December 2, 1962: Bud Grant's Blue Bombers Win the Fog Bowl

December 2, 1962: The Winnipeg Blue Bombers win the Grey Cup, the Championship of the Canadian Football League. It is their 4th title in the last 5 years, concluding what passes for a dynasty in the CFL.

Harry Peter Grant Jr. was born on May 20, 1927, the day Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, in Superior, Wisconsin, across the Saint Louis River from Duluth, Minnesota, where the river flows into Lake Superior. His mother called him "Buddy Boy," and this was shortened to "Bud."

After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, playing for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center football team coached by Paul Brown. He starred in baseball, football and basketball at the University of Minnesota, and was a member of the Minneapolis Lakers' 1950 NBA Champions. He left basketball for football, and played 2 seasons for the Philadelphia Eagles, and 4 for the Blue Bombers. In 1957, he retired as a player to accept their post as head coach.

In 1958, just his 2nd season with them, he led them to a 13-3 record, winning the Western Interprovincial Football Union title. In the Grey Cup, held at the Empire Stadium in Vancouver, the Blue Bombers beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 35-28, winning the Bombers their 1st title in 17 years.

The Ticats led 14-0 in the 1st quarter, before the Bombers closed to within 14-13. Instead of downing the ball before halftime, Hamilton coach Jim Trimble elected to punt the ball away on the last play. The punt was blocked, and recovered in the end zone by Norm Rauhaus to give the Bombers a 20-14 halftime lead. Angelo Mosca of the Ticats, one of the greatest linemen in CFL history, admitted: "We should have won the 1958 Grey Cup, but there was a bad coaching error before halftime."

In 1959, in a 2-legged West Final, they beat the Edmonton Eskimos, 19-11 in Edmonton and 16-8 at Winnipeg Stadium. That set up the Grey Cup, on neutral ground at the brand-new Canadian National Exhibition Stadium, home of the Toronto Argonauts, and eventually to be home of baseball's Toronto Blue Jays. The Bombers beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 21-7. The key play came early in the 4th quarter: Roger Savoie hit Hamilton running back Gerry McDougall, causing him to fumble. Bud Tinsley recovered. A 41-yard pass from Ken Ploen to Farrell Funston set up a 2-yard touchdown run by Charlie Shepard, who was named the game's Most Valuable Player.

Four months' later, Bombers' running back Gerry James played on the right wing for the Toronto Maple Leafs as they lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Montreal Canadiens. He remains the only man to play in the Grey Cup and the Stanley Cup Finals in the same season, and is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

The Bombers didn't make it back in 1960, and the Ottawa Rough Riders beat the Edmonton Eskimos, 16-6. In 1961, Grant was asked by Max Winter, founding owner of the NFL's expansion Minnesota Vikings, to be the team's 1st head coach. He turned the offer down, and Winter hired recently retired star quarterback Norm Van Brocklin.

Grant again coached Winnipeg to a 13-3 season, winning the newly-renamed Western Football Conference. Again playing Hamilton at Exhibition Stadium, the Grey Cup went to overtime for the 1st time, and Ploen ran the winning touchdown in himself, giving the Blue Bombers a 21-14 win.

Ken Ploen

They got back in 1962, again facing the Tiger-Cats at Exhibition Stadium. But when the teams took the field on December 1, both hoping to win on the day, it turned out that no one would. By the 2nd quarter, a thick fog started to roll in over the field, a combination of cold, moist, humid air from Lake Ontario. Much as would happen in a 1988 NFL Playoff game on Chicago's Lake Michigan, which would also be nicknamed "The Fog Bowl," in this game, the fog was thick enough that fans could not see the action on the field, receivers lost sight of the ball after it left the quarterbacks' hand, and punt returners could not find punts until they hit the ground.

The fog became worse as the afternoon wore on, and, with 9 minutes and 29 seconds left in the 4th quarter, the game was suspended, with Winnipeg leading, 28–27. The game was resumed the following afternoon, but there was no further scoring, thus securing the Bomber win.

The 1962 Grey Cup was the first CFL contest to be broadcast by an American TV network, when ABC Wide World of Sports carried it on tape delay at 4:00 PM Eastern Time, while Canadians got to see it on CBC starting at 12:30 Eastern. Although ABC aired WWOS on both Saturdays and Sundays, they, unlike CBC, opted not to show the resumed game the next day.

