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The last time Miami played in Yankee Stadium...

gatorsSUCK! said:
Playing us is like banging a 70 year old former centerfold...just so you can say you did it. Only reason we were chosen...folks like watching our storied program get it face rubbed in the sheet
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I'd bang a 70 year old former centerfold. If you know any send me a PM.
 
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TheMatador said:
I remember your father well. Hoyt Sparks slipped in the corner near the flag and missed a TD at the end of that game that would have given us the victory.

I hated that game and hate the fact we are going to another Yankee Stadium game in December. I think we would have won in normal weather, not arctic weather.

I used to converse with you on Grassy. I remember Nick Spinelli who was the real Matador's favorite after All American Bill Miller left after George's sophomore season.

i still remember one of the networks did a preseason special and they featured early fall practices at UM. George was at QB and your father was playing flanker and running through plays with a big cast on his forearm. I think it was off by the time the season started.

i serm to recall your father went to camp with the Patriots, probably the old Boston Patriots.
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Everything you mentioned is spot on
 
Dingaan1828 said:
He also had a punt return for a TD the year before in the Liberty Bowl. The Liberty Bowl was played in Philadelphia back then and it was freezing.
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Yep, I discovered an old video clip of it on YouTube. Pretty cool, he had wheels
 
TheMatador said:
I remember an interview with Nick. He said he would be working in the coal mines (or steel mills, I can't remember which) if he had not gotten a scholarship to play college football. Was he from Coraopolis? Trying to remember....


EDIT: Yep, it was Coraopolis. Is this your father on the left?



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Yes it is, great find. His brother still lives up there and nick in boca. I remember going to Ben Rizzos house in Utica when I was very young
 
Martycane said:
...The old Gotham Bowl...Dec 4, 1962...We lost 36-34 to Nebraska, a wild one. The great George Mira threw for 321 yards and a couple of touchdowns.
The weather: 14 degrees.
The crowd: 6,600. (A newspaper strike killed any chance of publicity in NYC.)
I was supposed to go but pops said we couldn’t go because of the weather. (Years later, I found out he went without me.)
Funny: The Bowl couldn’t find an opponent for us until Nebraska agreed to play — IF it got a big chunk of the money up front right away.
That was the last Gotham Bowl...
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Dilly dilly to Pops. He one up'd U Bruh.
 
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Martycane said:
...The old Gotham Bowl...Dec 4, 1962...We lost 36-34 to Nebraska, a wild one. The great George Mira threw for 321 yards and a couple of touchdowns.
The weather: 14 degrees.
The crowd: 6,600. (A newspaper strike killed any chance of publicity in NYC.)
I was supposed to go but pops said we couldn’t go because of the weather. (Years later, I found out he went without me.)
Funny: The Bowl couldn’t find an opponent for us until Nebraska agreed to play — IF it got a big chunk of the money up front right away.
That was the last Gotham Bowl...
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U killed me with the " years later I found out he went without me " lines. Beautiful stuff right there Marty. Thanks for sharing.
 
spinelli20 said:
Yes it is, great find. His brother still lives up there and nick in boca. I remember going to Ben Rizzos house in Utica when I was very young
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I remember Ben Rizzo very well. I had a friend who moved down to south Florida from Utica. He was a huge Syracuse fan but knew about Rizzo. It was horrible when Syracuse beat us 15-14 in that Liberty Bowl. Couldn't live that down with that friend. We had some pretty good defensive ends on those teams: Rizzo and Frank Reinhardt. Reinhardt was a military veteran and played for UM in his late 20's. I think he was like 28 as a senior. That was legal but highly unusual.

Back then, substitution rules were different. We usually had what were called platoons. Some played only or mainly offense or defense. Sone guys played on both sides of the ball. Sometimes our WRs ended up playing DB. Fullbacks might play some LB.

We had a really good lineman named Dan Connors who was outstanding on defense, but I remember seeing him play offensive line against LSU in the Orange Bowl. That was probably during the '63 season.

Connors ended up a fixture as starting MLB for the Raiders for years.

I remember we had another fast WR who played around that time--Jack Bahen. I believe he was one of the many kids we recruited out of western Maryland (Cumberland). Bahen and Spinelli were just about the only guys who had long TDs for us during that era. We were known for not having a lot of speed. Everybody would lament the lack of a breakaway back.
 
I remember a shootout against Maryland in the OB, probably in the '63 season.

Maryland had one of the best QBs in college football: **** Shiner. They had one of the best ends (now called WR): Gary Collins. We had our own stars, George Mira and Bill "Brownie" Miller.

