Page 1
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Page 2
Thursday, February 4, 2016
League launches Super Bowl High School Honor Roll As part of the nationwide kickoff to the Super Bowl 50 celebration, the NFL launched the Super Bowl High School Honor Roll initiative recognizing schools and communities that contributed to Super Bowl history and positively impacted the game of football. High schools across the nation, and around the world, will receive a commemorative Wilson Golden Football for every player or head coach who graduated from their school and was on an active Super Bowl roster. Nearly 3,000 players and head coaches, and more than 2,000 high schools, will be recognized. Players and coaches will also have the opportunity to personally deliver golden footballs. The NFL Foundation will provide the schools with a new character education curriculum and the opportunity to apply for grants of up to $5,000 to help support and grow their football programs. The NFL Foundation has invested $1 million towards the campaign. Seventeen Super Bowl High
School Honor Roll visits were featured on CBS This Morning every Thursday throughout the season, with the first premiering Sept. 10. The first segment showcased the making of the Golden Footballs in Wilson’s factory in Ada, Ohio and the delivery of the first football by Pro Football Hall of Famer Lynn Swann to the Hall of Fame’s Super Bowl High School Honor Roll exhibit. Nearly 2,000 students from Canton, Ohio participated in the delivery. CBS, which will televise Super Bowl 50, also featured visits during coverage of Thursday Night Football, and on the Network’s Sunday pregame show, The NFL Today. Additionally other various assets across the CBS
Corporation featured Super Bowl High School Honor Roll visits. Current and former players and coaches CBS segments featured include: Marcus Allen, Bill Cowher, Terrell Davis, Boomer Esiason, Larry Fitzgerald, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, and Robert Mathis, among others. The platform launched during the “2015 NFL Kickoff Presented by Hyundai” celebrations with the first 50 Wilson Golden Footballs delivered in the San Francisco Bay Area, home of Super Bowl 50. In both the Bay Area and Boston, a former player will return to their school for special in-person deliveries. Former Oakland Raiders quarterback, two-time Super Bowl Champion and Super Bowl XV MVP Jim Plunkett will return to
James Lick High School in San Jose, Calif. Two-time Super Bowl Champion and former New York Giants tight end Mark Bavaro will visit Danvers High School in Danvers, Mass. For players and coaches unable to visit their high schools, FedEx, a supporter of the program, will deliver the Wilson Golden Footballs in specialty packaging with a stand and letter. Wilson Golden Footballs feature the school’s name and location, honoree’s name and the Super Bowl(s) the honoree appeared in. Players and coaches honored are from both teams that competed in the Super Bowl. The program will become a Super Bowl tradition starting this season. The initiative is part of the NFL’s On The Fifty campaign commemorating Super Bowl 50, which will be played on Sunday, February 7, 2016 at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wilson has provided the Official Football of the NFL since 1941 and has been on the field for every Super Bowl.
www.DeSotoAutomall.com Sales (877)833-0235 | Service (877)823-3460 3039 SE Highway 70 Arcadia, FL 34266
Page 3
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Page 4
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Johnny Rembert: From DeSoto Cou By STEVE KNAPP Arcadian Sports Writer
first New England team to play in the Super Bowl. After his playing career ended, Rembert became Johnny Rembert was a fourth the Athletic Director at Edward round pick out of Clemson UniWaters College in Jacksonville for versity by the New England Pa10 years before he retired this past triots. He spent his entire career spring. with the Patriots spanning from Most people didn’t know that 1983-1992. In his 126 game career Rembert didn’t play high school he stood out as one of the best linebackers in the league and was football until his junior year and was a tight end! He talked about named to the Pro Bowl in 1988 his days as a Bulldog including and 1989. his memories of Coach Richard Rembert said, “Playing with Bowers. and against the very best players “Coach Bowers, that’s a man in the world is something I’ll nevwho wanted you to give 100% er forget.” no matter what you were doing. The 6’3” product of the sandlots of DeSoto County was on the He expected excellence in ev-
erything you did. Coach Bowers knew talent when he saw it. By God you’d better work your tail off or else. He loved all of his students, black, white it didn’t matter to him as long you gave your very best at whatever you did.” Rembert remembered the first time he met Coach Bowers. “The first time I went out for football and Coach Bowers was the head coach and I thought that man was crazy. He
yelled at everybody who made a mistake and he wouldn’t let us get water but I had a plan for that. I had a nephew who was the ball boy and he always got me a big jar of cold water in my locker. Coach somehow found out about it and that was the end of that.” Bowers
Johnny Rembert and two friends strain to see the scoreboard since only one board is working.
Johnny Rembert presents the Super Bowl 50 commemorative golden football to Richard Bowers.
Arcadian sports writer Steve K couple questions about this acc 1. What was it like to come back and visit with all of your old frie Rembert replied, “It was great all my friends I haven’t seen in 2. Do you feel like your rise from hope to local kids that they too c themselves? Rembert replied, “Yes I think someone from DeSoto who h them after the game, your lif anyone tell you you can’t be o Go for it and be prepared to easy.”
