• Casanova starred at Notre Dame High School in Crowley LA. However, he says, "I was only recruited by three schools to play ball after I graduated. I picked Tulane, even though they weren't recruiting me because I was young, idealistic and had family in the New Orleans area."
• Nelson Stokley, then LSU's QB and a family friend from Crowley, kept Tommy from making a big mistake by telling him, "You are insane for thinking to go to Tulane. Why don't you come to LSU and play with us?"
• Tommy played freshman football in Baton Rouge in 1968 for Coach Mel Didier. "Coach Didier made Charlie Mac look like Mother Teresa," says Casanova.
• When Tommy joined the varsity, the staff had to decide where to play him since he had both O and D skills. He was used as a CB his sophomore season. It didn't take him long to make a splash. He made a tackle behind the line on a fourth-down play inside the Tiger five in a 21-20 nationally-televised victory over Auburn in Tiger Stadium.
• Casanova also ran track during his years at LSU. That may have contributed to his gliding running style that made him seem to be several inches off the ground.
• For his junior year, Tommy switched to RB. However, he separated his shoulder in the Texas A&M game. So McClendon returned him to CB. #37 again saved his best for a national audience in the last game of the regular season against Ole Miss. With the SEC title and an Orange Bowl bid on the line, he set a school record and tied the NCAA record with punt returns of 61 and 73 yards for TDs in the 61-17 rout.
• In its college football preseason issue, Sports Illustrated tabbed Casanova as the nation's top player for 1971. He didn't disappoint, ending his career with seven INTs, 44 punt returns for 517 yards, and 72 carries for 302 with five TDs.
• Tommy's big disappointment his senior year occurred in the Notre Dame game at South Bend. In Q4, with the game scoreless, he dropped an INT in the EZ. Two plays later, ND kicked the winning FG.

Tommy was drafted in the second round (#29 overall) by Cincinnati. He played six years in the NFL. The legendary Paul Brown, his coach with the Bengals, said of him:

Just plain special. We never had anyone else like him. On defense, he played the ball like a center fielder. On punt returns, he was excellent. A very good football player and always a gentleman.

During his time in the NFL, Tommy completed his degree as an eye docctor. He returned to Crowley, where he has practiced ophthalmology ever since.

Dr. Casanova was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the first LSU player to receive that honor since 1971, when Doc Fenton ('08) was inducted.

Reference: "Field of Dreams," Elizabeth Stuart, LSU-Florida Game Program 2009

Tommy Casanova

Doug Atkins

Jim Ringo

Doug Atkins came to the Saints in the original expansion draft from the Chicago Bears. A mountain of a man from the Tennessee mountains, the 6'8" 270 pounder had incredible strength, as illustrated by this story.

G Ray Rissmiller, later Adkins' teammate with the Saints, faced him with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1966. Veteran C Jim Ringo cautioned his young teammate.

When you go against Adkins, whatever you do, don't hold him. Because if you do, he's going to hurt me.

Puzzled, Rissmiller asked why Atkins would hurt Ringo for something Rissmiller did.

Because he's going to pick you up and throw you on me.

The fear and awe that Atkins engendered in his teammates is exemplified in this story that Billy Kilmer tells from the Saints' initial training camp at California Western University.

After bed check, the rookies on the upper floor of the two-story dormitory blast their stereo, keeping Kilmer and everyone else awake.

Suddenly, a voice booms from one of the first floor windows: "Shut that music off!" It's Atkins. But the music continues. Soon Doug yells again to no avail. Finally, Kilmer hears "Pow! Pow! Pow!" He jumps out of bed and races into the room next door to find Doug aiming a shotgun upward out of the window. "I decided it was too late for all that noise," Atkins explained. "I hollered up there and didn't get a response. I had a screen on the window and couldn't get it off, so I just angled an old .38 out there."

The music stopped, and everyone soon fell asleep. The next day, the rookies moved down the hall, and no one roomed with Atkins the rest of training camp.

Reference: Tales from the Saints Sideline, Jeff Duncan

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1947 was Coach Blaik's first season after The Touchdown Twins (Davis and Blanchard) graduated. After four games, the Cadets stood 3-0-1 thanks to a 0-0 tie with Illinois. Their undefeated streak had reached 32. Many expected it to last until the annual Notre Dame game November 8 at South Bend. However, Columbia had other ideas.

