Frank Thomas

Notable Sports Figures
Career Statistics
Rushing Receiving Fumbles
Yr Team ATT YDS AVG TD REC YDS AVG TD FUM LST
1992 SF 206 1013 4.9 9 43 405 9.4 2 2 0
1993 SF 208 950 4.6 10 31 326 10.5 1 5 0
1994 SF 239 877 3.7 6 66 719 10.9 5 8 3
1995 PHI 337 1273 3.8 11 62 434 7.0 1 6 3
1996 PHI 353 1411 4.0 13 51 444 8.7 0 5 5
1997 PHI 285 1110 3.9 7 48 440 9.2 0 3 2
1998 SEA 319 1239 3.9 9 52 373 7.2 0 4 2
1999 SEA 325 1210 3.7 5 40 387 9.7 2 4 4
2000 SEA 278 1242 4.5 7 63 613 9.7 2 5 2
2001 SEA 72 318 4.4 1 11 107 9.7 0 1 0
TOTAL 2622 10643 4.1 78 467 4248 9.1 13 43 21
PHI: Philadelphia Eagles; SEA: Seattle Seahawks; SF: San Francisco 49ers.
Watters sat out the entire 2002 season, rejecting offers
from several teams because he wanted more money.
He often emphasized that he would retire rather than
play for the minimum base salary. “People might think
he’s bluffing but, believe me, he isn’t,” agent Ralph Cindrich
said in August, 2002. “He feels he has a value beyond
the minimum. If that’s all teams are going to offer
him, then he’s going to sit, and that will be it. Ricky will
be retired and he is at peace with that.” In early 2003,
his future in football remained unclear.
Worthy of Enshrinement?
Michael Lev, senior editor of ProFootballWeekly,
wrote in 2000: “Ricky Watters deserves to go to the Hall
of Fame. And he shouldn’t have to pay to get in. Watters’
teams win games. Funny how the 49ers, Eagles and
Seahawks made the playoffs despite having a supposed
locker-room cancer dragging them down. Watters’ reputation
for selfishness and immaturity precedes him. No
one can forget his alligator-arms maneuver with the Eagles,
when he failed to reach for a slightly overthrown
pass for fear of getting clocked and basically said afterward,
‘Why should I?’ But how bad of an influence
could Watters have been (especially early in his career)
if the teams he played for kept winning?”
FURTHER INFORMATION
Other
Lev, Michael. “Watters Works: Ricky’s Résumé is Worthy
of Future Hall of Fame Debate.” ProFootball-
Weekly. http:/archive.profootballweekly.com/
content/archives/features_2000/lev_071000.asp,
(July 10, 2000).
NFL.com, Ricky Watters Profile, http://nfl.com, (January
2, 2003).
Pasquarelli, Len. “Watters Sitting and Waiting.”
ESPN.com, http://espn.go.com/nfl/columns/
pasquarelli_len/1421908.html, (August 23, 2002).
“Watters Puts on Show during and after the Game.”
Nando Times, http://cgi.nando.net, (January 2,
2003).
Karrie Webb
1974-
Webb
Sketch by Paul Burton
Australian golfer
Australian golf star Karrie (pronounced “kahr-rie,”
rhymes with “starry”) Webb has been fighting Annika
Sorenstam for the title of the best female golfer in the
world since Webb joined the Ladies Professional Golf
Association (LPGA) Tour in 1995. Webb, who was only
20 when she joined the tour, has been compared repeatedly
to Tiger Woods, since both are young phenoms—
with excellent records of wins—who regularly outplay
most of the veterans on their respective tours.
Good Teachers
Webb was drawn to the sport of golf at a very young
age. Her parents and maternal grandparents were
golfers, and by age four Webb, with her toy club, was
following them on the links around their hometown of
Ayr, Australia. “They were about the only two people in
the world who were patient enough to go out with a
four-year-old and play golf on a Sunday morning,”
Webb later said of her grandparents.
Webb’s parents bought her a real set of golf clubs for
her eighth birthday, and soon after she started taking golf
lessons from her neighbor, Kelvin Haller, a self-taught
local golf player and greenkeeper at the Ayr course. Haller
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