College Football Quiz: 1) Who rushed for over 2,000 yards for Iowa State in both 1995 and ’96? 2) Who holds the single-game rushing record at Kansas with 396 yards? [Hint: 1991] 3) Who am I? I am second at Kansas State to Josh Freeman in career passing yards and my initials are L.D. 4) Who is Kansas State’s all-time rusher, by a whopping 2,000 yards? Answers below.
Remembering the Troops
As we think of them over the holidays, you can imagine that feeding an army isn’t easy. For example, I was reading the current edition of Army Times and following is what the Defense Logistics Agency has shipped to help 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan celebrate Thanksgiving.
Turkey…467,499 lbs.
Stuffing mix…61,813 lbs.
Sweet potatoes…13,231 cans
Corn and green beans…107,832 lbs.
Cranberry sauce…8,952 cans
Pies…51,652 [boy, that seems low]
Shopping for the troops and the Thanksgiving meal actually begins in April to ensure it gets there on time.
And it’s another good time to reflect on our heroes…in this case Sgt. James T. Van Hove.
“Van Hove received the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism on Nov. 23, 1951, during the Korean War.
“An aggressive enemy force attacked Van Hove’s company near Kowang-San, Korea. Van Hove’s men quickly became disoriented under the intense barrage of fire. Van Hove reorganized them and directed their fire against the enemy that had begun charging toward them.
“Moving constantly among his men and providing orders and encouragement, Van Hove discovered the ammunition supply had become dangerously low.
“Leading several troops through enemy fire, Van Hove was able to reach a supply point and return with vital ammunition.
“Soon after, Van Hove observed several of the enemy attempting to breach the perimeter of barbed wire. Without hesitation, Van Hove seized an automatic rifle from the hands of a fallen comrade. Firing rapidly while charging, Van Hove’s attack killed and wounded many of the enemy and halted the risk of penetration. When the enemy regrouped again, Van Hove charged – this time armed with grenades. Six enemies were killed and three wounded, and the hostile force was successfully repulsed.”
New Jersey Nets…0-14 thru Tuesday. Record for futility at the start of a season is 0-17 and the Nets are now on the West Coast with games against Portland (Wed.), Sacramento (Fri.) and the Lakers (Sunday).
–As good as Pac-10 football is this year, I saw a blurb in USA TODAY on how poorly the conference is doing thus far in basketball. To wit:
Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s brother, is the coach at Oregon State, which was supposed to be pretty good this year, but instead has lost to Texas A&M Corpus Christi, 67-43, and Sacramento State, 65-63. Folks, that is Texas A&M Corpus Christi!!! And getting blown out to boot.
Stanford has already lost to Oral Roberts (Wake Forest blew them out) and San Diego, while USC lost to Loyola Marymount, which was 3-28 last year.
Florida 68 Florida State 52
Cincinnati 69 Maryland 57
Stanford 57 Virginia 52
AP Men’s College Basketball Poll
2. Michigan State
6. Purdue…hosts Wake Forest Dec. 1
—Northeastern University has decided to scrap the football program after 74 seasons (3-8 this year) because administration officials believed that to truly have a quality team required far more than the $3 million a year Northeastern was spending on it. President Joseph E. Aoun said, “Northeastern has always been guided by the principle that we should focus on our opportunities for leadership…This decision (also) allows us to focus on our existing athletic programs.”
I read a few pieces on this and it seems like the school’s decision was a reasoned one. They’ve been pumping major $dollars into the athletic program overall, but the football stadium was one of the worst in the country (they only drew an average of 1,600 this year) and the money to upgrade everything for football just didn’t make sense. 65 of the 87 players were on full or partial athletic scholarships and they’ll be able to keep the financial aid and graduate…or move on to other schools to play football and not have to sit out a year like most transfers.
In 1997, Boston University pulled its football program.
–Boy, that was pretty lousy how Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen was cold-cocked by a “fan” outside a South Bend restaurant the other night.
