Okay, folks, I’m planning on doing a couple of these a month through March, give or take. An added bonus for paying customers. Feedback solicited. Let me know if you think this is worth pursuing.
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Mike McGee remains the only Duke football player to win a major national award. McGee won the 1959 Outland Trophy Award, presented to the nation’s best lineman. That’s impressive enough on the face of it but even more so for a team that went 4-6 and lost its final game 50-0 to its biggest rival on national television at a time when nationally-televised games were rare.
Some cynics said that the award was a tribute to Duke SID Ted Mann’s considerable skills of persuasion. But McGee was indeed a dominant player, on both sides of the ball during those days of limited substitution football. For example, McGee received national plaudits for his work in Duke’s 10-7 road win over ninth-ranked Georgia Tech.
Ed Miles of the Atlanta Constitution wrote “He is a great, great lineman. He plays as if he loves to give and take hard knocks. It’s not hard to follow the ball when Tech has it. Just watch number 68 [McGee] for Duke. He’s always there.”
The St. Louis (now Phoenix) Cardinals selected McGee 14th in the 1960 NFL draft. He was 1960 All-Rookie as an offensive guard. His promising NFL career ended after three seasons with a neck injury. He was an assistant at Duke, Wisconsin and Minnesota before becoming head coach at East Carolina.
He only coached one season at Greenville, going 3-8. One of the wins was over Marshall before their ill-fated flight back home.
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