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The Tampa Bay area was doing fine before the Buccaneers came along. There were oranges, beaches, sunshine and all those cool bridges stitching together the entire region. The snowbirds arrived in late autumn and departed in mid-spring, just as they do now.This is about sports, though, isnt it? And in that case, there were six weeks worth of not-really-real baseball from the Mets, Pirates, Phillies, Reds and White Sox and not a lot else. By the mid-1970s, the area had little to call its own, save for a highly competitive soccer team called the Rowdies in a league, the NASL, that was not long for this world.The Tampa Bay area which comprises the city itself along with communities such as Bradenton, Sarasota, Clearwater and St. Petersburg was home to about 1.1 million before the National Football League decided in 1974 it was time to expand with a second team in Florida, to join the Miami Dolphins.The regions 300 percent growth since has not resulted entirely from the presence of the Bucs, the Lightning and the Rays, the latter two arriving in the 1990s. There is something about being a major-league city, though, that can help keep residents from looking for more interesting environments or drawing in new citizens from elsewhere.By the time ESPNs Hall of Fame college basketball analyst Dick Vitale chose to relocate to the region roughly 30 years ago, the Bucs were long established and the two other teams were just getting going. Because he loves sports and loves where he lives, Vitale has become a Tampa Bay superfan, the person the cameras inevitably find when the teams Kawhi Leonard Jersey he has adopted inevitably do well.Im truly wrapped up. I believe in supporting the local clubs, Vitale told SN in 2021. Its where I live, and I get to know a lot of the key people who work in these organizations, and theyre good people, and I love supporting them.Vitale was a Yankees fan growing up in New Jersey but has become the Rays No. 1 fan, and they have delivered him two American League pennants, four AL East division titles and eight playoff appearances since 2008. He has been a season-ticket holder for the Buccaneers, who won the Super Bowl in 2002 and 2020. And, though he acknowledges that basketball season interferes with following the Lightning, he is friends with head coach John Cooper, who led the franchise to the second two of the teams three Stanley Cup victories and heads a franchise that has been among the league leaders in attendance in recent years.Vitale, who sees a GOAT every time he checks his mirror, knows well what Tampa Bays GOAT Mountain selections Lee Roy Selmon, Derrick Brooks, Steven Stamkos and Martin St. Louis have done for Stanley Johnson Jersey the region he calls home.The four of them represented our area with excellence in competition plus in many community events over the years, Vitale told the Sporting News. They certainly were awesome, baby, and solid-gold PTPers (prime time players).MORE: No one person turned Tampa into a major-league city, a city of consistent title contenders and frequent champions. Getting that done required rich busine smen, smart sports executives, a legion of great, memorable athletes and a community eager and properly prepared to welcome the alchemy that makes a great sports town.Every revolution has a first shot, though, and few have had the enduring impact of Lee Roy Selmons arrival in the Tampa Bay area. He is continuing to influence the regions sporting fortunes more than a decade after he left us much too soon.He is the iconic player a sociated with franchise because he was the first ever: He was the first pick of the 1976 draft, and that was before they had the expansion draft, T.J. Rives, entering his 19th season as the sideline reporter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Radio Network, told the Sporting News. So the original Buccaneer was Lee Roy Selmon. And it is apropos, because he is going to be forever linked as the guy that helped establish the team.Because they were so horrible in the beginning, but he was at the forefront of when it turned around.For a while there, Tampa sports fans had trouble recognizing they had entered the major leagues. Sure, the visiting teams brought to town such superstars as Dan Fouts, Walter Payton and Alan Page, but the Bucs were one of the worst expansion teams, ever, in any sport. The New York Mets lost 120 games, or 75 percent of the 1962 baseball season? That was bad. The Muggsy Bogues Jersey Bucs didnt win any games in 1976 they were 0-14 and none of the first dozen in 1977. Thats 26 lo ses in a row.Selmon played in 20 of those games, but he averaged a sack almost every time out. If Bucs fans stayed focused on No. 63, and not so much the scoreboard, they understood their city was in the big time.I will tell you, we were not fans of the Bucs, because they were not a good team. But we were fans of Lee Roy. Lee Roy was special, Katherine Smith, who grew up in the area and now covers the team as a video journalist for Spectrum Sports, told SN. We loved him so much as a family we named one of our dogs after him!Years later, after Selmon had become athletic director at the University of South Florida, Smith met him at a function and told him about about the family pooch from when she was growing up. The look on his face was like, Oh, my God -- is he going to call security? I wanted him to know he was so beloved. And he was. He was such a bright light in the community, and not just because of what he did on the field. You would see Lee Roy all over town. He would show up at schools, visit Malachi Flynn Jersey the kids. He was such a great amba sador for the team.Just before Tampa Bay Coach John McKay plucked the No. 1 college football player for his expansion club, the former Southern Cal coach said he re- membered the preparation he had made before USC faced Oklahoma's Lee Roy Selmon three years ago.It was Selmon whom McKay selected first April 8 as the National Football League teams chose 487 players in 17 rounds lasting a record 24 hours, 13 minutes."I recall playing Oklahoma," McKay said, after selecting the 6-2, 260-pounder. "We knew all about Selmon. As I recall, we ran the other way.The Sporting News, April 24, 1976Today, Smith drives to work daily acro s the Lee Roy Selmon Expre sway, a 14-mile stretch of highway through the city of Tampa that was opened in 1987 but wasnt true completed until presented its current name a dozen years later.Born in Oklahoma, an All-American who played with the Sooners with brothers Lucious and Dewey, Lee Roy became a Floridian-for-life after being drafted by the Bucs. After retirement, he worked as an executive at the First National Bank of Miami, then went into athletic administration at the University of South Florida. After he became athletic director, he launched the drive to form a varsity football team in 1997 and eventually get the Bulls to Division I Bowl Championship Series status within four years. He died from complications of a stroke a decade later.His induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame came in 1995, probably overdue for someone who retired in 1984 having reached six Pro Bowls. As Canton-bound team executive Ron Wolf, the Bucs first director of football operations, told veteran pro football writer Ira Kaufman, Never, and I mean never, was Lee Roy Selmon not double-teamed on a snap.Selmon was the right end on a 3-4 defensive alignment, and even through all Danny Green Jersey of that attention from blockers, was able to record four double-digit sack seasons including his eighth year in the league. His dominance helped the Bucs escape that early despair and become the NFLs most impactful defense by 1979, their fourth season in existence. He was named the A sociated Pre s defensive player of the year. The Bucs made it all the way to the NFC Championship they brought the conference title game to Tampa, which previously had nothing bigger in t
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发表于 2023-10-26 10:16:18