Page 5
Thursday, February 4, 2016
unty High School to the Super Bowl came to see Rembert play at Clemson and Rembert remembered an interception he had just before the half in a close game against North Carolina. “As we were running into the locker room at halftime all anybody could hear was somebody yelling,
‘That’s my boy. That’s my boy!’ My teammates were asking me who that man was and it was Coach Bowers being as loud as he could be. I said, ‘that’s my high school coach’. William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry said, ‘He’s really fired up isn’t he.’ I told them, ‘He’s always like that boys.’” The NFL was a different story. There was only one practice field and they had to drive their car to it. Foxboro
was in the middle of nowhere and Rembert said, “I was ready to go back to Clemson. But you get used to it and in my third year we were playing in the Super Bowl game. That was a thrill and more until the second quarter. We got beat so badly by the Bears that it was shocking. When Rembert became the Athletic Director at Edward Waters College he began to understand and appreciate what Coach Bowers was trying to do in high school. “You want these young men and women to be the best they can be. God gave us all a talent and it is up to us to utilize
it and I was up to the challenge. Working in a small Historically Black College you have to do whatever it takes to get the job done.” Now that Rembert has retired from his position at Edward Waters College, he is now working with his Church’s athletic youth program and loves what he is doing. “I thank God and give him all the glory for my success. That is what I always tell the young people. Keep God first and anything is possible,” said Rembert.
Johnny Rembert stops at the trophy case outside of the gym and looks at his photo and uniform. He said in the photo his two little fingers on his left hand were taped together and even to this day he can’t straighten out his little finger.
Knapp recently asked Mr. Rembert a complishment: k to your hometown as a “hero” of sorts ends? t! It was so much fun to see everyone and n years. I really enjoyed the evening.” m DeSoto to the national level gives can make it if they work hard and apply
k it’s important for young people to see had been on the big stage. Like I told fe is right in front of you and don’t let or do whatever it is you dream of doing. put in the work because nothing is
Current DeSoto County varsity football coach Matt Egloff and Johnny Rembert exchange phone numbers after the basketball game.
Page 6
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Super Bowl 50 marks landmark occasion for NFL’s biggest stage Hank Stram’s Chiefs 35-10 on Jan. 15, 1967, in front of fewer than 62,000 people at the 100,000-seat Los Angeles It is always best when pondering Memorial Coliseum. That, of course, the arc of Super Bowl history to refer was not even close to a sellout. Just to that iconic photo of Joe Namath, 338 media members received credenpoolside in his beige plaid shorts, tials to cover the game. Players on the holding an impromptu press conferPackers received a $15,000 bonus for ence for a handful of writers at his winning; theChiefs received $7,500. Fort Lauderdale hotel. Lombardi was unhappy that his That was Super Bowl III, not the team was staying in bucolic Santa Barfirst, but perhaps the most significant bara. But the atmosphere around that and still among the most memorable. first game was so relaxed compared For Namath’s victory guarantee. For with the tightly controlled prepathe staggering upset he delivered for rations of today that one star of the the upstart AFL and the New York game – Packers backup wide receiver Jets over the establishment’s NFL and Max McGee, who caught two Bart the Baltimore Colts. And for the fact Starr touchdown passes – later admitthat, thanks in large part to Namath’s ted he had been out on the town the heroics and outsize personality, the night before, had gotten in at 7:30 a.m. Super Bowl would never be that small and was in no condition to be playing and intimate again. When Namath ran on game day. off the field of the Orange Bowl, with But the idea of celebrating that first his index finger wagging in the air, he game by returning to the roots it had was racing toward an NFL future that planted was so strong that for severeven a man who wore fur coats could al years before the 50th installment never have fantasized would grow as was awarded to the Bay Area, league rich and compelling as it has. officials and owners grappled with When Super Bowl 50 – the Rohow to stage the game in Los Angeles, man numerals have officially been despite the lack of an NFL team or abandoned just this once – alights on suitable stadium there. Seven Super San Francisco next year, it will mark Bowls have been played in the area, a landmark occasion for the NFL. A between the Coliseum and Pasadehalf-century of Super Bowls – they na’s Rose Bowl, but after it was clear were named that retroactively after I a stadium could not be ready in time and II had already been played, when – and Miami, which has hosted 10 Commissioner Pete Rozelle finally Super Bowls, needed stadium renovaembraced Kansas City Chiefs owner tions, too – owners voted to give the Lamar Hunt’s whimsical suggestion – golden anniversary game to a part of trace and reflect the explosive growth the country that stands for forward of the game from a time when Rozelle thinking and innovation. The game refused to use the media-created will be played in the league’s most moniker: the World Series of Football. technologically advanced stadium. “We are looking at plans to make There, the NFL may crown a new it spectacular,” Commissioner Roger dynasty to take the place of the conGoodell told reporters before the site tinuum started by the Packers, who for Super Bowl 50 was even selected. won the first two Super Bowls to cap That the NFL would have so much a period of dominance that included to celebrate was not assured when its three of the final five NFL championchampionship game was first played. ships before the Super Bowl was first Rozelle did not want his creation – played. the championship match between Gil Brandt, the longtime Dallas the AFL and NFL – to be linked to Cowboys personnel executive who baseball in any way, and so that first is now an NFL Media analyst, was at game was somewhat verbosely called that first Super Bowl, where the tickets “The AFL-NFL World Championship sold for $6, $10 and $12 – and still, Game.” the attendance didn’t exceed that of a Vince Lombardi’s Packers beat
By JUDY BATTISTA NFL Media Reporter
Thank you Johnny Rembert for sharing this honor with our students. Congratulations!
