A PLANE carrying the most successful college coach in American football history, crashes into a wheat field in Kansas, and the Hall of Famer is one of the eight individuals who perish in that tragedy.
By some strange coincidence, the crash has to happen just 100 miles from where Jess Harper, the very coach Knute Rockne had replaced at the University of Notre Dame, now resided. And Harper is the one who now gets the grim responsibility of identifying the remains of the man who took his job.
A Polish Airlines plane, carrying members of the United States amateur boxing team, a Russian made IIyushin II-62, crashes in Warsaw. And 14 boxers, most of them in their teens, and eight of their technical staff members, are part of the 87 people who lose their lives in that tragedy.
They were due to attend Olympic trials in Warsaw and, ironically, the United States ultimately boycotts the 1980 Olympics in the then Soviet Union in the wake of the invasion of Afghanistan.
Virtually all the boxers, who died that day, were making their first trip outside America and their plane came down just about a mile from Warsaw’s Okecie International Airport as it came in to land. And, as if by some cruel twist of coincidence, a conference on the improvements in air travel safety, was being held at the same airport at the time that plane came down just a mile away.
Bobby Czyz, the only boxer with Polish heritage in that US team, pulled out of that trip after a car accident, just days before they were scheduled to leave, meant he could not join his teammates on that doomed trans-Atlantic flight to their deaths.
He found a way to navigate through the psychological wreckage of those tragic events to become a three-weight world champion who even fought the great Evander Holyfield.
On April 13, 2007, Czyz was a passenger in a car that crashed into a tree at high speed and he suffered broken ribs, facial lacerations and collapsed lungs.
Doctors said he wasn’t expected to survive, putting him into a medically-induced coma, from which he woke up after two months in hospital.
“The doctor who worked on me was standing six feet away,” he told fightsaga.com after he woke up. “‘Bobby Czyz, you were dead. You were the deadest anybody’s ever been to come back to be this healthy.’”
The flight engineer on that doomed flight was supposed to be Ryszard Chmielewski but he asked one of his colleagues to cover his shift as he felt he needed more time to rest and would fly out of New York the following day.
But, seven years later, while working on another flight as an engineer and instructor supervising his colleague Wojciech Klossek, Chmielewski was one of all 183 people killed when Polish Airlines LOT Flight 5055, another IIyushin 11-62M, came down on the outskirts of Warsaw after an in-flight fire.
Ironically, that plane was travelling to New York’s JF Kennedy International Airport, from where the similar doomed plane which Chmielewski had missed, in which the American amateur boxers were flying, had embarked its journey to disaster.
A bus carrying the Bluffton University basketball team crashes in Georgia, five of the team’s members are killed, a car in which Zimbabwean footballers – Blessing “Yogo-Yogo” Makunike, Gary Mashoko and Shingi Arlon – are travelling in slams into the rails at a bridge and bursts into flames, killing the trio and two fans.
A truck in which Steve Kwashi, the first coach to lead CAPS United to the league championship in Independent Zimbabwe, crashes into a tree, on the same highway, leaving the celebrated gaffer with serious injuries that would bring his career to an abrupt end.
And, Hardlife Zvirekwi is driving home on Sunday night when his car hits some roadside trees and overturns, forcing doctors to amputate his right palm.
You might be wondering what’s all this about?
Well, all these unfortunate sporting incidents share a chilling common denominator – they all happened in March, spread over a period of 88 years, with the tragedy of the American football Hall of Famer the first to happen on March, 31, 1931.
THEY SAY BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH, WELL, MARCH IS HERE AGAIN
It all started with the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC, then came the French raid in Southern England in March 1360 in which they are accused of going on a 48-hour spree of rape and murder.
The Samoan Cyclone in March 1889 in which six warships – three belonging to the United States and three to Germany – were destroyed, killed more than 200 sailors.
In March 1917, Czar Nicholas II of Russia abdicated his throne, was later captured and executed by a firing squad together with his family.
In March 1941, 60 people were killed in the United States in a deadly blizzard and, in March 2003, reports emerged of a mysterious respiratory disease in China, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada and Hong Kong known as the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome which claimed 774 people in 37 countries.
Beware the Ides of March, we have had it all before, haven’t we?
And, now, we are into March once again.
Maybe, that explains why some fans, who have followed the Warriors since the turn of the ‘80s, have been having sleepless nights ahead of the team’s blockbuster 2019 AFCON final qualifier against Congo-Brazzaville on March 24.
