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THIS DAY IN HISTORY- Sports

Dec 11, 1981:
Muhammad Ali vs. Trevor Berbick

On this day in 1981, the Jamaican boxer Trevor Berbick beat former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali in a unanimous 10-round decision, before a crowd of 10,000 at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre in Nassau, the Bahamas.


At the age of 39, Ali (born Cassius Clay) was attempting his second comeback from retirement. Crowned as the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champ in 1964 after beating Sonny Liston, he had successfully defended the title eight times before he was convicted of draft evasion in 1967, stripped of his boxing license and title and sentenced to five years in prison. Though the conviction was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, Ali was inactive for two years and announced his retirement in 1970. He returned to the ring after only a short time, however, and regained his heavyweight title in 1974 after a win against George Foreman in Zaire. After losing and regaining the crown again in 1978, Ali announced his retirement for the second time. He reemerged in October 1980 to fight a championship bout against Larry Holmes, who knocked him out in the 11th round in a one-sided battle. Ali refused to accept the result, however, and pushed to set up the fight with Berbick in the Bahamas in order to prove himself.


Immensely popular with the fans, Ali put in his best performance in the middle of the Berbick fight, seeming to win the fifth and sixth rounds with his combinations and aggressive punches. From the seventh round on, however, control belonged to the 27-year-old Berbick, whose speed and power allowed him to inflict a series of damaging punches, batter Ali in the corner, land a punch to the head in the ninth, and get him on the ropes in the tenth. In the end, all three judges gave the match to Berbick.


Ali retired for good after the fight, finishing his career with an overall record of 56-5 and earning a lasting reputation as one of the 20th century’s most influential sportsmen. For his part, Berbick won the WBC heavyweight title in 1986 but was beaten in his first defense by the 20-year-old Mike Tyson. Berbick continued boxing for another 14 years but was plagued by issues in his personal life, including various arrests and a conviction for sexual assault. His boxing license was revoked in 2000 after a post-fight CAT scan found a blood clot in his brain. In October 2006, Berbick was found dead, with massive wounds to the head, in a church courtyard in his native town, Norwich, near Kingston, Jamaica. His 20-year-old nephew and a friend were charged in the killing.

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On this day in 1946, the American tennis champion Stan Smith is born in Pasadena, California. A three-time All-American at the University of Southern California (USC), Smith captured the NCAA singles title in 1968 and the doubles title in 1967 and 1968. With his USC doubles partner, Bob Lutz, Smith went on to form one of the most successful teams of all time, winning more than 50 titles, including the U.S. Open four times (1968, 1974, 1978 and 1980) and the Australian Open once in 1970.

Smith also had an impressive singles career, and is particularly known for his stellar performance for the U.S. Davis Cup team. Over an 11-year Cup career, Smith contributed significantly to seven U.S. victories (1968-72 and 1978-9). He won the clinching point for his team 16 times--three times in singles, and 13 times in doubles (with Lutz and Erik van Dillen). In 1971, Smith was the runner-up at Wimbledon, where he lost in five sets to John Newcombe of Australia. Later that year, he took the U.S. Open singles title, beating the Czech player Jan Kodes in a four-set match that was the first to end in a tie-breaker. Smith’s 1972 Wimbledon victory, over the volatile Ilie Nastase, is remembered as one of the great Grand Slam finals. Also in 1972, Smith scored each of the three U.S. points in a match against Romania, beating Nastase and Ion Tiriac in singles and teaming with van Dillen to defeat a Nastase-Tiriac team in doubles, for a fifth straight U.S. Davis Cup victory.

Early in his career, Smith was drafted into the U.S. Army, and served a two-year tour of duty (1970-72). During this time, he continued to focus on his tennis, and was used by the Army on recruitment tours and visits to hospitals to build morale. Ranked in the world top ten for six straight years from 1970, Smith ended the 1972 season ranked number one in the world. His career spanned the amateur and open eras of tennis, and he won more than 100 titles overall in singles and doubles. After retiring from tennis, Smith became active in the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and eventually opened his own training academy in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987.

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On December 15, 1973, Sandy Hawley becomes the first jockey to win 500 races in a single year. Born in Ontario, Canada, Hawley began working at Toronto race tracks when he was a teenager. He won his first race in October 1968 at Toronto’s Woodbine race track and quickly racked up more successes, becoming North America’s leading jockey by 1970, when he won 452 races. In 1972, Hawley decided to try his luck on the Southern California race track circuit, where he would be based for the next 16 years.

Hawley achieved his historic 500th win aboard Charlie Jr., in the third race at Maryland’s Laurel Park race track on December 15, 1973. By season’s end, he had crossed the finish line first 15 more times for a total of 515 wins, smashing the previous record of 485 set by the legendary Bill Shoemaker. In 1976, Hawley was named the winner of Santa Anita Park’s George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s Eclipse Award as the top jockey in North America.

Decorated with the Order of Canada, his native country’s highest honor, Hawley continued his stellar career throughout the 1980s and into the ‘90s. At Canterbury Downs in June 1986, he won his 5,000th career race aboard Mighty Massa, becoming the youngest jockey ever to reach that mark. Diagnosed with skin cancer in 1987 and given only months to live, Hawley successfully battled the disease and continued his racing career for another decade. He won his 6,000th race in November 1992 at the Greenwood (formerly Woodbine) track, aboard Summer Commander. Upon his retirement in July 1998, Hawley boasted 31,455 mounts and 6,449 wins (plus 4,825 second- and 4,158 third-place finishes) and a staggering total of $88,666,071 in purse earnings.

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Terrell Owens makes record-breaking 20 catches
On December 17, 2000, during a 17-0 victory by the San Francisco 49ers over the Chicago Bears, San Francisco’s wide receiver Terrell Owens sets a new league record of 20 catches in a single game.

Drafted by the 49ers in the third round of the 1996 NFL draft, Owens was thrilled to join his hero, Jerry Rice. During his college career at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, he had worn Rice’s number (80). Early in the 1997 season, when Rice tore his ACL, Owens stepped up and became a star performer for the 49ers, grabbing 60 receptions for 936 yards and eight touchdowns over the season. After 16 straight winning seasons, the 49ers faltered in 1999 and stumbled to a 4-12 record. At the end of the season, the star quarterback Steve Young retired.

The 2000 season was also a losing season for San Francisco, though there were several saving graces. Rice continued to impress in what would be his final season with the 49ers, and was given a number of standing ovations during the 49ers’ shut-out of the Bears in San Francisco on December 17, Rice’s last appearance in his home stadium. On the field, however, Owens stole the show from his mentor, catching 20 passes for 283 yards and a touchdown and breaking Tom Fears’ record of 18, set with the Los Angeles Rams in December 1950 against the Green Bay Packers. Owens also broke Rice’s franchise record of 16 receptions in a single game, set against the Rams in 1994.

The volatile Owens had a difficult relationship with the 49ers organization, including Young’s successor as quarterback, Jeff Garcia, and head coach Steve Mariucci. He and the team parted ways after the 2003 season and Owens headed to the Philadelphia Eagles (not without a struggle involving a missed deadline for his free agent paperwork and the 49ers subsequent attempt to trade him to the Baltimore Ravens). Conflict and controversy continued to swirl around Owens in Philadelphia, and he was released from his contract in 2006. Signed by the Dallas Cowboys, he remains one of the NFL’s most talented--and controversial--stars.