Today in 1999 the conclusion of a story that took some time to tell: a news report about a guy who had been drafted by a pro football team half a century earlier.
He was Norm Michael, and back in 1944 he was playing for Syracuse University.
Michael was big and strong – as a fullback he did a lot of blocking – but he was also a quick and capable rusher.
In his first year he had a 58 yard rush to the four yard line, and ended up scoring a couple more plays into the drive.
The Saturday Evening Post listed him among the best collegiate fullback prospects in the US.
So it was probably not a huge surprise that he attracted attention from NFL teams.
The Philadelphia Eagles drafted Michael in the 18th round of the 1944 Draft.
But he never played a single game with the team; in fact, he never even knew they’d chosen him.
One reason was that, for all his strength and speed, Michael had a history of injuries.
In fact, on the very next offensive play after that big touchdown drive of his, Michael broke his leg and missed the rest of the season.
That wasn’t even the only time the fullback had a broken leg, let alone his other breaks.
But the main reason was that by the time word got to Syracuse that the Eagles were interested, Michael wasn’t at Syracuse.
After his third year, he left the program and enlisted in the US Army.
More than a half-century later, he was reading a newspaper piece about Syracuse players who’d been drafted, and he saw his own name.
It was the first time he’d known about how close he’d come to a pro football contract.
He took the news pretty well; Michael told reporters that “I guess I may have missed my window of opportunity.”
But he said he was going to reach out to the Eagles anyway, joking that after 55 years, the interest on his signing bonus would be pretty substantial!
There’s a new musical instrument out called Stacco.
Imagine a kind of Zen drum looking thing with metal marbles on the surface.
These spheres are magnetic, and they interact with attractors under the wood surface that use artificial intelligence to generate sounds and chimes as you move them around.
So it’s kind of a drum-like marble fidget AI theremin.
This day in sports history: The player who didn’t know he’d been drafted for 50 years (Yahoo! Sports)
musical instrument ‘stacco’ produces chimes and sounds by moving magnetic marbles on it (designboom)
Back our show on Patreon today and we’ll create new episodes for years to come
