Last night the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the tough Arizona Cardinals in a real nail biter, 27-23. Since I'm a big Steeler fan, having grown up in the Burgh, I was hoping for a blowout so that by the middle of the third quarter I could relax and be virtually sure that the Steelers had won their sixth Vince Lombardi trophy. This was not about to happen though and when Larry Fitzgerald caught his second touchdown pass to put the Cards up by a score of 23-20 with two minutes and change remaining I thought, wow, the Cards, with Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald et al really have given the Steelers all they can handle and more. Can Big Ben bring the Black and Gold back to tie this game and send it into overtime?
Well, we all saw what happened. Ben Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes, along with the rest of the Steeler offense, marched down the field with a real key play being the short pass to Holmes, of The Ohio State University, which he turned into a a 40 yard gain to the Cardinal 6 yard line. All of a sudden it was first and goal with about 50 seconds left. Offensive coordinator Bruce Arians' play menu really had done what it was supposed to do against Arizona. It had put the Steelers in a position to win the game at the last second. With the great Hines Ward playing at limited capacity, Santonio Holmes really picked up the slack. Holmes not only was a receiver par excellance but he really could pick up yardage after the catch. His game winning catch at the corner of the end zone was a great play and was a fitting way to end what was a wonderful game that could have gone either way.
This game fell into the same category a handful other great NFL championship games that came right down to the wire with a victory pulled from the jaws of defeat at the "last moment" of the game with a touchdown pass.
In addition to the gem last night, in which the Chicago.........whoops, St. Louis......., whoops, Arizona Cardinals darn near beat the Steelers, I've got to put last night's Steeler's win into the same pantheon of NFL championship games as the 1953 Lions victory over the Cleveland Browns when Bobby Layne threw a "last minute" touchdown pass to Jim Doran to seal the deal in a 17-16 Lions victory; the 1988 game in which Joe Montana led the Forty Niners to a last minute 20-16 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, and the game last year in which Eli Manning and his receivers managed to drive down the field to beat the "unbeatable" New England Patriots 17-14.
Super Bowls don't give any more theater than they did last night, in spite of the huge number of penalties that were called on both teams.
Easily lost in the excitement of the final scoring drives of the Cards and Steelers were the run defenses of both teams, the O-line play of both teams, the 100 yard interception return by defensive lineman James Harrison and the holding call that gave the Cards a magic two points and almost sent the game into overtime.
Super Bowl XLIII was a game for the ages that could have been won by either team.
Take care. :-)
Monday, February 2, 2009
Monday, September 1, 2008
A Fan's View of Dave Schultz
I've been a big fan of Dave Schultz, the great college and free style wrestler, ever since I read an article in Denny Diehl's National Mat News in the late fall of 1980 about Dave. Denny's article highlighted Dave's return to the national collegiate wrestling scene. He'd been gone for a while, leaving Oklahoma State, where in the 1977-1978 season he'd been named NCAA freshman wrestler of the year, wrestling mostly at 158 pounds, and transferring to UCLA to join his younger brother Mark. Dave had to sit out a year after this transfer only to have the Bruins drop wrestling after his "sit out" year. So Dave, with brother Mark in tow, went back to the big time with the two of them ending up at Oklahoma, arch rival of the Okie State Cowboys where Dave had started his college wrestling career.
Before I go any further with this, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know about it, Dave was murdered in 1996 at the age of 36 by his "benefactor" at the Foxcatcher Wrestling Club near Philadelphia, John Dupont, a mentally disturbed individual who had lots of Dupont money.
Dave's death occurred after a great wrestling career in both free style and college wrestling but way, way too early in life for a person as beautiful as Dave was. I use the term beautiful because everything I've ever read about Dave that was said before and after his death by people who really knew him painted a picture of him as a loving husband, father, son, brother, friend and teacher of wrestling fundmentals.
Denny Diehl's National Mat News article that highlighted Dave's return to the college scene concentrated on the fact that at the Bedlam Series wrestling match between OSU and OU that Dave had handily beaten the returning NCAA champ at 158 pounds Ricky Stewart by a score of 10-3. Ironically, as I found out from his brother Mark about a month ago, from a posting on a forum that Mark is currently engaged in posting to, that Stewart, I'm sure unwittingly, played a part in Dave's leaving OSU. According to one of Mark Schultz's posts, Dave had been adament with his OSU coach, Tommy Chesbro, that he wanted to wrestle at 158 pounds in his sophomore year at OSU. Chesbro had other ideas. His plan was to use redshirt freshman Ricky Stewart at 158 pounds and move Dave to 150 pounds, a weight that Dave was not nearly as comfortable with.