The Blue Bombers had now won 4 titles in 5 seasons, as yet an unmatched run of success. Teams had won 3 straight Grey Cups, but not 4 in so few years. Then the quasi-dynasty went into a tailspin, going 7-9 in 1963. Grant was given the general manager's duties, on top of the head coaching duties, for 1964, and the team finished 1-14-1. He got them to a rebound season in 1965, going 11-5 and reaching the Grey Cup again, but losing to the Tiger-Cats, 22-16 in Toronto. He got them back to the Playoffs in 1966, but lost the West Final.

In 1967, Winter and his general manager, Jim Finks, fired Van Brocklin, and again made an overture to Grant. This time, he accepted, and led the Vikings to the 1969 NFL Championship, and the 1973, 1974 and 1976 NFC Championships. But they lost all 4 Super Bowls.

Still, to this day, he and Marv Levy are the only coaches to lead teams into both a Grey Cup and a Super Bowl. Grant, Levy and Steve Owen are the only coaches to win Coach of the Year in both the CFL and the NFL. And he and Levy are the only coaches to be in both the Pro Football and the Canadian Football Halls of Fame. The only player in both is Warren Moon.

Both the Blue Bombers and the Vikings have elected Grant to their team halls of fame. The Blue Bombers have dedicated a statue to him outside their new Princess Auto Stadium.

For the 1963 season, the CFL adopted an official policy for postponements of postseason games: Play may be stopped for up to 3 hours, and then resume. After 3 hours of stoppage, play is terminated at least for the day. A Playoff or Grey Cup game must then be resumed the following day, at the point where it left off. Through the 2022 season, this policy has never had to be invoked.

Since Grant left the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, they took until 1984 to win the Grey Cup again, a 22-year gap. They have since won in 1988, 1990, 2019 (a 29-year gap) and 2021.

UPDATE: Bud Grant died on March 11, 2023, at the age of 95, in Bloomington, Minnesota, the suburb of Minneapolis where Metropolitan Stadium, home of the NFL's Vikings and baseball's Twins from 1961 to 1981, stood.

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December 2, 1962 was a Sunday. These games were played in the NFL:

* The New York Giants beat the Chicago Bears, 26-24 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, 37-14 at District of Columbia Stadium (later renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium) in Washington.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 19-7 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Baltimore Colts, 21-14 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 41-10 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Minnesota Vikings, 35-12 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Dallas Cowboys beat the Cleveland Browns, 45-21 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

There were 3 games in the AFL:

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Dallas Texans, 23-14 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.

* The Houston Oilers beat the Denver Broncos, 34-17 at Jeppesen Stadium (later Robertson Stadium) in Houston.

* And the San Diego Chargers beat the Oakland Raiders, 31-21 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego.

Baseball was out of season. There were 2 games played in the NBA. The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 128-127 in overtime at the Cincinnati Gardens. And the St. Louis Hawks beat the San Francisco Warriors, 122-116 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California. Cliff Hagan scored 43 points for the Hawks. For the Warriors' Wilt Chamberlain, it was just another day at the office: He scored 59 points and grabbed 24 rebounds.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

November 25, 2001: Don't Talk to Jim Mora About Playoffs

November 25, 2001: The Indianapolis Colts lose to the San Francisco 49ers, 40-21 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. It's the team's 3rd straight loss, and they fall 4-6.

The Colts' coach, Jim Mora is rightly upset. He was 66 years old, a football lifer, from the Los Angeles area. He'd been the head coach at Occidental College in L.A., and served on Dick Vermeil's staff at UCLA and Don James' staff at Washington. He coached the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars to all 3 USFL Championship Games, winning 2 of them. He coached the New Orleans Saints for 11 seasons, including the franchise's 1st 4 Playoff berths. He was now in his 4th season as head man in Indianapolis, having made the Playoffs the preceding 2 years.

He had seen it all. He now acted like he'd seen enough, and launched into one of the press conference tirades he was known for occasionally giving:

Well, I'll start off by saying this: Do not blame that game on the defense, okay? I don't care who you play, whether it's a high school team, a junior college team, a college team, much less an NFL team: When you turn the ball over 5 times, 4 interceptions, 1 for a touchdown, 3 others in field position to set up touchdowns, you ain't gonna beat anybody I just talked about, anybody. All right?

