Sports Flashback

Nolan Richardson is known for his success coaching the University of Arkansas men's basketball team to an NCAA Tournament title in 1994. This episode we discover that Richardson's accomplishments  on the court were unprecedented winning national titles at the NCAA, NIT and Junior College levels but those achievements pale in comparison to what he did as a pioneer for the African-American community.

Growing up in Lubbock, Texas Taje Allen was like so many young boys. He dreamed of one day playing in the Super Bowl. In 1999, his third season in the NFL playing for the St. Louis Rams, Allen surpassed his dream not only by playing for the NFL title but winning it. In this episode Allen talks about life growing up in West Texas, reveals when he discovered his college roommate at the University of Texas was an impostor, and relives that magical season in 1999 when the high-flying Rams offense held off the Tennessee Titans in one of the most exciting Super Bowls ever played. 

Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson is most known for his time as a star linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys during the team’s peak and Super Bowl run in the late 1970s. Since those days of fame and fortune from the football field he’s made the headlines for being sent to prison and winning a multi-million-dollar lottery. In this episode on Henderson’s remarkable life’s journey, he talks about all those things and more including when he first started using cocaine with his two legendary friends—comedian Richard Pryor and singer Marvin Gaye—and how today, more than 36 years into his sobriety, he still takes it just one day at a time.

Tom Penders is most remembered as a college basketball coach for his up-tempo style and time in Austin where he took the University of Texas to eight NCAA tournament appearances in ten seasons with the Longhorns. His success, however, wasn't just limited to Austin. In his 36 seasons coaching at the collegiate level he is one of only eight division one coaches to ever take four different schools to the NCAA tournament. What most don't realize is Penders was destined to be a successful coach long before he ever put a whistle around his neck and directed his first practice. There was always one question–what sport would it be that he would find that success?

In this episode Penders guides us on his journey from those early days as an athlete, why he eventually decided to pursue coaching basketball instead of playing professional baseball, and how today more than 50 years after it all started, he has no regrets and is grateful for the opportunity he had to pursue and live out his lifelong dream.

Over the course of the last 32 years Mark Boyle has been the play-by-play announcer for thousands of Indiana Pacers games. He was there that Friday night in November 2004 when the Pacers visited the Detroit Pistons. He was there when Ben Wallace shoved Ron Artest and Artest lied down on the scorer's table directly in front of him. And he was there the moment Artest charged into the stands and all hell broke loose. 

Boyle recounts that night and how he was seriously injured (five broken vertebrae) when Artest jumped off the scorer's table and bowled him over en route to confronting the fans in the stands. 

Glyn Milburn played in the National Football League for nine seasons where he earned All-Pro honors in 1995 and 1999. In this episode he talks about how he got started in the game, why he decided to transfer from Oklahoma to Stanford following his freshman year in college, and what it was like that December day in 1995 where he set an incredible NFL record with 404 all-purpose yards in a single game—a mark that still stands today.

Milburn also discusses his transition to life after football and how he has parlayed his time in football to a career as a successful businessman off the field including his time working in government with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and other efforts lobbying to get a stadium built in downtown Los Angeles.

Twenty years ago golfer Payne Stewart tragically died in a plane crash along with five others in what was supposed to be a routine flight from Orlando to Dallas. A captivated national television audience watched coverage for hours on CNN and the major networks as the anchors described a ghost plane flying on auto-pilot across the nation. Several hours later the plane crashed in South Dakota. In the Last Stand of Payne Stewart: The Year Golf Changed Forever, Kevin Robbins details the final fateful flight and reflects back on the last year of Stewart's life where the golfer finally found redemption and peace in his career and life. Robbins also writes how that year, 1999, turned out to be a last stand of sorts for golfers like Stewart, who were known for their feel and ability to work their way around 18 holes, as they were overtaken by the technological advances in equipment and those golfers who used it to overpower the course.

2:55 - On watching Payne Stewart's plane live on CNN in 1999 - It was so high flying at close to 50,000 feet. It was such a mystery. Nobody knew why the pilots weren't responding. Nobody knew why it was flying so high. No one knew why it was flying over Eastern Missouri instead of heading toward Dallas.

5:05 - On why it was secretive on who was on board - Air traffic controllers in Jacksonville who controlled that airspace over Orlando; they knew who was on board early but they didn't want his family and friends to learn through the news that Payne Stewart was on board.

