In his book, "Not So Smart," author David McRaney "describes a 1974 experiment conduced by psychologist Alan Ingham: people were blindfolded and then instructed to grab a rope, which was attached to a device that simulated the resistance of an opposing team.  The subjects were told they were part of a large team engaged in a tug of war. They tugged, and Ingham measured their effort.

Next,  they were told they would be pulling alone, and again Ingham measured.

Actually, they were pulling alone in both cases - the reason for the blindfold - but when they thought they were pulling as part of a team, they pulled, on average, 18 per cent less hard.

Not that that's necessarily how the subjects see it. In  his book "Thinking, Fast and Slow," Daniel Kahneman elaborates: "Many members of a collaborative team feel they have done more than their share," and when asked to estimate  their contribution as a percentage of the team's effort, the sum total of their estimates normally exceeds 100 per cent.

ONE WINTER a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold.
The snake said to the Farmer:
    "If you pick me up and hold me to your stomach, your body will make me warm."
The Farmer said:
   "If I do that you will bite me."
The Snake answered:
   "Why would I do that if you save me?"
The Farmer had compassion on the Snake, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom.
The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound.
   "Oh," cried the Farmer, "Why did you bite me after I saved you?"
 Answered the Snake,  "You knew I was a snake when you picked me up."

Johnson had been Weatherbie’s offensive coordinator for two seasons and, in 1996, had played a key role in the Mids’ first winning season since 1982. That team went 9-3 and won the Aloha Bowl. Johnson then left to become the head coach at Georgia Southern, where he won two national championships in what was then known as Division I-AA while Navy was spiraling.

Johnson knew how difficult the Navy job was and how far the program had fallen when Gladchuk and Vice Admiral John R. Ryan, the academy’s superintendent at the time, came to interview him for the opening.

“What it’s going to take, Coach?” Ryan asked when negotiations stalled. “What do I have to pay you to get you to coach my football team.”

Johnson told him. Ryan was stunned. “Young man,” he said. “I’m a three-star admiral in the United States Navy and I don’t make anywhere close to that kind of money.”

“Well, Admiral,” Johnson replied, “I guess you got into the wrong business.”

he endured a frightening moment when Ted Williams hit a line drive that caromed off his brace.

“I hit a ball back to the box, a real shot, whack, like a rifle clap,” Williams recalled in his memoir “My Turn at Bat” (1969), written with John Underwood. “Down he goes, and everybody rushes out there, and I go over from first base with this awful feeling I’ve really hurt him. Here’s this war hero, pitching a great game. He sees me in the crowd, looking down at him, my face like a haunt. He says, ‘For chrissakes, Williams, pull the damn ball.’ ”

"An image-conscious regional chamber of commerce and Bergen Community College are giving one-day classes to teach ways to give Super Bowl fans a warm welcome.

"But the classes were canceled after no one signed up."

Football should be pretty much exclusively ours for generations to come.

Well, maybe.

For that to happen, we will need players, and there is one thing Roger Goodell may not have considered.

The mothers of America could shut down football today.

I’m not saying they’re going to, but they could. The mothers of America could band together and say, “Uh-uh, no way. My boy’s not playing football. And that’s all there is to it.”

Football is a brutal, almost barbaric game. It is a game in which ridiculously large men, pumped up or drugged up or gorged upward of 30 percent more than the weight they should be safely carrying, smash into each other upward of 80 times a game at a point in the field known as the “line of scrimmage.”

Were any of these supposed football players ever taught to tackle? All half these guys know is how to launch themselves at somebody or shoulder-roll someone. I’ll bet Pat Fischer never launched himself or shoulder-rolled anyone in his life.

Fischer was a great 170-pound safety who actually put his shoulder into a ballcarrier and hit him in the midsection. In other words, he actually tackled someone. Perhaps Roger Goodell should send him around to conduct a few clinics.