–The Friday after Thanksgiving brings back one of the great memories for college football fans, the Doug Flutie-Miami game, and November 23 was the 25th anniversary, if you can imagine that.
It wasn’t as if the two teams were fighting for the national championship, with Miami entering the contest 8-3 and Boston College 7-2. But it matched up Flutie, who would win the Heisman, vs. Miami’s outstanding QB Bernie Kosar. Bottom line, I vividly recall the contest as it went into evening that Friday and the ratings were huge.
Miami had taken a 45-41 lead with 28 seconds to go but on the final play, Flutie hurled what is commonly called the most famous pass in the sport, a 48-yard Hail Mary that BC receiver Gerard Phelan caught in the end zone for the 47-45 win. Flutie talked to Sporting News about the moment.
“On the day of the game, I didn’t find out Gerard had caught the ball until 5 minutes after it happened. I just threw it into a crowd. I saw the official’s arms go up. I never made it down to the pig pile to see who caught it. I was on my way off the field, talking with our strong safety, Dave Pereira. We were down near the tunnel, almost to the locker room, and I said, ‘Who caught it?’
“I’d say about 80 percent of the Heisman votes were in before the game. Brent Musburger said later that play didn’t win me the Heisman but that it made anyone who didn’t vote for me look stupid.”
–I loved this bit on Notre Dame and Michigan football by the Wall Street Journal’s “The Couch.”
“Surely by now you know that the greatest crisis facing this country isn’t the economy or war, but the perilous states of the Michigan and Notre Dame football teams. It’s gotten obnoxious, the overwrought attention these once-storied, now-torpid programs still command, and no one’s stepping up and offering the smoothest, wisest solution to their troubles:
“Merger! The Notre Michigan Irish Wolverines….
“Synthesizing Michigan and Notre Dame just makes sense. Neither institution has the ammunition or patience to persevere individually. Saturday, 5-7 Michigan fell to its nettlesome rival Ohio State for the sixth time in a row, which sadly means there are 6-year-olds in Ann Arbor who have no idea what it’s like to taste Buckeye plasma. Meanwhile 6-5 Notre Dame fell in double overtime to plucky UConn and is installed as a six-point underdog next week against the Wildcats from High School Musical.
“Naturally, the carnage in South Bend and Ann Arbor has led to apoplectic alumni and torch-and-pitchfork rumormongering about the fate of the head coaches. The consensus is that Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis will be evicted and Michigan’s Rich Rodriguez may cling on for one more season, in which he must beat Ohio State, win a national title, a Super Bowl, an Oscar and invent a hangover-free Scotch in order to save his job.”
–Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson is on track for 1,987 yards rushing this year with six games to go. He’s also averaging an astounding 6.24 per carry and is over 200 yards ahead of the no. 2 rusher in football, St. Louis’ Steven Jackson. And I can’t recall a year when there were so many backs having great seasons, with 7 averaging over 5.00 yards per carry (for those with at least 500 yards in all).
–So I’m watching the local news on TV, Monday, and they have this story of a fire in the Bronx, where this poor guy had just rented a basement room a week earlier and now he was being forced out into an uncertain world, having basically lost his few possessions. You know, a sad story but the guy had a terrific attitude.
But then the reporter casually tacks on that one of those injured was former New York Knicks player Dean (The Dream) Meminger, who was a critical component for the 1972-73 championship team [the Daily News’ story carelessly said he was part of the 1969-70 title club…yoh guys, he was in college then].
Meminger was found unconscious near his bed after the fire started and he’s in critical condition. What’s worse is several crack pipes were found inside Dean’s room and it’s possible the fire was sparked by Dean or another tenant. Meminger is a long-time admitted cocaine user.
–St. Louis’ Albert Pujols won his second straight N.L. MVP award, the first unanimous MVP since Barry Bonds in 2002. I hope this puts to bed once and for all talk of discrimination when it comes to Latino players. What I didn’t realize about Pujols’ typically awesome season was that he was an astounding 10 for 17 with the bases loaded, including five grand slams and 35 RBIs. I’m just a little surprised that in his first nine spectacular years, he hasn’t hit 50 home runs nor driven in 140.
In the A.L., Joe Mauer captured 27 of 28 first-place votes in garnering his first MVP. But as Ken P. noted, who the hell was the joker who had Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera first? C’mon. Cabrera should have been banned from the sport for his actions off the field the last weekend of the season that cost the Tigers the playoffs.
Mauer, incidentally, becomes a free agent after next season but he loves Minnesota and is expected to sign with them. But that doesn’t mean us Mets fans can’t dream! [Of course the Yankees would win the bidding war and then 42,000 of us would jump off the Whitestone Bridge.]
–If you’re a golf fanatic, the PGA Tour’s Q-School is going to be fascinating as the top 25 and ties go for their tour card over the six-round marathon. What’s different this year is the number of ‘name’ golfers who have entered, primarily because various exemptions are finally up.
Here are just a few of the bigger ones: David Duval, Todd Hamilton, Tim Herron, Rocco Mediate, Jesper Parnevik, Tom Pernice Jr. (who is 50 but wants to play the regular tour), Chris Riley, Carlos Franco, and Shaun Micheel.
Dec. 2-7, West Palm Beach, Fla. at the Bear Lakes CC if you are so inclined. Unlike when I went to follow Bill Haas years ago, because of Rocco and Duval, alone, there should be some actual galleries.
–Nooooooooooooo!!!! Here I’ve been buying all this Univ. of Oregon running wear but the men finished second in the NCAA cross country championships as Oklahoma State bested the defending champion Ducks. Villanova took the women’s team title, defeating Florida State. Samuel Chelanga, a junior from Liberty University, won the men’s individual title, doing a 28:42 10km. Good lord. Illini Angela Bizzarri took the women’s crown.
If you’re surprised I’m covering cross country, understand that here in New Jersey, we have perhaps the best runner in the sport we’ve ever had, Joe Rosa of West Windsor-Plainsboro, who set a state record in the Meet of Champions on Saturday, the first to break 15 minutes (14:56) for the 3.1 mile course. Joe ran a 4:48 second mile, after a 5:07 opener, and then did 5:01 the last 1.1 miles.
But get this. The reason why the New York Times ran a feature over the weekend was because Joe has a twin brother, Jim, who finished second. [This is a single meet for the best runners and teams in the state.] And they are only juniors, with Joe Rosa now ranked the number one scholastic cross country runner in the entire country. Unfortunately, if you’re thinking he could be a candidate for the 5,000 meters (or 10,000) at the 2012 London Games, he’d only be finishing up his freshman year in college. Too soon.
–We note the passing of Washington Capitals (up to 1999) and Wizards owner Abe Pollin, 85. As the Washington Post’s John Feinstein notes, Pollin’s true legacy was building the Verizon Center downtown that helped revitalize the entire surrounding area. Pollin was old school, getting rid of All-Stars Chris Webber and Rasheed Wallace because he didn’t like their lifestyles and work habits, and in 2003 he famously fired Michael Jordan, who Abe viewed as selfish and disruptive.
–And now….your NCAA Soccer Championship updates
Men’s Sweet Sixteen, to be played Nov. 29.
Wake Forest vs. Duke; UC Santa Barbara vs. UCLA; Maryland vs. Harvard; Portland vs. Virginia; Akron vs. Stanford; Northwestern vs. Tulsa; North Carolina vs. Indiana; Boston College vs. Drake
The women are down to the Elite Eight, to be played Nov. 27-29.
North Carolina vs. Wake Forest; Notre Dame vs. Florida State; Stanford vs. Boston College; Portland vs. UCLA
–And for you Football Championship Subdivision fans, better known to your editor as Div. I-AA, here are your playoff matchups for the first round, Sat., Nov. 28.
South Dakota State at Montana; Eastern Washington at Stephen F. Austin; Elon at Richmond; S.C. State at Appalachian State; Holy Cross at Villanova; New Hampshire at McNeese State; Eastern Illinois at Southern Illinois; Weber State at William & Mary
I feel like I know just enough to be dangerous when it comes to I-AA and there are some super games here. Especially the Elon, Holy Cross and New Hampshire contests.
–Well, another season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is in the books. Some of us are very depressed. Will there be another one, and in just a year? Outside of this and “Entourage” I don’t watch HBO, aside from an occasional “Real Sports.”
But this year’s CYE was truly terrific, pulling off a Seinfeld reunion show as part of the mix. It was the perfect ending for the cast, unlike the much-ripped actual Seinfeld finale. As the Star-Ledger’s Alan Sepinwall comments, though, here’s hoping that if Larry comes back for yet another season, he works Jerry back into it from time to time.
And for those of you who haven’t watched CYE because you don’t get HBO, do yourself a favor and buy one of the seasons on DVD. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
–Here’s some good news on the animal front. At a tiger park in China, the world’s biggest Siberian tiger breeding facility, 100 cubs are expected to be born in the new year. Now this isn’t one of those places where the tigers are then sold off for animal parts, with most finding homes in zoos and such, but there are already over 800 in this huge facility. I mean at some point there has to be a breakout.
But get this. Once a female tiger gets in the, err, mood, she goes through her rating ritual up to 60 times in 3 days! Why even Shakira couldn’t do that.
[As for the male, the South China Morning Post observes, “Sexual intercourse lasts only about 10 seconds; and as soon as it is over, the male rests.” You may now discuss this amongst yourselves over the Thanksgiving dinner table.]
–There’s a great AP photo circulating this week of a baboon trying to enter a car in Cape Town, South Africa. “The baboons are becoming increasingly aggressive, a concern as tourists are expected to flock to the city for the World Cup next year.”
As Courtney Brooks reports, “The cheeky primates have learned how to open car doors and jump through windows in pursuit of tasty sandwiches and snacks. [The other day] a troupe of 29 baboons raided four cars outside Simon’s Town, a small coastal neighborhood. A baboon dubbed ‘Fred,’ the leader of the group, opened unlocked doors and jumped through windows to search for food.”
But get this…there are 420 baboons in 17 troupes around Cape Town. Officials are concerned that naïve tourists will be showing up in droves next year, encounter the baboons, think they are harmless, and then wonder why they’ve been hauled off as hostages and tortured.
“A kangaroo startled by a man walking his dog attacked the pair, pinning the pet underwater and slashing the owner in the abdomen with its hind legs.
“The Australian, Chris Rickard, was in stable condition Monday after the attack, which ended when the 49-year-old elbowed the kangaroo in the throat.”
Well, it seems the kangaroo was asleep on the road when Chris and the dog startled it. The dog then chased the animal into the pond, but the kangaroo pulled a reversal and then went after Chris. The dog appears to have survived the attack. The kangaroo was last seen convening a war council.
I told you of how years ago I was at a game park in Tasmania where you walk amidst the kangaroos, many of which are at eye level, and they scared the crap out of me. I mean just one punch and it would have been, “Down goes The Editor!…Down goes The Editor!”
–So an old high school friend of mine, Ken P., was musing the other day about our days at Summit, with our senior year being 1975-76, and what we would have found more remarkable looking ahead to today.
3) Oregon State playing Oregon for the Rose Bowl
–I’m happy for Susan Boyle that her debut album is a huge success (actually, I really don’t care), but I got a kick out of an NBC report from JFK Airport and the “wild scene” there upon her arrival. Let’s just say it looked like about all of 45 people, 20 of whom I’m assuming were custodial staff and off-duty screeners. In other words, not exactly the Beatles arriving at Idlewild in 1964.
–There are divas…and then there are divas…Rihanna falling into the latter camp as she made hundreds of fans wait outside a Best Buy store in Manhattan for three hours before making her appearance. And then Rihanna spent literally a few minutes waving and took off. But, to be fair, the Daily News reports her fans didn’t seem to mind, which means they really need to get their priorities straight.
