Halas

It's not exactly the same as finding buried treasure, but some of the city's early football past has been discovered in a Baltimore basement. The correspondence describes how efforts were made to start a rival to the National Football League in 1935.The most surprising twist to the episode is that a man writing a scripted outline from Cincinnati, intended for a Baltimore recipient, somehow sent the letter to the upstart league's foremost rival, George Halas, owner, general manager and coach of the Chicago Bears.

Big-game sportsmen talk about a trophy hunt. Big-time AFC teams talk about the Hunt trophy. Lamar Hunt. Sounds like the product of a marriage between movie star Hedy Lamarr and Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt. But in reality, new Ravens fan, the Lamar Hunt Trophy is what your team is playing for Sunday. Hunt was a sports giant who founded the American Football League, the upstart organization that forced a merger with the NFL in 1970. The 10 AFL teams (along with the NFL Baltimore Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns)

Everything about George Halas, who as a founding father breathed life into the National Football League while seated on the running board in a Canton (Ohio) automobile showroom in 1920, was pointed toward preparation - of finding out all he could about a rival team, pending trades or, ultimately, even a future son-in-law. Halas, who won the second-highest number of games in NFL history, 324, with the Chicago Bears, is the only man who was his own team owner, general manager, coach, player, ticket-taker, publicity director and an early writer of a team song.

What's that phrase National Football League officials use after they've checked out a play that's been challenged? Oh, yeah: "after further review." Well, after further review, I've found I still have some Colts-fan DNA lingering in my body. No disrespect to my beloved Ravens, but I find myself ready to whoop it up for the Indy Colts (or the Baltimore Colts Playing in Indianapolis, as I fondly call them) when they face the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl tomorrow. I just can't watch the guys in that Colt blue and those horseshoe helmets and root against them and for -- the Bears?

EAST RUTHERFORD, N. J. -- Supplanting George Halas in the NFL record book, by reason of simple arithmetic, is going to have to wait. It's on hold. There's still one more to go.Don Shula and the team he coaches, the Miami Dolphins, had a long afternoon in losing to the New York Jets, 27-10, yesterday and thereby delayed the chance of any immediate revision in the all-time coaching standings.Yet it's inevitable that Shula is going to get there. He's still tied with Halas in all-time coaching wins, 324, so the next opportunity comes when the Dolphins are in Philadelphia to meet the Eagles on Sunday.

PHILADELPHIA -- From where no National Football League coach has been before, at a rarefied height that may never again be reached, stands Donald Francis Shula, who climbed his own Mount Everest and chiseled an imposing inscription of achievement.Shula has surpassed legendary George Halas, an equally intense and vocal rival he once faced as both a player and coach. The Shula record in 31 years shows an all-time mark of 325 wins as a result of his Miami Dolphins beating the Philadelphia Eagles, 19-14, yesterday in a history- making event that may signify an unattainable mark of excellence.

Big-game sportsmen talk about a trophy hunt. Big-time AFC teams talk about the Hunt trophy. Lamar Hunt. Sounds like the product of a marriage between movie star Hedy Lamarr and Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt. But in reality, new Ravens fan, the Lamar Hunt Trophy is what your team is playing for Sunday. Hunt was a sports giant who founded the American Football League, the upstart organization that forced a merger with the NFL in 1970. The 10 AFL teams (along with the NFL Baltimore Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns)

Mike McCaskey, the urbane, Ivy League-educated grandso of the legendary George Halas, fired his grandfather's last hand-picked coach, Iron Mike Ditka, yesterday in what amounted to a changing of the guard for the Chicago Bears."

When the Miami Dolphins completed an unprecedented National Football League season of 17 victories, no defeats in 1972, a man who owned a company that specialized in creating motivational films called a Baltimore sportswriter for an appointment. He asked for an objective opinion of Don Shula and how he went about winning so many games.The movie man was told there was no special secret, abracadabra or magic spell cast by Shula, merely hard work. That, in the opinion of the producer/director, didn't lend itself to merchandising or marketing.

WHEN THE BALTIMORE Colts would meet the Chicago Bears, in an era gone by, it frequently happened that Donald Francis Shula and George Stanley Halas, the respective coaches, would wind up in the same church on Sunday morning, bowing their heads and praying to the same God -- before the setting and the mood changed.Then, only hours away at kickoff time, the things they screamed from the bench most assuredly didn't come out of a prayer book. Two men wound tight, competitive and trying to get the maximum out of every play.

Everything about George Halas, who as a founding father breathed life into the National Football League while seated on the running board in a Canton (Ohio) automobile showroom in 1920, was pointed toward preparation - of finding out all he could about a rival team, pending trades or, ultimately, even a future son-in-law. Halas, who won the second-highest number of games in NFL history, 324, with the Chicago Bears, is the only man who was his own team owner, general manager, coach, player, ticket-taker, publicity director and an early writer of a team song.

It's not exactly the same as finding buried treasure, but some of the city's early football past has been discovered in a Baltimore basement. The correspondence describes how efforts were made to start a rival to the National Football League in 1935.The most surprising twist to the episode is that a man writing a scripted outline from Cincinnati, intended for a Baltimore recipient, somehow sent the letter to the upstart league's foremost rival, George Halas, owner, general manager and coach of the Chicago Bears.

Near the end of Walter Payton's 1993 induction speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he said: "I am going to close by saying life is short. It is oh, so sweet."Payton, the NFL's all-time rushing leader, couldn't have known how prophetic his words would turn out to be.His life was sweet, but it was, oh, so short.He died yesterday at the age of 45 of cancer of the bile ducts, which carry digestive fluids from the liver to the small intestine.Payton looked gaunt and frail when he announced in February he had a rare liver disease called PCS (primary schlerosing cholangitis)

Most of those sitting in judgment of Robert Irsay never knew him. The validation of the record, from a spiritual perspective, will left to a higher power. This is not to imply that those of us who met him along life's troubled highway are guilty of erroneous or prejudicial assessments in measuring his conduct. Diabolical and irrational behavior became a too- frequent characteristic.It was apparent to most Irsay watchers that he had a vast inferiority complex and a drinking problem. He always appeared uncomfortable in a social setting and was entirely out of his element in a football environment.

Reading Time: Two Minutes.Cold in Pittsburgh, wet in San Francisco. Hey, it will be mid-January when the NFL conference championships are staged Sunday in these cities and that's what the weather's supposed to be. You can bet the media won't let it go at that, however.* One of the great recruiting stories is how Providence College landed Hall of Fame player and now winningest NBA coach Lenny Wilkens. Friars coach Joe Mullaney was checking out Brooklyn in the mid-'50s and was turned down by a kid when a playground game caught his eye as he was getting into his car. He checked it out, was captivated by Wilkens' defensive brilliance, a rarity in pickup games, and the rest, as they say, is history.

When the Miami Dolphins completed an unprecedented National Football League season of 17 victories, no defeats in 1972, a man who owned a company that specialized in creating motivational films called a Baltimore sportswriter for an appointment. He asked for an objective opinion of Don Shula and how he went about winning so many games.The movie man was told there was no special secret, abracadabra or magic spell cast by Shula, merely hard work. That, in the opinion of the producer/director, didn't lend itself to merchandising or marketing.

MIAMI -- Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula, who probably will become the winningest coach in NFL history next season, has told several friends and members of his coaching staff that he will retire after the 1994 season, according to a report published yesterday.Shula, whose team was knocked out of the playoffs Sunday in the AFC championship game, would neither confirm nor deny the report in the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post. It has long been speculated that Shula would retire after 1994."It's something I have to consider and will think about for some time," Shula said yesterday.

What's that phrase National Football League officials use after they've checked out a play that's been challenged? Oh, yeah: "after further review." Well, after further review, I've found I still have some Colts-fan DNA lingering in my body. No disrespect to my beloved Ravens, but I find myself ready to whoop it up for the Indy Colts (or the Baltimore Colts Playing in Indianapolis, as I fondly call them) when they face the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl tomorrow. I just can't watch the guys in that Colt blue and those horseshoe helmets and root against them and for -- the Bears?

PHILADELPHIA -- From where no National Football League coach has been before, at a rarefied height that may never again be reached, stands Donald Francis Shula, who climbed his own Mount Everest and chiseled an imposing inscription of achievement.Shula has surpassed legendary George Halas, an equally intense and vocal rival he once faced as both a player and coach. The Shula record in 31 years shows an all-time mark of 325 wins as a result of his Miami Dolphins beating the Philadelphia Eagles, 19-14, yesterday in a history- making event that may signify an unattainable mark of excellence.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N. J. -- Supplanting George Halas in the NFL record book, by reason of simple arithmetic, is going to have to wait. It's on hold. There's still one more to go.Don Shula and the team he coaches, the Miami Dolphins, had a long afternoon in losing to the New York Jets, 27-10, yesterday and thereby delayed the chance of any immediate revision in the all-time coaching standings.Yet it's inevitable that Shula is going to get there. He's still tied with Halas in all-time coaching wins, 324, so the next opportunity comes when the Dolphins are in Philadelphia to meet the Eagles on Sunday.