Paul Salata, creator of Mr. Irrelevant Award, dies at 94

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqjeSA2c6QE

Oakland News Now

Paul Salata, creator of Mr. Irrelevant Award, dies at 94

– video made by the YouTube channel with the logo in the video’s upper left hand corner. OaklandNewsNow.com is the original blog post for this type of video-blog content.

Paul Salata, creator of Mr. Irrelevant Award, dies at 94
Paul Salata, who created the Mr. Irrelevant Award that honors the last selection of the NFL draft after playing football at USC and in the NFL and Canadian Football League, died Saturday. He was 94. He died of natural causes at home in Newport Beach, California, a day before his 95th birthday, nephew Nick Salata told The Associated Press. Although the NFL draft dates to 1936, Salata created the Mr. Irrelevant Award in 1976. The player and his family were invited to spend a week in Orange County enjoying activities, including a trip to Disneyland and a golf tournament. The honoree received the Lowsman Trophy depicting a player fumbling a football. Kelvin Kirk of Dayton University was the first to be given the title as the 487th pick that year. “Irrelevant Week” generated so much publicity that in 1979 the Los Angeles Rams, who owned the next-to-last pick, intentionally passed to let the Steelers, with the last pick, choose first. Pittsburgh also wanted the publicity and passed as well. Both teams refused to choose a player until commissioner Pete Rozelle forced them to pick, with the Steelers winning. That led to the so-called Salata Rule, which bars teams from passing to get the final selection. In February, a Mr. Irrelevant played in and won a Super Bowl for the first time. Placekicker Ryan Succop of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers started in the game. He was the last pick of the 2009 draft. Salata was a wide receiver at USC in 1944, ’46 and ’47. The Trojans won league titles each year and played in the Rose Bowl in 1945, when Salata caught a touchdown in their 25-0 victory over Tennessee. He missed the following season while serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Salata also was an infielder on the Trojans’ baseball team in 1948 that won the school’s first College World Series title. He later played minor league baseball. He played in the NFL for the San Francisco 49ers (1949-50), Baltimore Colts (1950) and Pittsburgh Steelers (1950-51), catching 50 passes with four touchdowns in his career. He also played in the CFL with the Calgary Stampeders in 1952, earning All-Star honors that season, and with the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1953. After retiring, Salata worked in construction, notably as a sewer contractor. Salata appeared in 18 movies primarily in the 1950s, including “Angels in the Outfield” with Janet Leigh. His uncredited appearances included “Singin’ in the Rain,” “The Ten Commandments,” “Stalag 17” and “The Joker Is Wild.” “Every time ‘Stalag 17’ came on TV, we’d watch it for the 800th time,” Nick Salata said. “I can picture him coming home to Aunt Beverly and saying, ‘Honey, I’m going to leave football and acting and become a sewer contractor.’ He was a wonderful guy.” Salata is survived by his second wife, Carolyn, son Bradley, daughter Melanie Fitch, two granddaughters and brother George. He was preceded in death by his first wife Beverly in 2003.

via IFTTT

Note from Zennie62Media and OaklandNewsNow.com : this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a YouTube channel. When the video is “liked” by Zennie62 YouTube, then it is automatically uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective here, on top of our is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours – is the use of the existing YouTube social graph on any subject in the World. Now, news is reported with a smartphone and also by promoting current content on YouTube: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary, or having a camera crew to shoot what is already on YouTube. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.