Those fans, part of a generation of Warriors supporters who routinely saw their team perfect the art of always collapsing at the final hurdle, are worried about the identity of the opponents and whether their presence brings a dosage of bad luck to their cause.
Some still remember the events of July 16, 1991, when the Warriors, needing a win to take control of the group ahead of a final qualifying match against Malawi, took a 2-1 lead courtesy of a goal by Peter Ndlovu, with just a dozen minutes remaining in the game.
And, for 11 of those minutes, the Warriors had their fate, in terms of booking a place at the ’92 AFCON finals, firmly in their hands.
Then, in the final minute of the game, a ball – speculative at best and harmless at worst – was pumped into our area and, in any other game, any other moment, on any other occasion, our goalkeeper John Sibanda would have made a routine save.
Somehow, he fumbled it and, as the stadium watched in disbelief, the ball was scrambled home for the equaliser and, just like that, Congo-Brazzaville were on their way to the AFCON finals.
A replica of the events at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro at the 1950 World Cup when the hosts, needing just a home draw to become champions of the globe for the first time, conceded a sloppy 79th minute goal when goalkeeper Moacir Barbosa Nascimento, was caught off position.
That goal gave Uruguay a 2-1 lead, which proved the winner, and Barbosa transformed himself into a hate figure in Brazil for the rest of his life and, in 2000, just a few months before his death that year at the age of 79, he gave a rare interview.
SOME THINGS, LIKE THE IDES OF MARCH, ARE JUST MEANT TO BE
Maybe, some things, just like the Ides of March, are just meant to be and maybe those Warriors fans, having some sleepless nights, have a valid reason for that and let’s look at this:
l How was it possible that the maligned Barbosa had to die at the age of 79, the number representing the very minute he conceded that goal at the Maracana, to condemn Brazil into mourning in 1950?
l How was it possible that the name (Nascimento), associated with Brazil’s darkest football hour, would also be the name which would represent the nation’s redemption through Pele, whose real name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento?
l Why is it that, if you are a rugby fan, you know that, no matter what happens, England will always lose to Wales if the Test is played in the year that ends with a nine, like this year?
l Wales trailed England 3-10 at half-time on Saturday but, since this year ends with a nine, those who know what always happens in such a year were still predicting a Welsh victory and, at the end of the match, the hosts powered to a 21-13 win.
l In ’99, Wales beat England 32-31, in ‘89, Wales won 27-9, in ‘79, Wales won 27-3, in ‘69, Wales won 30-9, in ‘59, Wales won 5-0 and in ‘49, Wales powered to a 9-3 win over the English.
l How is it that, when it became known that the four remaining teams in the UEFA Champions League last year were from England, Italy, Spain and Germany, one could tell the final would feature one from England and another from Spain?
l And, that’s what happened, with Liverpool and Real Madrid reaching the final as was the case in 1981, when they also featured in the final of the same competition, when the four semi-finalists were also clubs from Spain, England, Germany and Spain.
l Of course, there is also that Liverpool story – in ’78, a British Prince gets married, two Popes die and the Reds are crowned champions of Europe; in ’81, a British Prince also gets married, the Pope is shot and the Reds again are champions of Europe.
l In 2005, another British royal wedding takes place, the Pope dies and Liverpool come back from 0-3 down to beat AC Milan on penalties to be champions of Europe.
l And, the death of that Pope, being the first non-Italian pontiff in 450 years, also sees the Warriors qualify for their first successive AFCON finals.
l Last year, another British royal wedding takes place, but the Pope doesn’t die and Liverpool lose in the Champions League final to Real Madrid.
l Or how do you script the coincidence that two of the country’s finest musicians, Oliver Mtukudzi and Dorothy Masuka, have to die within a month of each other, on the same date, Tuku on January 23, Auntie Dottie on February 23?
l Or how do we explain that Makunike, Arlon and Mashoko, somehow, have to die in a road accident in March, their coach Kwashi has to be injured in another horrific road accident in March and Zvirekwi’s palm is amputated, after another road accident in March?
Maybe, some things are just meant to be.
Or, not to be, and Liverpool could, after all, become the first team, without using a French player in their campaign, to win the English Premiership in the new millennium.
To God Be The Glory!
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooooo!
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source:the herald
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