Tag: Isaac Bruce

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From My Seat Sports

Isaac Bruce: Hall of Famer

CREDIT: U of M Athletics

Isaac Bruce was born at the perfect time. The first University of Memphis football player to top 1,000 receiving yards in a season (in 1993), Bruce entered the NFL as the league was shifting from a rather balanced run-pass enterprise to one in which the passing game is almost everything. Trouble is, some other very good pass-catchers happened to be born around the same time.

On February 2nd in Atlanta (the day before the Super Bowl), the Pro Football Hall of Fame will announce its newest class of inductees. Bruce is among the 15 modern-era finalists and hopes to become the first U of M alum to receive a bust at the sport’s cathedral of history in Canton, Ohio. While Bruce’s numbers — starting with 15,208 career receiving yards — were Hall-worthy the day he retired (after the 2009 season), Bruce missed out in his first four years of eligibility, the last two as a finalist. (A maximum of five modern-era candidates are enshrined each year.) I’m convinced this is Bruce’s year.
U of M Athletics

Isaac Bruce

The challenge for Bruce has been catching (pardon the pun) appropriate attention among receivers who put up similar numbers and during the same time Bruce was setting records for the St. Louis Rams and their “Greatest Show on Turf.” Upon his retirement, Bruce was second only to the incomparable Jerry Rice (22,895 yards) among receivers on the NFL’s career yardage chart. But as he waited the required five years to be placed on the Hall of Fame ballot, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss moved ahead of Bruce. Meanwhile, the 1,000-catch club grew from two in 2000 (Rice and Cris Carter) to its current 14 members (Bruce is 13th alltime with 1,024 receptions).

There developed a logjam of eligible Hall of Fame-worthy receivers, one that’s only now finally starting to clear with the inductions of Tim Brown (2015), Marvin Harrison (2016), Moss (2018), and Owens (2018) since Bruce became eligible. Among this year’s finalists, the Fort Lauderdale native is the only wide receiver. (Tight end Tony Gonzalez is eligible for the first time and is a lock for one of the five slots.)

Bruce was a significant part of one of football’s most historic offenses, one that has already sent running back Marshall Faulk (2011), tackle Orlando Pace (2016), and quarterback Kurt Warner (2017) to the Hall of Fame. Even with Faulk and the great Torry Holt taking carries and catches away from Bruce, he led the 1999 Rams — winners of Super Bowl XXXIV — in receiving yardage (1,165 yards) and scored 12 touchdowns. Bruce’s 73-yard touchdown reception in the fourth quarter proved to be the trophy-clinching score against Tennessee in that Super Bowl. Warner was named MVP, but the honor could have easily gone to Bruce (six catches for 162 yards).

Along with Gonzalez, a pair of defensive backs — Champ Bailey and Ed Reed — are likely to be elected in their first year of eligibility. This would leave two slots open for Bruce and the other 11 modern-era finalists. Tony Boselli? Steve Atwater? Kevin Mawae? John Lynch? Edgerrin James? All good players, all worthy of the case that will be made for them in the selection room. But more worthy of induction than Isaac Bruce? Hell no.

Bruce is one of just six players to have his jersey (#83) retired by the University of Memphis. He visits the Bluff City regularly and, with the Rams having returned to Los Angeles, remains an icon in our sister city of St. Louis. In these parts, we’ve long known Isaac Bruce is a Hall of Famer. It will be nice when the Pro Football Hall of Fame officially recognizes such. Let’s hope it’s February 2nd.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts on Tiger Football

CREDIT: U of M Athletics

• The University of Memphis lost a certifiable legend with the passing of John Bramlett last week. “The Bull” starred as a Tiger on both the gridiron and baseball diamond, building a reputation somehow tougher than the nickname he carried his entire adult life.

With Bramlett’s death, there are only two living members of an exclusive club of six: Tiger football players to have their jerseys retired. Gone before Bramlett were Charles Greenhill (who died in the 1983 plane crash that killed Memphis coach Rex Dockery), Dave Casinelli (killed in a car wreck in 1987), and Harry Schuh, who died in 2013, two years after his jersey was retired. The U of M program is long overdue for actually displaying the names and numbers of these honored greats at the Liberty Bowl. (There’s a handsome wall display at the practice facility on the south campus, but it’s seen only by members of the program, insiders, and wandering media types.) The city of Memphis owns the Liberty Bowl, but the U of M can display banners on game day as it chooses. The Tigers have rightfully honored six great players, including Pro Football Hall of Fame candidate Isaac Bruce and current Carolina Panther DeAngelo Williams. Let’s see their names and numbers prominently displayed at the stadium their alma mater calls home.

John Bramlett

• Speaking of retired jerseys, the next Tiger to be honored should be former quarterback Danny Wimprine. The Louisiana native passed for 4,445 more yards than any other Memphis quarterback (10,215), and tossed 81 touchdown passes (second on the list is Martin Hankins with 43). We need to start tracking Paxton Lynch’s numbers relative to Wimprine’s. If Lynch stays healthy and plays four seasons, he’ll be the first Tiger quarterback to threaten Wimprine’s records. Through his sophomore season (2002), Wimprine had thrown for 4,149 yards and 37 touchdowns. Seven games into his sophomore campaign, Lynch’s numbers are 3,764 and 19.