It was a great matchup. Maryland beat us 28-24.

Collins and Miller were the two consensus All-American ends their senior years. Miller was an all-time great for us. Went to the Raiders. Collins ended up with the Browns, I think.

We played a lot of the great QBs that year: Tommy Myers at Northwestern (I think they beat us, too.) Myers had a great receiver, Paul Flatley. We played Staubach and Navy. We played an outstanding QB from TCU: Sonny Gibbs.

We lost most of those games.

Alabama was a team that was dominating. So was LSU.

Going 7-3 against some of those early '60's schedules was not bad.
 
spinelli20 said:
Yep, I discovered an old video clip of it on YouTube. Pretty cool, he had wheels
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Highlights of Liberty Bowl played 12/18/61. Cuse had best player in the country, Ernie Davis. Take out Davis, and we probably would win easily. I guess it was the year before, I watched Davis gash our defense in a regular season game in the OB. We lost that one, too.



Spinelli punt return is beginning of video.

It was 25 degrees for that game. Our big advantage for our home games was heat and humidity. Some years ago, Bruce Brinkos, a UM player from the early '60's, described to me how visiting teams were sweating and wilting in the second half.

EDIT: If you look carefully, you'll see Nick Spinelli ( # 20) in at defensive back on Cuse's offensive plays. He might have been a backup at receiver since we had Bill Miller and Larry Wilson as senior starters.
 
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OP's dad took the son of an Asian "masseuse" that he was very fond of in Chinatown instead. That kid grew up to be famous cellist and HUGE Canes fan Yo-Yo Ma.

You win some and you lose some, OP. Father-son relationships can be very complicated.
 
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I remember the disappointment when we fell to 3-7 in 1963. Lost close ones to LSU 3-0 (Remember those kind of games?) and Alabama 17-12. Spinelli had 41 catches. Mira over 2000 yards passing.
 
TheMatador said:
Highlights of Liberty Bowl played 12/18/61. Cuse had best player in the country, Ernie Davis. Take out Davis, and we probably would win easily. I guess it was the year before, I watched Davis gash our defense in a regular season game in the OB. We lost that one, too.



Spinelli punt return is beginning of video.

It was 25 degrees for that game. Our big advantage for our home games was heat and humidity. Some years ago, Bruce Brinkos, a UM player from the early '60's, described to me how visiting teams were sweating and wilting in the second half.

EDIT: If you look carefully, you'll see Nick Spinelli ( # 20) in at defensive back on Cuse's offensive plays. He might have been a backup at receiver since we had Bill Miller and Larry Wilson as senior starters.
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Spinelli's Dad was very fast!
 
Martycane said:
I remember the disappointment when we fell to 3-7 in 1963. Lost close ones to LSU 3-0 (Remember those kind of games?) and Alabama 17-12. Spinelli had 41 catches. Mira over 2000 yards passing.
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'63 was supposed to be Gustafson's dream team. He was set to retire after that season. He had the two great sophomore RB's, Russ Smith and Pete Banaszak. People were comparing this backfield to, potentially, his great backfield in the 1940's at Army when he was an assistant to Red Blaik. That Army team was a national power and the backfield was Arnold Tucker (QB); Glenn Davis (HB, "Mr. Outside"); and Doc Blanchard (FB, "Mr. Inside").

There was talk that Russ Smith and Pete Banaszak would give us an outside-inside running tandem that would be comparable.

With Russ Smith, a big star at Stranahan, and younger brother of early '50's UM great Frank Smith, we thought we had finally found that great breakaway back we had needed for years. Our backs had been hard running backs who never seemed able to break long runs (Jim Vollenweider, Nick Ryder, Van Parsons, Mark Panther, and others.)

That '63 season turned out to be very disappointing. There were all kinds of theories about Mira's passing. Some said he's mechanics were off. One former college player I knew, then one of my teachers, blamed it on George"s recent marriage--said if Mira hadn't spent time in bed with his wife he would have been OK.

Lot of strange ideas around.

I've learned over the years to live with the disappointments. Back then, we didn't have the recent history of being the truly elite.

Now, I know we have the potential to return to that level. It might not be under the current coach, though.
 
Tad Footeball said:
OP's dad took the son of an Asian "masseuse" that he was very fond of in Chinatown instead. That kid grew up to be famous cellist and HUGE Canes fan Yo-Yo Ma.

You win some and you lose some, OP. Father-son relationships can be very complicated.
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I thought his name was Yo Ma-Ma.
 
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