College Football Quiz: 1) Rutgers was 11-0 in 1976 but only finished No. 17 in the final AP poll. It seems they didn’t play a real tough schedule. Just having fun. Name five of the opponents. 2) Who is South Carolina’s all-time leader in passing yardage? [played from 1986-89] 3) Who are Southern Cal’s top five all-time rushers? [No tricks with this list…one clue, Reggie Bush is No. 6] Answers below.
CFB Review
Wow…it all started Friday night in Ames, Iowa, and then it continued the next day in Raleigh, Eugene and Waco. Four top ten teams went down this weekend…Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 7.
No. 2 Oklahoma State goes down to a mediocre Iowa State team, 37-31, in overtime, as OK State QB Brandon Weeden throws three interceptions for the Cowboys and the Hawkeyes outgain them, 568-536. Iowa State was 0-56-2 against teams ranked sixth or higher in the AP poll. Awesome, though I really feel for T. Boone Pickens, the Cowboys’ No. 1 booster who has given so generously to his alma mater. Boone doesn’t have much longer on this earth. It would have been cool to see him get a title.
[And what a horrible 24 hours for the school, as Oklahoma State’s head women’s basketball coach and his assistant were killed in a single-engine plane crash on a recruiting trip to Arkansas, Thursday. The pilot, 82, and his 79-year-old wife, also died. It was back in January 2001 that 10 men affiliated with the men’s basketball team, including two players, were killed in a Colorado plane crash. Forget the age of the pilot, a former state senator, but the aircraft was built in 1964.]
No. 4 Oregon loses at home to what is obviously a very good USC team, 38-35, as the Trojans fend off a furious rally by the Ducks, who came from down 38-14 in the third, only to then blow a tying field goal attempt as time expired. USC quarterback Matt Barkley inserted himself into the Heisman conversation.
[In the battle of the cheerleaders, not enough was shown of either squad, frankly. I would have substituted shots of them in lieu of every worthless sideline view of the coaches. But I have to give the edge to Oregon and at least in this contest for the national title, the Lady Ducks prevailed. My drawer full of Duckwear, though, did not survive the weekend and has been shunted into a lower drawer until 2012.]
No. 5 Oklahoma lost to No. 22 Baylor, 45-38, in stunning finish as Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III (another who has had a phenomenal season) drove the Bears 80 yards in five plays for the score after Oklahoma had tied it up at 38-38 with 51 seconds to play.
And No. 7 Clemson was whipped like a rented mule by N.C. State in Raleigh, 37-13.
No. 1 LSU destroyed a truly pathetic Ole Miss team, 52-3. No. 3 Alabama was less than impressive in defeating I-AA Georgia Southern, 45-21, giving up over 300 yards rushing (7.7 per carry). No. 6 Arkansas is suddenly in the title hunt as they beat Mississippi State, 44-17. No. 8 Virginia Tech beat North Carolina last Thursday night, 24-21, to move to 10-1. No. 9 Stanford barely got by Cal, 31-28, as Andrew Luck was once again so-so. And No. 10 Boise State beat San Diego State on the road, 52-35. Oh, what could have been for the Broncos but not for another missed field goal the week before. With all the upsets this weekend, the nation would have been screaming for a LSU-Boise title game, and the computers very well may have spit it out.
Instead, the only big game this coming week (really big, that is) is Arkansas at LSU on Friday.
In other games of note, No. 11 Houston stayed undefeated, cruising past SMU, 37-7, though QB Case Keenum was just ordinary, for him. No. 14 Georgia won its ninth straight, 19-10, over Kentucky. No. 17 Wisconsin beat Illinois, 28-17, which I only note because imagine being an Illini fan. You start off 6-0, granted against zero competition but 6-0 nonetheless, you’re thinking this could be a dream season, but then you lose five in a row.
Plus these…Furman took a 22-7 lead over Florida before going down 54-32. Now that would have been very cool. Rutgers, now 8-3, is actually in the hunt for the Orange Bowl after defeating Cincinnati, 20-3. No. 21 Penn State beat Ohio State, 20-14, though I couldn’t care less about what happens to the Nittany Lions the rest of the season, nor will I be outraged if they still play in a bowl game. Whatever.
Harvard beat Yale, 45-7, which ordinarily I also couldn’t give a damn about but the game was marred by a tailgating incident before the contest as a truck carrying beer kegs mowed down three women partying in the parking lot, killing one. The driver was taken into custody, but wasn’t under the influence. No further details.
