Marquette Football
On Dec. 12, 1936, three weeks after failing to lead Marquette to a win over Duquesne and their first undefeated regular season, Golden Avalanche quarterback Ray “Buzz” Buivid was selected by the Chicago Bears with the No. 3 pick in the 1937 NFL draft.
Buivid, the third-place finisher in 1936 Heisman Trophy voting, was the first of three first-round draft picks for a Marquette program that disbanded 24 years later. After the 1960 season, its seventh straight sub-.500 season (13 total wins from 1954 to ’60), the university cited a loss of $50,000 in eliminating the program after nearly seven decades of existence. The decision promoted a downtown march for “justice” from students and alumni.
Despite not playing a snap of football in more than 60 years, Marquette has more first-round draft picks than Iowa State.
Since 1961, Iowa State has 275 wins, 16 bowl appearances, and one first-round pick in the NFL draft: Running back George Amundson was selected at No. 14 by the Houston Oilers in 1973. The 1972 Big 8 Player of the Year was their first-ever first-round pick and, with another shutout on Thursday night, remains their last.
Marquette is one of seven defunct college football programs with more first-round picks than Iowa State. The six others have two apiece: Boston University, Detroit Mercy, Long Beach State, Saint Mary’s, San Francisco and the University of Tampa.
Iowa State had multiple draft picks in 2019 (David Montgomery and Hakeem Butler) for just the second time since 2008, has four straight seasons with at least seven wins for the first time ever, and is ranked seventh in SI’s early college football rankings for 2021. The Cyclones are rolling, which makes their draft futility even more bizarre.
Other draft notes: Kene Nwangwu is the NFL draft sleeper you want … Updated big board … 10 most questionable picks through Friday (and three things to love and question)… Najee Harris’s draft party was at a homeless shelter where he once lived.
Dog on Meth
Zipping Sarah, a three-year-old Italian greyhound, won the “Len, Jane, and Penny Hart Memorial Feature” at the Canterbury Greyhound Racing Club in New Zealand in November. After the race, a urine test revealed she had methamphetamine in her system.
“Methamphetamine is a potent central nervous system stimulant, which poses significant animal welfare issues, and the level of amphetamine . . . in the sample was particularly large,” Warwick Gendall QC, panel chairman of the Judicial Control Authority, said last week as the government announced a review of the greyhound racing industry.
For the violation, the trainer, Angela Helen Turnwald was fined only $3,500, stripped of the winning stake ($4,000), and disqualified for four months.
Justin Bannan
In October 2019, former NFL defensive lineman Justin Bannan was arrested in connection with a shooting in Boulder, Colo. The former fifth-round pick was charged with attempted first-degree murder and burglary after shooting a woman in the shoulder.
Eighteen months later, we have more details of the shooting and arrest after USA Today’s Tom Schad wrote an unbelievable article on Bannan’s insistence he was being followed by the Russian mob.
Really Pathetic…
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