Cal’s Joe Kapp is the only starting quarterback to start in all three of these games: an NCAA Rose Bowl, a CFL Grey Cup, and an NFL Super Bowl.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders have won two Grey Cups at the Toronto Sky Dome/Rogers Place. Kent Austin was the Saskatchewan QB in 1989, and the Head Coach in 2007.
Jonathan Kent, Superman’s adopted father, was a racecar driver before he married and turned to farming.
Actor Kent McCord of TV’s Adam-12 (in the 1960s, for you young pups), before he was an actor, met actor Ricky Nelson in a 1961 touch football game. This connection and friendship led to McCord’s becoming an actor.
The civilian identity of the Batman villain Two-Face was originally Harvey Kent. The name was quickly changed to Harvey Dent to prevent the implication he was related to Clark Kent.
In response to an accusation of being two-faced, Abraham Lincoln replied "If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
It was Leland Stanford, and not Abraham Lincoln as many think, that drove the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit where the United States’ Transcontinental Railroad was officially completed on May 10, 1869.
Central Pacific Railroad’s first locomotive was named the “Gov. Stanford” in Leland Stanford’s honor. In addition to his railroad and political pursuits, he owned two wineries.
Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jim Plunkett, who earned the Heisman Trophy while at Stanford, is 7/8 Mexican. Both of his parents were blind.
Roy J. Plunkett, a PhD chemist employed by E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company., is credited with accidentally discovering/inventing polytetrafluoroethylene, better known as Teflon, in 1938. He later directed the company’s tetraethyl lead and Freon production.
Jim Plunkett had a difficult start to his NFL career, playing mostly on losing teams and getting beat up behind porous offensive lines, but (and, similarly to the NFL career of another Stanford QB, John Elway) after a long NFL career he finally won two Super Bowls. After the 1980 NFL season, Plunkett’s Raiders beat the Eagles in Super Bowl XV, 27-10. After the 1983 NFL season, Plunkett’s Raiders beat the Redskins in Super Bowl XVIII, 38-9.
Plunkett was drafted #1 (again, like Elway) in the 1971 NFL draft. That draft year has been called “the year of the quarterback” because the first three picks were:
- Jim Plunkett, QB
- Archie Manning, QB (father of Peyton and Eli)
- Dan Pastorini, QB
Other QBs of note in that draft year include, by draft round:
3rd - Lynn Dickey, Ken Anderson
4th - Joe Theismann
It was Theismann who was on the Redskins team that lost to Plunkett and the Raiders in Super Bowl XVIII. Theismann was the NFL MVP that season.
The “year of the quarterback” has been joined by the 1983 NFL draft. In the first round, by pick #:
- John Elway, QB
- Todd Blackledge, QB
- Jim Kelly, QB
- Tony Eason, QB
- Ken O’Brien, QB
- Dan Marino, QB
Other QBs of note drafted in 1983 include, by draft round:
6th - Reggie Collier
8th - Gary Kubiak
10th - Tom Ramsey
Animal Planet has aired the Puppy Bowl for eight years for people who don’t care about the Super Bowl, but like cute animals.
Lingerie Bowl I aired during Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004 with Team Euphoria losing to the Team Dream by a score of 6-0. It has since expanded into an actual Lingerie Football League, for women, playing actual games, with the Lingerie Bowl serving as its championship game. For the first three games the halftime special included celebrities, national recording artists and former NFL players such as Jenny McCarthy, Dennis Rodman, Chingy, Eric Dickerson, Lawrence Taylor, Cindy Margolis, Traci Bingham, and Jim McMahon.
President Harry Truman was pissed at then-candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower for not defending George C. Marshall against Sen. Joe McCarthy’s scurillous Red-baiting attacks during the 1952 campaign. Marshall had done more than anyone to help Eisenhower in his military career.
On the TV sitcom The Odd Couple, Oscar Madison (Jack Klugman) joined two different computer dating services under phony names. When he went by the name “Andre La Plume,” he was fixed up with Felix’s ex-wife Gloria. When he went by “Willet Eisenhower,” he was fixed up with his secretary Myrna.
When Howard Wolowitz and Rajesh Koothrappali signed Sheldon Cooper up with a on-line dating service, they ended up getting him hooked up with one of the best new Big Bang Theory characters–Amy Farrah Fowler, played by Mayim Bialik.
Raj’s parents, seen only on a laptop screen during Skype sessions criticizing Raj’s choices of romantic partners, are played by British-Israeli actor Brian George and British actress Alice Amter. Brian George also played Dr. Bashir’s father in “Deep Space Nine”, and a deported Pakistani immigrant in “Seinfeld” who returns in the final episode to wag his finger and call Jerry a “bad man!..very, very, bad man!”.
Brian George also played Amita Ramanujan’s father on Numb3rs.
Phyllis George was a former 1970 Miss Texas, and 1971 Miss America. She had a famous interview with QB Roger Staubach asking him about his love life and contrasting Staubach’s committed, monogamous lifestyle with Broadway Joe Namath’s swinging singles lifestyle.
George Washington was played by David Morse, perhaps best known for his long run as a sad-sack doctor on St. Elsewhere, in the HBO miniseries John Adams.