Gridiron America Radio

Narrated by Curt Gowdy. All the play-by-play highlights and interviews of the first fourteen Super Bowls. Recapture all the excitement as a single day event in January of each year became the most celebrated sports day on the sporting calendar.

Narrated by Bill Mercer. It seemed they were forever the bridesmaid. They were continually coming up short in the championship games. That was until 1972 and now you can relive the magic of a group that became known as “America's Team”. In Super Bowl VI, the Cowboys crushed the Dolphins 24-3, in which they rushed for a record 252 yards and their defense limited the Dolphins to a low of 185 yards while not permitting a touchdown for the first time in Super Bowl history. Dallas converted Chuck Howley's recovery of Larry Csonka's first fumble of the season into a 3-0 advantage and led at half time 10-3. After Dallas received the second-half kickoff, Duane Thomas led a 71-yard march in eight plays for a 17-3 margin. Howley intercepted Bob Griese's pass at the 50 and returned it to the Miami 9 early in the fourth period, and three plays later Roger Staubach passed 7 yards to Mike Ditka for the final touchdown. Thomas rushed for 95 yards and Walt Garrison gained 74. Staubach, voted the game's most valuable player, completed 12 of 19 passes for 119 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Narrated by Chuck Thompson, Bill O'Donnell and Jim Karvellis. In 1968 the Colts put together one of the finest teams in the game's history. With a precision offense and violent defense the Colts stampeded to 13 victories and 1 defeat on the way to the NFL championship and a stunning loss to the New York Jets in Super Bowl III.

Narrated by Merle Harmon. A look back at the team who changed the face of professional football --- the 1968 New York Jets. With a brash young quarterback at the helm the Jets topple the mighty Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Recapture the excitement of a season never to be duplicated.

Narrated by Rick Weaver. Relive the molding of one of the greatest football teams ever assembled, graduating from an expansion team to one of the NFL's best, as the 1971 Miami Dolphins storm through the AFC and a date in Super Bowl VI.

The CFL has no luxury of a warm weather site, if you don't count BC Place. As a result, the CFL has been impacted by weather on numerous occasions, the most famous being the interruption of the 1962 Grey Cup that was suspended due to fog in the 4th quarter and continued the next day. Prior to floodlights being installed in most stadiums, games in the late fall were sometimes suspended for darkness, to either be replayed or continued on a future date. Otherwise, CFL games have been played in every imaginable condition in ice, snow, mud and gale force winds.

Narrated by Rick Weave, this audio documentary from the 1970s features a no-name defense, a quarterback who came off the bench, two running backs who rushed for 1000 yards each, all of which equated to a perfect 17-0 season. They made believers out of everybody. Relive the exciting story and highlights of that incredible season.

25 years before their first Super Bowl championship, the 1976 New England Patriots came within an official’s call of what might have become postponed glory. Now you can relive that infamous 11-3 season as the New England Patriots, in America’s bicentennial year, give all they had in their quest to be called the NFL’s best.

For our seventh episode on the Sports History Network, CFL fan and Grey Cup attendee Upton Bell, joins us. Upton is the former director of personnel of the Baltimore Colts, general manager of the New England Patriots, and owner of the New York Stars and Charlotte Hornets of the World Football League.  After football, Upton transitioned into sports broadcasting in the New England area where he was the host of "Calling All Sports", "Sports Nightly", "Sports Line", and "Sports Beat." Upton was also the color commentator for the Boston Breakers, Boston Celtics, Boston College and Ivy League football, as well as an interviewer for the Patriots pregame show. He also served as co-host of the first nationally televised NFL draft on PBS in 1977. In the 1980s Upton transitioned to talk radio in Boston where he interviewed three presidents and countless other national figures.  Upton is the son of former NFL Commissioner Bert Bell, and, in 2017, he, along with Ron Borges, authored "Present at the Creation: My Life in the NFL and the Rise of America's Game."

When you think of the old Baltimore Colts, the first flashback that comes to mind are the black and white films with Johnny Unitas leading the team in the 1950’s. Then another thought stirs up images of Bert Jones, Lydell Mitchell and the mid 1970’s version with Head Coach Ted Marchibroda. You follow-up that thought with the green and yellow Mayflower trucks moving the team to Indianapolis in the middle of the night in 1984. Yet sandwiched between the first and second of these events is the most forgotten champion in modern football history- the 1970 Baltimore Colts.

Six-man football is played at more than 250 high schools in Texas and for many, it’s not just a game – it’s the lifeblood of tiny communities where the largest employer is often the lone high school. Featured here is a documentary that spent a full season exploring the games, towns and people of the unique sport for an in-depth, multiplatform presentation. The story follows several compelling stories – on and off the field – at five public schools playing in the smallest division in west and central Texas. 

Despite what the NFL says, the league actually began play in 1898 when the Arizona Cardinals began play as the “Morgan Athletic Club” located on the south side of Chicago; which was a neighborhood gym where boxing was the utmost activity. A local painting contractor named Chris O’Brien started the team from members of the club. Back then, teams would form and play other neighborhoods or nearby towns/cities and called it professional football because they charged a gate and divided up the proceeds after all the expenses were covered. That meant there might be several teams in a large city such as Chicago alone and sometimes would play only a handful of games and then disband when interest waned or players simply quit. Scheduling games against local and regional teams cut down on travel expenses. Most teams were comprised of factory workers, policemen, shop owners, dock workers, mechanics, coal miners, former college athletes and men from all walks of life.  Since that time, Chicago has been instrumental in the growth and rise in popularity of professional football, and in many ways, because of the Cardinals (who would leave the city in 1959), it is where the NFL truly began.

More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high school coach and then as an assistant at Fordham, West Point, and the New York Giants before his big break came at age forty-six with the chance to coach a struggling team in snowbound Wisconsin. His leadership of the Green Bay Packers to five world championships in nine seasons is the most storied period in NFL history. Lombardi became a living legend, a symbol to many of leadership, discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, and to others of an obsession with winning.

Don Shula’s football life almost ended before it began. Wanting to play football as a sophomore in high school against his mother’s wishes, Shula forged his parents’ signature. Then, after earning a scholarship from John Carroll University, he almost gave up the game for the Priesthood. However, after he decided to continue playing and with a career game vs. Syracuse while legendry head coach was Paul Brown in attendance, Shula was drafted into the NFL.  The Ohio native soon discovered the foundation was laid for his true calling – coaching.  During his tenure with the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins, NFL’s most consistent winner accumulated 328 regular-season wins, 19 playoff victories which includes two Super Bowls, and became synonymous with perfection.

September 11th, reflecting on how the NFL reacted to the crisis of September 11, 2001, and the deep and lasting impact of the day's events. This one-hour show tells the story of how the events of September 11, 2001 impacted the entire NFL and specifically the New York Giants, New York Jets and Washington Redskins, from the decision to cancel the games the following week to personal stories of those directly impacted by the day's events.