Football has an enormous appeal to many people who are borderline psychopaths in a manner that no other sport - and this includes the very virile sport of hockey - does not.

by Brett Marshall, of the Garden City Telegram…

SCOTT CITY — Payton Vetter ran for two touchdowns and passed for another while running back Bowe Behymer scored twice, one on a game-changing 88-yard fumble recovery return early in the third quarter to power the Beloit Trojans to a 36-13 victory here Saturday night over the Scott City Beavers in a Class 3A semifinal football game.

Vetter, a four-year starter, had TD runs of 6 and 13 yards, passed 55 yards to RJ Jackson for another while Behymer, who had a game-high 165 yards rushing, also scored on a 4-yard run for the unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Trojans.

Scott City got two first-half touchdowns, both on passes from junior quarterback Trey O'Neil. His first was 4-yards to Chris Pounds in the first quarter and the second was a 68-yard strike to Brayden Strine midway through the second quarter.

Beloit's defense, though, held the Beavers scoreless in the final 24 minutes, denying Scott City scoring opportunities three times inside the 15-yard line in that stretch.
Beloit, 13-0, now faces Silver Lake (12-1), last year's runner-up to Scott City, in the state title game at Hutchinson's Gowans Stadium next Saturday at 1 p.m. The Beavers, meanwhile, see their season end at 11-2.

- See more at: http://gctelegram.com/news/Scott-City-Beloit-3A-football-11-23-13#sthash.NVJcb01Z.dpuf

A season of frustration marked by injuries and some close losses ended with a startling comeback by Villanova's football team.

Trailing by 34-12 after three quarters, the Wildcats scored 23 fourth-quarter points to stun Delaware, 35-34, in the regular-season Colonial Athletic Association finale for both teams Saturday at PPL Park.

 Mark Hamilton's 24-yard field goal with a second remaining was the game-winner. Holder Cody Pittman did a nice job fielding a low snap.
Hamilton said he didn't want to make things too complicated.

"I wasn't thinking too much," Hamilton said. "I don't even know how far it was."

Villanova finished 6-5 (5-3 CAA). The Wildcats are not expected to receive a bid Sunday to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

 Delaware, which needed the game to stay in realistic contention for a bid, dropped to 7-5, 4-4

When Delaware's Andrew Pierce scored on a 10-yard run to extend the Blue Hens' lead to 34-12 with just 1 minute, 24 seconds left in the third quarter, the Wildcats looked finished. After Pierce's score, the conversion kick was blocked, and that turned out to be a huge play.

In the fourth quarter, Villanova quarterback John Robertson completed 11 of 13 passes for 146 yards and three touchdowns. He also ran 13 times for 95 yards in the final period.

"After three quarters it had been getting quiet on the sideline," Robertson said.

It got noisy after he hit Joe Price on scoring passes of 11 and 21 yards. Price had missed the previous five games with two fractures in his vertebrae.

"I felt great out there," Price said.

Robertson hit a wide- open Gary Underwood on a 25-yard scoring pass to get the Wildcats within 34-32 with 1:45 left.

On the two-point conversion attempt, Robertson threw an incomplete pass.

 Villanova kicker Chris Gough then recovered his own onside kick, giving the Wildcats the ball on their own 46.

"The guys immediately next to me are supposed to blow up the guys that are head up on us and hopefully there is a gap in there and I can get to fall on it, and that is what happened," Gough said.

Robertson marched the Wildcats into field-goal range and Hamilton kicked the first game-winner of his career.

Villanova set a school record with 34 first downs. The Wildcats' 626 yards of total offense were second most in school history.

I've learned through my years of teaching an offense to other coaches that it isn't something that can be sold to someone.

It has to be bought.

They have to buy it.  They have to come to me.  Then, provided there is complete buy-in by the staff, there is a chance they'll be successful.

I've seen all sorts of attempts by well-intentioned dads, boosters, and administrators come to naught -   because it wasn't bought.

I also think that you ought to be very careful for fear that your sincere interest might be seen as "pushy dad syndrome."

