What a strange weekend with no NFL game scheduled (can’t count the Pro Bowl weekend of skills, activities, and nonsense!) as we await next Sunday’s Super Bowl clash between the Chiefs and Eagles along with hoped-for entertaining commercials and lots of food, fellowship, and frivolity! More on the Super Bowl later, including my fearless prediction of the winner.
Kathy and I traveled to Granville Tuesday night to watch our freshman grandson Tripp’s junior varsity basketball game against Heath and were impressed with the Granville High School pep band’s enthusiasm, choice of music, and sound as they rocked the rafters both before and during the varsity game. With over 40 talented musicians (including five tuba players who put on a show of their own at halftime) the band made a regular season contest something special for the large crowd in attendance.
I’ve seen several area schools that have outstanding pep bands this year and am always amazed by the way fans and players alike respond to their music. Hats off to these groups and what they add to high school basketball! What are some of your favorite high school bands? And this doesn’t even mention some of the great college pep bands around the country! By the way, 13-3 Heath’s Bulldogs eked out a 48-44 win over the 11-4 Blue Aces, spoiling what was a fun night over in Licking County.
The Dayton Daily News featured an interesting article earlier this week about the Wilson Sporting Goods facility located in Ada, Ohio (home of Ohio Northern University, the alma mater of many West Central Ohioans). For those of you who don’t know (and I know many do), every NFL game ball since 1941 has been made by Wilson, with the Ada plant producing every ball since 1955, over 500,000 balls of different versions yearly. This week’s Super Bowl game balls have already been shipped to the Chiefs and Eagles, with each team being given 108 balls, including a dozen just for the kickers, which are used in practices leading up to the game and for the game itself.
A few other fun facts about the pigskins—a twenty-step process is used in the production of a ball, taking three days from start to finish, with each ball being handled by about five employees as most work is done by hand, including the sewing of 250 stitches and laces!
NFL balls are different from most in that there are no stripes at the ends. Also, did you realize that NFL game balls are embedded with chips to track the ball’s position on the field how far it travels, and its trajectory? Try telling that to the Buffalo Bills, who last week were ruled inches short (most fans, including myself, thought they got a poor spot) of making a crucial first down late in the AFC championship loss to Kansas City.
The Ada plant just this past year opened a visitor’s center that includes a museum and offers tours of the facility. Sounds like a good opportunity for football fans and everyone else to view what seems to be a fascinating process right here in West Central Ohio!
With the Chiefs going for a third consecutive Lombardi Trophy (what is Bill Belichick thinking in proposing it be renamed the Brady Trophy?), which would be an NFL first, it brings up this week’s trivia question—in Major League Baseball history, the Yankees (or Damn Yankees as some prefer to call them) have not only a World Series title three-peat (1998-2000) but also a four-peat (1936-1939) and a five-peat (1949-1953). Can you name the only other franchise to have won three consecutive MLB titles?
Pearls Before Swine, written by Stephan Pastis, is one of my all-time favorite cartoon strips, usually full of wisdom and interesting observations about human behavior and psychology. In one of this week’s strips, it mentioned the once-popular family auto, the station wagon. Do you know how that vehicle came to be named? Those cars were originally designed to take people and their luggage to and from the train station! How many of you recall the backward-facing third row in several models of station wagons back in the day? I don’t think that would pass any Consumer Reports safety standards today, would it?
Girls high school basketball tournament pairings were established this weekend with boy’s drawings set for next Sunday. Check here at MyCountyLink or the OHSAA website for games, sites, and times as the tournament trail unwinds. Speaking of high school basketball, Greenville’s boys season was summed up in one play in an excruciating loss to Fairborn Friday evening. After Wave sophomore Michael McMahon hit a three-point shot to tie the MVL contest at 54-54 with fewer than 10 seconds remaining in regulation, the SkyHawks inbounded the ball, drove down the sideline, and threw an alley-oop pass to 6’11” senior Divine Olinger who dunked the winning shot just before the buzzer. A dagger to the heart for a Wave ball club seeking some momentum heading into the tournament!
My choice for Super Bowl glory next week in New Orleans? After correctly picking all eleven winners of games in the NCAA football playoffs, I’m going out on a limb one more time and singing “Fly Eagles Fly”, Philadelphia’s fight song I just feel that Kansas City’s good fortune in winning close games all year is about to come to an end and the Eagles ground game led by Saquon Barkley will prevail by a touchdown 27-20. As always, don’t bet the farm on it!!
Finally, the Oakland Athletics are the only other team besides the Yankees to win three World Series in a row by beating the Reds in ‘72, the Mets in ‘73, and the Dodgers in ‘74. The Big Red Machine, after winning the ‘75 and ‘76 Series, did gain some revenge by sweeping the heavily favored A’s in the 1990 championship!