somebody, Anthony Davis will go 98 yards for the touchdown,” adding “he was wrong. A.D. went 100 yards.” 

USC radio announcer Tom Kelly famously started the second half broadcast, “It’s been an Irish afternoon,” but after Davis took the ball out of the end zone he immediately got excited . . . very excited.  

“. . . Davis coming out at the 10, 15, 20, he’s coming out at the 30 . . . HE’S GOING ALL THE WAY! They won’t catch him. Touchdown USC, 100 YARDS!” 

Dressed to the nines in a black suit, carnation in his pocket, national title ring glistening on his finger, A.D.’s eyes got big as he recalled the moment. 

“I haven’t seen a kick like this in two years. End over end, perfect kick, right in my hands, two yards deep in the end zone . . . And I always had a seven-yard relationship with my wedge. Every time they were hitting on defenders, I was making my breaks. I always gave myself three ways to run, so when I hit the edge, the whole field opened up, and I hit the sideline, on an angle, and I tell you, I was fast on the ring because I outran that angle, and it was on.” 

“We were trying to kick the ball away from him,” said Parseghian, looking like a guy trying not to think about a long-ago mugging. “I said kick it down to one side or the other, whatever you feel most comfortable with, I remember it vividly, and he kicks it right to Anthony, his left side, right in front of us, and I had the impulse to grab him, not like I could have.” 

The next 17 minutes were the most exciting in college football and Los Angeles sports history. That span included the kick-off return for a touchdown, a TD pass, a fumble recovery, another Davis TD run from scrimmage followed by A.D. diving in for a two-point conversion, a 56-yard punt return, another TD pass, an interception, another TD pass, and finally Charles Phillips’s 58-yard interception return for a touchdown. 55-24. 

Up in the broadcast booth, Ohio State coach Woody Hayes must have felt like a Prussian military commander with a binocular-view of Napoleon’s Italian Campaign, knowing he would have to face them down the road. The USC rooting section started chanting, “Woody, you’re next!” in reference to the upcoming Rose Bowl. 

USC won the national championship after a thrilling, comeback 18-17 win over the Buckeyes. Parseghian never coached after that season. Rumors have it he sees a therapist to combat visions of a white horse constantly running around a field.

Coach John Robinson – USC, LA Rams Former USC Trojan and Los Angeles Rams head coach leading USC to four Rose Bowl wins, a national championship and two final season #2 rankings while taking the Rams to two NFC Championship games and drafting Eric Dickerson as the #1 player in the NFL draft. His UNLV team defeated the Razorbacks 31-14 in the 2000 Las Vegas Bowl then lost the 2001 season opener against the Hogs at War Memorial with 18 seconds remaining in the game. Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame 2009.

Did you know that USC has a great football tradition that goes back 100 years. Take a look at this Rose Bowl Victory in 1945:

photo from rosebowlhistory.org

Related posts:

Switchfoot is a Christian Band with a great message (Part 5)

One of my favorite bands is Switchfoot. Tim Foreman is the front man and this band has always been very vocal about their Christian faith. I am really enjoying this series on their band.

Switchfoot: Oh! Gravity. The Meaning Behind

 Posted: Friday, December 22, 2006, 12:24 (GMT)

Oh! Gravity.
The Songs by Jon Foreman

grav•i•ty (grv-t) n.
– The natural force of attraction between any two massive bodies, which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
– Grave consequence; seriousness or importance
– Solemnity or dignity of manner.

Meaning Behind Songs

Oh! Gravity is a conversation with a well-known law of physics. The question is this: If in the physical world things naturally move closer together, why are we falling apart? War and rumors of war, divorce, hatred, violence, and everything else on the evening news seems to contradict gravity. This song is a fun happy-clappy tune about a grave matter: “Sons of my enemies, why can’t we seem to keep it together?”

American Dream. I am proud to be an American. Proud of my grandfather who was shot down in world war two. Proud of some of my best friends who are in the Marines. I believe in a nation that is serving a higher calling than a TV. I have nothing against the material world. I have nothing against consumerism as a social structure. Certainly we are consumers with physical bodies, but if that’s all we are we’ve lost what it means to be human. When success is equated with excess the ambition for excess wrecks us. As the top of the mind becomes the bottom line when success is equated with excess.

Dirty Second Hands. the machine. the clock. our own hands. The dirty second hand of time is always ticking- bringing us and all that we have worked so hard to achieve closer to the grave and the second hand store. In my fight with depression, lust, pride, and boredom I have found that the biggest challenger is often within me. The very machinery that I loathe and have fought so hard to defeat stares back at me from the mirror. This mechanism is always ticking. And in my spiritual life I have found that this is a part of me that has to die everyday if I am to be truly alive.

