Raymond Berry Profile Any interesting information? Berry overcame several physical ailments during his football career, a fact he became famous for, What were some of his ailments? bruised nerves near the sacroiliac joint occasionally caused misalignment in his back, which in turn affected his legs How did it affect his legs? caused one to become slightly shorter; it was not a permanent condition. How was it fixed? To alleviate this, he wore a back brace for 13 years in the NFL. Did it affect his playing? Berry was famous for his attention to detail and preparation, which he used to overcome his physical limitations. Did he have any other physical problems? Due to his poor eyesight, Berry wore contact lenses when he played. Did the contacts cause any problems? Because the lenses would often slip when he did rapid eye movements toward the ball, he tried many different lenses, What were his best attributes as a player? Rather than speed, he was renowned for his precise pass patterns and sure hands; he rarely dropped passes,
How did he develop those traits?
How did Raymond Berry develop precise pass patterns and sure hands?
Berry overcame several physical ailments during his football career, a fact he became famous for, but one that according to Berry was often exaggerated by the media. He was skinny and injury prone, such that when his college teammates saw him for the first time they sarcastically dubbed him, "Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy". Reportedly, because one leg was shorter than the other, Berry had to wear padding inside his shoe in order to walk properly. However, according to Berry, this was not entirely true. In actuality, bruised nerves near the sacroiliac joint occasionally caused misalignment in his back, which in turn affected his legs and caused one to become slightly shorter; it was not a permanent condition. To alleviate this, he wore a back brace for 13 years in the NFL. That he required specialized shoes was a myth, which Berry says was perpetuated by an overzealous information director with the Colts when Berry tried to compensate for his condition by putting something in his shoe during training camp.  Due to his poor eyesight, Berry wore contact lenses when he played. Because the lenses would often slip when he did rapid eye movements toward the ball, he tried many different lenses, which led sportswriters to believe he must have had major eye problems. "I tried all kinds of lenses till we got what we wanted," he said. "I even had tinted lenses for sunny days, so I could watch the ball come right across the sun."  Berry was famous for his attention to detail and preparation, which he used to overcome his physical limitations. Considered slow for a wide receiver, he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds. Rather than speed, he was renowned for his precise pass patterns and sure hands; he rarely dropped passes, and he fumbled only once in his career. He would squeeze Silly Putty constantly to strengthen his hands. He and Unitas regularly worked after practice and developed the timing and knowledge of each other's abilities that made each more effective. The reason for this, according to Berry, was that the two did not think on the same wavelength. "Every season we had to start all over on our timing, especially the long ball," said Berry. "He knew he had to release the ball when I was eighteen yards from scrimmage for me to receive it thirty-eight yards out. I knew I had to make my break in those first eighteen yards and get free within 2.8 seconds." He also relied on shifty moves, and by his count, he had 88 different moves to get open, all of which he practiced every week.  Even in his adult years, Berry was soft-spoken and reserved. He preferred not to draw attention to himself, and was described by sportswriter Jim Murray as "polite as a deacon, as quiet as a monk." Both as a player and as a coach, he was studious, serious, and orderly; "He was too straight and narrow--but a great guy, a hell of a guy," former Colts teammate Art Donovan said of Berry. "He was a little peculiar, to say the least." CANNOTANSWER
He would squeeze Silly Putty constantly to strengthen his hands.
Raymond Emmett Berry Jr. (born February 27, 1933) is an American former professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). He played as a split end for the Baltimore Colts from 1955 to 1967, and after several assistant coaching positions, was head coach of the New England Patriots from 1984 to 1989. With the Colts, Berry led the NFL in receptions and receiving yards three times and in receiving touchdowns twice, and was invited to six Pro Bowls. The Colts won consecutive NFL championships, including the 1958 NFL Championship Game—known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played"—in which Berry caught 12 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown. He retired as the all-time NFL leader in both receptions and receiving yardage.

As a head coach, Berry led the Patriots to Super Bowl XX following the 1985 season, where his team was defeated by the Chicago Bears, 46–10.

After catching very few passes in high school and college, Berry was drafted in the 20th round of the 1954 NFL Draft by the Colts and was considered a long shot to make the team's roster. Diminutive and unassuming, his subsequent rise to the Pro Football Hall of Fame has been touted as one of football's Cinderella stories. He made up for his lack of athleticism through rigorous practice and attention to detail, and was known for his near-perfect route running and sure-handedness. Berry was a favorite target of quarterback Johnny Unitas, and the two were regarded as the dominant passing and receiving duo of their era.

