This is a trip back through the mists of time in sports to the year 1972. It proved to be a very significant year in sports and some of the sports events of that year have significant repercussions and legacies that endure to this day.
Here is (in this author’s opinion) the top 12 sports stories of 1972.
Note:* The author invites readers to comment on this article and submit their own candidates for top sport stories of this year for discussion.
Remembering The Sports Year 1972
12. Dallas Cowboys Get Over The Hump
The Dallas Cowboys had been knocking at the door since their rise to prominence in the mid 1960s. In past years, they had been mostly thwarted by Green Bay and Cleveland and had suffered a last second defeat in the previous Super Bowl by the Baltimore Colts. But in 1972 the Cowboys could not be stopped and humbled the Miami Dolphins 24-3. They were led on offence by Roger Staubach and Duane Thomas and on defense by Bob Lily. Altogether they would make five appearances in the Super Bowl during the 1970s and go 2-3.
11. Miami Dolphins Begin Legendary Season
The Miami Dolphins were not discouraged by their defeat by the Cowboys and vowed to be back in the Super Bowl. By the end of the 1972 season, the Dolphins had gone 14-0 and had defeated Cleveland in the first round of the playoffs. As the year changed into 1973, all that stood between them and their first NFL championship and an unprecedented undefeated season was an AFC Conference Final with the Pittsburgh Steelers and a Super Bowl opponent. The Dolphins were led by Bob Griese, Larry Czonka, Jim Kiick, Paul Warfield, and the No-name Defense. But to reach that legendary status would have to wait to the following year.
10. Start Of The WHA
With all the big money becoming evident in the sports world, there had been talk for several years about starting rival leagues. Recently professional football’s war between the leagues had ended with the AFL merging into the NFL. Now professional hockey was to embark on its own war between leagues when the WHA was created. At first treated as a joke with little survival possibility, the WHA gained instant credibility when its owners pooled their resources to pay the NHL’s second greatest star, Bobby Hull, $1 million to jump to the new Winnipeg Jets team.
The story of the WHA is far less successful than the upstart AFL was with the NFL. The teams usually played to smaller crowds in old arenas, most teams only lasted a few years, and only four of their original 12 teams would survive to the end when they merged into the NHL. These teams are the only legacy of the WHA today. Edmonton and Winnipeg are still in the NHL and it looks like Quebec will also return in a coming NHL expansion. The door is also open for Hartford to return if they can build a new arena and find a good owner. Bobby Hull’s defection would cause a serious problem for himself in regards to another significant sports event later in 1972.
9. Death Of Roberto Clemente
Baseball lost one its greatest players when Pittsburgh Pirates star, Roberto Clemente died when his plane that was carrying needed relief supplies to the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua crashed into the ocean off Puerto Rico. Ironically, Clemente never had to be on the flight but because previous supplies were being stolen by the corrupt Nicaraguan government, he felt that if he accompanied them, he could make sure that they all would reach the victims. Clemente was a humanitarian who had been heavily involved with charitable acts and was greatly mourned. His body was never recovered. This was one of two major sports tragedies in 1972. The other would be even more catastrophic and have lasting repercussions.
8. Olga Korbut
One woman captured the accolades at the Summer Olympic Games in Munich, Soviet Gymnast, Olga Korbut. Korbut won three gold medals for the balance beam, individual floor exercises and for being part of the Soviet team. She also won a silver medal for the uneven bars. ABC’s Wide World Of Sports named her female athlete of the year. She would win one more gold medal for being part of the Soviet gymnastic team at the Montreal Summer Olympics in 1976.
7. Jack Nicklaus
The Golden Bear had one of his greatest years in 1972. He won the first two majors, the Masters and the United States Open by three shots each. The US Open victory tied him with Bobby Jones for the most majors ever won at 13 and he would go on to set a new record by the time he left golf at 18, a record that still stands. Altogether he would win seven tournaments in 1972 and finish second three times. He had clearly established himself as one of the two dominate professional athletes of the early 1970s.
6. Start of the Oakland A’s Dynasty
Recently MLB had been dominated by the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles but in 1972, a new team burst on to the scene and won the first of three consecutive championships. The Oakland A’s had moved to California from Kansas City in 1968 and were originally located in Philadelphia. They had done nothing noteworthy since leaving the east coast but in 1972 they became the team to beat for three years. They were led by slugger Reggie Jackson, Captain Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, and catcher Gene Tenace. On the mound, the A’s relied on Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Vida Blue, Ken Holtzman and closer Rollie Fingers. The manager was Dick Williams. Oakland finished the regular season with a .600 winning percentage and then defeated a tough Detroit team in the ALCS 3-2 and then the up-and-coming Cincinnati Reds 4-3 in the World Series.