And that was a disgraceful performance in my opinion. We threw that game. We gave it away by doing that. We gave 'em the friggin' game. In my opinion, that sucked.

Uh, you know, you can't turn the ball over 5 times like that. Holy crap, I don't know who the hell we think we are, when we do something like that. Unbelievable. Five turnovers. One of 'em for -- We threw 4 interceptions for touchdowns this year. That might be an NFL record. That's pitiful. I mean, it's absolutely pitiful, to perform like that. Pitiful.

At this point, Tim Bragg of WRTV-Channel 6, the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, asked Mora if he thought his team could still make the Playoffs. His response might be the most famous coach's press conference rant of all time:

What's that? Ah -- Playoffs? Don't talk about -- Playoffs? You kiddin' me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game!"

Mora was right to worry: The Colts won only 2 of their last 6 games, finishing 6-10, and missing the Playoffs. The Colts averaged 30.4 points per game, more than any team in the NFL. So, maybe he should have blamed the defense.

Mora was fired, and has never coached again. Although his regular-season record was an impressive 125-106, and he won a Division title with New Orleans and another in Indianapolis, he went 0-6 in the... Playoffs!

The Colts replaced him with Tony Dungy. He was able to get more out of Mora's former quarterback, Peyton Manning. But, as a defensive back who played on the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl teams of the 1970s, Dungy also built a better defense. As a result, he coached them for 7 years, and, every season, made the Playoffs, including the 2006 season, which ended with him leading them to win Super Bowl XLI.

Mora's son, usually listed as Jim L. Mora, served on his father's staff in New Orleans, and as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons and the Seattle Seahawks, and at UCLA, winning an NFC South Division with the Falcons and a Pac-12 South Division with UCLA. As of November 25, 2022, Jim Mora is still alive, age 87; and Jim L. Mora, 61, is the head coach at the University of Connecticut.

On September 17, 2013, while writing my original blog, Uncle Mike's Musings, I discovered that, if you Google just that one word, "playoffs," the first thing that came up was Mora's rant. Not a link to any sport's postseason. I checked again while writing this post, and found that that was no longer the case. Still, it held up for at least 12 years.

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November 25, 2001 was a Sunday. These other NFL games were played that day:

* The New York Giants lost to the Oakland Raiders, 28-10 at Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 13-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Carolina Panthers, 10-7 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

* The Baltimore Ravens beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 24-21 at Alltel Stadium (now EverBank Stadium) in Jacksonville.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Tennessee Titans, 34-24 at the Adelphia Coliseum (now Nissan Stadium) in Nashville.

* The New England Patriots beat the New Orleans Saints, 34-17 at Foxboro Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the Buffalo Bills, 34-27 at Ralph Wilson Stadium (formerly Rich Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 18-0 at Cleveland Browns Stadium (now named Huntington Bank Field).

* The Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings, 13-6 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Arizona Cardinals beat the San Diego Chargers, 20-17 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.

* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Seattle Seahawks, 19-7 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* Three days earlier, on Thanksgiving Day, the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions, 29-27 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* Also on Thanksgiving, the Denver Broncos beat the Dallas Cowboys, 26-24 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

* The next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the St. Louis Rams, 24-17 at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis. (That stadium has gone through some name changes, but now has that name again.)

* And, in this last of 3 seasons between the arrival of the reborn Cleveland Browns and that of the Houston Texans, when the NFL had 31 teams, the New York Jets had a bye week.

The Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League, was played at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The Calgary Stampeders beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 27-19.

Baseball was in the off-season. There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Golden State Warriors, 101-85 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena (then named The Arena in Oakland).

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 107-88 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

* There was a doubleheader at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles. In the opener, the Los Angeles Clippers beat the Houston Rockets, 90-83.

* In the nightcap, the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets, 105-98. Nick Van Exel led all scorers on the day with 34 points.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Indiana Pacers, 99-88 at the KeyArena in Seattle.

And there were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Vancouver Canucks lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1 at the First Union Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-0 at the Raleigh Entertainment & Sports Arena (now the Lenovo Center).

* The Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Calgary Flames, 4-3 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings, arch-rivals, played to a 4-4 tie at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* And the Dallas Stars beat the Minnesota Wild, 4-3 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat Manchester United, 3-1 at Highbury in North London.