Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 9/6/2007

9/6/1980:
Freshman Herschel Walker gains 84 yards on 24 carries and scores two second-half touchdowns, leading Georgia to an uphill 16-15 victory over Tennessee at Neyland Stadium. Ahead 15-0 at one point, Tennessee gambles on a two-point conversion attempt-a decision that will cost them the game. It all starts downhill for the Vols in the third quarter on a botched punt play, resulting in a safety (and good field position) for Georgia. The Bulldogs take full advantage to beat their SEC rival, and they'll compile a perfect season and win the national championship.

Birthdays:
Hal Jeffcoat b. 1924
Dow Finsterwald b. 1929
Ron Boone b. 1946
Kevin Willis b. 1962
Tim Henman b. 1974


Rawicz’s memoir is one of the most extraordinary and harrowing you will ever read. A young Polish officer in World War II, Rawicz was captured by Soviet forces and sent to a work camp in Siberia. In 1941 he and six fellow prisoners escaped and, with only an ax head and a makeshift knife, trekked thousands of miles through Siberian tundra, the Gobi desert, and over the Himalayas to freedom in British-occupied India. The New York Times calls Rawicz “a poet with steel in his soul” and Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) calls the book “one of the epic treks of the human race.”

THE LONG WALK: THE TRUE STORY OF A TREK TO FREEDOM, by Slavomir Rawicz (1956; The Lyons Press, 1997)