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Gary Anderson

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Football Player

The Resume

    (July 16, 1959- )
    Born in Parys, South Africa
    Placekicker for the Pittsburgh Steelers (1982-94), Philadelphia Eagles (1995-96), San Francisco 49ers (1997), Minnesota Vikings (1998-2002) and Tennessee Titans (2003-04)
    Four time Pro Bowl selections (1983,1985,1993,1998)

Why he might be annoying:

    When he first played football in college, he hated spending most of the game standing on the sideline.
    Eventually, for practices ‘I convinced the coach to let me go play with the soccer team and be called when they needed me to kick.’
    His perfect regular season was overshadowed by his missing a critical field goal late in the 1998 NFC Championship Game.
    If he had made the field goal, the Vikings would have had a nearly insurmountable 10 point lead with 2:11 left in the game; after the miss, the Atlanta Falcons tied the game, then won in overtime.
    Vikings General Manager Jeff Diamond said, ‘Our team played the rest of the game as if it was in shock that our automatic kicker had missed at the most critical time.’
    ESPN chose his miss as the most memorable play in Vikings history (2014).

Why he might not be annoying:

    His father was an anti-apartheid pastor who emigrated with the family from South Africa to the US when Gary was 18.
    Two days after arriving in America, some friends of his father discussed the sport of American football.
    Curious, the next day he went to a high school football field and began kicking balls so far that the school’s coach arranged for him to try out at the Eagles’ summer camp.
    Coaches from four universities were watching and each offered him a scholarship; he ultimately decided to attend Syracuse University.
    He was the first kicker to have a perfect regular season, making all 35 field goals and 59 extra points attempted (1998).
    Some sportswriters argued that the real blame for the Vikings’ loss in the 1998 NFC Championship should be placed on the team’s defense for failing to stop the Falcons from tying the game.
    He broke George Blanda’s record for most points in an NFL career.
    He was named to the NFL All-Decade teams for both the 1980s and 1990s.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying