Page 2 - Sports Facts

A football game was played in fog so thick that the players couldn’t see the field!

A 1988 playoff game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Chicago Bears will always be remembered as the “Fog Bowl.” A dense, heavy fog rolled in during the game’s 2nd quarter that made for almost zero-visibility for the fans…and the players!

The fog got so intense that the refs had to call out each play as it was made, and Terry Bradshaw, who was announcing the game, said this was his most frustrating football moment on OR off the field!

The Bears ending up winning the game with a score of 20-12 despite the weather. Many players complained that they couldn’t see the sidelines or the first-down markers, but that didn’t change the outcome of the game.

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The University of Wisconsin ended a contract with Nike because of their treatment of sweatshop workers in Honduras!

Wisconsin had made the bold decision to be the FIRST University to break ties with Nike, simply because of how they treat their sweatshop workers in Honduras.

The University of Wisconsin said that the poor treatment of another human being is unacceptable, and Nike has made no effort to improve the working conditions of their workers.

Nike says that it is in the company’s policy to put the sole responsibility of the working conditions in the hands of the subcontractor, and insisted that none of the University of Wisconsin’s merchandise was made in the Honduras sweatshops.

Despite this, the University of Wisconsin will take it's $49,000 royalty generated income somewhere else. Will other universities and colleges follow along with Wisconsin? Only time will tell! Read the source to get even more information

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An NFL kicker invented the NERF football!

Any child born in the last few decades knows what a Nerf football is. That's because it is still the top-selling football of all time. It would be pretty nice to be the inventor of such a successful product, right? Just ask Fred Cox, who did in fact invent the Nerf football.

Cox is a former Minnesota Vikings kicker, and while he was still playing, he came up for the idea for this football. John Mattox approached him about creating a movable goal post for kids to use in their back yard. Mattox wanted to use a heavy ball so that children wouldn't kick it out of their yard. Cox thought it would be a better idea to use a lighter ball and avoid a lot of sore-legged kids.

Mattox and Cox began making prototypes of such a ball in the early 1970s. They got the weight right and made sure that it flew and reacted like a real football. Parker Bros ended up buying the Nerf football and guaranteeing Cox a portion of each ball sold. Considering that millions of Nerf footballs have been sold, that's a pretty sweet deal for Cox. He was able to retire at age 50.

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Paintballs were originally used to mark cows for slaughtering and trees for cutting down!

The evolution of the paintball began in the late 1970’s, when the Nelson Paint Company developed a gas operated gun and marking pellets for a variety of industries, including Forestry and Ranching.

The guns and the pellets were used variously to mark trees for removal, cows to be slaughtered, and really anything else that required putting a semi-permanent mark on something from a distance.

The game of paintball was created by two friends, Charles Gaines and Bill Gurnsey. The two concluded that they needed something like a marking gun and a set of rules that would allow people to test their individual skills against each other.

After a year of searching, Gaines and Gurnsey chose the Nelson Paint company’s guns and pellets, developed a set of rules for “survival games”.

So, in 1981, Charles and Bill, along with 12 friends played the first ever paintball game using these industrial paintball guns on a field measuring over one hundred acres without any masks or safety equipment.

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16 Cubans went to play a qualifying soccer game in Canada, but only 11 made it to the game. The rest escaped to the US!

Under the U.S. Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996, Cuban nationals looking to defect to the U.S. do not have to be detained. Any other national would be detained in a detention facility immediately after being found.

Most people also require a valid passport, a Nexus card, a Free and Secure Trade card or an enhanced driver’s license to enter the U.S. from the western hemisphere, a Cuban national claiming a “credible fear” would be allowed in.

To establish a “credible fear,” defectors must present a well-founded fear of persecution, or have been persecuted, in their home country due to membership in one of five classes: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

A group of 16 Cuban women went to Canada for a qualifying soccer game. Only 11 of them actually went to the qualifying soccer game, though. Five of the women jumped the border escaping to the US. They didn’t want to have to return to Cuba.

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