As a result, according to Mark Schultz, in one of his forum postings, Dave told Mark to stay away from OSU, which was recruiting Mark and Dave himself left the Cowboy wrestling team, joining his brother at UCLA. Then after sitting out two years and losing a year of elegibility due to two transfers Dave, as well as Mark were now at Oklahoma. This was most certainly OSU's loss since the presence of the Schultz brothers, in addition to Okie State's already strong lineup would have presented a much more difficult team for Dan Gable's "Stormtroopers" to contend with for the NCAA team crown in the time period 1979-1982. Dave was already one of the very best wrestler's in the country and Mark would go on to be a three time NCAA champion.
I found a benchmark of how good Dave was as a freshman just the other night when I found a terrific web site where I could examine his freshman year record in which he went 30-4-1 while wrestling at 158 pounds for all his dual matches except one. The four losses that he incurred were to two time (soon to be three time within several months) NCAA chanp Lee Kemp by a score of 3-1 at 158 pounds, 1979's 158 pound champ Kelly Ward 2-0, again at 158 pounds and then to Joe Zuspann 9-4 in the Big 8 championships where he'd dropped to 150 pounds and finally to the great Mark Churella at 150 pounds in the NCAA semi-finals, a match in which Dave almost pinned the formidable Michigan star Churella in a barnburner of a match finally won by Churella 13-10. Dave then beat Zuspann in a consolation match to garner third place at 150 pounds, a weight he was not as well suited to as he was to 158 pounds.
Ironically I was in the audience at the University of Maryland's Cole Field house when Dave wrestled Churella but had no idea who either of them were until I saw that Churella had won the NCAA crown when The National Mat News came out. Dave didn't show up on my radar until he returned to the collegiate mat scene at Oklahoma and handily took down Stewart in the first Bedlam Series match of that year.
Denny Diehl was so effusive in his praise of Dave after the Stewart match that, although I was a big Iowa fan, Dave became the individual who seemed to me to be the best wrestler in the nation that year and one who became my individual favorite after I read Diehl's interesting article. Dave was on his way to proving how very good he was by ringing up a 29-0 regular season record prior to entering the NCAA tournament. Along the way he stuffed up and coming superstar Mike Sheets of OSU 20-4 in the second Bedlam Series match that year before beating Stewart again 4-2 to win the Big 8 championship.
Dave then bullied his way to the NCAA semifinals where he had a very close match with Perry Shea, winning 6-5, setting up his NCAA finals match with Ricky Stewart.
Dave was leading Stewart 3-1 near the end of the second period of the match when he went for a takedown and Stewart hit Dave with his trademark move a fireman's carry with which he was able to take Dave down and pin him. When I read about it the next day in the newspaper, I was really crushed. How could "The Chairman of the Board" as the media was referring to Dave that year, have been pinned by someone he'd owned all year long?
Recently I've read, somewhere on the internet, that Dave remarked to his coach Stan Abel, after the 1981 finals loss to Stewart, that, "I should have listened to you" referring I guess to Abel's warning about Stewart's fireman's carry.
I've often wondered how Dave felt about losing that match to Stewart. My guess is that he took it in stride since he had always been interested more in international freestyle wrestling than in the folkstyle used in collegiate wrestling. He certainly came back with a vengeance the next year, winning the the NCAA championship the next year in a close match over the very talented OSU sophomore Mike Sheets (who was to go 74-0 in his last two years of collegiate wrestling).
Another thing that makes me think that Dave handled the loss to Ricky Stewart pretty well is that last year I found a picture on the internet that showed Dave and the Oklahoma heavyweight, Steve (Dr. Death) Williams hoisting Mark Schultz up after he won his first NCAA championship (at 167 pounds) about 15 minutes after Dave had lost to Stewart, and Dave looks so happy in that picture that it's hard to believe that that loss to Stewart bothered him that much.