Excerpts...

It's impossible to pinpoint when the N-word became black America's most cherished possession. But that fact is now impossible to deny.
We have reached the point where it wouldn't surprise me to see Jay Z or another prominent black celebrity call for a Million N-word March on Washington to stop the tepid, informal debate regarding the appropriateness of black people using the slur. Black people's right to call each other the N-word is now akin to protecting our rights to vote and to sit anywhere on a bus.

The N-word is a not a generational issue. The N-word was never a fad. It was a primary tool in the enslavement, disenfranchisement and cultural destruction of a race of people.

The current generation of young people, the children and grandchildren of baby boomers, is not rebelling against anything. It is rebelling from neglect, a lack of attention and America's overdose on materialism. This generation doesn't reflect its parents' values because its parents were too busy chasing bigger homes and second cars to teach it any values, or its parents were simply absent for a multitude of reasons.

My point is that the young people, from Jay Z to the kids in the Dolphins locker room to Matt Barnes, who think the N-word is a term of endearment or a word now devoid of its negative impact because of its popularity, are misguided in a way no previous American generation has been misguided.

Can you misguide a generation that has never been guided?

The values and perspectives pervasive in youth culture are not rooted in family. They're rooted in neglect, dysfunction and irresponsibility. The new normal should be rejected. Hearing the N-word, bitch, ho and other pejoratives tossed around inside public gathering spots should be disconcerting. The N-word's ascension to black America's favorite word in the dictionary is alarming. How a person defines himself or herself determines how he or she will be treated by the world.

“It used to be your uniform lasted for a generation or a decade, and now it’s once a week,” said Paul Lukas, the creator of the Uni Watch blog, who believes the uniform buffet represents a broader cultural shift. “This mirrors the notion of having to check your email and Twitter feed every few minutes because people need a fresh jolt of stimulation."

Seattle City Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state
 
“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.

This week, Sawant became Seattle’s first elected Socialist council member. She ran on a platform of anti-capitalism, workers’ rights, and a $15 per-hour minimum wage for Seattle workers[..]Sawant is calling for machinists to literally take-possession of the Everett airplane-building factory, if Boeing moves out. She calls that "democratic ownership."

“The only response we can have if Boeing executives do not agree to keep the plant here is for the machinists to say the machines are here, the workers are here, we will do the job, we don't need the executives. The executives don’t do the work, the machinists do,” she said.

Sawant says after workers “take-over” the Everett Boeing plant; they could build things everyone can use.
“We can re-tool the machines to produce mass transit like buses, instead of destructive, you know, war machines,” she told KIRO 7.

“I’m as patriotic as anyone, but to me all this excessive flag waving, ‘Thank you for your service,’ and stuff like that is just over the top,” said Norm Linden, a Vietnam veteran and 1969 graduate of Norwich University, the oldest private military college in the country. “Does every sporting event these days have to become a mini-Nuremburg rally? Honor the vets by giving them a discounted ticket or a free replica game jersey or something like that, but please stop dressing like clowns out there.”

Retired Army veteran Jose Lachapel figures all this flag waving is about the bottom line, not the front line.

“Both private and public entities have jumped on the support-our-troops bandwagon. Colleges and sports teams that go overboard with the salute to the troops are doing it for economic reasons — sponsors, TV, etc.,” said Lachapel, who retired from the Army Corps of Engineers after 23 years, including a one-year tour in the Middle East, and now serves as a project manager for the Social Security Administration. “Donate tickets to lower enlisted, donate to armed services charities like USO and official services charities, but the rest are started and are still in it for the money and continue to ride the tidal wave of military patriotism nationwide.”

Uniforms represent something special to those who serve, which is why Mark Cunningham isn’t too fond of the military surge on the gridiron.

“As a former Marine, I think all this over-the-top stuff is superficial and, in many regards, an insult to the troops,” said the 48-year-old Cunningham, a former combat engineer who served in Operation Desert Storm. “Wearing camouflage football uniforms and sticking flags everywhere does not mean that you understand what any Marine, sailor, airman or soldier has experienced in war or in garrison during peacetime.

