As the college football playoffs championship game is getting ready to kick off Monday evening in Miami, an interesting item caught my eye that is an example of big-time football as played today on college campuses.
In the NFL this season, there were 140 players aged 21-22 years old. On Indiana’s roster, there were 47 players, 22-25 years of age!! This is just an indication of the effect the transfer portal and Name, Image, and Likeness have had on teams the past year or two and probably into the foreseeable future. With many players participating for at least their second, if not third or more, college squad the game at the upper levels has openly evolved into a professional minor league system. One editorial cartoon I saw had a picture of a faceless player with a tee shirt that read THE UNIVERSITY OF (WHEREVER) and the player saying, “I’m loyal to our fans, until I get a better offer”!
It’s become a time when many players who are not among the elite potential NFL draft picks are opting to stay in college as long as possible because of the lucrative pay (at least 10 quarterbacks earned over $1 Million this past season) rather than gamble on not making a professional roster.
Do you know who I feel sorry for? Those high school seniors who are not among the elite but are nonetheless quality players who will be overlooked as coaches have come to prefer experienced and proven older players available in the transfer portal. As an example, Auburn of the SEC will be losing almost 70% of this year’s roster due to transfers, graduation, or exhausted eligibility. With a new coaching staff coming on board, the Tigers most likely will concentrate on the 20-23-year-olds as opposed to bringing in a recruiting class of 18-year-olds because of the pressure to win right now. And you wonder why many college coaches are leaving for the professional ranks!
On the brighter side of things, the title game between the Hoosiers and Miami’s Hurricanes should be a close encounter. Miami’s defense will face a stout challenge in a high-powered IU offense, while the ‘Canes have enough offensive weapons to give the Hoosiers’ defense fits. My heart, like most of the country who are looking for a storybook finish to an epic story of a program turnaround in Bloomington, says the Hoosiers by a 24-17 count, but my head says be wary of a Miami win in their home confines of Hard Rock Stadium!
While attending my grandson’s seventh-grade game earlier this week, one official grabbed everyone’s attention. A young man of 15, standing about 5’4” and weighing around 110 pounds, wringing wet, is a certified OHSAA official and did an outstanding job of positioning and game mechanics. Paired with a 40-something referee, the game was well officiated and drew plaudits from fans of both Granville and Johnstown. It was great to see a youngster so involved in officiating at a time when “stripes” are becoming a concern number-wise; plus the young ref had a little swagger to him!!
And how about Miami’s men’s basketball team advancing to 19-0 on the season with a 105-102 overtime win over Buffalo Saturday afternoon!
I’m not sure where some of the topics I bring up every week come from other than the dark recesses of my mind. For example, do you know who Ermal Fraze was and what product he invented that many of us use every day.
Fraze was a farm boy from the Muncie, Indiana area who eventually moved to Kettering, Ohio. In 1959, he became frustrated at a picnic because he forgot his “church key”, a device used to punch holes in beverage cans. Evidently thirsting enough for a beer, he opened the can on the fin of his car (in the days of fins and tons of chrome on cars of the 1950’s) to quench his longings for a brewski. Fraze set to work solving the problem and, by 1963, had a patent for the first pull-top tabs, which first appeared commercially on Iron City Beer cans later that year.
An immediate hit with the public, the tabs became the primary product of the company Fraze established in Dayton, the Dayton Reliable Tool Company, which by 1964 was also producing pull tabs for the soda industry in addition to 75% of US breweries. Revenues soared as the tabs became a staple of the American beverage industry.
However, by the mid-‘70s, concerns were mounting about the sharp-edged detachable tabs and the litter resulting in injuries, particularly at beaches. In fact the late Jimmy Buffett wrote about such an incident in his classic song “Margaritaville”—“I blew out my flip-flop, stepped on a pop-top, cut my heel, had to cruise on back home”!
Thus, the push-in, fold-back tabs of today came into existence, and Fraze furthered his fortune by selling the machines used to manufacture the tabs. Fraze passed away in 1989 in Kettering at age 76, leaving behind the legacy of the Fraze Pavilion to be enjoyed by thousands of music lovers! And as the late Paul Harvey would say, “now you know the rest of the story!” Nothing else sounds like the opening of a pop-top!!
Stay warm, stay safe. Heartfelt condolences to the families, friends, acquaintances, and co-workers of those fatally injured in the horrific accident on Route 49 on Friday.
