Mike Phipp"s fluttering footballs and the fury of John Francis Sheehy

 Mike Phipp"s fluttering footballs and the fury of  John Francis Sheehy





      The scene is the front room on McNerney and Greg and his Dad are watching a college football game with a winning football card in the balance. The father has seen the Purdue Boilermakers with their All-American quarterback Mike Phipps upset last years champion Notre Dame team and has an inkling they will also ambush another powerhouse Ohio State coached by the biggest prick who ever stood on the sidelines named Woody Hayes. It is November 17, 1969  and the college game is pure and powerful, more interesting than any NFL bullcrap. The Buckeyes are a juggernaut with Jack Tatum, Rex Kern, Jim Stillwagon and an offensive line that was a ton of trouble. John, leaned back and lit another tareyton and confidently awaited a Phipps led upset and money flowing in from the smug bookmaker. It was cold in Columbus, about 23 degrees and also windy with a twenty-mile an hour bluster making passing difficult. It did not turn out well for the Boilermakers who could not do much right,  Five interceptions it got. Three fumbles it got. A punt return for a touchdown it got. And a miserly 29 yards rushing for one of the most miserable games in the school's history. When things started to get out of hand and another Phipps pass fluttered like a dying quail toward a waiting Buckeye defenseman  an overboiled John screamed one of his trademark curses that has lasted for all time "PHIPPS YOU SON OF A BITCH...YOU SON OF A BITCH...YOU ABYSMALLY IGNORANT SON OF BITCH!!!" The card was done and so was John but his words lived on and were even repeated in his eulogy read at St. Emydius Church some twenty-three years later. The mighty Ohio State bullies coincidentally did get upset the next week by Michigan who went to the Rose Bowl and were upset by USC who had cheated UCLA out of a win in the big game with a phony pass interference call and a Sam Dickerson not a touchdown catch out of the endzone the bribed referees called a score.




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