September 7

Here is what happened in Football History on September 7: Cleveland Browns fans, this day is filled with events and anniversaries of your team's history. We remember the early face of football that changed the game forever. There is also a good mix of Dolphins and Brigham Young University's history and ESPN's big moment in our September 7 football history recap. Our new podcast series, the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, includes a big podcast show with the recap of Pigskin's past events for Football Day on September 7. Listen to it daily on the Sports History Network or from your favorite podcast distribution app.

• September 7, 1979 - ESPN has its very first day broadcasting.  The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network started in rented office space in Plainville, Connecticut according to the ESPN website. The company is now owned by the American Broadcasting Company, a subsiderary of Walt Disney with a 80% share and the other 20% is owned by Hearst. The ESPN complex is now located in Bristol, Ct on a sprawling 1.2 million square foot campus encompassing 18 different buildings. ESPN Inc. now owns the rights to over 50 different business entities. Its connection to football is very deep as it is the home of the NFL's Monday Night Football, Numerous college games Thursday through Saturday during the season and many talk shown centered on the sport of football.
• September 7, 1981 - Cleveland Brown's quarterback, Brian Sipe sets a team record wth 57 passing attempts in one game as the Browns fall at home to the San Diego Chargers,44-14. 
• September 7, 1986 - Again the Cleveland Browns make history as on this day they are the first team in NFL history to formally have a play reviewed by officials with video instant replay as they played at the Soldier Field against the Chicago Bears. On the 3rd play of the game the defending Super Bowl Champion Bears had an errant snap into their own end zone that Cleveland safety Al Gross jumped on. There was indecision from the onfield officiating crew, but after review the Browns were awarded the score. The Bears came back and won the week 1 game though, 41-31.
• September 7, 1986 - Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino becomes the fastest person to throw 100 touchdowns in the NFL. Marino tossed three scores on the day, two of them to Mark Clayton. Unfortunately for Miami that was not enough, as the home team San Diego Chargers had some scores of their own in the 50 -28 drubbing of the Dolphins.
• September 7, 1991 - BYU quarterback Ty Detmer, goes past the NCAA career record 11,606 yards on this day according to the National Football Foundation. Detmer won the Heisman Trophy after the 1990 season and showed the UCLA Bruins that his game was still sharp a year later in this exciting early season match up. The Bruins held on to win at home 27-23 but not before Ty Detmer surpases the throwing milestone.

Special thanks to the Pro Football Reference website.

• September 7, 1884 - Robert "Bob" "Tiny" Maxwell was a former guard that played for the University of Chicago and also Swarthmore College, a private liberal arts school in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Legendary University of Chicago Coach Alonzo Stagg recruited Bob Maxwell, because of his size and he was not tiny as the nickname he would receive later in life indicates. Bob Mawell was 240 lbs in 1902 and in that era the average lineman weighed less than 200 pounds! Maxwell played for Stagg and the Maroons for the 1902 and the 1903 seasons and also set records at the college in track and field's hammer throw. Bob was accepted into Swarthmore College in 1904, and that is when it is beleived the monicker "Tiny" was adopted by his teammates as a nickname for him. The 1905 game against Penn brought Maxwell to the forefront as the face of football per an article on the National Football Foundation. During the contest Penn had put three blockers on Maxwell to nullify his influence in the game. This triple team line play was slugfest from start to finish, and Tiny Maxwell took the brunt of it.  President Theodore Roosevelt was presented a photo of Bob's bruised, bloodied and swollen face after the game was over as a representation of how brutal the game had become. Roosevelt became so enraged about the appearance of Tiny's photo and the fact that 18 young men had died that season from football injuries, that he threatened to abolish the game if the powers in college football did not set out to meet with him to improve safety of players. Those changes did come in 1906 and changed football forever! The rule revisons were many but the big hitters were adoption of a legal forward pass, but with severe penalty for incompletions and the line to gain being moved from 5 to ten yards as it is today.
• September 7, 1902 - Matt Kaer was a Southern California halfback that became enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972's ceremonies. Kaer was also a U.S. Olympian and he took fifth place in the 1924 Olympic Pentathalon Competition in Paris. After returning home he played for USC for 3 seasons and had set a school record with 19 touchdowns in the 1925 season. The Trojan record lasted for 43 seasons before O.J. Simpson eclipsed the TD mark in 1968. Matt became an All-American for his fine play in the 1926 season according to the National Football Foundation. After school his football career went to the professional ranks with a one year stint with the NFL's Frankford Yellow Jackets. He may have stopped playing after that one NFL season but he stuck with the game he loved only in the coaching ranks as he became the head coach of Weed High School, in Weed California and stayed there for 28 years winning 17 conference championships.
• September 7, 1908 - Paul Brown was the legendary 1st head coach of the Cleveland Browns way back in 1946 when they had their inaugral season in the All-America Football Conference. That was Brown's first professional coaching job as his prior experience in coaching came at the high school level and also with some military teams. Paul Brown was an innovator and made coaching what it is today.  The concepts of hiring a full time, around the year coaching staff as well as hiring scouts to go over college talent a couple of items Brown came up with. He also started the idea of film study of his players, and had his players study in class room setings as well as study game film themselves. He sent plays into the huddle by shuttling guards in and out and also was the first to try a radio transmitter in a quarterback's helmet. His career coaching record in the AAFC and NFL was a whopping 167-53-8 and he had but one losing season in 17 years at the helm of the Browns. Paul Brown's teams won four AAFC titles and 3 NFL championships. The Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrined this great innovatorin th class of 1967. Right after he was accepted into the Hall, the AFL authorized Brown to start a team in Cincinnati and he called them the Bengals in homage to other teams that played in the city previously. Brown was not only the Bengal's owner and GM but he was also their head coach. The Brown family still owns th Bengals to this day.
• September 7, 1923 - Emil "Red" Sitko was a part halfback, part fullback type that played for the University of Notre Dame. He didn't go to the Fighting Irish righ tout of high school though as he served his country during World War II playing for the Great Lakes Navy football team, where in a game against his future team Notre Dame he scored a TD and had an interception against a previously undefeated Irish squad. After his service, he then attended the famous school in South Bend and  in his four years at ND the teams record was 36 -0-2! Red led the team in rushing yards all four years he played at Notre Dame. To this day the rushing specialist is seventh on the Notre Dame All-time rushing yardage list. The College Football Hall of Fame invited Red Sitko into their place of honor in 1984. Red went on to play ppro ball in the NFL for the San Francisco 49ers and the Chicago Cardinals.
• September 7, 1951 - Bert Jones was a quarterback from LSU that played professionally for the Baltimore Colts in the NFL. Jones became a legend at LSU when in 1972 against  Ole Miss he led the Tigers for a thrilling one point victory in the final seconds. The play is still filled with controversy to this day as many, mainly on the Ole Miss side beleive that Jones and the Tigers were given an extra 4 seconds due to an alleged clock malfunction on the previous play. With four seconds on the field's time piece Jones hit a streaking  Brad Davis in the end zone for an LSU touchdown that put them over the Ole Mis Rebels 17-16. In the 17 games that Bert Jones started in college he pased for 3225 yards and 28 TDs which was a career record at the time for LSU. The College Football Hall of Fame enshrined Jones in 2016. As a Colt Jones succeeded Johnny Unitas as the Balltimore starter and led the Colts to three consecutive AFC East titles.