 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2012) |
Flipper was a mascot for the Miami Dolphins from 1966 to 1968. She was situated in a fish tank in the open (east) end of the Orange Bowl, and was trained to jump in the tank when a touchdown or field goal was scored. [1] [2]
From 1964 to 1967 NBC aired a popular series starring a dolphin named "Flipper," which was set in southeast Florida and the Bahamas. [3] [4] The Dolphins used in the show lived at the Seaquarium on Key Biscayne. There were four different dolphins who played Flipper named Susie, Kathy, Patty, and Squirt. [5]
In 1966, The Miami Dolphins became an expansion franchise in the American Football League. Given the location, team name, and popularity of the TV show, it was decided that the new team mascot would be named "Flipper", and they would use a live Dolphin from the show as the team mascot. [6]
Team owner Joe Robbie struck a deal with both the City of Miami and the Miami Seaquarium to have one of the dolphins perform at home games. This required transporting the aquatic mammal to and from the game each Sunday. It was decided that Patty would be the dolphin used because she was comfortable travelling while the others were not. [7]
Following the 1968 season, "Flipper" was no longer used as the team mascot. Owner Joe Robbie decided to cut ties with the mascot because both the City of Miami and the Seaquarium decided they would not continue to pay for tank repairs and transportation costs. [8]
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team plays its home games at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, a northern suburb of Miami. The team is owned by Stephen M. Ross. The Dolphins are the oldest professional sports team in Florida. Of the four AFC East teams, the Dolphins are the only team in the division that was not a charter member of the American Football League (AFL). The Dolphins were also one of the first professional football teams in the southeast, along with the Atlanta Falcons.
Super Bowl XVII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Miami Dolphins and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the strike-shortened 1982 season. The Redskins defeated the Dolphins, 27–17, to win their first Super Bowl championship and first NFL championship since 1942. The game was played on January 30, 1983, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
The Pop-Tarts Bowl is an annual college football bowl game that is played in Orlando, Florida, at Camping World Stadium. Originally commissioned as the Sunshine Classic, it has undergone many name changes due to sponsorship rights. The bowl is operated by Florida Citrus Sports, a non-profit group which also organizes the Citrus Bowl and the Florida Classic. It was first played in 1990 in Miami Gardens, Florida, before moving to Orlando in 2001. The game has tie-ins with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and Big 12 Conference. In the College Football Playoff (CFP) era, the bowl seeks to match the top non-CFP selection from the ACC against the second non-CFP selection from the Big 12.
Hard Rock Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, United States. The stadium is the home field for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL) and the Miami Hurricanes, the University of Miami's NCAA Division I college football team.
The Miami Orange Bowl was an outdoor athletic stadium in Miami, Florida, from 1937 until 2008. The stadium was located in the Little Havana neighborhood west of downtown Miami. The venue was considered a landmark and served as the home stadium for the Miami Hurricanes college football team from 1937 through 2007 and for the Miami Dolphins for the Dolphins' first 21 seasons, until Joe Robbie Stadium opened in nearby Miami Gardens in 1987. The stadium also was the temporary home for the FIU Golden Panthers for one year, in 2007, while its on-campus FIU Stadium underwent expansion.
Flipper is a 1996 American adventure film and a remake of the 1963 film of the same name. Written and directed by Alan Shapiro, the film stars Elijah Wood as a boy who has to spend the summer with his uncle, who lives on the Florida Gold Coast. Although he expects to have a boring summer, he encounters a dolphin whom he names Flipper and with whom he forms a friendship.
Flipper is an American television program broadcast on NBC from September 19, 1964, until April 15, 1967. Flipper, a bottlenose dolphin, is the pet of Porter Ricks, chief warden at Coral Key Park and Marine Preserve, and his two young sons, Sandy and Bud. The show has been dubbed an "aquatic Lassie", and a considerable amount of children's merchandise inspired by the show was produced during its first run.
Robert Glenn Baumhower is an American former professional football player who was a defensive tackle for the Miami Dolphins in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide under coach Bear Bryant from 1973 to 1976 and professionally for Miami under coach Don Shula. He later became a restaurateur.