Awakening. How quickly I am lulled back to sleep! How quickly I forget. In one of my favorite Wilco songs Jeff Tweedy sings, “You know I would die if I could come back new.” Perhaps to be truly reborn death is not optional. Here’s a firsthand story about new life, it always starts at the bottom.

Circles. Here’s a tune that had its roots in the past. We actually played a version of this song a few tours ago while we were gearing up for the recording of “nothing is sound.” It’s an ecclesiastical song about the modern machine. We tracked a previous version of this song while we were tracking stars. But something about the song was never quite right. When Sean and Sarah Watkins (our friends from Nickel Creek) came in, the song took on a new life and became something truly special. The end of the song represents one of my favorite moments we’ve ever had on a CD.

Amateur Lovers. Oh that we knew how to love each other well! Here’s a song that elaborates on the title track with another set of social-physics questions. We all need love so badly- it’s how we were made. And yet we’re so bad at loving one another. It’s our attempt to put another matter of grave consequence in the skin of a pop tune.

Faust, Midas, and Myself. Two mythologies and the truth. Or more specifically, a man who makes a deal with the devil, a man who has a touch of gold, and my own personal struggles. CS Lewis had a lot to say about mythology. On one occasion he said that he writes fantasy to get past the watchful dragons of religion. That’s why I write music, because our minds are often so closed that even the truth can’t fit in to set us free. This is a story about following the fantasy and seeing where it leads. Sometimes the dreams turn into nightmares… In a million ways, I know firsthand that the taste turns sour very quickly.

Head Over Heals. This is an honest love song. Love is not a silk flower- always bright, with artificially whitened teeth and a fake tan. No, love is a fight. Love is what happens when you’ve been hurt and you want to quit. Love is what happens when you decide not to. Love is not the beginning of the story but the ending. Perhaps the thirty-minute sitcom has done a disservice to the sheer magnitude of what love is.

Yesterdays. I wrote this with my brother. The song is very straightforward. I have hope in this life and beyond the grave.

Burn Out Bright. One of two tracks on the record that is a command. Seems like every story I can relate to starts off with a broken heart, broken dreams and bleeding parts. There’s a story I know about a man named Israel who wrestled with God. From that day on he walked with a limp. I guess in a lot of ways I don’t trust a man who doesn’t have a limp. The future is yet unwritten. Write it well.

4:12. Another musical thesis on the subject of materialism. I’ve heard it said that we are souls and we have bodies. And yet our physical world is always hungry, always thirsty, always watching, always listening. It gets to the point where I begin to believe that all we are and that all of our dreams are nothing more than material. That love and fear and pain and justice are material? It’s nonsensical.

Let Your Love Be Strong. My wife’s favorite song. This one means a lot to me. “Maybe I’m just idealistic to assume that truth could be fact and form, that love could be a verb, maybe I’m just a little misinformed.” I wrote this one after a long walk in the early morning before the sun came up. I was sitting out by the train tracks halfway between the ocean and the freeway. When everything in your life falls apart you begin to realize what’s worth holding on to and who’s got a hold on you. Let the world fall apart … all of my life rests upon the love that created every breath I have been given.

*a footnote:
I have a hard time explaining what I do for a living. I sometimes wish I played the role of inventor: purposefully creative, a wizard with notes and words. But in fact my occupation is much more like an archeologist. Always digging. Always sorting. And occasionally I feel that I stumble across something truly remarkable. Like a hidden city buried in the ground, the notes and words seem to have been there long before me- as though the song would exist without my involvement. Or maybe it’s more like farming. Preparing the soil, planting, watering, pruning and caring for these ideas hoping to see a bumper crop yet knowing that the outcome is almost entirely out of my hands.

With that in mind, this collection of songs then is something that I can only partly take credit for. Most of my favorite moments on the record represent the times when my fingerprints are the lightest, where my own self-conscious second-guessing is absent and the buried city can speak for itself. I suppose to some extent I’m talking about honesty- allowing a song to be itself rather than forcing your own will upon it. This was a goal not only in the writing process but in the studio as well. Many times on this record we deliberately went back to the first take and the rough draft to find our direction simply because the first response to the song is often the most honest. Your first instincts might be poorly played or incomplete but they were honest.

I am so proud of these songs, like I am proud of my friends or as I imagine a father would be proud of his son. I truly feel like there is only so much credit that be given to the songwriter, for the buried city was waiting there all along.