This Day in College Sports History — Nov 12: Poe's Run, Vin Scully's Freezing Roof Debut, and Candace Parker's Dunk

Host A: Welcome to This Day in College Sports History. On this day, November 12, we've got a famous run, a famous voice, and a famous dunk.

Host B: That's a good lineup. Where do we start?

Host A: 1898. Princeton hosts Yale at Brokaw Field. Yale is driving toward Princeton's goal line, and there's this huge pile, more than a dozen players, and the ball comes loose.

Host B: Uh-oh. Comes loose how?

Host A: That's the funny part. Sources disagree on whether a Yale runner pitched it back or it just squirted out. And Princeton end Arthur Poe said he took it right out of a Yale halfback's arms.

Host B: Well, he'd know. Or he'd want to.

Host A: Either way, Poe is standing just outside the pile, catches it in the air, and takes off the length of the field with three Yale players chasing him.

Host B: How long a run are we talking?

Host A: The College Football Hall of Fame gives it as 95 yards. Wikipedia says 100. A touchdown was worth four points back then, and with the conversion it was 6-0. And that was the final.

Host B: One play, the whole game. Okay, give me the detail.

Host A: He ran it on a bad knee. He was limping so badly that newspapers described his running as "skipping."

Host B: Skipping! For ninety-five yards, or a hundred, whichever.

Host A: And he was 5 feet 7, 146 pounds. Oh, and he was the nephew of Edgar Allan Poe.

Host B: No way. So of course somebody wrote a poem about it.

Host A: A comic verse, yes. The play became known as "Poe's Run." And later that same game he nearly did it again, about 90 yards with a Yale fumble, but the ball was ruled dead where he picked it up.

Host B: Ouch. So why does it still matter?

Host A: Princeton won the 1898 national championship. Poe was one of six Poe brothers to star for Princeton, he went into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1969, and the run is still one of the best-known plays in the Princeton–Yale rivalry. And the next year he beat Yale again, an 11-10 win on a 40-yard drop kick in the final seconds. The first drop kick of his college career.

Host B: Of course it was. Any date questions?

Host A: One National Football Foundation list puts the run under 1894. But Poe played for Princeton from 1896 to 1899, and the Hall of Fame, NJSports.com and Wikipedia all say 1898.

Host B: Got it. What's next?

Host A: 1949, Fenway Park in Boston. Maryland beats nationally ranked Boston University 14-13. And on CBS radio is a 21-year-old just out of Fordham named Vin Scully.

Host B: Wait, Vin Scully's first broadcast was college football?

Host A: It was, and it took a chain of luck. Ernie Harwell was supposed to call it, but another broadcaster got sick, so Harwell got moved to North Carolina and Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium. Red Barber, the CBS Radio sports director, gave Maryland–BU to Scully.

Host B: Nice break.

Host A: Barber at first remembered him only by his red hair, and tracked him down through Fordham's athletic director.

Host B: "The red-haired kid." Then what?

Host A: Scully expected a heated booth. None were free. So he called the game outside, at a table on Fenway's windy roof, with a hand microphone. He said he'd "thought, naively, dumbly" he'd get a big booth. And in 1966 he said, "I'd never felt so cold in my life."

Host B: In Boston, in November. Poor guy.

Host A: But Barber said Scully "never once complained about the conditions up there." He got Harvard–Yale the next week, joined the Brooklyn Dodgers' broadcast team the next season, and that started a career of about 67 years.

Host B: So one of the best-loved voices ever started out freezing on a roof. And the date?

Host A: Boston.com, Ballpark Digest and Yahoo Sports all say November 12, 1949. One MLB.com piece says November 16.

Host B: Okay. And the dunk?

Host A: 2006. Fifth-ranked Tennessee opens against Chattanooga at Thompson-Boling Arena and wins 102-72. Midway through the second half, Tennessee up 75-43, Candace Parker steals it from Chattanooga guard Brooke Hand, dribbles the length of the floor, and dunks with her right hand. 16:01 to go.

Host B: The first one at home?

Host A: First ever by a Lady Vol at home, and the third of her college career. Her first two came against Army in the 2006 NCAA Tournament, which made her the first woman to dunk in an NCAA Tournament game. She was the fourth woman to dunk in a college game, after Georgeann Wells, Charlotte Smith and Michelle Snow.

Host B: What'd the coaches say?

Host A: Pat Summitt said, "I knew by half court that she was going to dunk it," and "It was probably a good thing to get that over with." And Chattanooga coach Wes Moore said, "More power to her. It's good for the game."

Host B: That's classy. And it showed above-the-rim play belonged in the women's game. Plus Tennessee went on to win titles in 2007 and 2008.

Host A: Right. Quick extras: in 1887, Cornell played its first intercollegiate football game and lost to Union 24-10. And in 2013, No. 2 Michigan State beat No. 1 Kentucky 78-74, the earliest one-versus-two game in men's college basketball history.

Host B: Thanks for tuning in, see you back here tomorrow.