Gold Medal Rewards Two of Football’s Greatest Leaders

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame, Inc.

MONDAY'S CHALKTALK - MEMORIAL DAY EDITION

News and Notes from around college football for May 30, 2006

www.footballfoundation.org


Gold Medal Rewards Two of Football’s Greatest Leaders

Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno, both one week removed from earning election into the College Football Hall of Fame, received another honor last Thursday as the 2006 recipients of the National Football Foundation’s Gold Medal, the highest award bestowed by the Foundation. The coaches become the 49th and 50th recipients of the award and join a list of former honorees that includes seven U.S. Presidents, four U.S. Generals, John Wayne and Jackie Robinson. Bowden, current coach at Florida State, and Paterno, longtime head man at Penn State, have won a combined 713 games and 40 bowl games and collectively produced 141 First Team All-Americas and 20 National Scholar-Athletes. The two met this past bowl season in the FedEx Orange Bowl, a triple-overtime thriller won by Penn State, 26-23. Both coaches will received their Gold Medals and their Hall of Fame induction during the NFF’s 49th Annual Awards Dinner on December 5 in New York City.

Tillman, GameDay, Dodds, Lamberts Honored by NFF

A former Army Ranger, a pioneering television show, the leader behind one of the nation’s most successful athletics programs and a father-son officiating tandem highlighted the list of other 2006 award winners announced by the National Football Foundation last week. Pat Tillman, the former Arizona State standout who lost his life fighting with the Army Rangers elite infantry regiment in Afghanistan, will receive the Distinguished American Award. The Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award will go to ESPN College GameDay, which is entering its 20th season of providing unparalleled coverage of weekly match-ups each Saturday during the college football season. University of Texas athletics director DeLoss Dodds will be recognized with the John L. Toner Award, presented to a director of athletics who has shown outstanding dedication to college athletics, particularly college football. The Outstanding Football Official Award will honor the late Buddy Lambert, Sr., and his son, Buddy Lambert, Jr., both longtime officials in the SEC. These awards will be part of the NFF’s 49th Annual Awards Dinner in New York City on December 5.

ABC, ESPN Unveil Announcing Teams for 2006 College Football Saturdays

College GameDay wasn’t the only television news coming from the ABC/ESPN college football family last week. The networks announced their broadcast teams for their coverage of college football during the 2006 season.
Analysts Bob Davie and Kirk Herbstreit will join Brent Musburger in the booth for ABC’s inaugural primetime Saturday night telecasts this fall. The ESPN Saturday night crew will feature Mike Patrick and Todd Blackledge.
Other teams slated for announcing duties include: the three-man booth of Brad Nessler, Paul Maguire and Bob Griese; Tim Brant joining play-by-play man Dan Fouts, who slid over from the color analyst spot he held last year alongside the since-retired Keith Jackson; Doug Flutie joining the studio for college football analysis; and GameDay host Chris Fowler taking over the play-by-play duties on Thursday night ESPN broadcasts from Mike Tirico.

Ivy Football Association Donates $50,000 to Play It Smart

The Ivy Football Association (IFA) stepped forward last week to donate $50,000 to support the National Football Foundation’s highly successful Play It Smart program. The program, currently in 136 schools nationwide, trains academic coaches to work with high school football teams year-round in applying the lessons learned on the football field to their work in the classroom and the community. The IFA recognized the role served by Play It Smart to encourage educational and professional accomplishment in the lives of over 10,000 student-athletes each year. “The support of the Ivy Football Association brings an important and prestigious group to the table as part of a diverse collation backing this unique program,” said Ronnie Lott, chairman of the National Advisory Board and honorary chairman of the Play It Smart Fundraising Committee.

Two-Minute Drill

Tony Sardisco, the longtime president of the S.M. McNaughton (Shreveport) chapter of The National Football Foundation and a former Tulane All-America, died this past weekend at the age of 73... Former Florida Gators star and University of Miami assisant coach Joe Brodsky died last week from prostate cancer... Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, a standout at the University of Pittsburgh and later in the NFL, died last week at age 39 following a long battle with an inoperable brain tumor... Cathy Mazurkiewicz died last Wednesday after a bout with melanoma. Her son Montana received a dying wish of calling a play, “pass right”, for Notre Dame last season in their game against Washington... Doug DiCenzo, honored as a High School Scholar-Athlete by the New Hampshire chapter of the National Football Foundation in 1995, died last Thursday while serving in Iraq as part of the Army’s Multinational Division...

SMU received the 2006 American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Academic Achievement Award for graduating 100% of its members of the 2000-2001 freshman class. 28 other schools received distinction for graduating 70% or more of their football student-athletes, including five (Boston College, Duke, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Southern Mississippi) who graduated 90% or more... A statue of 1956 Heisman Trophy winner and 1985 College Football Hall of Fame inductee Paul Hornung, a Louisville native, will be unveiled this week outside of Louisville Slugger Field in Kentucky... The Big 12 Conference announced it will stay with an eight-game conference football schedule this year rather than increase it to nine games...
CBSSportsline.com reported that Division I football coaches are organizing an effort to overturn a new transfer rule that allows fifth-year seniors who have graduated to transfer without sitting out a year...

