“NFL Playoffs: A Time For Unsung Heroes To Step to the Plate - Bleacherreport.com” plus 1 more |
| NFL Playoffs: A Time For Unsung Heroes To Step to the Plate - Bleacherreport.com Posted: 20 Jan 2011 08:52 PM PST  How many people know that Timmy Smith holds the Super Bowl record for yards rushing in a game with 204?George Rose/Getty Images Although he was a first-round pick, the biggest play of Freddie Mitchell's short four-year career was a 28-yard catch on 4th-and-26 in the 2004 NFC Divisional playoff game between the Eagles and Packers. The catch helped the Eagles tie the game and eventually win in overtime. Mitchell is just one in a series of unlikely football heroes to emerge. Who can forget backup quarterback Jeff Hostetler leading the New York Giants to a win over the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV (25)? Or how about cornerback Eric Davis, who during the 1994 NFC Championship game against the Dallas Cowboys, returned an interception for a touchdown then forced a fumble on the next Dallas series to help put the San Francisco 49ers up 14-0 en route to a 38-28 win How about cornerback Larry Brown of the Dallas Cowboys, who intercepted two Neil O'Donnell passes in Super Bowl XXX (30), the second helping cement the win for Dallas against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Recent memory has brought out the likes of New York Giants WR David Tyree, whose helmet catch kept the Giants final drive in Super Bowl XLII (42) alive. Four plays later, the Giants took a 17-14 lead over the New England Patriots. What about Washington Redskins running back Timmy Smith, whose 204 yards rushing in Super Bowl XXII (22) is still a record? Or how about New Orleans Saints CB Tracy Porter, whose interception return for a touchdown helped seal the win for the Saints in Super Bowl XLIV (44)? If you were not around to see last year's Super Bowl, then you might only recognize Tracy Porter as the defender who was flung 10 yards down field by a Marshawn Lynch stiff arm in this year's NFC Wild Card game. Last Sunday night, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown was added to the list of unsung heroes, when his 58-yard catch and run on 3rd-and-19 helped the Steelers to the go-ahead touchdown in their win over the Baltimore Ravens. This weekend's conference championship games are no different with Chicago Bears hosting the Green Bay Packers and the New York Jets on the road for the sixth straight time in the playoffs against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Perhaps the unsung playoff hero could come from a player from the past. Most people remember Tom Brady and his three Super Bowl rings, but how many people actually remember that Drew Bledsoe, not Tom Brady, got the Patriots past the Steelers in the AFC Title game? The question is, who can step up? Who will step up? I wish I could give you a list of players or some slideshow, but the beauty of the NFL Playoffs, is that it's often the players never mentioned who make the biggest impact. Who knew or heard of David Tyree prior to his helmet catch against the Patriots? This article is What is the duplicate article? Why is this article offensive? Where is this article plagiarized from? Why is this article poorly edited? This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Posted: 20 Jan 2011 01:11 AM PST  Lombard for News The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was instrumental in reuniting Carlina White, who was abducted in 1987, with her mom.Were it not for a little boy who went missing in SoHo in 1979, there might have been no national hotline for Nejdra Nance to call when she tried to find out who she really was. The boy was 6-year-old Etan Patz, and his father was a professional photographer whose talent was never more poignantly displayed than in the picture he distributed of his missing son. "That riveting photo," Ernie Allen, founding chairman and current president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said Wednesday. "In many ways, Etan became America's child." Allen thinks the extraordinary photo taken by Stan Patz was instrumental in the creation of the center, officially opened by former President Ronald Reagan at a White House ceremony in 1984. The center began gathering pictures of other missing children, and one in particular caught Allen's attention. It was of a baby named Carlina White, who was abducted from Harlem Hospital in 1987. "She was such a beautiful little girl," Allen said Wednesday. "Those little chubby cheeks. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at that picture over the past 23, 24 years." The information accompanying the photo gave the child's particulars at the time of the abduction: - Hair: Black - Eyes: Brown - Height: 1 foot, 9 inches - Weight: 8 pounds Those details became increasingly useless as the case remained on file year after year. The photo was joined in 2006 by an "age projection" image of how she might look at age 19. Then, on Dec. 22, with Christmas nigh, Nance dialed (800) THE-LOST, the number Reagan officially instituted more than a quarter century before. "She basically said, 'I don't know who I am,'" Allen reported. The center took her information and checked the records it had collected and maintained since its inception. They came up with the long-ago case of the chubby-cheeked baby whose photo had so often caught Allen's attention. Nance spent one last Christmas in cruelest uncertainty before DNA tests confirmed that she is indeed Carlina White. Allen had no difficulty describing the reaction of the parents. "Ecstatic," Allen said. The center continually urges parents of missing children not to lose hope, particularly if the child was abducted as an infant. "We preach all the time that just because it's been a week or a month or a year even 23 or 24 years, you can't give up," Allen said. They now could point to this case. "It really sends a jolt of hope to so many," Allen said. "These cases do not all have an unhappy ending." Among the children still missing are 2-year-old Christopher Dansby and 1-year-old Shane Walker, who disappeared from the same Harlem park three months apart in 1989. Among the cases for which even Allen has scant hope for a happy ending is the child in that earlier, iconic photo that helped get the center established. An incarcerated pedophile has all but confessed to killing Etan Patz, and the Manhattan district attorney recently renewed an effort to make a murder case. But without Etan, without his father's talent and love, there might have been no hotline for Nance to call. She might have called the local police in Atlanta, but they would not have known about a baby that went missing in New York 23 years ago. Thanks to the photo of the missing boy, there was a center. And it was now able to emblazon a wonderful word across the photo of the once missing girl. "LOCATED." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| You are subscribed to email updates from heroes series - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment