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OK, I admit I had to google RC Owens. Cool story. But RC blocked his field goal in 1962. It wasn't until
Morris "Too Tall" Stroud appeard on the scene that the NFL banned the goal tending in the NFL in the 1970s
Professional football player R.C. Owens nicknamed Alley Oop was considered one of the greatest leapers in NFL history. His jumping skills were so considerable that in addition to football he was also an accomplished athlete in both basketball and the high jump. In the high jump, in fact, he recorded a jump of nearly seven feet.
With this in mind, Owens and some of his teammates came up with the idea that Owens might be a formidable field goal blocker, only not in the traditional sense. They reasoned that longer field goals, if they make it at all, usually just miss the crossbar. So Owens decided to try blocking the attempt, not at the line of scrimmage, but in the end zone at the crossbar.
In 1962, Owens, playing for the Baltimore Colts, stood in the end zone and blocked a 40-plus yard field goal attempt by Bob Khayat of the Washington Redskins by leaping in the air and flipping the ball away as it was about to eke over the crossbar.
His victory was short-lived, because not long after, the NFL changed the rule and made this kind of block illegal. It's a good thing, too, otherwise modern fans might be putting up with high-flying basketball player, Dennis Rodman, through two sports seasons.
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