To give you an idea for what a man he was physically. Here's a story from the Palm Beach Post about the season opener for his 1973 Dolphins:
Playing injured in those days was much more the norm than it is now. But Stanfill literally left his hospital bed to play in the 1973 opener against San Francisco at the Orange Bowl.Damn. Just Damn.
"I'd been in Mercy Hospital for 10 days with a lacerated liver, and early that morning, the team doctor (Herbert Virgin) came to see me and said my white blood count was too high, he couldn't let me out," Stanfill recalled.
"Then at 12:15, the nurse walks in and said, 'Dr. Virgin is going to be calling.' He did and said, 'Bill, do you have your car? Drive on down to the Orange Bowl.' I went down, the team was on the field, I got taped and went out and played 18 snaps.
"We won the game and when I was cutting my tape off, I noticed I still had my hospital bracelet on, so I walked into the training room and told Dr. Virgin, 'I'll give you the honor of cutting this off.' He said, 'No, you're going back to the hospital.' I spent three more days there."
PWD
8 comments:
The first time he came back to Sanford with the Gamecocks I kept saying how I wanted to make a cardboard cutout of Stanfill and hire somebody to follow him up and down the sidelines the entire game heckling him. After reading that, I really wish I had done that.
Where can we find some "modern day Bill Stanfill's" for our D-line. Gators, Tide, etc. wouldn't stand a chance with this guy. Reminds me in some respects of David Pollack.
I daresay Spurrier has atoned. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he dedicated that last touchdown in '95 to Stanfill personally. I appreciate what Stanfill did to Spurrier that day, but his repeated crowing about it increasingly just draws attention to the fact that Spurrier would later spend more than a decade beating us like rented mules.
Frankly, I'm tired of Spurrier even being a topic, much less a bogeyman for us. It's been nearly a decade since he was any kind of a real villain to us. These days, he's just some AARP member that we babysit for three hours on the second game of the season.
In an alternate reality in which Spurrier had faded into obscurity (we'll call this reality "heaven"), do you think Stanfill would keep bringing up his big day in '66? Probably not. Let it go, Bill.
Tommy,
If you read the article you would see that it was a quote from a speech Stanfill gave ten years ago. Besides, he's an old football player, what do they do? Tell stories from their playing days. I tell stories from games during my college days and I was just watching from the stands. Relax.
If we had more Bill Stanfills Spurrier would have never had that chance, Tommy.
Those teams that Spurrier beat up on were soft mentally and physically.
Hell, Chipper Jones stubs his toe and misses 5 games. Too bad more players aren't more like ole Bill.
What is the Ol Ball Coach's overall record vs UGA now? I think he was 1-2 as a QB at UF...I know he whipped us good as a Coach there...I can only hope SOS stays at UF long enough to have a losing record vs UGA.
Personally, I think UGA can't beat him enough.
There's that EDIT need again...Obviously, I hope he stays at SC East long enough.... :)
The Braves just gave up a bomb in Florida in the bottom of the 9th, so I was distracted. Sue me.
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