“In fact, I would even argue that it takes away from the intended purpose because you did not earn the right to wear the uniform. Uniforms have a deeper meaning to those who served than just an article of clothing.”

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.

From a pregame tailgate for more than 1,000 soldiers and their families to the Big Red One's 1st Infantry Division Band performing a special medley of patriotic music at halftime, the day's festivities are one of a kind.

"I've been to some military appreciation games before, but none were as big as this one," Command Sergeant Major Todd Nibarger of the 1st Battalion 28th infantry (Black Lions) regiment said. "They're helping soldiers out, and it's a morale builder for these guys to go down there and see the football game. We're all pretty fired up about it."

"What does it mean to me?" K-State football head coach Bill Snyder said as he spoke about the sacrifices of the men and women in the Armed Forces. "We're talking about an awful lot of youngsters who volunteer to serve their country and defend all of us in this day in age. They're always going to be in a position, or they will be at some point in time in their career, to put their lives in jeopardy and they understand that. I don't know how many of us would step up and volunteer our services to do that so you have to have a special appreciation for them. I do and our players do as well."

While Fort Riley Day has been a long-time event in Manhattan, partnerships between K-State's athletics teams and units stationed on the fort began in 2006 between Col. Patrick Frank, former commander of the 1-28 Infantry Regiment, and the K-State football program.

"They saw that they had this community outside of Manhattan and the players and many of our soldiers really are the same age bracket, so developing relationships between these two groups we thought would be relatively easy," Col. Frank explained. "We thought this partnership would give us the opportunity to do that, and they got along great."

K-State student-athletes attend deployment ceremonies, train with soldiers and have even checked out what it would feel like to soar in an apache while visiting the Fort Riley helicopter simulators. When the 1-28 Infantry Regiment, the Black Lions, were deployed, K-State football held a special "Black Lion Cub" day at the stadium for children who had a parent overseas.

"The support that they have provided to the First Infantry, to our soldiers and families, not only at the annual Fort Riley Day at K-State, but they've also been great supporters of our families and units when our soldiers were deployed," Col. Frank explained. "To me, that was one of the most important aspects from our units perspective. To see that support when our units were deployed, I thought was a very special part of the relationship."

Though Col. Frank's duty as a commander on Fort Riley came to an end and a new commander has taken over the role, K-State football has continued its partnership with the Black Lions. The bond between the two has recently caught national attention, and on Oct. 31, the National Football Writers of American nominated K-State Football as one of seven nominees for the 2013 Armed Forces Merit Award.

"It's a two-way street, it's not us reaching out to K-State or K-State reaching out to us, it is a partnership, a meaningful one too," Lieutenant Colonel David Lander, current commander of the Black Lions explained. "It's not just lip service or getting bare minimum effort. I don't even know what bare minimum is because K-State football goes so far above and beyond that. They really do reach out to us regularly, not just during football season."

The award, presented to an "individual and/or a group who has created, developed and produced a program within the realm of the sport of football that provides care, concern and support for past or present members of the Unites States Armed Forces and/or their families" according to its website, will be announced on Monday, Nov. 11, Veteran's Day.

Sharman invented the shootaround as a way to burn off nervous energy on game days. Starting in the middle of his playing career, he would go to a neighborhood gym in the morning to dribble and take shots, finding that it helped him feel more confident that evening.

He took the shootaround with him to his first coaching jobs in the A.B.L. and the A.B.A., but many predicted that the concept would not work in the N.B.A., especially with a team of veteran stars like the Lakers. Sharman proved the critics wrong as the Lakers — even Chamberlain — took to the 40-minute morning workouts and cited them as an important element in the team’s success.

After the Lakers won the championship in 1972, every other team in the league added the shootaround to its game-day regimen.

