Dec. 24
1950 - Cleveland’s Otto Graham throws four touchdown passes, despite icy footing in Municipal Stadium, and Lou Groza kicks a 16-yard field goal with 28 seconds left to give the Browns a 30-28 victory over the Los Angeles Rams and the NFL title in their first year in the league.
1961 - George Blanda’s 35-yard touchdown pass to Billy Cannon gives the Houston Oilers a 10-3 victory over the San Diego Chargers for their second AFL title.
1967 — New York’s Joe Namath becomes the first player to throw for 4,000 yards in a season. Namath passes for 343 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Jets to a 42-31 win at San Diego. Namath finishes the year with 4,007 yards.
1997 - In one of the biggest upsets in college basketball, Division II American-Puerto defeats the No. 12 Arkansas Razorbacks 64-59 in the Puerto Rico Holiday Classic.
2000 - Marshall Faulk breaks Emmitt Smith’s NFL record for touchdowns, scoring three times to give him 26 for the St. Louis Rams. Faulk’s three touchdowns and 220 yards fueled a 26-21 victory over the New Orleans Saints. Emmitt Smith scored 25 times for Dallas in 1995.
2000 - Baltimore sets an NFL record for fewest points allowed in a 16-game schedule. The Ravens allow 165 points, easily breaking the mark of 187 by the 1986 Chicago Bears.
2006 - Colt Brennan sets the NCAA single-season record for touchdown passes at 58, throwing five in the second half to lead Hawaii to a 41-24 victory over Arizona State in the Hawaii Bowl. Brennan, 33-of-42 for 559 yards, breaks the previous mark of 54 set by Houston’s David Klingler in 1990.
2006 - Atlanta’s Michael Vick becomes the first NFL quarterback to rush for 1,000 yards in a season. Needing only 10 yards to reach the mark, he gains 17 on his first carry on the Falcons’ opening possession. Morten Andersen’s 539th career field goal, a 40-yarder, gives the 46-year-old Falcons kicker the NFL record, passing Gary Anderson for the career mark.
2011 - Denver’s Willis McGahee becomes the second NFL player to reach 1,000 yards rushing with three teams. McGahee has 64 yards rushing in a 40-14 loss to the Buffalo Bills, to give him 1,054 this season. He previously did it with Buffalo and Baltimore. Ricky Watters rushed for 1,000 yards with San Francisco, Philadelphia and Seattle.
2014 - Western Kentucky holds on to defeat Central Michigan 49-48 in a wild inaugural Bahamas Bowl. Central Michigan trail 49-14 entering the fourth quarter before Cooper Rush engineers a comeback. He throws four touchdown passes in the final minutes, and the Chippewas get the ball back at their own 25 with one second remaining. Rush completes a pass to Jesse Kroll, and the ball is lateraled three times before Titus Davis dove into the pylon for a touchdown with no time remaining. CMU elects to go for two, only to have the pass drop incomplete.
2016 - Miami’s Jay Ajayi rushes for 206 yards and breaks loose for a 57-yarder in overtime to set up Andrew Franks’ 27-yard field goal with 47 seconds left to lead the Dolphins past Buffalo 34-31. Ajayi is the fourth player in NFL history to have at least three games with at least 200 rushing yards in a season. Earl Campbell, O.J. Simpson, Tiki Barber are the others.
2016 - With a 41-3 rout of the New York Jets, Bill Belichick earns his 200th regular-season victory in New England, making him the fifth coach in NFL history to reach the milestone with one team.
2016 - Cleveland survives a last-second field-goal attempt and gets its first victory after 14 losses by beating the San Diego Chargers 20-17. When San Diego’s Josh Lambo misses a 45-yard field-goal attempt as time expires, the Browns (1-14) gets their first win in 377 days.
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Dec. 25
1956 - Corky Devlin of Fort Wayne goes 0-for-15 from the field against the Minneapolis Lakers to tie an NBA record.
1971 - Garo Yepremian’s 37-yard field goal at 7:40 of the second overtime gives the Miami Dolphins a 27-24 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round of the AFC playoffs. At 82:40, it’s the longest game in NFL history.
1984 - Bernard King of the New York Knicks scores 60 points in a 120-114 loss to the New Jersey Nets.
1995 - Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys scores his 25th touchdown of the season in a 37-13 win over Arizona, breaking the record for most TDs in a season. Smith passes John Riggins of Washington, who scored 24 in 1983.