After his playing career, Berry coached wide receivers for the Dallas Cowboys, the University of Arkansas, Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns, and Patriots. He became the Patriots' head coach in 1984 and held that position through 1989, amassing 48 wins and 39 losses. In recognition of his playing career, Berry was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973. He is a member of the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team as one of the best players of the NFL's first 75 years and a unanimous selection to the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team as one of the best players of the NFL's first 100 years. His number 82 jersey is retired by the Indianapolis Colts and he is a member of the Patriots' 1980s All-Decade Team.

Early life and college
Raymond Emmett Berry Jr. was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, on February 27, 1933, and spent the majority of his childhood in Paris, Texas. At Paris High School and in college, Berry caught very few passes. He did not start on his high school team until he was a senior, even though his father, Berry Sr., was the coach. After high school Berry played one year of junior college football at Shreiner Institute (now Schreiner University) in Kerrville, Texas, during the 1950 campaign. He helped the Mountaineers finish its most successful season in 10 years with a record of 7–3. He then transferred to Southern Methodist University (SMU). In three seasons for the SMU Mustangs football team, Berry received only 33 passes total. Sportswriters attributed his lack of receptions to his poor eyesight, but during the early 1950s, colleges specialized in the running game. As Berry said, "I didn't catch many passes because not many were thrown". He also played outside linebacker and defensive end for the Mustangs, despite weighing only  even by his senior year.

Professional playing career

Berry was drafted by the Baltimore Colts in the 20th round as the 203rd overall pick of the 1954 NFL Draft.  Considered  a long-shot to make the team roster,  he was used sparingly as a rookie, catching only 13 passes. By his second NFL season he became a permanent starter when the Colts acquired quarterback Johnny Unitas. Over the next 12 seasons together the two became one of the most dominant passing and catching duos in NFL history. Berry, who did not miss a single game until his eighth year in the league, led the NFL in receptions and receiving yards three times and in receiving touchdowns twice.

In 1957, Berry caught 47 passes for 800 yards and six touchdowns, leading the NFL in receiving yards for the first time. Against the Washington Redskins that year in near-freezing weather, Unitas connected with Berry on 12 passes for 224 yards and two touchdowns, staging what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called a "spectacular show". He was recognized as a first-team All-Pro by The Sporting News and earned second-team honors from the Associated Press (AP). The following season, he recorded 794 receiving yards and led the league with 56 receptions and nine touchdowns. For his efforts, Berry was invited to his first Pro Bowl, and was a first-team All-Pro by the AP and several other major selectors. The Colts finished atop the Western Division with a record of 9–3 and faced the New York Giants in the NFL Championship Game.

One of Berry's most notable performances was in that 1958 NFL Championship Game, known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played", in which he led the Colts to the franchise's first title with a then championship record 12 catches for 178 yards and a touchdown in the Colts' 23–17 victory over the Giants. At the end of regulation, he caught three consecutive passes for 62 yards to set up the Colts' tying field goal. He also had two key receptions for 33 yards during the Colts' final game-winning drive in overtime.  His 12 receptions would remain an NFL championship game record for more than half a century, topped by one by Demaryius Thomas in Super Bowl XLVIII after the 2013 season.

Berry led the NFL in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns in 1959, becoming the fourth player to record a "triple crown" in receiving. His 14 receiving touchdowns set a Colts single-season franchise record that stood unmatched for over four decades. He was invited to his second straight Pro Bowl, and earned first-team All-Pro honors from the AP, UPI, the Newspaper Enterprise Association, and the New York Daily News. The Colts won back-to-back championships in an encore with the Giants, 31–16. In that game, Berry caught five passes for 68 yards, second on the team behind halfback Lenny Moore's 126 yards on three receptions.

In 1960, Berry recorded his only 1,000-yard season, catching 74 passes en route to career highs in receiving yards (1,298) and receiving yards per game (108.2). Each of those totals led the NFL that year by a wide margin; no other player had more than 1,000 yards, and the next highest yards-per-game average was 81.0. He had a mid-season string of six straight games with over 100 yards, during which he caught 50 passes for 920 yards and eight touchdowns. Berry again was a Pro Bowl invitee, and earned first-team All-Pro honors from all the same selectors as the previous year, including unanimous All-Pro recognition by UPI sportswriters.