Approximately 8 percent of sales from pink NFL merchandise go toward cancer research, according to a report this week from Business Insider.

The league uses the color on its jerseys and other apparel in an effort to raise money for breast cancer research, but according to the report, the breakdown of how the money from sales of the apparel gets distributed is as follows: 50 percent to the retailer; 37.5 percent to the manufacturer; 8.1 percent to the American Cancer Society for research; 3.24 percent to the administration at the Society; and 1.25 percent to the NFL.

The Brazilian people are suffering, and soccer is only going to make things worse. Soccer is like the Hundred Years' War—time consuming, short on thrills, disappointing results. A sport rooted in cowardice and duplicity, soccer is the world's most lethal pastime. The players routinely dive, feigning ruptured aortas and shattered femurs and 12-second comas in order to be awarded penalty kicks. They cheat, grabbing each other's shirts, gouging each other's eyes, garroting the goalkeeper, kicking opponents in highly sensitive areas while the officials aren't watching. The players have ridiculous hair and ridiculous names and ridiculous facial expressions, and they never, ever score. The only real action is up in the stands, where a horde of psychopathic drunks taunt each other and shower the players with cruel epithets. At least this provides some relief from the stultifying game going on down below.

There seems little chance the N.F.L. will give up its subsidies, or collegiate football-factory behavior will change, or that youth and high school play will be restructured, without outside pressure. President Barack Obama, like  (Teddy) Roosevelt an avowed football fan in his second term, is the man to provide that pressure.

On offense the center should stand with his feet well apart, one foot somewhat farther advanced than the other and both feet well under him so that he will rest little or no weight on the ball.  His tail should be low and his back straight.  A good stance for center is shown in the drawings illustrating this chapter.  If he uses the end over end pass he should grasp the ball somewhat back of its center and on its sides. If using the spiral pass he should have one hand more under the ball and the other farther forward and toward the top of the ball.

Either method of passing the ball to the backs is good form. The end over end pass is the easiest to learn and the easiest for the backs to handle, and repeated timing with a stopwatch has shown that the simple end over and pass is just as fast in getting the ball to the punter as is the more intricate spiral.  The spiral pass from center has absolutely no advantages over the end over end message as far as I have been able to determine,  and  I never encourage or teach it; but, as stated above, either method is good

Las Vegas bookmakers are calling this Sunday’s game between the undefeated,record-breaking, naked-bootlegging Denver Broncos and the defeated, drown-your-sorrows, sorry-you-have-to-see-this Jacksonville Jaguars the most lopsided NFL game ever, with the Broncos favored by as many as 28 points. The matchup stretches the margins of NFL disparity and, so far, is baffling bettors.

“I don’t know that the public knows what to do with it, or if anybody really knows what to do with it,” says Johnny Avello, director of race and sports at the Wynn Las Vegas. The spread at the Wynn currently sits at 27 points, the highest Avello can recall. He set it at 27.5 on Sunday afternoon. The first bet was a large one in favor of the Jaguars that brought the number down to where it is. This, Avello says, tends to be the pattern with large spreads. Sophisticated bettors, known as “sharps,” take the underdogs and the points.

“They are usually on the plus,” says Avello. “If a game [spread] is 17, they are usually on the plus. If it’s 20, which we don’t see much, they are usually taking the 20.” These sharps don’t see some quality or defect that the rest of us are missing. They are simply betting on the tendency of NFL teams to limit damage. “This isn’t college football, where it’s Oregon or Baylor and they are up by 31 in the second half and they are trying to go full bore and win the game by 50,” says Avello. “Pro football players are happy to get out with a W and no injuries.” If a rout is on, the winning team usually pulls its starters and plays it safe.

As I mentioned in Wednesday's Jolt, the government workers who have been sent home without pay come in three varieties: genuine wastes of money and space, genuinely necessary employees who are misclassified, and folks somewhere in between.

Perhaps the most extreme example of a necessary expenditure being interrupted is that the death benefits -- usually $100,000 -- won't be paid immediately to the families of U.S. troops who die during the shutdown.