But before “The Game,” much was made of Yale quarter Patrick Witt, who withdrew his Rhodes scholarship application because the scheduling of the final round of interviews would have kept him from playing. Well, he sucked. And now he won’t have a Rhodes scholarship and no doubt he is doomed to a life of misery and hardship.
As is Yale coach Tom Williams, who long claimed to have been a Rhodes candidate at Stanford, as the New York Times reported, only now Yale has begun a review because officials of the Rhodes Trust said they had no records of Williams applying for the fellowship when he graduated from Stanford in 1992.
Williams says, “There is no intention to deceive. I never said I was a finalist for the Rhodes candidacy. The Rhodes shouldn’t have any record of me, because I didn’t do it. I didn’t go through the process. I pulled out long before it got to that point.”
Of course you also know that in my own case I was a candidate for the Suds Scholarship, but lost out when the interview didn’t go well. I have only myself to blame (late night), but I never, ever, put this on my resume.
And finally, back to football, Wake Forest defeated Maryland, 31-10, though this one was far closer than the score indicated. Nonetheless, the Deaconwear may make an obligatory showing this winter because at 6-5, with a game at home vs. Vanderbilt remaining, we should be going bowling, not that yours truly will be attending.
I do have to note, however, that our sophomore quarterback Tanner Price has a super future ahead of him after a terrific season, 19 TD passes, just six interceptions; while I repeat, if receiver Chris Givens isn’t at least third team All-American it will be a crime. I know there are a large number of big-time wideouts out there, but I’d put Givens up with any of them and he’s NFL bound. In 2011, he has 70 receptions for 1,207 yards.
And just a word on Maryland. Last January in this space, I said that the bottom line on the way then UConn head coach Randy Edsall handled his quitting on the Huskies in signing with Maryland was: “Edsall showed zero class and here’s hoping the guy falls flat on his face.”
Pretty good call, eh? Maryland is 2-9 (1-6 in the ACC), this after the school fired Ralph Friedgen following a 9-4 campaign, one in which he was conference Coach of the Year!
And get this. After allowing 514 yards to Wake Forest, “The Terrapins have given up at least 500 yards in four of their last six games. Under former coach Ralph Friedgen, they gave up 500 yards four times in 125 games.” [Eric Prisbell / Washington Post]
Yup, the firing of Friedgen may have been one thing. But the hiring of Edsall was quite another.
–It’s a Penn State child sex abuse scandal free Bar Chat, except I need to get down for the archives that assistant coach Mike McQueary’s claim in an e-mail to a friend that he notified the police about the 2002 shower incident has been challenged by the police, who say McQueary did not let them know what he saw that day.
–USA TODAY ran a story on college football coaches’ salaries and all you need to know is the beginning of the piece, written by Erik Brady, Jodi Upton and Steve Berkowitz.
“Jimbo Fisher got a raise of roughly $950,000 after last season, his first as head football coach at Florida State, boosting his pay to about $2.8 million.
“So, at a time of tightening budgets, how does a public employee get a 50% raise of nearly $1 million after one year on the job?
“ ‘You’re always looking at whether or not you have the potential to lose a good coach and end up having to pay more in order to get the next one,’ Florida State President Eric Barron says.”
USA TODAY found that in 2006, the average salary for major-college coaches was $950,000. In 2011, it is $1.47 million, a jump of nearly 55% in six seasons. That’s outrageous. At least 64 coaches are making more than $1 million. 32 are paid over $2 million (including Wake Forest’s Jim Grobe). Texas’ Mack Brown leads all with compensation of more than $5 million.
—Boise State is trying to recruit BYU to become a football partner for it in the Big East, as the conference now goes after BYU to add to Boise, Air Force, Navy, SMU, Houston and UCF in a revamped league (some of these will be football only).
–And now…the new AP Poll:
1. LSU
2. Alabama
3. Arkansas
4. Stanford
5. Oklahoma State
6. Virginia Tech
7. Boise State
8. Houston
9. Oregon
10. USC…ineligible for bowl game
1. LSU 1.0000
2. Alabama .9491
3. Arkansas .8985
4. Oklahoma State .8408
5. Virginia Tech .7842
6. Stanford .7711
7. Boise State .6881
8. Houston .6684…Cougars are going to get a BCS berth because of the reasons given in last Bar Chat…unless they collapse.
–It’s very late…the Eagles are beating the Giants in the third…and the NFL gets short shrift again, though not a lot of huge games on Sunday. More importantly, Turkey Day promises to have three meaningful contests.