Following this zenith, Berry did not have the same statistical success over his final seven seasons, but remained a consistent target for Unitas. His 75 receptions in the 1961 season was second-most in the league, and he finished 10th in receiving yards, but failed to record a touchdown for the first time since his rookie year. He scored the first touchdown of the 1962 Pro Bowl on a 16-yard reception from Unitas in the first quarter. His streak of Pro Bowl invitations ended at four, but he rebounded to appearances in 1963 and 1964, the latter his final. The Colts returned to the postseason in 1964, where they were shut out 27–0 by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 championship game.

After consecutive seasons recording 700+ receiving yards and seven touchdowns in 1965 and 1966, Berry missed half of the 1967 season due to injuries and caught only 11 passes for 167 yards. He announced his retirement shortly after the season's end. He completed his professional playing career having caught 631 passes for 9,275 yards (14.7 yards per catch) and 68 touchdowns. At the time, he held the NFL career records for receptions and receiving yards, and his receiving touchdowns were tied for fourth most with Don Maynard.

Coaching career
After retiring from playing, Berry joined Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys coaching staff as receivers coach. In 1970, after two seasons, Berry took a job with Frank Broyles at the University of Arkansas as receivers coach. In 1973 Berry joined Don McCafferty with the Detroit Lions as his receivers coach. In 1976, Berry joined former SMU teammate Forrest Gregg as his receivers coach with the Cleveland Browns. Berry joined the New England Patriots as receivers coach under Chuck Fairbanks in 1978. He stayed on with new coach Ron Erhardt until Erhardt and his entire staff were fired following a 2–14 1981 season. Berry left football and worked in real estate in Medfield, Massachusetts, until the Patriots fired Ron Meyer in the middle of the 1984 season and hired Berry to replace him. Under his leadership, the Patriots won four of their last eight games and finished the season with a 9–7 record. Berry's importance to the team was reflected less in his initial win–loss record than in the respect he immediately earned in the locker room – according to running back Tony Collins, "Raymond Berry earned more respect in one day than Ron Meyer earned in three years".

In the 1985 season, the team improved further, posting an 11–5 record and making the playoffs as a wild card team. They went on to become the first team in NFL history to advance to the Super Bowl by winning three playoff games on the road, defeating the New York Jets 26–14 (the second postseason win in franchise history), the Los Angeles Raiders 27–20, and the Miami Dolphins 31–14. It was the first time the Patriots had beaten the Dolphins at the Orange Bowl (Miami's then-home stadium) since 1966, Miami's first season as a franchise. The Patriots had lost to the Dolphins there 18 consecutive times, including a 30–27 loss in Week 15 of the regular season. Despite their success in the playoffs, the Patriots were heavy underdogs to the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XX. They lost 46–10 in what was at the time the most lopsided defeat in Super Bowl history. "We couldn't protect the quarterback, and that was my fault. I couldn't come up with a system to handle the Bears' pass rush", Berry acknowledged.

The following season, Berry's Patriots again recorded an 11–5 record and made the playoffs, this time after winning their second division title as an NFL team. However, they lost in the first round of the postseason. It would be Berry's last postseason appearance in New England, and the Patriots' last playoff berth altogether until 1994. They narrowly missed the playoffs with an 8–7 record in 1987 (a strike-shortened season) and a 9–7 record in 1988, in which quarterback Doug Flutie went 6-3 as a starter. However, Berry benched Flutie in the season finale against the Denver Broncos until the final seconds. The Patriots lost 21-10 and Flutie left for the CFL less than two years later. Then in Berry's last year as a coach, the Patriots finished the 1989 season 5–11. New Patriots majority owner Victor Kiam demanded Berry relinquish control over personnel and reorganize his staff; Berry refused and was fired. His regular-season coaching record was 48–39 () and he was 3–2 () in the playoffs.

After a year out of coaching, Berry joined Wayne Fontes' staff with the Detroit Lions in 1991 as their quarterbacks coach, and then held the same position the following season on Dan Reeves' staff with the Denver Broncos. Reeves was fired after that season, along with his entire coaching staff.

