🎙️ Episode Title: Fifty-Five and Still Running – The Story of Joe Thomas Sr., the Oldest Player in Division I Football
📅 Podcast: Record Breakers: College Football Legends

How far would you go to chase the dream you thought had passed you by?

What if you were fifty-five years old…
Your knees ache. Your back reminds you of every mile.
You’ve worked a lifetime, raised a family, watched your children achieve the things you once dreamed of — and yet, there’s still something inside you that whispers: you’re not finished.

In this inspiring, emotional, and unforgettable episode of Record Breakers: College Football Legends, we dive into one of the most extraordinary true stories in NCAA history — the day Joe Thomas Sr., a 55-year-old father, construction worker, and college student, took the field for South Carolina State University and became the oldest player ever to appear in a Division I football game.

This is not a story about stats. It’s a story about heart.
About defying time, expectation, and even biology itself.

🎧 Record Breakers: College Football Legends is more than a sports podcast — it’s a journey through the extraordinary stories that define the soul of the game.
Because sometimes, the greatest records aren’t the ones written in the stat books…
They’re the ones written in the human heart.

📱 Follow Record Breakers: College Football Legends on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

🎧 New episodes every week — because Records can be broken but legends never die!

From smoke-filled hotel rooms to roaring Las Vegas draft stages — this is the story of how the NFL Draft was born, and how one powerhouse college turned it into a dynasty.

In this epic deep-dive episode of Record Breakers: College Football Legends, we travel back to 1936 — to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia — where nine team owners gathered around a corkboard, armed with nothing but intuition, a typewriter, and a desperate plan to save professional football from collapse. What began as a simple “player selection meeting” in a dimly lit room would evolve into one of the most-watched events in American sports: the NFL Draft.

At the center of that first draft stood Jay Berwanger, a halfback from the University of Chicago. He was college football’s golden boy, the first-ever Heisman Trophy winner, the player every team wanted — and the man who would make history as the first NFL Draft pick. Yet, in a twist that still shocks historians, Berwanger never played a single down in the pros. Instead, he chose business and aviation over football, leaving behind a legacy that would shape how the sport balanced money, fame, and fate forever.

From Berwanger’s decision, the draft was born — and so was the dream that one name, one card, one moment could change everything.

Decades later, no program would seize that dream more often than the University of Southern California — the USC Trojans — a football factory built beneath palm trees and spotlight glare, where Hollywood showmanship meets gridiron dominance. No other college in history has produced more No. 1 overall draft picks. Six Trojans. Six eras. Six stories of greatness.

🏈 Ron Yary (1968) — The first offensive lineman ever taken No. 1 overall. A quiet mountain of power who anchored USC’s 1967 national championship team and built the Minnesota Vikings’ dynasty through four Super Bowl runs.

🏈 O.J. Simpson (1969) — The Juice. A comet in cardinal and gold, the Heisman winner whose 64-yard run against UCLA became legend. The first player to rush for 2,000 yards in a 14-game NFL season. A story of brilliance and infamy, forever tied to football’s golden age.

🏈 Ricky Bell (1977) — The warrior. A workhorse who carried Tampa Bay out of the basement and into the playoffs. His tragic battle with dermatomyositis cut his life short at 29, but his courage and grit remain immortal in Trojan lore.

🏈 Keyshawn Johnson (1996) — The voice. Bold, brash, unstoppable. “Just Give Me the Damn Ball.” The receiver who brought swagger to New York and leadership to Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl champion team.

🏈 Carson Palmer (2003) — The comeback king. USC’s Heisman-winning quarterback who resurrected the Trojans, rebuilt the Bengals, and later led the Arizona Cardinals to the brink of the Super Bowl.

🏈 Caleb Williams (2024) — The future. A modern Heisman magician whose creativity and arm talent redefined quarterback play at USC, becoming the sixth Trojan to go No. 1 overall — breaking the all-time college football record.

This is not just a story about football. It’s about legacy, leadership, and the pursuit of greatness — the same pursuit that began when a desperate owner in 1936 tried to fix a broken league with a revolutionary idea.

From Jay Berwanger’s uncashed contract to Caleb Williams’ red carpet moment — the draft is the story of American ambition itself.

So strap in for a ride through 90 years of history, heroism, and heartbreak.
This is the story of how the NFL Draft began —
and how USC came to rule it.

🎧 Listen now to “Six at the Top: USC’s Dynasty of #1 Draft Picks” — only on Record Breakers: College Football Legends.

#CollegeFootball #USC #NFLDraft #SportsHistory #RecordBreakersPodcast #HeismanTrophy #TrojanNation #FootballLegends

Episode Description:

From the chaos of a pandemic spring to the roar of Kinnick Stadium under the lights, Mark Gronowski has done something no quarterback in college football history has ever achieved: fifty-two wins, and counting. This episode of Record Breakers: College Football Legends takes you on a deep, cinematic journey through one of the most remarkable careers the sport has ever seen, exploring how Gronowski rose from the fields of South Dakota State to the heart of the Big Ten at Iowa, and how his name now stands alone in the record books.

We begin in 2020, when college football felt broken and fragile. The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped schedules, postponed seasons, and forced young quarterbacks like Gronowski into uncharted territory. As a true freshman in the spring of 2021, he led South Dakota State all the way to the FCS title game — only to see his night, and his knee, collapse on the first drive. That crushing injury might have ended most careers. For Gronowski, it became the crucible that forged a champion.

By 2022, he returned with resilience and fire, guiding the Jackrabbits to their first-ever national championship, toppling powerhouse North Dakota State on the biggest stage. He won the game’s MVP honors, proving he was more than just a comeback story — he was the new face of FCS football. The following year, he went even further, capturing the Walter Payton Award as the top offensive player in the division and leading SDSU to a second straight national title, again walking away with MVP honors. Two championships. Two MVPs. A national player of the year award. And a growing stack of wins that demanded respect.

But the story didn’t end in Brookings. In January 2025, Gronowski transferred to Iowa. Some wondered if his success at the FCS level would translate to the Big Ten. It didn’t take long for him to answer. On opening day, he matched Kellen Moore’s FBS record of 50 wins. A week later, he tied Cullen Finnerty’s all-division record of 51. And then came win number 52, the victory that put him alone at the top — the winningest quarterback in Division I history.

To understand Gronowski’s achievement, we place him in context with the legends who came before. Cullen Finnerty at Grand Valley State, who went 51–4 and won three national championships in Division II. Kellen Moore at Boise State, whose 50–3 record and flawless precision turned the blue turf into a national stage. Colt McCoy at Texas, who carried the weight of an empire with 45 wins under the brightest spotlight in the sport. Each one defined an era. Each one set what felt like an impossible ceiling. Until Gronowski climbed higher.

Along the way, we explore the shifting landscape of college football from 2020 to 2025: the rise of the transfer portal, the explosion of NIL deals, the seismic shifts of conference realignment, and the expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams. Through it all, one thing remained constant — Mark Gronowski just kept winning.

This is not just a record. It’s a story of resilience, adaptation, and quiet excellence. Gronowski’s career proves that winning travels. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing under the frosty skies of Brookings or in front of 70,000 fans in Iowa City — the habits of a champion translate anywhere. His leadership, precision, and poise under pressure have made him the quarterback of an era defined by change.

Join us for this unforgettable ride across two programs, two divisions, and one unshakable truth: in college football, legends aren’t built on statistics alone. They’re built on Saturdays. And nobody has ever stacked more of them than Mark Gronowski.

Record Breakers: College Football Legends brings you closer to the greatest records, the greatest players, and the unforgettable stories that define the history of the game.