Lolita, also called Tokitae or Toki for short,, was a captive female orca of the southern resident population captured from the wild in September 1970 and displayed at the Miami Seaquarium in Florida. She was retired from performing and taken off public display in 2022, and subsequently died in August 2023. At the time of her death, Lolita was the second-oldest orca in captivity after Corky at SeaWorld San Diego.
The Miami Seaquarium is a 38-acre (15 ha) oceanarium located on the island of Virginia Key in Biscayne Bay, Miami-Dade County, Florida located near downtown Miami.
Flipper's New Adventure is a 1964 American feature film released on June 24, 1964 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, written by Art Arthur, and directed by Leon Benson. It was a sequel to the 1963 film, Flipper and was based on characters created by Ricou Browning and Jack Cowden.
A marine mammal park is a commercial theme park or aquarium where marine mammals such as dolphins, beluga whales and sea lions are kept within water tanks and displayed to the public in special shows. A marine mammal park is more elaborate than a dolphinarium, because it also features other marine mammals and offers additional entertainment attractions. It is thus seen as a combination of a public aquarium and an amusement park. Marine mammal parks are different from marine parks, which include natural reserves and marine wildlife sanctuaries such as coral reefs, particularly in Australia.
The Epic in Miami was the National Football League AFC divisional playoff game between the San Diego Chargers and Miami Dolphins that took place on January 2, 1982 in the Miami Orange Bowl. The game, won by the Chargers in overtime, 41–38, is one of the most famous in National Football League lore because of the enormity of scoring, the conditions on the field, the performances of players on both teams, and the numerous records that were set.
The Dolphin Research Center (DRC) is a dolphinarium on Grassy Key, Florida. The 90,000-square-foot (8,400 m2) series of saltwater lagoons is home to several dolphins and California sea lions.
The Nova Southeastern Sharks are the athletic teams that represent Nova Southeastern University, located in Davie, Florida, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the NCAA Division II ranks, primarily competing in the Sunshine State Conference (SSC) since the 2002–03 academic year. The Sharks previously competed in the Florida Sun Conference of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) from 1990–91 to 2001–02.
The 1987 Miami Dolphins season was the team's 22nd as a member of the National Football League (NFL). The Dolphins improved upon their previous season's output of 8–8, losing one fewer game. Despite the improvement the team failed to reach the playoffs. This was also the first season the Dolphins played their home games at Joe Robbie Stadium. Their first game at Joe Robbie Stadium was scheduled to open the stadium against the defending champion New York Giants but the 1987 strike resulted in all games from week 3 being permanently cancelled. So the first contest at the new venue involved replacement players, as 25,867 fans saw the Dolphins defeat the Kansas City Chiefs. The Dolphins finally played a 1987 home game with the regular players in week 6, losing in overtime to the Buffalo Bills.
The 1986 Miami Dolphins season was the team's 21st as a member of the National Football League (NFL). The Dolphins failed to improve upon their previous season's output of 12–4, winning only eight games. This was the first time in six seasons the team did not qualify for the playoffs and would mark the start of a four-season span of barren postseason chances. This was also the team's final season at the Orange Bowl before moving into their new stadium Joe Robbie Stadium the following season.
Richard "Ric" O'Barry is an American animal rights activist and former animal trainer who was first recognized in the 1960s for capturing and training the five dolphins that were used in the TV series Flipper. O'Barry transitioned from training dolphins to instead advocating against industries that keep dolphins in captivity, after one of the Flipper dolphins died. In 1996, a dolphin was seized from the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary, a corporation O'Barry worked for, for violating the Animal Welfare Act of 1966. In 1999, he was fined for violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act as the result of illegally releasing two dolphins that were not able to survive in the wild. The dolphins sustained life-threatening injuries.
The Tampa Spartans football program was an intercollegiate American football team for the University of Tampa (UT) located in Tampa, Florida, that began play in 1933. The program competed against other small college programs in the forerunner of today's NCAA Division II for almost forty years before moving to the top level of NCAA Division I as an independent in 1971. Successfully competing against top college programs as a much smaller school put an enormous strain on the university's finances, and the school decided to discontinue football after the 1974 season.
The Buccaneers–Dolphins rivalry is a National Football League (NFL) rivalry between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Miami Dolphins.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)