IN: Born in La Ceiba, Honduras to an American father and a mother of Spanish heritage, Stephen Wood Van Buren was orphaned at age ten and was sent to live with relatives in New Orleans, Louisiana. There he attended Warren Easton High School, and tried out for the football team originally as a sophomore, but did not make the team. Later that year he dropped out of high school and went to work in an iron foundry. He returned to high school two years later and made the team as an end his senior year.

Van Buren played in nine games during his first season with the Eagles, rushing for 444 yards as a running back and recording five interceptions on defense as a defensive back. His first NFL return touchdown came in the third game of the season, on a 55-yard punt return in the second quarter of a 38-0 shutout win against the Boston Yanks. Three games later, he returned a kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown against the New York Giants, which was the longest kickoff return by any player that season. His 15.3 yards per punt return also led the league. Van Buren was named to the Associated Press's All-Pro first team following the season, the only rookie so named for 1944. In 1945, Van Buren led the NFL in rushing yards for the first time, and also led the league in scoring, yards from scrimmage, and kickoff return yards. He set an Eagles single-season record with fifteen rushing touchdowns, a mark that stood until 2011. His eighteen total touchdowns broke Don Hutson's league record by one, set three seasons earlier. He again had the longest kickoff return of the season, this time with a 98-yard return touchdown against the Giants. In that game he also rushed for 100 yards and two more touchdowns as he scored all of the Eagles' touchdowns in the 28-21 loss. At least six major publications named him a first-team All-Pro for the season, including the Associated Press and United Press. By 1946, Van Buren was considered one of the best players in the league. Before the season, he signed a three-year contract to remain with the Eagles, dispelling rumors that he planned to join the rival All-America Football Conference. He returned just five punts in the 1946 season, but ran one of them back fifty yards for a touchdown against the Boston Yanks in the final game of the year. It was the last punt Van Buren returned in his career. He finished the season with 529 rushing yards, third-most behind leader Bill Dudley of the Pittsburgh Steelers and rookie Pat Harder of the Chicago Cardinals. He was named a first-team All-Pro by the New York Daily News and a second-team All-Pro by the United Press. After the Eagles' loss to the Steelers during the 1946 season, Eagles coach Greasy Neale gave Dudley high praise during a conversation with Steelers coach Jock Sutherland. Sutherland then offered to trade Dudley to the Eagles. In return he wanted Van Buren, but according to Les Biederman of The Pittsburgh Press, "before [Sutherland] finished the second syllable of that name, Neale had fled the table."

What was the kick return prowess?

OUT: His first NFL return touchdown came in the third game of the season, on a 55-yard punt return

IN: Eric Boucher was born in Boulder, Colorado, the son of Virginia (nee Parker), a librarian, and Stanley Wayne Boucher, a psychiatric social worker and poet. He had a sister, Julie J. Boucher, the Associate Director of the Library Research Service at the Colorado State Library (who died in a mountain-climbing accident on October 12, 1996). As a child, Eric developed an interest in international politics that was encouraged by his parents. An avid news watcher, one of his earliest memories was of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

In October 1998, three former members of the Dead Kennedys sued Biafra for nonpayment of royalties. The other members of Dead Kennedys alleged that after Biafra, in his capacity as the head of Alternative Tentacles records, discovered an accounting error amounting to some $75,000 in unpaid royalties over almost a decade. Rather than informing his bandmates of this mistake, the suit alleged, Biafra knowingly concealed the information until a whistleblower employee at the record label notified the band. According to Biafra, the suit resulted from his refusal to allow one of the band's most well-known singles, "Holiday in Cambodia", to be used in a commercial for Levi's Dockers; Biafra opposes Levi's because of his claim that they use unfair business practices and sweatshop labor. Biafra maintained that he had never denied them royalties, and that he himself had not even received royalties for re-releases of their albums or "posthumous" live albums which had been licensed to other labels by the Decay Music partnership. Decay Music denied this charge and have posted what they say are his cashed royalty checks, written to his legal name of Eric Boucher. Biafra also complained about the songwriting credits in new reissues and archival live albums of songs, alleging that he was the sole composer of songs that were wrongly credited to the entire band. In May 2000, a jury found Biafra and Alternative Tentacles "guilty of malice, oppression and fraud" by not promptly informing his former bandmates of the accounting error and instead withholding the information during subsequent discussions and contractual negotiations. Biafra was ordered to pay $200,000, including $20,000 in punitive damages. After an appeal by Biafra's lawyers, in June 2003, the California Court of Appeal unanimously upheld all the conditions of the 2000 verdict against Biafra and Alternative Tentacles. Furthermore, the plaintiffs were awarded the rights to most of Dead Kennedys recorded works -- which accounted for about half the sales for Alternative Tentacles. Now in control of the Dead Kennedys name, Biafra's former bandmates went on tour with a new lead vocalist.

were they successful in their suit?

OUT:
In May 2000, a jury found Biafra and Alternative Tentacles "guilty of malice, oppression and fraud"