2004 College Football Hall of Fame inductee Bob Anderson, 1954 All-America end Donald Holleder and 1951 College Football Hall of Fame inductee quarterback Charles Daly will be among 11 inductees in the 2006 Class of Army Sports Hall of Fame this September... Marino Casem, longtime Alcorn State head coach and later an administrator and coach at Southern and a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, will receive induction this summer into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
(NACDA) Hall of Fame... Former Texas Tech and South Carolina head coach Jim Carlen earned induction last Tuesday into the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame...

The Milwaukee Athletic Club honored former Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez last Wednesday for his service to the school as coach and athletics director... The San Antonio Express-News reported that San Antonio has emerged as the frontrunner to host the 2007 Big 12 football championship game... Florida Citrus Sports announced it plans to bid to host a Bowl Championship Series game in several years... 84 football players from the University of Washington visited 12 area schools last week as part of the team’s “Blitz the Sound” program to teach area youth about the importance of education... Bowling Green State University announced its annual Women For Falcon Football Kickoff Clinic will take place on July 27 on campus... The
2006 Kirk Herbstreit Ohio v. USA Challenge will feature seven high school football teams that finished 2005 in the national rankings... Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute senior Grant Cochran, the last of six brothers from the state of Washington who played football at the Troy, N.Y. schools, graduated last Saturday. One of his brothers, Flynn, was a National Football Foundation National Scholar-Athlete in 2003... Purdue will replace the bluegrass turf surface at Ross-Ade Stadium with Bermuda sod...

Author John Feinstein will join Navy radio broadcasts for pregame commentary and analysis for a select number of games this year... Former Utah DL Maake Kemoeatu donated $20,000 to Weber State, where his former coach at Utah, Ron McBride, now coaches... The NCAA Expert Coaches Academy, an NCAA initiative to address the shortage of minority head coahces in college football, is taking place this week in Miami...

The Meineke Car Care Bowl extended an agreement with the Big East Conference to host one of its teams in the Charlotte, N.C. bowl through the 2009 season... The Dallas Morning News reported that the officials from the State Fair of Texas, where the Cotton Bowl sits, have contacted two dozen schools to inquire about potentially playing a neutral site football game there in the coming years... Members of the 1976 UCLA Rose Bowl team will gather on campus for a 30th reunion and celebration this Saturday to commemorate their upset of undefeated Ohio State... The Big Ten Conference extended its agreement to send a team to the Motor City Bowl to face a Mid-American Conference team... Bruce Gadd was named chairman of the Cotton Bowl Athletic Association... The MasterCard Alamo Bowl named Bob Cohen its new chairman of the board...

Virginia athletics director Craig Littlepage received the Black Coaches Association administrator of the year honors for the second time in three years... Herman Frazier, athletics director at the University of Hawaii, received the Lifetime Achievement Award this month from Arizona State University, his alma mater... Bob De Carolis, the athletics director at Oregon State, signed a five-year contract extension to remain at the school... Former Sugar Bowl executive Troy Mathieu was named the new athletics director at Grambling State... Rick Hart, an athletics official at Oklahoma, will be the new athletics director at Chattanooga...

Texas head coach Mack Brown underwent successful knee replacement surgery last week... Central Florida head coach George O’Leary received a ten-year contract extension just one year after guiding UCF to its first bowl appearance last season... Eastern Michigan added Jim O’Neil and Josh Buis as assistant coaches... Florida Atlantic added Johnny Frost as their new defensive end coach... Ohio State assistant coach Jim Bollman is recovering following successful heart bypass surgery on Saturday...

David Lawrence will move to the broadcast booth to replace recently retired Max Falkenstein, the 1998 winner of the NFF’s Chris Schenkel Award, for Kansas football radio broadcasts this season... Alabama named Doug Walker associate athletic director for media relations... Tennessee associate AD for media relations Bud Ford will receive the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) 2006 Arch Ward Award... University of Virginia ’s director of football operations Luke Goldstein was elected president of the Collegiate Sports Video Association... Central Florida added David Chambers and David Hansen to their athletics management staff.

Schedule Spotlight: Conference USA

Team – Date – First Opponent (Home/Away)

Alabama- Birmingham – September 2 – Oklahoma (A) Central Florida – September 2 – Villanova (H) East Carolina – September 2 – Navy (A) Houston – September 2 – Rice (A) Marshall – September 2 – West Virginia (A) Memphis – September 2 – Mississippi (A) Rice – September 2 – Houston (H) SMU – September 2 – Texas Tech (A) Southern Miss – September 2 – Florida (A) Texas – El Paso – August 31 – San Diego State (A) Tulane – September 9 – Houston (A) Tulsa – August 31 – Stephen F. Austin (H)


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Phil Marwill.......Director of Communications Chris Caputo.......Communications Assistant
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