Football
Stufflebeem was a standout punter for the Naval Academy during 1972-1974 and is still ranked as number three on the all-time list of Navy records. He earned All East Coast Athletic Conference and Sports Illustrated honors in 1974 when he led the Navy team to a near upset of Notre Dame in Philadelphia. Nicknamed “Boomer” as a punter because of his punting on the Naval Academy football team, he was signed to a professional football contract with the Detroit Lions after graduation from 1975-1979. In 2000 at its annual awards banquet, the NCAA honored Stufflebeem as one of its Silver Anniversary Award Recipients that recognizes up to six nationally distinguished former student-athletes on their 25th anniversary as college graduates. In recent years Bill Belichick, head coach of the three time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots and former coach with the Detroit Lions in the 1970s, has commented on Stufflebeem’s leadership prowess. In 2003 Belichick had Stufflebeem, a former player of his from the Detroit Lions, deliver a message to the New England Patriots before a game. The theme was about sacrifice, commitment and a warrior's mentality and was set in the parallel context of playing professional football and pursuing the enemy in war. The Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl that season and invited Stufflebeem to join the team at the White House after the championship.
Read more about this topic: John Dickson Stufflebeem
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)