Profile
Berry overcame several physical ailments during his football career, a fact he became famous for, but one that according to Berry was often exaggerated by the media. He was skinny and injury-prone, such that when his college teammates saw him for the first time they sarcastically dubbed him, "Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy". Reportedly, because one leg was shorter than the other, Berry had to wear padding inside his shoe in order to walk properly. However, according to Berry, this was not entirely true. In actuality, bruised nerves near the sacroiliac joint occasionally caused misalignment in his back, which in turn affected his legs and caused one to become slightly shorter; it was not a permanent condition. To alleviate this, he wore a back brace for 13 years in the NFL. That he required specialized shoes was a myth, which Berry says was perpetuated by an overzealous information director with the Colts when Berry tried to compensate for his condition by putting something in his shoe during training camp.

Due to his poor eyesight, Berry wore contact lenses when he played. Because the lenses would often slip when he did rapid eye movements toward the ball, he tried many different lenses, which led sportswriters to believe he must have had major eye problems. "I tried all kinds of lenses till we got what we wanted," he said. "I even had tinted lenses for sunny days, so I could watch the ball come right across the sun."

Berry was famous for his attention to detail and preparation, which he used to overcome his physical limitations. Considered slow for a wide receiver, he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds. Rather than speed, he was renowned for his precise pass patterns and sure hands; he rarely dropped passes, and he fumbled only once in his career. He would squeeze Silly Putty constantly to strengthen his hands. He and Unitas regularly worked after practice and developed the timing and knowledge of each other's abilities that made each more effective. The reason for this, according to Berry, was that the two did not think on the same wavelength. "Every season we had to start all over on our timing, especially the long ball," said Berry. "He knew he had to release the ball when I was eighteen yards from scrimmage for me to receive it thirty-eight yards out. I knew I had to make my break in those first eighteen yards and get free within 2.8 seconds." He also relied on shifty moves, and by his count, he had 88 different moves to get open, all of which he practiced every week.

Even in his adult years, Berry was soft-spoken and reserved. He preferred not to draw attention to himself, and was described by sportswriter Jim Murray as "polite as a deacon, as quiet as a monk." Both as a player and as a coach, he was studious, serious, and orderly; "He was too straight and narrow—but a great guy, a hell of a guy," former Colts teammate Art Donovan said of Berry. "He was a little peculiar, to say the least."

Honors
In 1973, Berry was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. He is a member of the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, compiled in 1994 by the Hall of Fame selection committee and media to honor the NFL's best players of the league's first 75 years, and the 1950s All-Decade Team. In 1999, he was ranked 40th on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Berry's number 82 jersey is retired by the Colts, he is a member of the Patriots' 1980s All-Decade Team as a coach, and he is enshrined in the Baltimore Ravens Ring of Honor.

Personal life
Berry is a professed born again Christian and a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He considers his faith to be a "huge part" of his life. As of 2009, he lives with his wife in Tennessee. On February 5, 2012, at Super Bowl XLVI, Berry carried the Vince Lombardi Trophy to midfield to present it to the New York Giants, who had just defeated the New England Patriots. He was given the honor due to the game being played at Lucas Oil Stadium, the home stadium of his former team, the Colts, who had moved to Indianapolis in 1984.

Coaching record

References

Bibliography

External links
 
 

1933 births
Living people
American football wide receivers
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Theodore P. Beauchaine is an American psychologist and William K. Warren Foundation Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on neural bases of behavioral impulsivity, emotion dysregulation, and self-injurious behavior, and how these neural vulnerabilities interact with environmental risk factors (e.g., maltreatment, neighborhood violence and criminality, marginalization) across development for both boys and girls (as opposed to boys alone as in most previous research). He is among the first psychologists to specify how impulsivity, expressed early in life as ADHD, follows different developmental trajectories across the lifespan for boys vs. girls who are exposed to adversity. In contexts of maltreatment, deviant peer affiliations, and other environment risk factors, boys with ADHD are more likely to develop conduct problems, substance use disorders, and antisocial traits, whereas girls with ADHD are more likely to engage in self-injurious behavior (e.g., cutting) and develop borderline traits. In protective environments, these outcomes are far less likely. Beauchaine has received two awards from the American Psychological Association: the Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology and the Mid-Career Award for Outstanding Contributions to Benefit Children, Youth, and Families.

