The Snowplow Game and John Lennon's Death
Smith is perhaps most famous for kicking the only points in the Snowplow Game, played 12 December 1982 in a snow storm at Foxboro Stadium. Convict Mark Henderson, released for a weekend work program, cleared the way with his snowplow for Smith to beat the Miami Dolphins and enter football lore. Two years earlier against Miami on 8 December 1980, Smith was getting ready to attempt a potential game-winning field goal when Howard Cosell announced to the Monday Night Football television audience that John Lennon (who had appeared on MNF six years before as a guest in the booth) had just been assassinated. (Smith's kick was blocked, however, and Miami won the game in overtime.) The clip of John Smith preparing to kick is shown with his record for the 1980 season whenever the story is told of the Monday Night Football game announcement of Lennon's death.
Smith led the NFL in scoring in 1979 and 1980. In 1982, Smith injured his right knee (on his non-kicking leg) and underwent arthroscopic surgery; he retired after the 1983 season as the second-highest scoring player in Patriots history, behind Gino Cappelletti.
Read more about this topic: John Smith (American Football)
Famous quotes containing the words game, john, lennon and/or death:
“That the world is a divine game and beyond good and evil:Min this the Vedanta philosophy and Heraclitus are my predecessors.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon—but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx—the world went around, it didn’t stop for a second. It’s sad but true. John Kennedy, right?”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“The most important thing in my father’s life? World peace. Me and my brother. My mom.”
—Sean Taro Ono Lennon (b. 1975)
“We term sleep a death ... by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.”
—Thomas Browne (1605–1682)