But get this…Rihanna is reportedly receiving $500,000! to perform at a New Year’s Eve bash at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. And Rihanna is also quoted in the German magazine Bravo as saying that when it comes to dating again after Chris Brown, the guy “has to be good in bed and [err, you know, well-en….err….]
–Yeah, I’d say Adam Lambert created a bit of a stir the other night.
—Lady Gaga will be doing a New Year’s Eve concert at Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel. Now I’ve gotta admit that would be a pretty good time.
–Lastly, I forgot to note the centennial of the birth of the great songwriter Johnny Mercer, Nov. 18, Mercer having died back in 1976 at age 66. He was of course best known for tunes such as “Moon River,” “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road,” “That Old Black Magic,” and, my personal favorite, “The Days Of Wine And Roses.”
I mean how can you not love lyrics such as this….[sap alert!]
Top 3 songs for the week of 11/29/80: #1 “Lady” (Kenny Rogers…thinking ahead to new face) #2 “Woman In Love” (Barbra Streisand) #3 “The Wanderer” (Donna Summer)…and…#4 “Another One Bites The Dust” (Queen) #5 “I’m Coming Out” (Diana Ross) #6 “More Than I Can Say” (Leo Sayer) #7 “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” (Stevie Wonder) #8 “(Just Like) Starting Over” (John Lennon) #9 “Love On The Rocks” (Neil Diamond) #10 “Dreaming” (Cliff Richard…..boy, I really want to get back to the Sixties…know what I’m sayin’?)
College Football Quiz Answers: 1) Troy Davis, Iowa State’s career rushing leader, rushed for 2,010 yards in 1995 and 2,185 yards in 1996. Davis had a game where he gained 378 yards against Missouri. He then had only 446 yards in three seasons for New Orleans. 2) Tony Sands, the no. 2 all-time leading rusher at Kansas, once carried the ball 58 times for 396 yards against Mizzou, 1991. [Geezuz, Missouri’s ‘D’ was a bit porous!] But Sands never played in the NFL. 3) Lynn Dickey is Kansas’ no. 2 all-time passing leader with 6,240 yards, 1968-70. Dickey then had a long career, 1971-85, in the NFL with Houston and Green Bay. In 1983 he led the NFL in passing yards and TD passes while with the Pack. 4) Darren Sproles, now on the San Diego Chargers, is Kansas State’s all-time leading rusher with 4,979 yards. Next on the list is Eli Roberson with 2,818.
And just a note on Gale Sayers, Kansas, 1962-64. Of course freshmen weren’t eligible then so picture how he burst on the scene as a sophomore in ’62.
And in 1962, Sayers rushed for 283 yards on just 22 carries against Oklahoma State. But KU’s won-loss mark during Gale’s three years wasn’t that impressive…6-3-1, 5-5, and 6-4.
In 1620, while the Pilgrims were some of the bravest folks in the history of the world, they had trouble finding food. Their situation in those years was grim, particularly because they didn’t land in Miami, choosing Massachusetts instead and thus having to deal with the New England winter. The Pilgrims’ leader, Governor William Bradford, remarked:
“If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed and was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: ‘Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity,’ etc. ‘Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good: and His mercies endure forever.’”
Half the company died the first winter, but when the Mayflower set sail in April not one of the survivors returned in her. Around mid-October 1621, after the gathering of the fall harvest and a big wild turkey shoot, the Pilgrims had their first feast, with Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag and 90 of his subjects, “whom for three days we entertained and feasted.” The Indians contributed several deer, but the Pilgrims, with 35 new arrivals on the ship ‘Fortune,’ were soon starving again.
As historian Henry Commager notes in “The Growth of the American Republic,” despite the constant battle with famine “they never lost heart or considered giving up and going home. These simple folks were exalted to the stature of statesmen and prophets in their narrow sphere, because they ardently believed, and so greatly dared, and firmly endured. They set forth in acts as in words the stout-hearted idealism in action that Americans admire; that is why Plymouth Rock has become a symbol. For, as Governor Bradford concluded his annals of the lean years:
‘Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand; so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea, in some sort, to our whole nation.’”
