Angelo Dundee has passed on at the age of 90 and with him has passed the living history of boxing for more than 60 years -- including boxing in the District.
   Dundee is best known as the trainer who worked with Muhammad Ali, and local boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard. But his days in the corner included many other fighters, a number of them from Washington.
   "It was a good town for me," Dundee said of the District in an interview he did with me several years ago. "I was friends with a lot of fighters in Washington. Billy Edwards was one of my dearest friends. Bob Foster, I got very friendly with, and I used to know Jimmy Cooper, Gene Smith. They were all friends of mine. I used to go to Washington quite a bit."
   Several years ago, Dundee was still working with Washington fighters, in the corner of Falls Church fan favorite Jimmy Lange on cards at Patriot Center.
    He is part of the most historic moments in boxing in the latter half of the 20th century  -- Dundee pushing a young Ali, blinded by a foreign substance on the gloves of champion Sonny Liston, out into the ring to keep fighting after Ali asked him to cut the gloves off. Ali regained his vision and went on to stop the fearsome champion in a stunning upset in 1964.
   Seventeen years later, Dundee told a battered Leonard in his first fight against Tommy Hearns, "You're blowing it, kid." Leonard went into the middle of the ring in the 13th round to slug it out with Hearns and turned the fight around, ending it in the next round.
   He is one of the memorable figures during the greatest eras of boxing. I doubt we'll see any more like Angelo Dundee.

   Indianapolis has been a terrific host so far for Super Bowl 46, but through no fault of its own, the buzz for this event -- not the game -- is just not there.
   It is obvious that part of the lack of star power in and around town even early in the week is because nobody is in a particular hurry to come to Indianapolis.
   Next year in New Orleans, the party will begin weeks in advance.
   And while the Patriot-Giants matchup is football intriguing, it lacks the charismatic figure with star power.
   Tom Brady is an NFL star, but there's not a lot going on there. He's guarded and forever mindful of the image of Brady and the Patriots. He has been schooled in the Bill Belichick College of Personality.
   Sometimes it is hard to identify such a player with Super Bowl like star magnitude that transcends the NFL -- someone who has a lasting impact on a generation of not just fans, but Americans.
   There are pretenders who call attention to themselves, like a Chad Ochocinco.
   But there are no Joe Namath's here. There may never be another Joe Namath.
   Namath is back in the spotlight again thanks to an acclaimed HBO documentary about the former New York Jets quarterback, who, like Muhammad Ali, represented the social change of a generation in the 1960s, even if the changes each star brought about were starkly different.
   The star power of Namath gets in the way of how great a quarterback he was. He was so great that he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame with career statistics that hardly seem Hall of Fame material on paper -- 173 touchdowns and 220 interceptions over 13 seasons.
   But he saw Namath play in his prime, there is no doubt he is a Hall of Famer. In fact, if you saw him play and know football, there is little doubt that he is among the greatest passers in the history of the NFL.
    But we live now in the geek generation, the fantasy football fools who were too young or not even born yet to see a player like Namath, and are jealous and angry about the fact that they don't have the power of their precious numbers to validate their control and expertise of the game that truly they know very little about.
    I got into this argument with Sports Reporters co-host Steve Czaban on Monday, and it truly illustrated the deterioration of perspective among a generation of sports fans who have all the data they think they need at their fingertips to make judgements. But they have little knowledge.
    Joe Namath won the second most important game in the history of the NFL when his upstart American Football League Jets upset the 17-point favorite Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. It was the most important game in the league since the Colts-New York Giants 1958 NFL championship overtime game that put the league on the television map.
    He was a four-time All Star who threw for 4,007 yards in 1967 -- the record for yards in a 14-game season. It wasn't until 1978 that anyone in the league broke the 4,000 yard passing mark, and that came in 16 games. And this was in the era when defensive backs could bump receivers, put hands in their faces, and block hands with their bodies.
   Namath, whose greatness was shortened because of chronic knee injuries -- four major knee operations while playing, and often had to have his knee drained at halftime so that he could finish a game -- helped change the quarterback position and the NFL style of play from a run oriented ball control game to an open passing attack. Bill Walsh said Namath was "the most beautiful, accurate, stylish passer with the quickest release I've ever seen." Don Shula said that Namath was "one of the 3 smartest quarterbacks of all time."
    But what do Bill Walsh and Don Shula know? You, with your profootballrefence.com bookmark and your fantasy football guides -- you know football.
    The Geek Squad vs. Joe Namath -- no contest.

