The Vikings made a Super Bowl trip, 44 years ago

In January of 1974, the Minnesota Vikings reached the Super Bowl for the second time…finishing the regular NFL season with a 12-2 record after opening with 9 straight wins.  Bud Grant’s team had to face the defending champion Miami Dolphins at the championship game in Houston, Texas…and lost, 24-7.  
 
Tennis star Billie Jean King won an award for outstanding athlete of the year for 1973. King had defeated past Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” match at the Houston Astrodome.
 
In his 1974 State of the Union address, President Nixon pledged not to resign over the Watergate scandal, saying one year of Watergate was enough.  But it was Nixon’s last State of the Union.  He did resign in August, and his new vice president, Gerald Ford, succeeded him.  
 
On TV in early 1974, Jimmy Stewart was playing a lawyer on the show “Hawkins”…Telly Savalas starred as a cop named “Kojak”…and a comedy which was supposed to be called “Great Day” went on the air as “Good Times.”  Forty-four years ago, 1974, yesterday in La Crosse.