1999 - Hawaii beats Oregon 23-17 in the Oahu Bowl to go from 0-12 in 1998 to 9-4 - the greatest single-season improvement in NCAA history.
2002 - Katie Hnida becomes the first woman to play in a Division I football game when she attempts an extra point following a New Mexico touchdown in the Las Vegas Bowl. The walk-on junior’s kick is blocked in the 27-13 loss to UCLA.
2008 - The Los Angeles Lakers beat Boston to end the Celtics’ franchise-record winning streak at 19 games. Kobe Bryant scores 27 points and grabs nine rebounds to lead Los Angeles in the 92-83 win. Lakers coach Phil Jackson reaches 1,000 victories. Jackson, the sixth coach to reach 1,000, has a career record of 1,000-423 with Chicago and the Lakers.
2008 - New Orleans guard Chris Paul has his NBA-record steals streak end at 108 games in the Hornets’ 88-68 loss to Orlando.
2012 - The Los Angeles Clippers extend their franchise-record winning streak to 14 games with a 112-100 win over the Denver Nuggets. The Clippers claim the NBA’s best record at 22-6 in the finale of a Christmas Day doubleheader at Staples Center. In the first game, Kobe Bryant scores 34 points in his NBA-record 15th Christmas Day game to lead the Lakers to a 100-94 win over the New York Knicks 100-94.
2016 - Ben Roethlisberger shakes off a pair of interceptions to throw two late touchdowns, including a 4-yard strike to Antonio Brown with 9 seconds remaining to lift the Steelers to a 31-27 victory over the Baltimore Ravens. The win is the 600th regular-season victory in franchise history. Roethlisberger also becomes the 10th player in NFL history to throw for at least 300 career touchdowns.
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Dec. 26
1908 - Jack Johnson becomes the first black man to win the world heavyweight boxing title, with a 14th-round knockout of Tommy Burns in Sydney.
1917 - Toronto’s Harry Cameron becomes the first defenseman to score four goals in a game as the Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens 7-5.
1943 - Sid Luckman throws five touchdown passes to lead the Chicago Bears to a 41-21 victory over the Washington Redskins for the NFL championship.
1946 - The U.S. wins the Davis Cup with a 5-0 sweep of Australia, the worst defeat for a defending champion.
1954 - Otto Graham scores three touchdowns and passes for three more to lead the Cleveland Browns to a 56-10 rout of the Detroit Lions for the NFL title.
1955 - The Cleveland Browns intercept six passes, one returned 65 yards for a touchdown by Don Paul, in a 38-14 victory over the Los Angeles Rams for the NFL championship.
1960 - The Philadelphia Eagles come from behind twice on a 35-yard pass to Tommy McDonald from Norm Van Brocklin and a 5-yard run by Ted Dean to beat the Green Bay Packers 17-13 for the NFL title.
1964 - Wray Carlton and Jack Kemp each score touchdowns and Pete Gogolak kicks two field goals to give the Buffalo Bills a 20-7 victory over the San Diego Chargers in the AFL championship.
1965 - The Buffalo Bills win their second straight AFL championship with a 27-0 victory over the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers get inside Buffalo’s 25-yard line only once.
1986 - Center Doug Jarvis of the Hartford Whalers plays his 915th consecutive game, setting an NHL record.
1999 - Mike Vanderjagt’s 21-yard field goal with four seconds left gives the Indianapolis Colts a 29-28 win over the Cleveland Browns. Indianapolis, which went 3-13 in 1998, makes NFL history by winning 10 more games than it did the previous season.
2001 - Colorado’s Patrick Roy becomes the first NHL goalie to win 500 games, recording his seventh shutout of the season in a 2-0 win over Dallas.
2004 - Peyton Manning breaks Dan Marino’s single-season touchdown pass record when he throws his 48th and 49th of the season, rallying Indianapolis from a 31-16 fourth-quarter deficit to win 34-31 in overtime over San Diego.
2007 - Chris Summers kicks a 40-yard field goal as time expired in the Motor City Bowl, lifting Purdue to a 51-48 win over Central Michigan. The 99 points ties the second-highest total in a bowl game that ended in regulation, trailing only the 2003 Insight Bowl, where California beat Virginia Tech 52-49.
2011 - Drew Brees sets the NFL record for yards passing in a season, breaking a mark Dan Marino held since 1984, and the New Orleans Saints clinch the NFC South title with a 45-16 victory over the Atlanta Falcons. Brees throws for four touchdowns and his final pass gives him 5,087 yards passing to break the mark by three yards.
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