Believe it or not, there are some folks who get so swept up in the fury about government waste, that they shrug their shoulders at this. When I mentioned the death-benefit interruption, someone responded on Twitter, "Delayed. Big deal."

When someone in uniform makes the ultimate sacrifice for our country, I don't want any @$#$^% delays in taking care of their family.

Are the regular day-to-day staffers at the Smithsonian museums "bureaucrats"? How about the folks working on this year's flu vaccine at the Centers for Disease Control?

I keep hearing that my disdain for the shutdown reflects an "inside the Beltway" attitude, that somehow my view of things is reflected by all the "bureaucrats" around me.

Does the term "bureaucrat" accurately label all of the 3,100 workers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston?

How about criminal prosecutors in U.S. Attorneys' offices in places like Columbia, South Carolina, Charleston, West Virginia, and Concord, New Hampshire?

How about the National Transportation Safety Board plane-crash investigators stationed in Alaska?

How about the 510 civilian employees sent home at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona?

How about the 142 secretaries, maintenance staff members, and civilian library workers at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut?

How about the 12,000 workers at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama?

Or the 2,000 of the civilian employees at Air Force Global Strike Command at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, and 4,900 civilian employees at Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado?

First two minutes of the game I have a first year senior telling me he needs a blow because of his asthma. My c back said he couldn't continue because of a hoop injury.

QB got hurt so he is out next week

this is my Valley Forge - it's winter 1778

Freshman cornerback Josh Jenkins was ejected in Army’s 35-16 win over Louisiana Tech with 7:07 left in the third quarter under the NCAA’s new penalty against the  targeting defenseless players.

Jenkins appeared to hit Louisiana Tech wide receiver Andrew Guillot shoulder to shoulder after a pass was tipped by Army safety Hayden Pierce.

Rule 9-1-4 says, “No player shall target and initiate contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent with the helmet, forearm, fist, elbow or shoulder. When in question, it is a foul.”

The play was reviewed and the call was upheld.

Mike Pereira of Fox Sports, the officiating guru, didn’t think Jenkins should have been thrown out.

“If I was in the replay booth, I would not eject him because I do think it’s more shoulder to shoulder before it gets to the head or neck area ,” said Pereira during the Fox Sports 1 telecast. “To me, this is the type of thing where they ought not to try to uphold the ejection when it’s so marginal like this. Is it shoulder to the head or neck area? I think when you look at this (the replay), it’s pretty questionable. I’d really like to see them lean toward not ejecting players in replay and keep them in the game.”
Army coach Rich Ellerson disagrees.

“They reviewed it and they still feel like it was a good call,” Ellerson said. “As coaches and officials, the world of college football is not going to tolerate targeting, just not going to do it. If it wasn’t the right call, he would have been reinstated. They looked at it and they said no he needs to have his (butt) thrown out of there so therefore, he does.”

Under NCAA rules, Jenkins must also sit out the first half of Army’s next game at Boston College Saturday.

“We teach playing the football and to attack the football and he wasn’t attacking the football,” Ellerson said. “He’s not doing what we teach. It hurt us tonight and it will follow us into next week. That’s a great lesson for everybody. You don’t do that.”

If the debate over football were about safety, then the scolds seeking to prohibit the game would table their ambition until after doing away with skiing, skateboarding, cycling, and dozens of other deadlier sports.

Safety works as a false front for what’s really motivating the attacks on America’s game. Rough and muddy football clashes with our increasingly risk-averse, passive-aggressive, unsoiled society. It doesn’t fit in a world of parentally monitored play dates, Xbox babysitters, and trophies for everyone. The war on football is a cultural tic calling itself a public-health crusade.

Football competes on a rigged playing field vis-à-vis other sports. Our standards for it, partly because of its popularity, are more stringent than our standards for other sports. If a fatality occurs in cycling, it doesn’t register unless it happened to Amazon’s CFO or someone similarly famous. When such an injury claims the life of an anonymous football player, every journalistic outlet runs with the story in part because it plays into an existing storyline.