I followed Dave closely through The National Mat News and then Amatuer Wrestling News as he won the 1982 NCAA championship at 167 pounds, the World Freestyle Wrestling Championship at 163 pounds in 1983, Amateur Wrestling News Man of the Year for 1983, the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal at 163 pounds, the Gold Medal in the prestigious Tbilisi Tournament in Russia in 1984 and 1991, (Dave being the only American to win this tournament twice) and 5 World Cup Gold Medals.
The guy was great to root for if you're a wrestling fan but just recently I've run across articles on the internet and Youtube interviews and tributes to Dave that made me realize that he was so much more well respected within the wrestling community than I ever thought he was and I was quite impressed with Dave and his standing within the wrestling community before I learned any of this.
Of interest are some of the things his brother Mark has to say about him. If you're interested in some of Mark's comments about Dave I recommend that you Google "Ask Mark Schultz Anything" to see what his "little brother" has to say about Dave in a forum sponsered by thematforums.com.
Of special interest to Dave Schultz fans is an article from Sports Illustrated that is located in this same forum.
I guess I'll never truly get by Dave losing to Ricky Stewart in the 1981 NCAA finals but Dave sure did.
Take care. :-)
Before I go any further with this, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know about it, Dave was murdered in 1996 at the age of 36 by his "benefactor" at the Foxcatcher Wrestling Club near Philadelphia, John Dupont, a mentally disturbed individual who had lots of Dupont money.
Dave's death occurred after a great wrestling career in both free style and college wrestling but way, way too early in life for a person as beautiful as Dave was. I use the term beautiful because everything I've ever read about Dave that was said before and after his death by people who really knew him painted a picture of him as a loving husband, father, son, brother, friend and teacher of wrestling fundmentals.
Denny Diehl's National Mat News article that highlighted Dave's return to the college scene concentrated on the fact that at the Bedlam Series wrestling match between OSU and OU that Dave had handily beaten the returning NCAA champ at 158 pounds Ricky Stewart by a score of 10-3. Ironically, as I found out from his brother Mark about a month ago, from a posting on a forum that Mark is currently engaged in posting to, that Stewart, I'm sure unwittingly, played a part in Dave's leaving OSU. According to one of Mark Schultz's posts, Dave had been adament with his OSU coach, Tommy Chesbro, that he wanted to wrestle at 158 pounds in his sophomore year at OSU. Chesbro had other ideas. His plan was to use redshirt freshman Ricky Stewart at 158 pounds and move Dave to 150 pounds, a weight that Dave was not nearly as comfortable with.
As a result, according to Mark Schultz, in one of his forum postings, Dave told Mark to stay away from OSU, which was recruiting Mark and Dave himself left the Cowboy wrestling team, joining his brother at UCLA. Then after sitting out two years and losing a year of elegibility due to two transfers Dave, as well as Mark were now at Oklahoma. This was most certainly OSU's loss since the presence of the Schultz brothers, in addition to Okie State's already strong lineup would have presented a much more difficult team for Dan Gable's "Stormtroopers" to contend with for the NCAA team crown in the time period 1979-1982. Dave was already one of the very best wrestler's in the country and Mark would go on to be a three time NCAA champion.
I found a benchmark of how good Dave was as a freshman just the other night when I found a terrific web site where I could examine his freshman year record in which he went 30-4-1 while wrestling at 158 pounds for all his dual matches except one. The four losses that he incurred were to two time (soon to be three time within several months) NCAA chanp Lee Kemp by a score of 3-1 at 158 pounds, 1979's 158 pound champ Kelly Ward 2-0, again at 158 pounds and then to Joe Zuspann 9-4 in the Big 8 championships where he'd dropped to 150 pounds and finally to the great Mark Churella at 150 pounds in the NCAA semi-finals, a match in which Dave almost pinned the formidable Michigan star Churella in a barnburner of a match finally won by Churella 13-10. Dave then beat Zuspann in a consolation match to garner third place at 150 pounds, a weight he was not as well suited to as he was to 158 pounds.
Ironically I was in the audience at the University of Maryland's Cole Field house when Dave wrestled Churella but had no idea who either of them were until I saw that Churella had won the NCAA crown when The National Mat News came out. Dave didn't show up on my radar until he returned to the collegiate mat scene at Oklahoma and handily took down Stewart in the first Bedlam Series match of that year.
Denny Diehl was so effusive in his praise of Dave after the Stewart match that, although I was a big Iowa fan, Dave became the individual who seemed to me to be the best wrestler in the nation that year and one who became my individual favorite after I read Diehl's interesting article. Dave was on his way to proving how very good he was by ringing up a 29-0 regular season record prior to entering the NCAA tournament. Along the way he stuffed up and coming superstar Mike Sheets of OSU 20-4 in the second Bedlam Series match that year before beating Stewart again 4-2 to win the Big 8 championship.
Dave then bullied his way to the NCAA semifinals where he had a very close match with Perry Shea, winning 6-5, setting up his NCAA finals match with Ricky Stewart.
Dave was leading Stewart 3-1 near the end of the second period of the match when he went for a takedown and Stewart hit Dave with his trademark move a fireman's carry with which he was able to take Dave down and pin him. When I read about it the next day in the newspaper, I was really crushed. How could "The Chairman of the Board" as the media was referring to Dave that year, have been pinned by someone he'd owned all year long?
Recently I've read, somewhere on the internet, that Dave remarked to his coach Stan Abel, after the 1981 finals loss to Stewart, that, "I should have listened to you" referring I guess to Abel's warning about Stewart's fireman's carry.
I've often wondered how Dave felt about losing that match to Stewart. My guess is that he took it in stride since he had always been interested more in international freestyle wrestling than in the folkstyle used in collegiate wrestling. He certainly came back with a vengeance the next year, winning the the NCAA championship the next year in a close match over the very talented OSU sophomore Mike Sheets (who was to go 74-0 in his last two years of collegiate wrestling).
Another thing that makes me think that Dave handled the loss to Ricky Stewart pretty well is that last year I found a picture on the internet that showed Dave and the Oklahoma heavyweight, Steve (Dr. Death) Williams hoisting Mark Schultz up after he won his first NCAA championship (at 167 pounds) about 15 minutes after Dave had lost to Stewart, and Dave looks so happy in that picture that it's hard to believe that that loss to Stewart bothered him that much.
I followed Dave closely through The National Mat News and then Amatuer Wrestling News as he won the 1982 NCAA championship at 167 pounds, the World Freestyle Wrestling Championship at 163 pounds in 1983, Amateur Wrestling News Man of the Year for 1983, the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal at 163 pounds, the Gold Medal in the prestigious Tbilisi Tournament in Russia in 1984 and 1991, (Dave being the only American to win this tournament twice) and 5 World Cup Gold Medals.
The guy was great to root for if you're a wrestling fan but just recently I've run across articles on the internet and Youtube interviews and tributes to Dave that made me realize that he was so much more well respected within the wrestling community than I ever thought he was and I was quite impressed with Dave and his standing within the wrestling community before I learned any of this.
Of interest are some of the things his brother Mark has to say about him. If you're interested in some of Mark's comments about Dave I recommend that you Google "Ask Mark Schultz Anything" to see what his "little brother" has to say about Dave in a forum sponsered by thematforums.com.
Of special interest to Dave Schultz fans is an article from Sports Illustrated that is located in this same forum.
I guess I'll never truly get by Dave losing to Ricky Stewart in the 1981 NCAA finals but Dave sure did.
Take care. :-)
Sunday, August 10, 2008
I Took An Open Cockpit Bi-Plane Ride Today
Today, as a belated father's day gift I got to take a half hour ride in an open cockpit bi-plane. Wow doesn't even begin to describe it.
The trip was taken from the Harford County Maryland Airport in Churchville, about 10 minutes from Cal Ripken Stadium just outside of Aberdeen, MD.
My wife, my two children and their spouses, as well as my grandsons all showed up for the event. We were all there early and got to look at the bright yellow 1942 Stearman Navy Trainer that's been restored to mint condition and is owned by Mike Jerrod of Barnstormer Aero in Belair, MD.
Mike didn't show up until about 11:15 for an 11;30 flight and when I first saw him, I thought, "Here's a husky guy about 50 years old who I'm going to let drag me through the sunlit Maryland skies for half an hour. I hope he knows what he's doing."
Then Mike took his sunglasses off and I saw the confidence and competence in his ice blue eyes. Here was a guy who, when he talked to you, looked you right in the eye and made you feel totally confident that things were going to be lots of fun once we climbed aboard his aircraft and entered sacred airspace, i.e anywhere 2000 or more feet above the ground.
I first become enchanted with bi-planes when I saw the movie "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines". Then I read Richard Bach's and Rinker Buck's wonderful books about flying bi-planes and I, from that moment on, wanted a bi-plane ride even more than a ride in an F-16. (I've been fortunate enough to have ridden AWACS aircraft in France and in England. But after an open cockpit bi-plane ride I have to say Pfffffufff to an AWACS aircraft ride.)
Today was the day and I have to admit I had been a little nervous all week thinking about what could go wrong. That was until I met Mike Jerrod. The guy radiated confidence that was incredibly contagious and I was ready to get on with the flight. Mike asked me where I wanted to fly to and the place I suggested was too far away. He suggested that we fly out over the Susqehanna River at Havre de Grace, MD where the big river empties into the Chesapeake Bay. I said, "That sounds good to me."
With that agreed upon, Mike's assistant, a young WVU student on summer break filled me in on all the passenger rules that pertained and helped me into the front seat of the big yellow Stearman and affixed the harness that held me snugly in the front open cockpit. Mike then climbed in and we were off, rolling across the grassy runway that is used by some of the planes at the airport, especially Mike's bi-plane. We taxied down to the takeoff roll initiation point, turned and headed into the wind and with a roar the 200 horsepower eight cylinder radial engine and big wooden propeller sent us down the long grass runway and, I swear to all that's holy, it seemed like it only took us 100 feet of runway to get airborne. It took, in retrospect, probably 300 or 400 hundred feet but still an amazing experience.
Once airborne, it felt like there was no way this double winged monster could let us down, short of complete engine failure and as we climbed to what seemed like an altitude of 2000 feet and sailed above a lush green countryside I knew that, for me, this was the ultimate way to travel from one place to another. I now knew what it was like for Richard Bach and the Amis in the Lafayette Escadrille of WWI to push through the skies in a wonderful open cockpit bi-plane with the wind whipping past their ears and the feeling that if you had a big enough gas tank, you'd never come down from the skies except to eat and a very few other things.
The big yellow Stearman that Mike Jerrod was flying, as he sat about eight feet behind me felt so solid that I never felt any yaw sensation through out the entire flight. At one point, Mike jiggled the stick to ask if I wanted to fly the bright yellow bird and I took control of her for about 5 minutes as while we were over the Susquehanna River. Wow; here I was at the stick of an Open Cockpit Bi-Plane! I felt like a kid at Christmas.
All too soon Mike took the controls back from me and we headed home.
During the 30 minute ride, Mike made sure that he did plenty of steep bank maneauvers along with some roller coaster pitch up and pitch down maneauvers. I could have spent all day up in that big yellow Stearman just gambolling about the sun drenched sky. I had, before I met Mike in person asked him over the phone if he could do some barrel rolls and maybe a vertical loop during our flight. Sadly he had to tell me that aerobatic maneauvers such as I was describing required that I have a parachute during the ride as well as parachute training. Still the 30 minute ride in the big Stearman was a dream come true. It beat the heck out of riding on the back of Dick Stover's Triumph motorcycle back in 1958 and it beat the hack out of riding in a speedboat at 40 mph off Conneaut, Ohio in 1955, both terrific experiences, but not open cockpit bi-plane rides.
While Mike and his assistant were doing preflight I walked by a pilot who had just flown his single engine Cessna in from Delaware about 30 minutes earlier and he smiled at me and said, " I really envy you going up in that bi-plane with Mike." His implication was real clear and my bi-plane ride today fulfilled all it's promise and then some.
Still, though, another fellow at the airport told me that a guy who had ridden with Mike just a week or two ago had also recently ridden a bi-plane somewhere in Virginia where the pilot had taken him up for a ride and did barrel rolls, some vertical loops and a hammerhead stall and had done it wthout his passenger having a parachute. This I'll have to check out.
Take care. :-)
The trip was taken from the Harford County Maryland Airport in Churchville, about 10 minutes from Cal Ripken Stadium just outside of Aberdeen, MD.
My wife, my two children and their spouses, as well as my grandsons all showed up for the event. We were all there early and got to look at the bright yellow 1942 Stearman Navy Trainer that's been restored to mint condition and is owned by Mike Jerrod of Barnstormer Aero in Belair, MD.
Mike didn't show up until about 11:15 for an 11;30 flight and when I first saw him, I thought, "Here's a husky guy about 50 years old who I'm going to let drag me through the sunlit Maryland skies for half an hour. I hope he knows what he's doing."
Then Mike took his sunglasses off and I saw the confidence and competence in his ice blue eyes. Here was a guy who, when he talked to you, looked you right in the eye and made you feel totally confident that things were going to be lots of fun once we climbed aboard his aircraft and entered sacred airspace, i.e anywhere 2000 or more feet above the ground.
I first become enchanted with bi-planes when I saw the movie "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines". Then I read Richard Bach's and Rinker Buck's wonderful books about flying bi-planes and I, from that moment on, wanted a bi-plane ride even more than a ride in an F-16. (I've been fortunate enough to have ridden AWACS aircraft in France and in England. But after an open cockpit bi-plane ride I have to say Pfffffufff to an AWACS aircraft ride.)
Today was the day and I have to admit I had been a little nervous all week thinking about what could go wrong. That was until I met Mike Jerrod. The guy radiated confidence that was incredibly contagious and I was ready to get on with the flight. Mike asked me where I wanted to fly to and the place I suggested was too far away. He suggested that we fly out over the Susqehanna River at Havre de Grace, MD where the big river empties into the Chesapeake Bay. I said, "That sounds good to me."
With that agreed upon, Mike's assistant, a young WVU student on summer break filled me in on all the passenger rules that pertained and helped me into the front seat of the big yellow Stearman and affixed the harness that held me snugly in the front open cockpit. Mike then climbed in and we were off, rolling across the grassy runway that is used by some of the planes at the airport, especially Mike's bi-plane. We taxied down to the takeoff roll initiation point, turned and headed into the wind and with a roar the 200 horsepower eight cylinder radial engine and big wooden propeller sent us down the long grass runway and, I swear to all that's holy, it seemed like it only took us 100 feet of runway to get airborne. It took, in retrospect, probably 300 or 400 hundred feet but still an amazing experience.
Once airborne, it felt like there was no way this double winged monster could let us down, short of complete engine failure and as we climbed to what seemed like an altitude of 2000 feet and sailed above a lush green countryside I knew that, for me, this was the ultimate way to travel from one place to another. I now knew what it was like for Richard Bach and the Amis in the Lafayette Escadrille of WWI to push through the skies in a wonderful open cockpit bi-plane with the wind whipping past their ears and the feeling that if you had a big enough gas tank, you'd never come down from the skies except to eat and a very few other things.
The big yellow Stearman that Mike Jerrod was flying, as he sat about eight feet behind me felt so solid that I never felt any yaw sensation through out the entire flight. At one point, Mike jiggled the stick to ask if I wanted to fly the bright yellow bird and I took control of her for about 5 minutes as while we were over the Susquehanna River. Wow; here I was at the stick of an Open Cockpit Bi-Plane! I felt like a kid at Christmas.
All too soon Mike took the controls back from me and we headed home.
During the 30 minute ride, Mike made sure that he did plenty of steep bank maneauvers along with some roller coaster pitch up and pitch down maneauvers. I could have spent all day up in that big yellow Stearman just gambolling about the sun drenched sky. I had, before I met Mike in person asked him over the phone if he could do some barrel rolls and maybe a vertical loop during our flight. Sadly he had to tell me that aerobatic maneauvers such as I was describing required that I have a parachute during the ride as well as parachute training. Still the 30 minute ride in the big Stearman was a dream come true. It beat the heck out of riding on the back of Dick Stover's Triumph motorcycle back in 1958 and it beat the hack out of riding in a speedboat at 40 mph off Conneaut, Ohio in 1955, both terrific experiences, but not open cockpit bi-plane rides.
While Mike and his assistant were doing preflight I walked by a pilot who had just flown his single engine Cessna in from Delaware about 30 minutes earlier and he smiled at me and said, " I really envy you going up in that bi-plane with Mike." His implication was real clear and my bi-plane ride today fulfilled all it's promise and then some.
