Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 22:51:00 EDT
From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU
Subject: Re: Rat=Freshman; Football Terms
Barry quotes and annotates,
_Coffin Corner Kick_. This term was first applied to the slanting punts
of the University of Pennsylvania's George Brooke which rolled out of bounds
close to the angle formed by the sideline and the goal-line. The phrase
later was revived by LeRoy N. Wills, a lawyer whose hobby was teaching boys
to control their kicks and to punt diagonally for the deep corner. (When it
was rumored that Jimmy Hoffa was buried mob-style at Giants Stadium in New
Jersey, some headlines mentioned that he was in the "coffin
corner"--ed.)
Not to be picky, but I wanted to forestall a possible misinterpretation. When
Giants Stadium (a.k.a. The Meadowlands) was build in the Jersey swampland, the
rumor was it was built on top where Hoffa and various other putative mob
executees were buried. Hoffa's interment, in other words, would have
fertilized rather than disturbed the astroturf.
Larry