Offseason topic..... Not sure this is correct or not but since he is coming up in advertisements, my girlfriend was commenting on it and didn't understand the commercial so I told her who he was and that he was doing the "Icky shuffle" and that I credit him with popularizing the end zone celebration thats so overdone to this day. For your viewing pleasure: My question is, do you credit him with sort of kicking off TD celebrations or was there someone before him?
Back when I cared about the NFL I remember WR Elmo Wright preceding him by roughly 20 years. Then there's Billy 'White Shoes" Johnson. Also Homer Jones credited with inventing "the spike".
The first I remember, I actually did not see, but Bill Yoeman took Third Ward to Lansing, Michigan to play Michigan State when they were riding high in the polls (think the tie with ND). Elmo Wright scored for Houston, and then danced in the endzone. From his own words, "I started dancing and I thought the crowd was cheering, so I stepped it up a notch. Didn't have sense enough to know they were booing and wanted to kill me." That would have been mid 60s. Elmo told that story to me and my son at a Super Bowl party at Randy Hendricks home in the mid 80s. He also said he was so afraid of Coach Yoeman that he literally hid in the shrubs on campus when he saw him walking his way.
Pickle, Billy was a little guy by college standards but tiny by NFL standards. After an Oilers home game, my ex and I joined Tim & Valanda Wilson, Earl and Reuna at Charlie Angelo's on South Main. Billy came in with his wife and family. Earl had ordered three dozen oysters on the half shell, but Billy at the next table didn't order. Turns out he didn't like seafood, but Angelo had special center cut porkchops for him and brought a pile (about 20-25) of fried porkchops to his table. To my amazement he went through all but about three.
Was "White Shoes" celebration as famous, or infamous as the Icky Shuffle? seemed like the Icky Shuffle exploded with popularity.
aUTfan, I think they were too different types of celebration. Johnson was actually more of a dance. Icky was getting all that blubber moving in one direction and then trying to shift it another direction. It was so ridiculous looking that it became a fan favorite and got picked up by advertising firms. I would submit that Icky was far better known and more widely viewed than White Shoes.
The Washington REDSKINS had a group that would gather in the end zone and do stupid stuff way back there. Pete Rozelle banned it, to his everlasting credit. I always agreed with whoever said, “act like you’ve been there before”.
I remember him but didn't remember him being credited with the funky chicken....hahaha thats funny. I want to see someone bring back the funky chicken now.