Still, though, another fellow at the airport told me that a guy who had ridden with Mike just a week or two ago had also recently ridden a bi-plane somewhere in Virginia where the pilot had taken him up for a ride and did barrel rolls, some vertical loops and a hammerhead stall and had done it wthout his passenger having a parachute. This I'll have to check out.
Take care. :-)
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Former Hokies Help Hawks
Okay. I'm a big Iowa wrestling fan and it was great to see the Hawkeyes win the NCAA wrestling championship again, their first since 2000.
The Hawkeyes got back to the top of the wrestling world for this year with a lot of help from some ex-Virginia Tech Hokies. First there was Tom Brands who returned to Iowa last year as head coach. He came back to Iowa City from Blacksburg where he'd gone to coach the Virginia Tech wrestling team. He coached the Hawkseyes to an NCAA title in his second year as head man at Iowa.
One of things he did to greatly aid his cause was to recruit five studs to Virginia Tech and then when Iowa called him back to the place where he won 3 NCAA championships under legendary coach Dan Gable, he brought these five studs with him. Four of them were starters for Iowa this year as redshirt sophomores. And three of them became hign echelon All Americans at the NCAAs this year.
Ex-Hokie supersoph (not to jinx this young man) Brent Metcalf won the 149 pound championship, while ex-Hokie, Joey Slaton took second in the NCAA tourney and former Hokie Jay Borschel took third place in the NCAAs as the Hawkeyes ran away with the tournament with seven All Americans including Mark Perry, champion at 165 pounds for the second straight year, Perry being the nephew of Oklahoma State coaching great John Smith.
If things go true to form, Brands will use his first title as a spring board to recruit some more blue chip recruits to Iowa City to help keep Iowa at or near the top of the wrestling world for a while. Also, if things go true to form, ex-Hokies Metcalf, Slaton, Borschel, Dan Leclere and T. H. Leet will all improve and keep on doing great things for Iowa wrestling for the next two years and work well with All Americans junior Charlie Falck and sophomore Phil Keddy as well as with Hawkeyes that we've not heard a lot from yet including sophs Ryan Morningstar and Chad Beatty.
It'll be fun to watch Iowa wrestling under Tom Brands, especially if he's able to continue to corral talent like the Blacksburg Five and keep it flowing through Iowa City.
He'll need to since John Smith, J Robinson and Cael Sanderson, to name some of his main coaching competitors, sure aren't going to be standing still.
By the way, if you want to read a great book about amateur wrestling, get the one I'm reading for the second time now, "Cowboy Up" by Kim Parrish which is about John Smith and the Oklahoma State wrestling program. It's as good as Nolan Zavoral's great book about Dan Gable and the Iowa wrestling program, "A Season on the Mat".
Take care. :)
The Hawkeyes got back to the top of the wrestling world for this year with a lot of help from some ex-Virginia Tech Hokies. First there was Tom Brands who returned to Iowa last year as head coach. He came back to Iowa City from Blacksburg where he'd gone to coach the Virginia Tech wrestling team. He coached the Hawkseyes to an NCAA title in his second year as head man at Iowa.
One of things he did to greatly aid his cause was to recruit five studs to Virginia Tech and then when Iowa called him back to the place where he won 3 NCAA championships under legendary coach Dan Gable, he brought these five studs with him. Four of them were starters for Iowa this year as redshirt sophomores. And three of them became hign echelon All Americans at the NCAAs this year.
Ex-Hokie supersoph (not to jinx this young man) Brent Metcalf won the 149 pound championship, while ex-Hokie, Joey Slaton took second in the NCAA tourney and former Hokie Jay Borschel took third place in the NCAAs as the Hawkeyes ran away with the tournament with seven All Americans including Mark Perry, champion at 165 pounds for the second straight year, Perry being the nephew of Oklahoma State coaching great John Smith.
If things go true to form, Brands will use his first title as a spring board to recruit some more blue chip recruits to Iowa City to help keep Iowa at or near the top of the wrestling world for a while. Also, if things go true to form, ex-Hokies Metcalf, Slaton, Borschel, Dan Leclere and T. H. Leet will all improve and keep on doing great things for Iowa wrestling for the next two years and work well with All Americans junior Charlie Falck and sophomore Phil Keddy as well as with Hawkeyes that we've not heard a lot from yet including sophs Ryan Morningstar and Chad Beatty.