6:31 - On the idea of writing the book - I'm just scrolling the Internet and somehow arrive at the full and final National Transportation Safety Board report on the incident that killed Payne and five others. It was like a 1,600-page document. As government reports are, it was incredibly rich in details and contained all angles.

8:14 - On the significant events of that year in golf - That was the year that Jean Vandevelde lost the British Open on the last hole at Carnoustie. That was the year that a young 23-year-old went toe to toe with Sergio Garcia in the PGA Championship. And then of course Payne had won the U.S. Open at Pinehurts.

9:30 - On the biographical nature of the book - In order to appreciate what Payne Stewart accomplished in 1999, both personally and professionally, you needed to know who he used to be and where he had come from and all that he had endured and all that people had endured of him.

11:45 - On Stewart growing up in Springfield, Missouri - Two of the first six winners of the Masters Tournament were from Springfield.

17:17 - On Stewart during his final round of his first major win - He was doing everything the wrong way that would be expected of a man about to become a major champion.

20:33 - On changing equipment and how it negatively affected his game for years - And so he switched clubs and balls at the same time and that's just a recipe for disaster and he entered this wilderness period of searching and frustrating and not winning and not even really contending anymore. Here's a guy who once graced the covers of magazines and newspapers and topped television broadcasts anytime he played and now he hasn't earned that anymore because he's not contending anymore so he just kind of vanishes for a long time.

23:00 - On how Stewart changed his life - He truly became a man of action later in life and that's what 1999 was all about. It wasn't about anymore what he was saying, it was what he was doing.

25:15 - On the slump he endured for years - Given his age at the time in his mid 30s, he's truly poised to peak and then the bottom falls out. He didn't just, like McIlroy, stop winning majors. He stopped winning. That had to be an enormous blow to his ego and to his humility. I think that was a tremendous influence on his reemergence in the 1998 at the US Open.

29:03 - On finding his way back to success - He put together a set of equipment that he would have played in 1989, not 1999. I think it freed him. It felt familiar, and good and true in his hands, these clubs. I think he felt like a brand new man and was ready to go in 1999.

32:23 - On coming up short at 1998 U.S. Open - He reported to the media center. I think the reporters were a little unsure about what they were going to get. Payne looked them in the eye and stood tall in his chair and said I didn't deserve to win today. I didn't play the kind of golf that should win a U.S. Open. I think that was a little bit shocking to the reporters who'd been around him for a long time because they were accustom to someone who would have reacted in a more undignified way. But he didn't. Not this Payne Stewart. Not this year.

39:00 - On 1991 U.S. Open preparation - They practiced these little recovery shots because Chuck knew Payne was going to miss some of the greens. Even though Payne was an excellent iron player. Everybody was going to miss greens that week at the U.S. Open. They took a yardage book and made copious notes in this yardage book about where to miss and where not to miss and they made a really solid plan that helped Payne to win that championship.

42:07 - On final round of 1991 U.S. Open - It was clear at this point that one of these two players would win. It would either be the 42-year-old Payne Stewart who had reemerged from the wilderness or it would be young, promising, long-hitting Phil Mickelson.

46:04- On maturing and winning the U.S. Open - What makes it more remarkable not so much he won a U.S. Open at the age of 42 but that he won it in a way that a younger Payne Stewart would have never considered. Because a younger Payne Stewart would say I've got this shot. I'll hit a 6-iron out of this rough and hit it up there and two-putt for par. He didn't do that. He took the wiser more mature choice and it turned to be the shot that won him the U.S. Open.

55:55 - On facing the equipment changes in 1999 - All of these threats were right in front of Payne Stewart and the other swingers who were in their 40s and they could do nothing about it.

1:01:50 - On Saturday night of 1999 Ryder Cup U.S. Team Meeting - The players were truly moved by that night. Six men who were in that room that night and they felt something. Maybe that carried over into the next day and they go out the next day and win.

1:05:14 - On Sunday Ryder Cup pairing with Colin Montgomerie - Colin Montgomerie was not a popular figure in the U.S. in 1999. He was a bit like a young Payne Stewart. A little bit provocative. He could be prickly, self-absorbed, he could blame external forces for his own failures. And all match long in those single matches he had endured these volleys of abuse from the well-lubricated fans of Boston.