10-0 Green Bay at 7-3 Detroit
3-7 Miami at 6-4 Dallas…with Miami having won three in a row
9-1 San Francisco at 7-3 Baltimore
Can you say turkey, pecan pie (over pumpkin) and beer?!
As for Sunday’s games, I think I would have had to shoot myself if I was forced to attend the Jaguars-Browns contest, won by Cleveland, 14-10. Or how about Seattle at the Rams, a 24-7 win for Seattle?
Meanwhile, Detroit’s Matthew Stafford had five touchdown passes in the Lions’ 49-35 win over the Panthers, with Cam Newton throwing four picks.
Otherwise, there frankly is nothing to write about, pending Giants-Eagles, which I’m not pending for the purposes of this column. However…with 5:00 to go in the third, the Giants just tied it at 10!
–But I just have to comment on the Jets pitiful loss to the Broncos last Thursday night. Denver quarterback Tim Tebow was all of 9-20 passing and has yet to complete 50% of his passes in any single game this season…but as a starter he’s 4-1. You’d be an idiot not to respect that…the real bottom line.
“Only a Rocky Mountain Miracle could have saved Tim Tebow and the Broncos.
“Only a choking Rex Ryan defense could have allowed Tebow to carry his team 95 yards on his back and lift his teammates and his town Mile High atop his shoulders into the end zone with 58 seconds left.
“Only God-awful quarterbacking in the clutch and a crushing pick-six from Mark Sanchez could have allowed Tebow and the Broncos to have their prayers answered.
“Thank God for Ryan, who sent his defense on a blitz up the middle and watched in horror as Tebow scooted around left end, past (safety) Eric Smith, for the 20-yard TD that gave the Broncos their impossible 17-13 win.
“What Tebow could not do, cannot do, with his erratic left arm, he did with his giant heart and his iron will. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Tebow will find one every time….
“(Tebow) played with what he calls ‘character, strength and honor’ against a fraud team that displayed none of it.”
As for the Jets and their playoff chances, back when they were 2-3 I wrote that as a fan I just wanted them to be 6-6 going into the final four games and then hopefully they’d run the table. Well they’re 5-5 and they have as easy a final six games as any team in the league… Buffalo, Washington, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Giants (Christmas Eve), and Miami. Over the last nine seasons, only 4 of the 18 AFC teams winning wild-card berths won as few as nine games so the Jets know what they have to do.
–Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News was curious as to what happens to teams that give up a pick six, the way Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez did against the Patriots and the Broncos the last two games. Elias Sports Bureau told him that entering this week’s contests, teams on the receiving end of a pick six the past two seasons are 63-16.
–Here’s a random musing. Has there ever been a black field goal kicker? I can’t even think of one in college, for crying out loud.
Ball Bits
Major League Baseball and the players are expected to sign a new collective bargaining agreement this week and evidently the players have agreed to be tested for HGH, perhaps the final step in cleaning up the sport, with those testing positive being subject to a 50-game suspension, the same as for a first-time positive steroid test. [NFL players have yet to sign off on blood testing, or any other North American professional sports league for that matter.]
But the owners and players have also agreed to add a second wild-card team, beginning as soon as this coming season. The two wild-cards would then face off in a one-game playoff, with the winner going against the team with the best record in the divisional series.
I think this is great. It gives teams a major incentive to win the division and I like the suspense of the one-game format. Some say it will take away from endings to the regular season like we had this year, to which I ask, how? First off, in our lifetime we’ll probably never have a set-up like we had this time, but now you’ll just generate more fan interest in September as in most seasons there will be more teams in the mix. That’s only common sense.
At the same time, you can’t have a best-of-three between the wild cards or you could finish the World Series in November, and that’s stupid.
Well, that’s my opinion. For the other side, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman offers:
“The problem (with the new format) comes with the single-elimination game. For it is a poor decision to have a team’s 162-game season come down to winner-take-all.
“It is one thing if two teams finish tied for a playoff spot and you add essentially the 163rd game to break the tie. But if the top-seeded wild card, for example, wins 94 games and the second seed wins 87, it is just unfair that the 94-win team could be eliminated in a single game.
“Imagine, for example, that the Yankees and Red Sox both go into the last game of the season with 94 wins. Meanwhile, the Angels have 87 wins and are too far back to catch the division-leading Rangers in the final few days of the season, but have a big lead for the second wild card. Thus, the Angels could set themselves up for the single wild-card game.