References

External links
Faculty page

Living people
American psychologists
University of Notre Dame faculty
Portland State University alumni
Stony Brook University alumni
Year of birth missing (living people) The lek paradox is the conundrum of how additive or beneficial genetic variation is maintained in lek mating species, in the face of consistent female preferences, sexual selection.  While many studies have attempted to explain how the lek paradox fits into Darwinian theory, the paradox remains.  Persistent female choice for particular male trait values should erode genetic diversity in male traits and thereby remove the benefits of choice, yet choice persists.  This paradox can be somewhat alleviated by the occurrence of mutations introducing potential differences, as well as the possibility that traits of interest have more or less favorable recessive alleles.

The basis of the lek paradox is continuous genetic variation in spite of strong female preference for certain traits. There are two conditions in which the lek paradox arises. The first is that males contribute only genes and the second is that female preference does not affect fecundity. Female choice should lead to directional runaway selection, resulting in a greater prevalence for the selected traits. Stronger selection should lead to impaired survival, as it decreases genetic variance and ensures that more offspring have similar traits. However, lekking species do not exhibit runaway selection.

In a lekking reproductive system, what male sexual characteristics can signal to females is limited, as the males provide no resources to females or parental care to their offspring. This implies that a female gains indirect benefits from her choice in the form of "good genes" for her offspring. Hypothetically, in choosing a male that excels at courtship displays, females gain genes for their offspring that increase their survival or reproductive fitness.

Amotz Zahavi declared that male sexual characteristics only convey useful information to the females if these traits confer a handicap on the male. Otherwise, males could simply cheat: if the courtship displays have a neutral effect on survival, males could all perform equally and it would signify nothing to the females. But if the courtship display is somehow deleterious to the male’s survival—such as increased predator risk or time and energy expenditure—it becomes a test by which females can assess male quality. Under the handicap principle, males who excel at the courtship displays prove that they are of better quality and genotype, as they have already withstood the costs to having these traits. Resolutions have been formed to explain why strong female mate choice does not lead to runaway selection. The handicap principle describes how costly male ornaments provide females with information about the male’s inheritable fitness. The handicap principle may be a resolution to the lek paradox, for if females select for the condition of male ornaments, then their offspring have better fitness.

One potential resolution to the lek paradox is Rowe and Houle's theory of condition-dependent expression of male sexually selected traits. Similar to the handicap principle, Rowe and Houle argue that sexually selected traits depend on physical condition. Condition, in turn, summarizes a large number of genetic loci, including those involved in metabolism, muscular mass, nutrition, etc. Rowe and Houle claim that condition dependence maintains genetic variation in the face of persistent female choice, as the male trait is correlated with abundant genetic variation in condition. This is the genic capture hypothesis, which describes how a significant amount of the genome is involved in shaping the traits that are sexually selected. There are two criteria in the genic capture hypothesis: the first is that sexually selected traits are dependent upon condition and the second is that general condition is attributable to high genetic variance.

Genetic variation in condition-dependent traits may be further maintained through mutations and environmental effects. Genotypes may be more effective in developing condition dependent sexual characteristics in different environments, while mutations may be deleterious in one environment and advantageous in another. Thus genetic variance remains in populations through gene flow across environments or generation overlap. According to the genic capture hypothesis, female selection does not deplete the genetic variance, as sexual selection operates on condition dependence traits, thereby accumulating genetic variance within the selected for trait. Therefore, females are actually selecting for high genetic variance.

In an alternate but non-exclusionary hypothesis, W. D. Hamilton and M. Zuk proposed that successful development of sexually selected traits signal resistance to parasites. Parasites can significantly stress their hosts so that they are unable to develop sexually selected traits as well as healthy males. According to this theory, a male who vigorously displays demonstrates that he has parasite-resistant genes to the females. In support of this theory, Hamilton and Zuk found that male sexual ornaments were significantly correlated with levels of incidence of six blood diseases in North American passerine bird species. The Hamilton and Zuk model addresses the lek paradox, arguing that the cycles of co-adaptation between host and parasite resist a stable equilibrium point. Hosts continue to evolve resistance to parasites and parasites continue to bypass resistant mechanisms, continuously generating genetic variation. The genic capture and parasite resistance hypotheses could logically co-occur in the same population.

One resolution to the lek paradox involves female preferences and how preference alone does not cause a drastic enough directional selection to diminish the genetic variance in fitness. Another conclusion is that the preferred trait is not naturally selected for or against and the trait is maintained because it implies increased attractiveness to the male. Thus, there may be no paradox.

References

Ethology
Reproduction in animals
Evolutionary biology