5. Bobby Orr
1972 was another banner year for the legendary Bobby Orr. His Boston Bruins would win their second (and last) championship while he was the dominant player of the NHL. Orr would also win three major trophies in 1972: The Hart Trophy (Most valuable player in the NHL); the Conn Smythe Trophy (Most valuable player in the playoffs); and the James Norris Trophy (Best defenseman). In retrospect there is an eerie parallel here: the two best professional sports athletes of their time, Bobby Orr and Jack Nicklaus would dominate hockey and golf the same way Wayne Gretzky and Tiger Woods would do at the same time 20 years later. But in the off season, Orr chose to have surgery on the troublesome knee that would prove to be his nemesis and end his career. It would also have serious consequences for him concerning the most important hockey event of 1972.
4. Billie Jean King
Jack Nicklaus and Bobby Orr were arguably the best professional athletes of the early 1970s but the professional athlete who had the best year in 1972 was women’s tennis star, Billie Jean King. Whereas Nicklaus won two majors, King won three Grand Slam titles in 1972, and did not win the Australian Open not because she was defeated, but because she chose not to compete in it. Who knows what would have happened if she tried? As it was, in 1972 she cemented her reputation as one of the all-time legendary tennis players.
3. Mark Spitz
Nobody dominated the Munich Summer Olympics like American swimmer Mark Spitz. He would win seven gold medals, a record that stood until 2008 when Michael Phelps won eight. But what made Spitz’s achievement even more extraordinary was that he would a set a new world record in every event he won, a record that is still unsurpassed. Spitz had already won two Olympic gold medals at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City and five gold medals at the 1967 Pan American Games. He already held ten world records even before the games started. The Munich Games would be his swan song. But what a way to go out.
2. Canada Versus The USSR
This was one of two sporting events that would have long term lasting repercussions that would change the world of sport forever. Most of Canada was extremely ignorant about Soviet hockey. Canadian fans of the NHL simply took it for granted that their professional NHL athletes were the best in the world just like their American counterparts believed in the NBA, MLB, and the NFL. But Canada had been doing poorly in the World Championships in recent years and pressure had been put on NHL players to don their country’s jerseys and prove they were the best. So eventually an eight game series was arranged to be played in September before the NHL season started. Nobody knew what to expect. This was the first time a North American “big four” all-star team had faced true international competition. Canada would also be without its two best players. As noted above, Bobby Orr had to miss the games because of knee surgery and Bobby Hull was not invited because he was considered a renegade who had jumped to the WHA.
The outcome of the first game, a 7-3 thrashing of Canada in Montreal shattered every NHL fan’s expectations. Canada would eventually win the series but just barely, 4-3-1.
But what stuck out in everybody’s minds was the dramatic superiority of play – it seemed well above what was seen in the NHL and fans wanted more. In the coming years there would be several more exhibition series and an official Canada Cup would be launched. It led to lasting changes in hockey:
Gone forever, almost overnight was Canadian arrogance about European hockey. A new respect took its place.
Much of the blame for Canada’s near-defeat was accredited to superior Soviet physical conditioning. Overnight it was realized that sports conditioning was not something to be gained in training camp but a full-time occupation that lasted year round. Woe to any future NHL player who reported to training camp out of shape.
A significant decision had to be made. Do the NHL and WHA continue to be leagues stocked only by North Americans or would both leagues expand their horizons to include every good player no matter where they came from? The answer was never in doubt. Within two years, the first two Europeans would join the Toronto Maple Leafs. Eventually when the Iron Curtain fell, every good European hockey player got the opportunity to make their fortune in North America. The modern NHL as it is today was being born.
1. The Munich Massacre
In a year in which so many significant and memorable sports events took place it is abhorrent to admit that the number one “sports” event was a tragedy, an event like the Canada-USSR series that would change sports forever. Many fans world-wide believed that sports – particularly the Olympic Games – were events where mankind could set aside the problems of the “real” world and unite peacefully under an ideal. The Munich Massacre was to show that sports could not be separated from “real life”. Because of this idealistic naivety, nobody believed that anyone would take advantage of the friendly atmosphere that had usually surrounded games like the Olympics and enter a virtually security-less Olympic Village to commit evil.
In this lax atmosphere, Islamic terrorists entered the Village and took several Israeli athletes hostage. The upshot was an eventual gun battle in which all the hostages were murdered. The shock would have lasting repercussions:
Gone forever was the naivety that sports could be separated from real life. By 2010, a soccer player in Brazil would be stabbed to death on the playing field by a referee because he complained about a call.
Security now became an issue and a major expense at all sports events. The cost of sporting events increased significantly.
It cast a sobering doubt about mankind’s future. If man could not set aside hatred and evil for even a short happy event, what did that mean? What was the real nature of man? Was he capable of any real good? Munich opened a whole can of worms that is still being answered. The shadow of Munich still lingers.
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