“With so much at stake in winning the division, however, the Yankees and Red Sox have to use their aces in Game 162. The team that ends up the wild card has, therefore, used its best starter and is at a disadvantage in the wild-card game despite having a significantly better record than the second wild-card.
“At least a best-of-three allows the superior team from the regular season to try to make amends for a singular bad day while not delaying the Division Series too long.”
Sherman talks about starting the wild-card series the day after the season ends and the Division Series the fourth day, but you have to allow for a rainout or two.
Anyway, it gives us something to talk about this winter in lieu of the NBA.
Also, as part of the new CBA, Houston is moving to the American League in 2013 as part of the owners’ approval of the sale of the club to Jim Crane, so we’ll have two, 15-team leagues. The Astros will move to the AL West, which Crane originally wasn’t happy about because of all the West Coast road games on the Astros’ TV schedule, but he is receiving a refund of $70 million on his $660 million purchase price to mitigate the potential loss in TV revenue.
–Will the Red Sox really hire Bobby Valentine as their new manager? In light of the way Boston collapsed this year, with all the stories that emerged about what an undisciplined clubhouse they had, Bobby V. is probably the perfect fit. One Red Sox operative told the Daily News’ Bill Madden, “Bobby has a reputation for stirring things up wherever he goes, but we probably could use that right now.” Plus Valentine is a fixture in New England, his home and restaurant business being based in Stamford, Ct.
And how about the Yankees facing Bobby V. 18 times a year? From a media standpoint it doesn’t get any better than that.
–Separately, the Cubs hired 47-year-old former major-leaguer Dale Sveum to be their new manager.
–As expected, the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw won the N.L Cy Young Award after winning pitching’s triple crown. Kershaw had 27 first-place votes to Roy Halladay’s four. [Ian Kennedy got the other first-place nod of the 32 writers who vote on such things.]
“The only way they don’t finish last is if the rest of the N.L. East vacations in Venezuela.”
College Basketball
Upsets…Presbyterian defeated No. 20 Cincinnati, 56-54, on Saturday. Earlier, Long Beach State defeated No. 9 Pitt, 86-76, the first win over a top-10 team by the 49ers in almost 20 years. Incredibly, Long Bach State has upcoming games against San Diego State, Louisville, North Carolina, Kansas and Xavier, all before Christmas! Good luck, boys. [I’m thinking if they win one of those, the 49ers become my team of the year.]
And get this, a team that is a lot closer geographically, Iona, destroyed Maryland on Sunday, 89-63! Geezuz, another year where the ACC blows!
–I’m not commenting on the accusations against Syracuse assistant head basketball coach Bernie Fine, leveled by former ball boy, Bobby Davis, who says Fine molested him “hundreds of times” beginning in 1983, when he was entering seventh grade, and lasting more than 10 years. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim adamantly defended his assistant of 35 years, pointing to a four-month investigation by the university in 2005, conducted by the school’s legal counsel, that yielded nothing. Syracuse police are now investigating Davis’ latest allegations and Fine was suspended, as a second man came forward with similar allegations.
–Congratulations to the U.S. on its fourth straight Presidents Cup triumph, 19-15. I watched the singles live on Saturday night, flipping back and forth with USC-Oregon, and it was entertaining. Gotta give Tiger credit…and more importantly, he has to be thanking captain Fred Couples for giving him the opportunity to get his game back…which at least on Sunday it appeared Woods had done as his putting was tremendous.
I also have to note that the two Demon Deacons, Bill Haas and Webb Simpson, did just fine, even if Bill was 1-3-1. The Webber was 3-2.
Finally, kudos to Jim Furyk. He had such a terrible regular season on tour, but in the Cup he was 5-0. That’s what the real fans remember.
–The president of Fifa, Sepp Blatter, is in major hot water because of his views on racism in football (soccer); as in Blatter doesn’t see any. The guy is a 75-year-old fool. This is how he explains away a serious situation in the sport:
“In a sporting spirit when there is something happening on the field of play, during a match between two players – I call it foul language. I’m saying about discrimination, but it’s foul language, it’s a foul play. At the end of the match, if you have foul play, you shake hands…and therefore also forget what has been on the field of play.”
Two high-profile cases are being investigated by the Football Association and the police, including Chelsea’s John Terry for allegedly verbally abusing Anton Ferdinand of Queen’s Park. In another instance, a Liverpool player was charged with similar treatment on one of Manchester United’s black players.