• In his pre-game remarks to the team at Baker Field, Blaik said, "You are not ready for this game. If we don't snap out of it, we're going to get licked. I'm going to give the starting team five minutes to score. Otherwise they'll be out of there."
• The first-stringers pushed across a TD with 30 seconds to spare but the Lions had already taken an early lead.
• After a back-and-forth game, Columbia prevailed 21-20.

Notre Dame got its revenge, 27-7, in the last scheduled game of the storied series. The schools would not play again until 1957. Blaik's squad finished the '47 season 5-2-2, their worst record since Blaik's first year in 1941.

The Cadets rebounded with three straight outstanding seasons: 8-0-1 in 1948, 9-0-0 in '49, and 8-1-0 in '50. One of the new assistants for the '49 season was Vince Lombardi, who replaced Sid Gillman. Both men would go on to fame in professional football. Lombardi credited Blaik with greatly influencing his coaching philosophy.

Army-Michigan 1950; the year before the Cadets ended UM's 25-game winning streak.

The only damper on Army's three-year run was the 21-21 tie with Navy in '48 and a 14-2 loss to the Midshipmen in '50. Football was more than surviving its alleged de-emphasis at the Academy. However, the bottom was about to fall out of Red's world.

The 25-1-1 three-year record had been achieved in part because of Blaik's "tutoring" program that both helped recruits gain admission to the academy and then maintain their eligibility once enrolled. However, the program was evolving into a cheating ring rather than just academic assistance. Some football players were not just being tutored for exams but were actually being provided with questions and answers in advance, either from the tutor or from another cadet who had taken the test in an earlier section of the course. Members of "the ring" had infiltrated the cadet Honor Committee, which oversaw the honor code of conduct.

A growing number of the West Point faculty, already resentful of the special treatment given Blaik's players, suspected that something more than tutoring was at work. Furthermore, some of the 20 cadet tutors had begun to notice irregularities that greatly troubled them because they represented violations of the honor code. The most egregious example was giving the tutor a "practice" test to cover with his tutoree which turned out to be the actual test.

The conspiracy began to unravel during the second semester of the 1950-1 school year. Perhaps no one was more responsible for peeling away the layers of the onion than Lt. Col. Arthur S. Collins, 1st Regiment commander at the academy, who was known for his dislike for football players. Collins began investigating the special privileges afforded Blaik's squad members. The guilty consciences of several cadets who had been drawn into the conspiracy caused them to tell Collins about what had been going on. This led to a wider investigation that unraveled the scheme.

In August 1951, 90 cadets were expelled either for their involvement in the ring or for not reporting honor code violations as they were sworn to do. 37 of the dismissed were football players, including Earl Blaik's son Bob, who was scheduled to be the starting QB in 1951. Blaik himself was shocked by the scandal. He had left underlings to run the academic assistance program and had no idea of the corruption that had set in.

The depleted 1951 squad finished 2-7. The following year was better (4-4-1), but it wasn't until 1953 that Army football regained its sold footing.

To be continued ...

Arnold Galiffa, Army QB 1947-9 and Korean War hero

New Orleans Times Picayune 12/14/1942

Approximately 16,000 Sugar Bowl tickets have been returned here by Tulsa and Tennessee universities in deference to the office of defense transportation's request that bowl authorities recall all tickets sold outside of the New Orleans area.

A. B. Nicholls, VP of the football spectacle's governing committee, told Monday Quarterbacks that these tickets were now on sale to the locals and that they would be distributed on a "first-come-first-served" basis. Nicholls stated also that the transportation of all athletic teams to New Orleans including participants in basketball and boxing, seemed assured.

"I know that arrangements have been completed to bring the Great Lakes and Stanford basketball teams here," he said. "And there seems no difficulty in the way of either Tulsa or Tennessee ."

Thousands of the returned Sugar Bowl tickets were distributed to service personnel. The Volunteers of General Robert Neyland defeated Henry Frnka's Golden Hurricane 14-7 before 58,361 on New Year's Day 1943.

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