• This may be the only time all season you read “American Athletic Conference” and “Power Five” in the same sentence. Because the American is woefully weak at the bottom of the league standings, the polar opposite of anything resembling the likes of the Big Ten, ACC, or, gulp, SEC. You might say, actually, the American includes a “Sour Five,” four of whom play the Memphis Tigers over the next five weeks. (Memphis handled the fifth member of this ignominious group — SMU — last Saturday.) Check out the rankings of the Sour Five in scoring among the 128 FBS teams: 97 (Tulsa, this week’s opponent), 108 (USF), 119 (Tulane), 127 (UConn), and 128 (SMU). At 4-3, Memphis could enjoy its longest stretch of success since winning five of six games to finish the 2007 regular season. (SMU and Tulane were among the victims seven years ago.) Tulsa, it should be noted, is 122nd in points allowed (40.7 per game). Needless to say, a loss to any team not named Temple will leave a sour taste.

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Sports Sports Feature

FROM MY SEAT: Empty Honors

Here’s a
great mind-bender to play the next time you attend a University of Memphis
football game at the Liberty Bowl. Ask those in your party — or perhaps the
entire seating section — to name the former Tiger players who have had their
numbers retired. And a dish of nachos to the fan who can actually identify the
numbers as well.

U of M
football may not be as tradition-rich as the BCS big boys, but the program has
actually honored four players, three for their exploits on the field and a
fourth as a memorial. But even if you’re a Highland Hundred lifer, in your seat
from kickoff to the final tick of the clock for every Memphis home game, you may
be unaware of these players’ names, much less the numbers they wore as Tigers.
Because, you see, there is no sign, no banner, no plaque, not so much as a
temporary flag displaying the honored names. Has to make you wonder how
“honored” the surviving stars really feel.

Associate athletic director Bob Winn clarifies that the players have had their
jerseys — but not the actual numbers on their jerseys — retired. And the
explanation is perfectly reasonable: with more than 100 players on a college
football roster, a team would simply run out of digits. (This, of course, makes
those nachos so terribly difficult to earn. You may see the “retired number” of
a former star prancing across the goal line for a touchdown.)

When I
asked Winn about the absence of a display — of any sort — at the Liberty Bowl,
he told me I was the first person he can remember even mentioning the perceived
void. “We’ve talked about [putting the numbers up],” said Winn. “We’ve just
never really progressed, and I don’t know why. We’ve discussed a ring of honor,
but just haven’t come up with the appropriate way to do it. It seems like
colleges these days will often honor a [current] player by giving him the number
of a former great, or a special locker, maybe.”

As far
as which players are honored, Winn says the U of M leaves the decision in the
hands of its coaches. Which begs the question: How does a coach in 2007
legitimately consider the impact of a player in, say, 1977? A panel of boosters,
it would seem, might be better equipped — and with longer memories — to define
and recognize a past player’s greatness.

The
city-owned Liberty Bowl has layers of protocol when it comes to decor that the
university wouldn’t have to accommodate if it had complete control of the
facility. (Another arrow in the quiver of the on-campus stadium movement.) But
even with approval needed for any permanent paint display, Winn feels like city
authorities would be receptive if a movement for the display was strong enough
and it didn’t defame the stadium in any way.

“When it
was named Rex Dockery Field,” explains Winn, “there was so much emotion about
Rex being killed in that plane crash, that some of his friends just went
straight to the City Council, and it was done. There was not much of a process.”

Here’s a
cheat sheet for your Tiger Football Legends game:

•
Charles Greenhill, #8 (played for Memphis in 1983) — A defensive back and
former star at Frayser High School, Greenhill was killed in the plane crash that
also killed Tiger coach Rex Dockery on December 12, 1983. He was the first Tiger
to have his jersey retired.

•
Dave Casinelli, #30 (1960-63) — Casinelli was the first Tiger player to rush
for 1,000 yards in a season (1,016 in 1963). He was the program’s career rushing
leader for 41 years and was honored posthumously after being killed in a 1987
car accident.

•
Isaac Bruce, #83 (1992-93) — In 1993, Bruce caught 74 passes for 1,054
yards, records that stand to this day (and really haven’t been challenged). With
more than 900 receptions and over 13,000 yards for the NFL’s St. Louis Rams,
Bruce could become the first former Tiger to reach the Pro Football Hall of
Fame. His jersey was retired in 2003.

•
DeAngelo Williams, #20 (2002-05) — A member of three bowl teams with
Memphis, Williams became only the fourth player in NCAA history to rush for
6,000 yards in his career. He established NCAA records for all-purpose yards
(7,573) and 100-yard rushing games (34). His number was retired in 2006, his
first season as a Carolina Panther.