   Nothing like a list of the greatest to spark debate, and this week on "The Sports Fix," Kevin Sheehan and I debated our lists of the greatest NFL coaches of all time, in their order of greatness.
   Some play this game using the "Mount Rushmore" device. But unless we want to expand that national monument to seven or eight or 10 presidents, the idea of limiting the greatest NFL coaches list to just four -- the number of presidents immortalized on Mount Rushmore -- is not much fun and too restrictive.
    What generated this debate was the legacies of the coaches in the NFL conference title games, and whether or not Bill Belichick, if he manages to win a fourth Super Bowl (five AFC titles), establishes his credentials as the greatest coach in NFL history.
    If the Patriots do go on to win the the Super Bowl, I believe because of the dificulty in the path to the big game, with several layers of playoffs, it certainly put him on the same level with the greatest of all time -- vince Lombardi.
    Lombardi is my greatest. With a lifetime mark of 105-36-6, Lombardi would lead the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowl victories. And he came to Washington and turned around the woeful Redskins in just the one season he coached here before he passed away.
    One thing that is important on my list -- football didn't start with the Super Bowl. There were NFL championship games played and titles won before the start of the Super Bowl in 1967. They count.
    That bring me to George Halas, who I foolishly left off my list while talking about it on the show. He was only the founder of the NFL, and not only coached, but owned the Chicago Bears, who won six NFL championships over four decades under Halas' direction.
     Halas had a record of 342-152-32 coaching different versions of the Bears since the start of the NFL, with only six losing seasons during his coaching tenure. He is second on my all-time list, even though he coached before most of you were born.
    Again, the world did not begin on your birthday.
    Another old-timer is number three on my list -- legendary innovator Paul Brown. He is considered by many to be the father of modern day football.He was the first coach to use intelligence testing on players, use facemasks and create classroom settings for game plans. Bill Walsh learned from Paul Brown.
    Brown not only coached, but founded and owned two pro football franchises -- the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals. He founded the Browns in the old All-American Footballl Conference following world War II and won the league title each of the four years it was in existence. The Browns moved into the NFL after the AAFC folded and won three NFL championships. He also would later own the expansion Bengals and coached them to three playoff appearances and then, as owner, two AFC titles. His career record was 170-108-6.
    Now we get to the winningest coach in the history of the NFL -- Don Shula. He has a remarkable record of 347-173-6 from 1963 to 1995 with the Baltimore Colts and the Miami Dolphins.
    Shula won two Super Bowl titles and six conference titles, and coached the legendary undefeated 1972 Dolphins perfect season squad, the only undefeated NFL team since the AFL and NFL merged.
    Bill Walsh comes next. This is a tough one between Walsh and Joe Gibbs for fifth on the list, but Walsh's legacy of the West Coast offense and his influence on the game to this day puts him here on this list.
    He had a record of 102-63-1 with the San Francisco 49ers, and, like Gibbs, three Super Bowl titles. But after he left the 49ers, the team, under George Seifert, would go on to win two more Super Bowls with Walsh's players and system.
    Joe Gibbs is number six on the list. Like Walsh his teams won three Super Bowl championships (four NFC titles) from 1981 to 1992. His career coaching record was 171-101, and he had only three losing seasons, but two of them came in his return to coaching in Washington from 2004 through 2007, which only served to diminish his NFL legacy.
    Still, what makes Gibbs stand out is the fact that he won three Super Bowl titles with three difference quarterbacks. No other coach can make that claim, and most are tied to one successful quarterback through their careers.
    Belichick currently fits in here on my list -- seventh place. He has a present day career coaching record of 191-103, and has taken the New England Patriots to four Super Bowls, winning three of them, at a time when it is probably the most difficult in the history of the league to work your way through the playoffs to get to the championship game.
    For me, Belichick's work as the defensive coordinator for the New York Giants also gives weight to his resume. His defensive game plan to defeat the high-powered Buffalo Bills offense in the 1991 Super Bowl is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Bill Parcells has had limited success without Belichick as his defensive coordinator with the New York Giants, Patriots and New York Jets.
   Eighth on the list is Gibbs' rival, Dallas Cowboys head coach Tom Landry. The Cowboys had 20 straight winning seasons under Landry, who like Brown, Walsh and so many other NFL coaching greats, left his mark with innovations on the game.
    Landry, with a career record of 270-178-6, went to five Super Bowls, winning two of them.
    Chuck Noll is ninth on the list. You can't ignore a coach who won four Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers during the golden era of sports.
    Noll was the coach in Pittsburgh, which had been a losing franchise until he arrived, from 1969 to 1991, and finished with a record of 209-156-1. Hey made his mark in the 1970s with four Super Bowl winning teams filled with Hall of Famers like Jack Lambert, Terry Bradshaw, Mel Blount, Franco Harris and Joe Greene, among others.
    Number 10? A shocker I am sure to many, who will say who? But Weeb Ewbank is 10th on my list of the greatest coaches.
   Ewbank is the only man ever to coach two different American pro football teams to victory in a championship game -- the Baltimore Colts (1958 and 1959 NFL championships) and the New York Jets (1969 Super Bowl).
    Ewbank, a Hall of Fame coach with a record of 134-130-7, coached in what is considered the most important game in NFL history -- the so-called greatest game ever, the Colts 1958 overtime championship win over the New York Giants, raising the profile of NFL football as the television era began. And then he coached the 17-point underdog Jets to a win over the Colts in Super Bowl III, considered to be the second most important game in NFL history.

