Jim Thorpe was a renaissance man of sports.  He won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, and played professional football, baseball, and basketball.  After it was discovered that he was paid to play baseball before he competed in the Olympics, Thorpe was stripped of his Olympic medals.  They were returned to him posthumously, thirty years after his death.

Here’s a look back at the man  — who was voted the Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Century in 2001, besting such icons as Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Jack Nicklaus and Michael Jordan – as originally presented in 2010 on The NFL’s Top 100 Greatest Players.

Birthday greetings to Darnell Dockett, the Cardinals big play, big personality defensive lineman who turns 31 today, May 27.

Here’s a look back at Dockett wired for sound against the Rams in 2009, as originally presented on SoundFX.

Cookie Gilchrist is said to have been recruited by Jim Brown to sign with the Browns right out of high school.  After learning he wasn’t a lock to make the team, Gilchrist went to play in the Canadian Rugby Football Union.  In 1956, he moved over to the Canadian Football League and led the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to the 1957 Grey Cup.  After dominating the CFL from 1956-60, he joined the Buffalo Bills.  Gilchrist was an All-Pro in 3 of his first 4 seasons, however his NFL career lasted just 6 years.

Here’s a look back at the late, great Cookie Gilchrist, as presented in 2009’s Full Color Football: The History of the American Football League.

Forty-five years ago today on the banks of the mighty Ohio River, a band of orange and black, football playing tiger cats was born under the watchful eye of a fedora toting Organization Man. His name was Paul Brown and he called his new litter the Cincinnati Bengals.

May 24, 1967 was the day the Queen City was officially awarded a franchise in the American Football League.  The iconic Brown led the Bengals ownership group and was the team’s head coach for its first eight seasons – a historic kittenhood that included joining the NFL in the pro football merger consummated in 1970, and, under assistant coach Bill Walsh, the development of what would later be called the West Coast Offense.

Happy birthday, Bengals!  Here’s a look back at your early days, as originally presented in chapter 4 of the 2009 documentary series Full Color Football: The History of the American Football League.