 |
| Etowah County's Brodie Croyle |
Another great season of football came to an end Sunday night
as the Seattle Seahawks upset the Denver Broncos, 43-8, in Super Bowl XLVIII at
MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
Last week, The Courant polled a number of football fans for
their game predictions, and only four predicted that Seattle would win.
Sparta’s JV boys basketball coach Detroit Webb got pretty close, predicting
that Seattle would win, 31-27. Hillcrest grad Chad Jerkins also got pretty close,
saying that Seattle would win, 24-13.
----- 0 -----
From the weird news file this week, I saw in Tuesday of last
week’s “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” feature cartoon an item that said that Joe
Salter of Florida completed a marathon in Illinois in five hours and 51 minutes
while running backwards – and juggling. Salter pulled off this amazing feat on
Sept. 22, 2013 at the Quad Cities Marathon. He did 62,000 juggling throws
during the marathon.
----- 0 -----
Today – Feb. 6 – is also remarkable because it’s Babe Ruth’s
birthday. Ruth, who is considered one of the greatest baseball players of all
time, was born on this day in 1895 in Baltimore, Md. His real name was George
Herman Ruth Jr. “Babe” was one of his nicknames, and he was also known as the
“Sultan of Swat” and “The Great Bambino.”
Fast-forward 88 years to Feb. 6, 1983 and you have the
birthday of former Alabama quarterback Brodie Croyle. Croyle was born in
Rainbow City, which is in Etowah County near Gadsden. He played high school
football at Westbrook Christian School in Rainbow City, and he set a number of
records as a high school quarterback. In fact, his name can still be found in
the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s official record book.
He’s currently fifth on the list for most yards passing in a
single game, completing 24 of 35 passes for 528 yards and seven touchdowns in a
54-20 win over Donoho in 1998. He’s also fourth on the all-time list for most
passing yards in a single season, completing 175 of 282 passes for 3,787 total
yards and 44 touchdowns during the 1998 season. He also rushed for 10
touchdowns that year.
A year later, during the 1999 season, he completed 155 of
287 passes for 2,838 yards and 35 touchdowns. He’s fourth on the all-time list
for career passing yards. From 1996 through 2000, Croyle threw for 9,321 yards.
He’s second on the all-time list for most touchdown passes in a career with 105
to his credit.
Croyle played at Alabama from 2002 through 2005, which was a
weird time for Alabama football. Croyle signed to play for Dennis Franchione,
who left and was replaced by the ill-fated Mike Price. Price got canned for
off-the-field shenanigans, and was replaced by Mike Shula, who remained as
Alabama’s head coach for the rest of Croyle’s college career.
Croyle eventually went to the Kansas City Chiefs in the
third round during the 2006 draft. He retired in 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment