Hawkeyes on Letterman, Stanzi to Giants

Two things. The first is news.

Former Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi, who has been in the NFL for four years and has never played a down in the regular-season, has joined his fourth NFL team.

Tuesday, Stanzi signed a reserve/future contract with the New York Giants.

Stanzi was a fifth-round draft choice of the Kansas City Chiefs in 2011 and spent two seasons with that team. He was cut near the end of training camp in 2013, and quickly hooked on with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jaguars released him near the end of their 2014 training camp, and he was out of the NFL until he joined the Houston Texans' practice squad last month.

Stanzi's chances of making the Giants' 2015 roster? Too soon to tell. They went with just two quarterbacks on their active roster in 2014. If they don't draft or sign a QB, maybe he could be their third quarterback this fall.

But you and he know how the NFL life goes. If he can get to a summer camp and at least let the rest of the league know he can play, well, maybe his pro football story has yet to be written. But it's tough.

The second item kind of surprised me. On Wednesday night's The Late Show With David Letterman, Marv Albert was a guest. The longtime sportscaster was once a staple on Letterman's NBC and CBS shows with his 'Albert Achievement Awards,” a reel of sports bloopers.

Bloopers. That's a funny word.

Anyhow, Letterman's time on CBS is drawing to an end, and it appeared he had Albert on for one final appearance. So Albert presented his all-time Albert Achievement Awards.

Among the featured clips was one from back in 1982 when Iowa defensive back Ron Hawley ran into a goal post at Michigan State and knocked it down.

It was MSU's last home game of the season, and a tradition at Spartan Stadium back then was for the students to knock down the goal posts if their team won. To counter that, the school took down their permanent goal posts and used wooden ones.

In the first half, Hawley was running in the end zone on a Spartan pass play when he inadvertently smacked into one of the posts. The thing toppled over. It was put back up, but Iowa won the game.

Here's a link to the Albert/Letterman bloopers segment. The play involving Hawley is at the 1:17 mark.

Ahh, we were all younger then. Especially Marv Albert. But he still has the hair of a teenager, no?