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Thread: Ace Parker

  1. #1

    Ace Parker

    Willard Scott just honored Ace Parker on his "Today" show birthday segment. Ace turned 100 on May 17th.

    Great to see Mr. Parker's picture and an acknowledgement of him and his career.

  2. #2

    ace parker

    Probably the greatest pure athlete ever to play at Duke -- either him on Dave Sime.

    Ace was a first-team consensus All-American tailback at Duke -- Duke has had a lot of All-Americans and even first-team All-Americans, but just three that have been recognized as consensus first team(Parker, Fred Crawford in 1933 and Ernie Jackson in 1971.

    He was good enough to play professional football -- he was the league MVP in 1940 and is in the NFL Hall of Fame. He also played Major League baseball (two years for the Philadelphia A's -- mostly at SS; plus 11 years of minor league ball). He hit a home run in his first Major League at bat.

    He lost three seasons in his prime to serve during WWII. When he returned, he was still good enough to lead Boston to the AAFL (a challenger to the NFL) championship game, where they lost to the Clvceland Browns.

    He played varsity basketball at Duke (he as the 6th man on the 20-6 1936 team). As a teenager, he beat Sam Snead in a long-driving contest and later turned down a chance to play on the PGA tour.

    He managed the Durham Bulls for four years. He coached the Duke baseball team for 13 years, leading them to the College World Series twice. He's the last Duke baseball coach to retire with a winning record. He was also an assistant football coach for 13 seasons under Bill Murray.

    That's not a bad resume.

    Happy 100th, Ace.

    BTW: Ace is the oldest living NFL player (much less the oldest living NFL Hall of Famer). He's the second oldest major league baseball player.

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