–We note the passing of former point guard and coach, Walt Hazzard, who helped John Wooden win his first national championship at UCLA and later became the fifth coach to follow the legend. Hazzard was 69 and died after a long illness.
After starring on the Bruins’ 1964 championship team that defeated Duke in the Finals, he played 10 seasons in the NBA (averaging 12.6 points and 4.9 assistants) and later coached the Bruins from 1984 to 1988.
Hazzard was born in Wilmington, Del., but grew up in Philadelphia, honing his game at Overbrook High School, playing against the likes of Guy Rodgers and Wilt Chamberlain on the playgrounds there. John Wooden once said, “I never had a better man on the fast break than Walt Hazzard.”
Guess who was Hazzard’s roommate at UCLA? Arthur Ashe. As a coach there, Hazzard was 77-47, but only reached the NCAA tournament once in his four seasons, after which he was fired.
–The Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond had a piece on sports franchises and the retirement of uniform numbers. The best is the Montreal Canadiens, who have retired 17 numbers, with all 17 being in the Hockey Hall of Fame. The San Francisco Giants are baseball’s best…11 of 11 in the Hall. The worst in MLB is the Astros, just one of nine (Nolan Ryan).
–Prepare to be bored. I not only just started receiving a subscription to Track and Field News, but I just picked up my ticket for the full Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene next June.
Actually, don’t worry for now. Track and Field News is really dreadful, but us junkies can use it as we get closer to London.
But London is really going to be about Usain Bolt, who announced this week that if he’s fit, he wants to go for four golds…the 100m, 200m, 4X100m relay and 4X400m relay; the latter being an addition, potentially.
By the way, it’s impossible to get an inexpensive room in Eugene during the Trials, though two years ago when I was at the USC-Oregon football game, a guy there said he had no problem. But in 2008, I stayed in the town of Albany, 45 minutes or so away, and since there was never any traffic to deal with it wasn’t bad at all. This time I’m staying at a truck stop 30 minutes from the action. I admit this could be interesting. [But like $300 less a night than a top spot in Eugene!]
–Uh oh…two runners died at Sunday’s Philadelphia Marathon. One was a Penn student, 21, who collapsed at the finish line. The other was a 40-year-old male who collapsed about a quarter-mile from the finish.
I’ve written in the past that more runners seem to die in the half-marathon rather than the full one, and at least in the case of the Penn student, he was running the half. [Far more on this topic later as your editor approaches his own half down in Kiawah, S.C. in a few weeks. So far the beer/carbo training is going just fine. But the running mileage is a different story.]
–Ripped from the pages of USA TODAY, as reported by Michael Winter.
“A 21-year-old female elephant at the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park died early today after what zookeepers believe was a fight with a member of the herd,
“Umoya, whose name means ‘Spirit’ in Swahili, was found this morning lying down with injuries that ‘indicated there might have been an aggressive interaction with another elephant,’ the zoo said in its obituary for the mother of two.”
Alas, no one saw what happened, except the elephants, and none of them are talking. Nonetheless, the zoo reported the herd paid its respects.
“As they do in the wild, the herd was offered an opportunity to mourn Moya. The elephants came to see Moya after she died – some touched her with their trunks and others simply stood by her. By her side were Kami and Emanti, but once the others began to walk away, the two youngsters followed their aunts to an adjoining yard.”
Sounds kind of like a Mafia funeral. Not sure how this all impacts elephants’ standing on the All-Species List. But, regardless, they’ll still be about 150 slots ahead of Man.
–Last year around this time, I was in Honolulu and through a friend of the family, got to tour the Punahou School, one of the most exclusive private schools in the country, which is also where Barack Obama went when he was a kid. The headmaster is the son-in-law of our friend.
So my father received a note the other day from the friend, Dan, and his son-in-law hosted a rather important dinner when Obama was there last week for the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC). Obama wasn’t at the dinner, but Russian President Medvedev was, along with the CEOs of General Dynamics and Boeing, Gazprom (oligarch Alexei Miller), and China’s central bank president, as well as Google’s Eric Schmidt. Having been given a personal tour of the house by the headmaster, Jimmy, I got a kick out of Dan’s note. A day before both U.S. and Russian security teams checked the house out thoroughly, including bomb sniffing dogs, and snipers were stationed on the roof when the 20 limos pulled up for the dinner. And, in case you were wondering, Medvedev had his personal doctor there and the doctor monitored all the food preparation. Dan added that the Bank of China guy reportedly had bad table manners. Seems on more than one occasion he started eating before everyone was served.
