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Chris "Zorro" Zorich was a three-time All America defensive tackle at Notre Dame from 1987 to 1990. He was also recently selected to the College Football Hall of Fame. There's a nice paean about him written at The Hog on Sports. So, whatever happened to this classic overachiever?

After a successful college career, Zorich's NFL experience was a bit of a frustration.

Zorich's NFL career wasn't what it could have been. He was drafted in the second round by the Bears in a story straight out of a Hollywood movie. He sat a year behind Dan Hampton and Steve McMichael, played part time in 1992 and became a starter in 1993. He had 121 tackles and 7 sacks that year playing defensive tackle. He followed that up with 77 tackles and five sacks in 1994.

Then, Bears coach and resident brainiac Dave Wannstedt got the bright idea to shuffle Zorich in and out of the lineup along with a walking dung pile by the name of Carl Simpson, who couldn't carry Zorich's jock with a wheel barrow. Wannstedt bemoaned Zorich's lack of production and cut him. He was signed by the Saints, hurt his knee and was later cut by them. He hooked up with the Redskins for a year and then retired.

Luckily, there's a happy ending here:

After retiring, the guy who shouldn't have even been at Notre Dame made it into and graduated from the university's law school. He is a practicing attourney in Chicago. He also started the Zora Zorich Foundation in honor of his late mother and does a ton of charity work that goes largely unrecognized.

Looks like things worked out well enough for the big guy who was once center-stage during a pre game melee against one of the 1980's most hated teams.

Against Miami in 1988, the Irish had a big pre-game melee with the Hurricanes. I later found out that Zorich was in the middle of it and had one Miami guy trapped under a portable bleacher and was ready to kick him before some other Irish players intervened and pulled Zorich off him.

Personal story: I met Zorich once when I was maybe six or seven years old. I was dining with my family one night at a well-known Italian establishment in the Chicago suburbs when in walks Zorich. My eyes lit up and somehow my old man flagged him down as he headed towards the kitchen. Zorich was kind enough to chat with us for a few minutes and sign some autographs. I shook his giant paw of a hand and he went on his way but I always remember that moment as he was incredibly gracious and kind.

Although he faced a certain amount of criticism for his on-field ferocity (see quote above) and prop-48 status, Zorich also demonstrated his heart and intellect through his charity work and degree completion that translated into his current legal career. For anyone who followed his athletic career at Notre Dame and with the Bears, that comes as little surprise.

(H/T: SportsByBrooks)

After seeing multiple ex-University of Georgia football players in most recent Super Bowl games, only one ex-Bulldog is on a Super Bowl roster this year.

Tim Jennings, a rookie second-round pick, is a reserve cornerback with the Colts. Injuries hampered the diminutive Jennings early in the season and he remains buried on the Colts' depth chart.

Jennings did see action in 11 regular-season games as a rookie, but has been de-activated throughout the playoffs. However, he hopes the Colts' coaching staff decides to dress another cornerback today due to starter Nick Harper's sprained ankle. If so, Jennings will likely play in the Super Bowl.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has another uplifting story on David Pollack, the Cincinnati Bengal linebacker and legendary former University of Georgia defensive end who fractured his neck in the Bengals' second game this season.

This story, which includes pictures, included great news: the restrictive halo Pollack has worn since the injury to stabilize his neck has been removed. For the first time in three months, Pollack could shower.

However, he will not learn for another week whether his neck needs spinal fusion surgery. If it does his football career is over. If not, Pollack has indicated his career may already be over anyway, because he wants to be healthy for his loving family.

December 7, 1941. A date that would live in infamy.

World War II was a dark time for football in America. Fear of a Japanese attack on the California coast moved the 1942 Rose Bowl to Durham, North Carolina. Oregon State beat Duke in that game, 20-16. (Yes, Duke actually lost a football game. Hard to fathom, I know...)

In 1943, the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers had lost so many players to military enrollment that they had to merge for a season and play as the "Steagles." Pittsburgh then merged operations for a year with the Chicago Cardinals in 1944. Winning football games took a back seat to winning the war.

Even in dark times, though, there are bright moments, and for some American GI's stationed in Australia, those moments came when playing football -- but not necessarily their own football...

Recognize that trophy, class? Ah, our lovely exchange student from Montreal that makes all you heathen boys drool -- she recognizes it. That's the Grey Cup, and it's the reward for the champions of the Canadian Football League. The 94th battle for the Grey Cup takes place this Sunday in Winnipeg.

Now I'm sure many of you may think the CFL is just a refuge for stoners who got busted by the NFL's drug policy or quarterbacks who are unfairly deemed too short to succeed in the NFL, but that's not the case. The CFL has as rich a history as the NFL does. In fact, the leading amateur Canadian football organization was still called Canadian Rugby Union until 1967, even if most of the Canadian rules incorporated many Walter Camp's changes to the American football game, which bore only a slight resemblance to the original Rugby School game.

Still, I bet you're wondering -- why is that American football has a fourth down, but Canadian football doesn't?

Have you noticed, class, that American football is the only popular form of football in the world where kicking is not an important skill that every player must learn?

Take a look around. In association football, or soccer, kicking the ball is all there is. In Australian football, kicking is a vital part of the game, since any player who catches a clean kick can mark the ball and get a free kick from that mark. Gaelic footballers need to be able to kick the ball accurately down the field and through the uprights from a long distance. Even in rugby, the American game's forefather, kicking the ball forward to a teammate is still a vital means of advancing to the end zone for a try.

Indeed, they still call it a "try" in rugby, even though it now nets more points than a goal. This is a nod to the history of that game. When rugby football was first invented, only goals counted for points, and touching the ball down over the opposing team's goal line was only a means for setting up a goal kick. Otherwise, it didn't really count for anything.

This was also true in the earliest days of American football, but those rules changes very quickly...

Class, we're going to do something different today. We've been focusing entirely on the history of American football, but we all know that's not the only type of football played on our little planet.

The most popular form of football around the world, of course, is Association football, or soccer, which attracts huge crowds in Europe, South America and many parts of Asia. As I've mentioned before, American football is a direct descendent of Rugby football, which became standardized in England a few years after soccer and is still played in many corners of the world.

These are not, however, the only types of football played in the world. There's also Australian Rules Football, which was formulated in the mid-19th century and influenced by two games: Cambridge Rules football, which was drawn up at Cambridge University in England in 1848, and an aboriginal game called Marn Grook, which English settlers first saw in 1841. In that game, one player drop-kicked a stuffed possum-skin ball high into the air, and other players jumped up as high as they could to catch it. Whoever caught it got a free kick.

The Englishmen who saw this game were so fascinated by Marn Grook that it became a staple of both the Cambridge Rules and Aussie Rules games. If you watch any Australian football match, you will notice a lot of high kicks and a lot of players jumping up to catch the ball and claim a mark, which gives them a free kick.

Meanwhile, our friends in Ireland play something called Gaelic Football, a game unique to the country, yet somewhat similar to the Australian game. Gaelic Football was standardized in 1887 by the Gaelic Athletic Association, a group that sought to promote Irish sports and reject the "foreign imports" from England. Gaelic Football involves both carrying and kicking the ball, though you can only run about five steps before you have to kick the ball to yourself (which is called "soloing") or to a teammate. It has a soccer-like goal, but also has goalposts that stretch high above the crossbar. Kicking the ball through the uprights is a point, and kicking it in goal is three points.

Why do I mention all of this today? It's because the Australians and the Irish are about to reach a compromise this weekend...