Thanksgiving Day, 1924. The recently-established tradition of the University of Pittsburgh Panthers football team hosting the Pennsylvania State Nittany Lions on the afternoon of the national autumnal holiday continues.

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is sent to cover the Pitt-Penn State “Keystone Classic” of 1924; in so doing, he discovers a throughline of the football-on-Thanksgiving tradition going back to 1621 (okay, actually, that’s going back to 1869) and reminds us that high-level football games on Thanksgiving are nearly as old as the official Thanksgiving holiday itself.

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is an audio drama podcast from Number 80 Productions and the Sports History Network.

Thanksgiving and Football (or maybe Vice Versa) script & story by Os Davis.

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer stars Doug Fye, Ilona Fye, and Eric Bodwell. Thanksgiving and Football (or maybe Vice Versa) co-stars, in order of appearance, Caedmon Holland, Forrest Hartl and Wayne Brett.

Additional direction by Eric Bodwell. Sound recording and primary editing by Don McIver.

The theme song of Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is “the Dayton Triangles Rag” and was arranged and performed by Bruce Smith.

Other tracks in this episode include

• “Jazz Club” by Kriss (available through fair-use agreement via FreeMusicArchive.org);

• “Litany of the Street” by Silverman Sound Studios;

• “Bimini Bay” (1921) by the Benson Orchestra of Chicago; and

• “Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer (Outro)” by David Liso of Dynamo Stairs.

Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is produced by Os Davis and Darin Hayes. Series concept by Darrin Hayes.

Stay tuned for more episodes of Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer – coming soon!

In the 1964 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings chose Milt in the twentieth round, number 271 overall. He would play ten seasons in the NFL and would play behind players like Grady Alderman and Mick Tinglehoff. He made one pro bowl in his professional career and was part of the 1969 team that won the last NFL Championship before it was renamed the NFC Championship starting in 1970.

This time on the pigskin tales podcast, I will be talking about a guy who grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was instrumental in helping Ernie Nevers set a never been touched record of 40 pts in a regular season NFL game. Teammates nicknamed him Big Kies. High School classmates nicknamed him Babe because he hit home runs like Babe Ruth at the time.

Hey friends! On the last

episode of the podcast, I wrote a short story on Dave Casper. He was a one of a

kind guy who played with the Raiders, Vikings and Oilers. He was born in

Bemidji, Minnesota, but grew up in the woods of Wisconsin. Don’t take the literally

folks, please. He won a super bowl with the Raiders in 1975 and became the 9th

best tight end in NFL history.

This time, the tale is about an

average Joe from White Earth, Minnesota. He grew up in the same era as Jim

Thorpe, played fullback on offense and sideback on defense. Later, the position

was renamed to defensive halfback according to him.

This, is, Pigskin Tales. The

story of Joe, “Big Chief” Guyon.

When Dave Casper was a member of the Oakland Raiders, he said “With the Raiders we

don’t have to put up with that Mickey Mouse stuff. We don’t have rules about

keeping our chinstraps buckled on the sidelines. We don’t have coaches

encouraging a lot of false chatter on the practice field. The phony stuff is

for losers. We’re treated like intelligent human beings. We don’t live by a lot

of degrading rules. Our coaches don’t harass us because they know we’re

winners.”

Dave Casper was a winner in the National Football League. According to

profootballhof.com, he played for eleven seasons with the Oakland Raiders, Houston

Oilers, and Minnesota Vikings. He finished his playing career with 5,216 yards receiving on 378 receptions and 52

touchdowns over the course of 147 games.

He played in four pro bowls in six and a half seasons with the Raiders, and one

with the Houston Oilers. Casper was also named to the All-Pro and All-AFC teams

four times.

Where does Dave’s story start? I’m going to tell you. This is the story of Dave “the

ghost” Casper.

For those that are new to

listening to the Pigskin Tales Podcast, thanks for choosing to listen. I

appreciate the fact that you took the time out of your busy day to find out

what this podcast is all about.

Before really get into it, I

want to take some time to tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Ross and I grew up in a small

farming community 25 miles south of Fargo, North Dakota. Colfax, is one of the

closest high schools that I attended. Technically it’s in the Richland school

district and its comprised of Colfax, Abercrombie, Christine, Galchutt, and

Barney.

I am part of a family of 3 boys

and no sisters. But now that my 2 brothers and I have been married for a while,

I can say that I have 2 sisters and a wife.

My wife and I don’t have any

kids of our own, but we’ve fostered kids within Grand Forks County and since

that didn’t work out to adopt, we have now been looking into adopting from the

Village. The Village is a small company that helps people in many different

ways; like financial counseling, adopting children and just counseling in

general. Anyway, my older brother lives with his wife and 2 boys in Minneapolis

and my younger brother lives in Waconia with his wife and 5 boys.

My younger brother just turned

40 on the 8th and so, now we’re all officially in the 40 and older

club. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing. Maybe we’ll just say

that we’re all a little older and wiser.

Ok, so now that I have that you

know a little bit about me and my family, I want to tell you about this

podcast. First, the easiest and simplest way of explaining what it is, is a

collection of stories I have found on ex-NFL players that came from Minnesota.

That’s what it has evolved into. At first, I just started out analyzing

Minnesota Vikings players, news, and games that I watched. Then I decided to

research the history of the Vikings and try to put it into a biography of

sorts. I was attempting to do my own version of ESPN’s 30for30, but that didn’t

work out. So really I just wrote the players biography from the internet. I

know I am not supposed to use Wikipedia, but I used it for some of the research

links. And at the end of an episode, I used to say all the links I used. But

then I decided to shorten things up.

Now, what I have been doing is

sort of the same thing as before, writing a biography about a player, but now I

do it in a short series if I can. Some series have gotten really long; like

Ernie Nevers, but I been trying to limit myself to only 4 parts so that it

doesn’t get too long.

If you have listened to this

podcast in the past and have enjoyed it, please review my work. I have an email

address you can send a message to or you can find my profile on Twitter,

Instagram, and Facebook. I have attempted to create a You-tube account, but

have not used that as of late, because my computer doesn’t seem to want to save

my video work. So I’m working on saving money to buy a new computer. If you

want to send me an email my address is pigskintalespodcast@gmail.com.

I also have a patreon account

in which you can support me monetarily. There are membership levels so low that

it only costs you a dollar to support me if you so choose. I am also part of

the sports history network ran by Arnie Chapman who doubles as host of the

podcast the Football History Dude. His stuff is good too. Take a listen! He

just made his 200th episode!

So there ya have it. A little

bit about the Pigskin Tales Podcast. I hope you enjoyed listening to this and I

hope that you decide to listen to more episodes moving forward.

Thanks for listening to the

Pigskin Tales Podcast. This story was written and produced by Ross Blilie;

Edited by Nikki Blilie. To support the podcast join me on Patreon. You can find

the podcast on any platform you want. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible. If

you like the story, help me out by doing a quick review. This will help others to want to listen. The

soundtrack is from film music.io

Last time on the pigskin tales

podcast, I had interviewed Jim LeClair’s eldest daughter Kelli. She and I have

a special relationship that goes back to 2011 when I went to Mayville State

University for Elementary Education. Coincidentally, she just happened to not

only be one of my teachers, she was the daughter of one of the 50 greatest

linebackers in Cincinnati Bengals franchise history. The interview was awesome,

and if you haven’t listened to it yet check it out.

This time on the pigskin tales

podcast, I’ll be finishing up the story of the Mayville Mayor Jim LeClair. So

sit back, relax, and enjoy listening to the pigskin tales podcast.

In this episode of the Pigskin Tales Podcast, I interviewed Jim LeClair's eldest daughter Kelli. She and I have a special relationship since 2011 when I attended Mayville State University as a student taking classes in Elementary Education. She was one of my teachers. I had no idea that her dad was one of the 50 greatest players in Cincinnati Bengals franchise history. Kelli gives me a unique perspective on how life of an NFL star was in the 1970's.