USC game held earlier that season. The Commissioner’s Party is now an opulent bash attended by the game’s heaviest hitters and their most influential and high-profile sponsors. But in that first year, the idea for a party first came to Rozelle on the Wednesday before the game. He sent an aide, Jim Kensil, to a local copy shop to print up some flyers – the 8x11 sheets of paper served as invitations. And when guests arrived, the people from the AFL stood on one side of the room and the people from the NFL on the other, wary adversaries who hadn’t yet been merged. Brandt has been to 47 Super Bowls, and so he has seen plenty. Like when Media Day at an early Super Bowl in Miami involved reporters going to the hotel where the Dallas Cowboys were staying, asking for a particular player and then being directed to go interview that person in his room. Or when the caravan of team busses that was supposed to take the 1978 Cowboys to the Orange Bowl for Super Bowl XIII went the wrong way – despite the protests of a player who was from South Florida – and ended up stranded in a dead end, necessitating the painstaking U-turns of 10 huge busses. The team arrived at the stadium more than a half-hour past schedule, a now inconceivable miscue on what’s become a carefully managed game day. Joe Browne, who is now the senior advisor to the commissioner, is the longest-serving employee ever at NFL headquarters. He started as a college intern in 1965 and has attended all but the first Super Bowl (for that one, he proofread the press releases and took them to the post office in New York to mail to Los Angeles). His early role on Super Bowl Sunday was to “clean” the sidelines – meaning to get the non-workers out of the way so the photographers and cameramen could work. Security was rather lax back then, Browne said. In Super Bowl V at Miami’s Orange Bowl, two well-dressed men were on the sidelines. When Browne approached, he realized they didn’t have credentials – they had attached
Eastern Airlines baggage claim checks to their belts. “I had security escort them out, but kept the baggage tags ‘til Eastern went out of business,” Browne said. At Super Bowl IX in the old Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, a stripper wearing a white fake fur coat – and little more – was on the sideline until Browne intervened. And then there was Super Bowl VIII in Houston in early 1974, which marked, Browne said, the only time the venue for the commissioner’s Friday night party – the Astrodome – was nicer than where the game was played (the old Rice University stadium). “I am not one to yearn for those good old early days,” Browne said. “It has been an incredible and entertaining ride to see the game grow in popularity and to have even casual fans plan their winter schedule around not only the Super Bowl, but other playoff games, as well.” The game has grown so much that Brandt recently advised a Seattle player to turn over ticket requests to his mother, lest he be inundated by calls and texts from people the player hadn’t seen since fifth grade. About 5,500 media members were credentialed to cover the 49th game and related events in Arizona. According to Consumer Electronic Association surveys, per CNBC, nearly 25 percent of television buyers purchase a new unit specifically for the big game. For the 50th rendition, dubbed the Golden Super Bowl, those viewers likely will see an extravaganza for a new age – Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, is the league’s first ticketless and cashless stadium – that Rozelle and Hunt and Lombardi, all part of that unsteady first game, could never have imagined. “In a million years, I never thought you’d see what it is now,” Brandt said, as he prepared to head to Arizona ahead of the clash between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks. “The difference is like a one-story motel in some small town in Montana, and it’s now theWillis Tower and still growing. I’m just amazed at everything that takes place.”
Page 7
A local Arcadia resident put together this collage in honor of Johnny Rembert’s return to DeSoto County in January.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Page 8
Thursday, February 4, 2016
LISTEN LIVE FEB 7, 2016
BOOK US FOR LIVE REMOTES!
Dick Farrel
WFLN Production Director
Joe Gallimore Hello DeSoto
Saturday noon-1pm
Laura Ingraham
Monday - Friday 10am-noon
Dr. Joy Browne
Tuesday - Saturday 12-3am
Rush Limbaugh
Monday - Friday noon-3pm
Jack Welch
Arcadia’s Morning News
Monday - Thursday 8-10am • Friday 8-9am
Sean Hannity
Monday - Friday 3-6pm
Tom Sullivan
Cigar Dave
Saturday 11-12pm
Don Finkle
Luke Wilson, Mel Jackson, Kenneth Carlton
The Veteran’s Corner
Friday 9-10am • Sunday 9-10am
Alan Colmes
Monday - Friday 6-9pm
Kim Komando
Saturday 3-5pm
Coon Prairie Ramblers
Saturday 2-3pm • Sunday 8-9pm replay
Marilu Henner
Monday - Friday 9pm-12am
Matt Ray
America’s Morning News
Sunday 10-11am
LISTEN LIVE AT www.wflnradio.com
WFLN_Arcadia
201 Asbury Street • Arcadia, FL • (863) 993-1480
Monday - Friday 5-9am