Freddie Lee Childress (born September 17, 1966) is an American former professional football player who was an offensive lineman in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and National Football League (NFL). A CFL All-Star, he was nicknamed as "the Big Chill" for his 6 feet 4 inch and 345 pound size. He played college football for the Arkansas Razorbacks.
While born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Childress grew up in Helena, Arkansas, playing football in high school for the Central High School Cougars. Coming out of high school, Childress was highly recruited by many top football programs, finally deciding to stay home and attend the University of Arkansas, then coached by Ken Hatfield.
Childress played college football at the University of Arkansas, where he was selected as a 2nd team All-American by Pro Football Weekly as a senior in 1988. There he played with other standouts such as Steve Atwater and Barry Foster. Childress was immediately a starter at offensive guard as a freshman for Arkansas in 1985, helping the team finish 10-2 and beating the Arizona State Sun Devils in the 1985 Holiday Bowl, 18-17. As a senior, Childress helped Arkansas win the 1988 Southwest Conference championship, finishing 10-2. Childress and teammate Wayne Martin were suspended for the 1989 Cotton Bowl Classic by head coach Ken Hatfield for undisclosed reasons, and Arkansas lost the Cotton Bowl to Troy Aikman and the UCLA Bruins, 17-3.[ citation needed ]
Childress was selected in the second round of the 1989 NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals. [2] After two seasons of tryouts, he finally played one season for the New England Patriots in 1991 (scoring a touchdown) and another in 1992 for the Cleveland Browns. [3]
Childress moved to the CFL with the Shreveport Pirates in 1994 and switched to the Birmingham Barracudas in 1995 (both failed expansion franchises in the CFL bid to play in the US). He then went on to an 8-year stay with the Calgary Stampeders, where he was an all-star 6 times, received the CFL's Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman Award in 1998, the DeMarco-Becket Memorial Trophy in 1997 and won the Grey Cup in 1998 and 2001.
Childress played his final three seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He retired from the CFL after the 2006 season. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame as a player in 2020. [4]
The Arkansas Razorbacks, also known as the Hogs, are the intercollegiate athletics teams representing the University of Arkansas, located in Fayetteville. The University of Arkansas student body voted to change the name of the school mascot in 1910 to the Arkansas Razorbacks after a hard-fought battle against LSU in which they were said to play like a "wild band of Razorback hogs" by former coach Hugo Bezdek. The Arkansas Razorbacks are the only major sports team in the U.S. with a porcine nickname, though the Texas A&M–Kingsville Javelinas play in Division II.
James Lawrence Marshall is an American former professional football player who was a defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for 20 seasons, primarily with the Minnesota Vikings. He played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes, before leaving to play for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He was selected by the Cleveland Browns in the fourth round of the 1960 NFL draft.
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Herbert William Gray was a Canadian Football Hall of Fame football player who in the 1950s and 1960's won four Grey Cups and played for two others; and was named the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Defensive Player of the Half Century and to the Canadian Football League's (CFL) All-Time All-Star team at defensive end. He made all-star teams as both an offensive lineman and defensive end and was the first defensive player to win the league's Outstanding Lineman award. Prior to that he was an All-American football player at the University of Texas and helped them to win a share of the 1953 Southwest Conference (SWC) Championship.
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The 1989 Mobil Cotton Bowl Classic was a college football bowl game played on January 2, 1989, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The game was played on January 2, the day after New Year's Day, since New Year's Day fell on a Sunday. The bowl game featured the Arkansas Razorbacks from the Southwest Conference and the UCLA Bruins from the Pacific-10 Conference and was televised in the United States on CBS. UCLA defeated Arkansas 17-3 for its first Cotton Bowl win. Troy Aikman, the UCLA quarterback and LaSalle Harper, an Arkansas linebacker were named the Most Valuable Players of the game.
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Ronald Lee Dickerson Jr. is an American football coach and former player. He is the head football coach for Benedict College, a position he has held since 2024. He was the head football coach at Gardner–Webb University, a position he held from January 2011 to January 2013. Dickerson was the first African-American head football coach in the history of the Big South Conference. He resigned from Gardner–Webb on January 18, 2013 to pursue other opportunities. He is the son of Ron Dickerson.
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