Dave Lapham (62) followed Ickey Woods in the ticket parade. Fittingly he sets up his road roommate, quarterback Ken Anderson, for the Sept. 10 opener against Baltimore.
Dave Lapham, who for three decades has given fans a ticket to the game with his rich analysis on the Bengals radio network, ended up with a ticket of his own for Saturday night's second pre-season game against the Chiefs (7 p.m.-Cincinnati's Channel 12) at Paul Brown Stadium.
As part of the Bengals' celebration of their 50th season, tickets for each home game have a photo of one of the greats from the past. Lapham, gracing Saturday's ticket, is on there for a couple of reasons.
First, as one of the best and most versatile offensive linemen in franchise history during 10 seasons, and second for his 32-season run in the booth full of voracious enthusiasm and no-holds barred opinions mixed with the high football IQ of a player drafted by Paul Brown.
"Humbled. Honored. All the things you can imagine," says Lapham, who'll appear, as usual, on Saturday's broadcast with play-by-play partner Dan Hoard on WCKY-AM (ESPN 1530 and WEBN-FM (102.7). "Surprised. Grateful. My kids and grandkids are getting a big kick out of it, so that's been fun."
Lapham won't have trouble getting the ticket stub. He's been a season ticket-holder since 1975, the year after Brown took him in the third round out of Syracuse. Four of them for 43 seasons. He had heard through the grapevine he was going to be on one of the tickets, but he'd believe it when he saw it. When wife Lynne Lapham opened the envelope, her keen eye raised on analyzing their native Red Sox reported, "It's nice. I'll think you like it."
He took a brief look of the shot of him blocking in a long ago game.
"I think it was a slide protection," says Classic Lap.