 Barry Larkin, a 12-time All-Star, nine-time Silver Slugger and three-time Gold Glove winning shortstop, was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association f America.
    Being a member of the BBWAA for more than 10 years in good standing, I get a Hall of Fame vote. I voted for Larkin.
    Larkin played 19 seasons for the Cincinnati Reds and batted .295 with 2,340 hits, including 441 doubles, 76 triples and 198 home runs. He drove in 960 runs, scored 1,329, stole 379 bases and had more walks (939) than strikeouts (817).
   Larkin became the first shortstop to join the 30-30 club when he had 33 home runs and 36 steals in 1996. He was voted the National League Most Valuable Player in 1995.
   Most importantly for me, what put him over the top was the stories I heard from former Reds about Larkin's leadership qualities and character -- off the charts.
   There are six criteria for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and three of them have nothing to do with numbers -- character, integrity and sportsmanship. It's why I don't vote for cheaters like Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro and will not vote for Barry Bonds, Rogers Clemens and Sammy Sosa next year.
   Here are the others I voted for on my Hall of Fame ballot: Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Dale Murphy and Alan Trammell.

 As the Redskins face the New York Jets this week, let's pay tribute to a character who wore both the Washington and New York jerseys during his career.
  Let's take a moment to remember Verlon Biggs
  There have been a number of players who took the field for both the Redskins and the Jets, from John Riggins to Santana Moss.
  But one in particular is forgotten today but left his mark as one of the most colorful players to wear both jerseys, and that is Biggs, the defensive end who was both a member of the Jets Super Bowl championship team and one of George Allen's Over The Hill Gang.
   His teammates of full of Biggs stories -- from the time he wore a picture of Giants offensive tackle Joe Young on his shoes during the game to stealing lunches from the locker room.
   Redskins safety Kenny Houston once told me of Verlon, "There is hardly a day that goes by when I don't think about Verlon Biggs. He was the light of that team. He would steal our lunches. One time somebody put a bunch of Ex Lax in their lunch, and they got Vernon."
    Rusty Tillman gave up, finally asking his wife to make extra sandwiches just for Verlon.
    Sadly Biggs passed away from leukemia in 1994.
    When you are watching the Redskins and Jets square off, take a moment to remember Verlon Biggs, a big part of both franchises.
 

   Redskins fans are between a rock and a hard place today when their team faces the Seahawks in Seattle -- the same place they were last week against Dallas at home. You want your team to win, but if they lose, they improve their chances in next year's draft of getting one of the shopping cart full of quarterbacks that will be available.