This creepy exploitation of tragedy reinforces an impression about football that is at variance with the facts. Football is safer than it ever has been — and safer than many uncontroversial pastimes ever will be.

5 min flex
5 min agility
15 minutes blocking/tackling
10 minutes kick/punt cover ("Iowa drill")

15 minutes kickoff, kick return, onside kick return, punt return, punt

20 minutes off groups (may be less)
40 minutes off team vs scout defense (may be more)

15 minutes def groups (may be less)
35 minutes inside drill (all but three deep) or outside drill (all but DTs) or both - vs Scout defense

10 minutes conditioning
5 minutes (or more) "gain five, lose five" offensive execution/conditioning drill

Broyles,  who became a lifetime friend as a coach and later athletic director, sounded frantic when he called Dave Nelson one spring day.   He told Dave,  "Look, my line coach, Dixie White is ill.  He has fluid on the lungs and can't coach at all in spring practice.   Can I borrow MIke Lude for spring practice?   Dave said it was okay with him if it was okay with me and as long as I had a good handle on my recruiting responsibilities.  So I said, "Fine. I'll be there before the week's out."  That may be the only Lend-Lease deal in college football history.

I spent the next 16 days in Fayetteville, Arkansas and it was a great time.  The center of that Arkansas team was Barry Switzer, who later coached Big Eight championship teams at Oklahoma.  The coaching staff included Doug Dickey, later head coach at Florida and Tennessee and athletic director at Tennessee, as well as Jim McKenzie and later coached at Oklahoma.

The interviewer asked Jackson what he thought about “President Obama or other highly educated Americans consciously dropping g's off the ends of words to sound like Joe Average.”

Jackson replied, “First of all, we know it ain’t because of his blackness, so I say stop trying to ‘relate.’ Be a leader. Be f**king presidential.”

He went on to say,  “Look, I grew up in a society where I could say ‘It ain’t’ or ‘What it be’ to my friends. But when I’m out presenting myself to the world as me, who graduated from college, who had family who cared about me, who has a well-read background, I f**king conjugate.”

He turned pro in 1967 and won 16 straight bouts before being knocked out by Jose Luis Garcia. Soon afterward, he read Napoleon Hill’s motivational book “Think and Grow Rich.”

“I must have read that book 100 times while in training, and I became a stronger person for it,” BoxRec.com quoted him as saying. He said that he believed in the book’s philosophy that a person could do the unexpected if he put his mind to it.

“So I train for my fights mentally as well as physically,” he said. “One thing I do is only watch films of the fights in which I’ve done well or in which my opponent has done poorly.”

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Carson Ketter passed for 218 yards and two touchdowns as North Beach crushed South Bend in a non-league meeting of Pacific League rivals on Friday at Lt. Jim Davis Field.

Ketter completed 11 of 12 passes. His scoring tosses went for 51 yards to Steven Fry and 39 yards to Skyler Wells.

“The big story tonight was Carson Ketter’s ability to find the open receiver and throw strikes,” Hyak coach Todd Bridge said. “Eleven-of-12 for 218 yards. It’s been a long time since a Hyak quarterback has done that.”

Ketter’s TD pass to Fry came on North Beach’s second scrimmage play, with Pedro Gonzalez running in the conversion.

The undermanned Indians retaliated by marching the length of the field, with Mitch Edwards scoring on a 1-yard run. But the Hyaks (2-0) dominated the line of scrimmage the rest of the way.

Jordan Chong scored on runs of 25 and 11 yards. Cameron Keller also ran for two TDs, from 2 and 9 yards out.

North Beach’s other touchdowns came on Saul Gonzalez’s 9-yard run and Pedro Gonzalez’s 1-yard plunge.

Gonzalez had three conversion runs, while Chong, Keller and Gabe Hernandez each scored one conversion.