And to give Obama his due, the top U.S. security man told Jimmy that the president was very easy to work for.
So to Dan (a loyal reader), thank you for taking me to the home and school last year. That was a real treat. As was the lunch and beer! [See, kids…it always comes down to beer. You’ll learn that when you get older.]
–I only saw the clip of Regis Philbin’s last show and I have to admit I probably watched all of one or two of his over the years, if that. But anytime you saw him in other venues you couldn’t help but like the guy.
However, what’s up with Kelly Ripa? Yikes, she’s all skin and bones! Kelly, what happened to that great body of yours? Eat some meat, will ya?
–At first I couldn’t give a damn about a new investigation into the death of Natalie Wood after 30 years, but it will be interesting to see if Robert Wagner at least confesses to not making an effort to rescue her. It’s also too bad Christopher Walken has to relive all this. [I would venture there isn’t a guy on the planet that doesn’t like Walken.]
—Karl Slover died. He was 93. The 4-foot, 4-inch Slover was one of the last of the actors who portrayed Munchkins. Of the 124 diminutive actors, only three survive.
Slover was born in the Czech Republic. His 6-foot-6 father tried everything to make his son taller, but eventually the family moved to the U.S. and Karl appeared with the Singer Midgets, whose 30 performers became the nucleus of the Munchkins.
In “The Wizard of Oz,” Slover was paid $50 a week, while Garland’s dog, Toto, earned more.
[Sorry, long time readers…but I can’t help but repeat a story for new ones. Back when I was a little tyke, at a summer camp in the Catskills, I played Toto in a camp play and I gotta tell ya, guys, it wasn’t a bad role if you saw who played Dorothy.]
–Fifty years ago this month, the Beach Boys released their first single, “Surfin’.” Damn, that’s depressing. The next like 10-12 years it’s going to be one anniversary like this after another.
—Coldplay sold 447,000 copies of its new album, “Mylo Xyloto,” in its first week, the best opening for a rock LP in 2011.
—Lee Pockriss died. He was 87. His claim to fame was writing pop hits such as “Catch a Falling Star” and “Johnny Angel.” “Catch a Falling Star” was popularized by Perry Como [“Put it in your pocket/Save it for a rainy day”].
But Pockriss, in a collaboration with Paul Vance, also wrote “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” a tune that has not aged well at all, sports fans, though it was a No. 1 hit for Brian Hyland way back in 1960.
Top 3 songs for the week 11/25/78: #1 “MacArthur Park” (Donna Summer…only slightly better than the Richard Harris version, which in ’68 led to a huge spike in suicides… “Please make it stop!!!”) #2 “Double Vision” (Foreigner…these guys thought they were really cool…alas, they weren’t) #3 “How Much I Feel” (Ambrosia…nice song, approved by the American Council of Churches)…and…#4 “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (Barbra & Neil…total dreck…bring me a beer instead) #5 “You Needed Me” (Anne Murray…another excuse to say my mother couldn’t stand the Canadian) #6 “Le Freak” (Chic…what were we thinking, people?) #7 “I Just Wanna Stop” (Gino Vannelli…actually liked some of this guy’s stuff…but he really needed a haircut) #8 “I Love The Nightlife (Disco ‘Round)” (Alicia Bridges…incredibly irritating…used at Guantanamo, however, with major success in stopping attacks) #9 “Time Passages” (Al Stewart…he was so bored doing this one; like, Al, why bother?) #10 “You Never Done It Like That” (Captain & Tennille…eh…just glad this week is over)
College Football Quiz Answers: 1) Rutgers opponents in 1976 (in order of play): Navy, Bucknell, Princeton, Cornell, Connecticut (when they were Division VII), Lehigh, Columbia, Massachusetts, Louisville, Tulane, Colgate (this was a huge game…Colgate was 9-1, as Pete M. tells me…Rutgers wins, 17-9, in the Meadowlands as freshman Pete had a few beers…the drinking age being 18 then). 2) Todd Ellis is the Gamecocks’ all-time passing leader with 9,953 yards. 3) USC’s top five all-time leading rushers: 1. Charles White (6,245) 2. Marcus Allen (4,810) 3. Anthony Davis (3,724) 4. Ricky Bell (3,689) 5. O.J. Simpson (3,423). [Reggie Bush is at 3,312; Mike Garrett, 3,221.]
Next Bar Chat, Thursday…a very abbreviated one. Super busy time for the kid, including my 35th high school reunion coming up, of which I’m putting the thing together because the class president has been AWOL.