South Bend coach Tom Sanchez said his team played well until fumbling in the second quarter with the Hyaks ahead 22-6.

“Once it became 30-6, the rout was on and then it got ugly,” Sanchez said.

The Indians also lost quarterback Austin Lewis to a chest injury.

Four Hyaks rushed for at least 50 yards, with Wells leading with 87 yards on five carries. Wells was also cited for his defensive play, along with Pedro Gonzalez, Justin Chong and Jacob McCabe-Brown.

Sanchez cited the play off his offensive line and Jordan Dockter and Marcus Overstake on defense.

The Hyaks open Pacific League play Friday at home against Naselle. The Indians (0-2) will next host Adna in a non-leaguer on Sept. 27.

The Broncos retired his No. 18, but he gave Peyton Manning permission to wear it when he joined Denver in 2012.

“It’s been retired for 50 years,” he told The Star-Ledger of Newark. “That’s enough.”

Consider the curious case of Doug Williams, the former quarterback of the Washington Redskins and Super Bowl MVP. In 1998, Williams took over the football program at Grambling, a Division I-AA program, where he proceeded to win fifty-two of his first seventy games. In short, Williams had an ideal profile for a major college coaching job. He had done everything possible to earn that consideration: with an NFL pedigree and a proven record as a college head coach, he related well to young people and obviously knew the game.

After the 2002 season, the athletic director at the University of Kentucky called and asked him to be a candidate for the school's vacant head coaching job. The phone call was a potential history-maker, because at that time, no school in the Southeastern Conference had ever hired a black head football coach. Kentucky could have made Williams the first. He had a great interview with athletic director Mitch Barnhart ... or so Williams thought.

A few days later, Barnhart told Williams the school wanted to go in a different direction. Kentucky ended up hiring Rich Brooks, the former University of Oregon head coach, who was looking for a place to land after two unsuccessful seasons in the NFL with the St. Louis Rams.

How did Brooks do? Before retiring in 2009, he compiled a 39-47 record in seven seasons as Kentucky's head coach, although he did win three bowl games and finish 7-6 in his final season. I guess that's not terrible. But in my opinion, Williams was just as deserving of the opportunity. It's obvious to me that given a choice between a retread such as Brooks or a fresh face and a proven winner like Williams, it would make sense for Barnhart and the school to select a proven winner like Williams. However, Kentucky went with the retread. Why?

After being told by Kentucky that he'd been eliminated as a candidate, Williams asked Barnhart the same question. "He told me that he was more 'comfortable' with hiring Coach Brooks," Williams said in August 2003, eight months later, when he appeared at a seminar about minority coaches that I helped organize. And how did Williams respond to that remark from Barnhart? "I didn't know how to respond," Williams said. "I still don't know what that means."

"UCI occurs when senior personnel, wittingly or unwittingly, have acted to influence court members, witnesses, or others participating in military justice cases. Such unlawful influence not only jeopardizes the validity of the judicial process, it undermines the morale of military members, their respect for the chain of command, and public confidence in the military."

"it is absolutely the case that the President's red line is the use of chemical weapons or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups."

"We go on to reaffirm that the President has set a clear red line as it relates to the United States that the use of chemical weapons or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups is a red line that is not acceptable to us, nor should it be to the international community."

“That's not something I just made up. I didn't pluck it out of thin air. I didn’t set a red line, the world set a red line. My credibility’s not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility’s on the line."

They didn't turn it over.  Not once.

They didn't have stupid penalties.   Not one on offense.

They didn't have any obvious (to me) blown assignments.

They tackled well, overall.

They were sound in the kicking game.

They were tough on the goal line. They gave up one very questionable score from the one-yard line.

One of the film’s most jarring moments comes when Hall of Fame wide receiver Cris Carter declares, “Our best coaches are coaching our best players, and that’s in professional football. Our worst coaches are coaching the most critical position, and that is the 9-, 10-, 11-year-old people.”