It'll be fun to watch Iowa wrestling under Tom Brands, especially if he's able to continue to corral talent like the Blacksburg Five and keep it flowing through Iowa City.
He'll need to since John Smith, J Robinson and Cael Sanderson, to name some of his main coaching competitors, sure aren't going to be standing still.
By the way, if you want to read a great book about amateur wrestling, get the one I'm reading for the second time now, "Cowboy Up" by Kim Parrish which is about John Smith and the Oklahoma State wrestling program. It's as good as Nolan Zavoral's great book about Dan Gable and the Iowa wrestling program, "A Season on the Mat".
Take care. :)
Monday, January 28, 2008
Ron Pifer's Leg Wrestling Video
Ron Pifer was a great wrestler at Penn State from 1960 to 1962 as you'll find out in several of my other blogs. I attended PSU at the same time he did and saw him wrestle a great deal while I was a student there.
He forte was leg wrestling and quickness and for those who want to learn more about leg wrestling from an expert, Ron has put together a four hour tutorial on two CDs called "Ron Pifer's Leg Wrestling Techniques".
It can be obtained by contacting Ron at rvp12@scasd.org or by writing to him at:
Ron Pifer
2360 West Branch Road
State College, PA 16801
The video set costs $49.99 including shipping and handling. If you're interested, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.
Enjoy. :)
He forte was leg wrestling and quickness and for those who want to learn more about leg wrestling from an expert, Ron has put together a four hour tutorial on two CDs called "Ron Pifer's Leg Wrestling Techniques".
It can be obtained by contacting Ron at rvp12@scasd.org or by writing to him at:
Ron Pifer
2360 West Branch Road
State College, PA 16801
The video set costs $49.99 including shipping and handling. If you're interested, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.
Enjoy. :)
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Penn State Wrestling - Circa 1960
I first became interested in freestyle wrestling when I was a junior at Mount Lebanon High School in suburban Pittsburgh, PA. This was in the fall of 1956. Our coach was a great guy named George Lamprinakos (Lampy, to all of us who had him as a Phys Ed instructor). Lampy would go on to coach Kurt Angle to a PIAA state championship in 1987 and is mentioned in Angle's autobiography in glowing terms.
But he was a young coach with a first year team in Mount Lebanon in the fall of 1956. How do you take a bunch of guys who have never wrestled before and win with them? But Lampy had to start somewhere and the gaggle of guys who turned out for team tryouts were oh so inexperienced, save one guy by the name of Turney Duff who had just transferred to Mount Lebanon that fall from I believe it was Pennsbury High School in Eastern Pennsylvania, just north of Philly. Turney was pretty good and for that year acted as an assistant caoch and generally whipped anyone who he went up against in the wrestling room, even the heavyweight aspirants. He just knew that much more than the rest of us. Interestingly enough, my freshman year room mate at Penn State, two years later, Bill Blackmon, was a graduate of Pennsbury High also. And Bill had a good friend from high school, Pete Hunt, who he introduced me to and who turned out to be on the same wrestling squad at Pennsbury as Turney Duff. Small world, indeed.
Anyhow, while Turney was chewing up just about all the new Mount Lebanon wrestlers, Lampy had gotten us into pretty good shape and was starting to conduct wrestleoffs. He put me up against George Schein, a terrific athlete and a guy who seemed much bigger than me, at 145 pounds (if I remember correctly). George proceeded to quickly dispatch me with a lightening fast pin. This wasn't the most devastating thing in the world but it gave me an idea where I stood, from a wrestling talent standpoint. It wasn't long until I got a nasty knee infection that kept me out of the wrestling room for several weeks and I soon quit the team, but my interest in the wrestling bloosomed even though it didn't seem a sport that I was cut out for, physically or, more important, mentally.
Fast forward two years and I'm now a freshman at Penn State studying electrical engineering but still incredibly interested in all sports. One day I'm having a conversation about the Penn State wrestling team with a guy in my dorm by the name of Ed Bradley, and he's telling me about a guy who'll be wrestling for the Nittany Lions starting in the fall of 1959 by the name of Ron Pifer. "Pifer", Bradley says, "is a two time PIAA (Pensylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association) champ from nearby Bellfonte, PA and is really going to excite Penn State wrestling fans." I store this information away for future reference.
Now it's late in the fall or early in the winter of 1959 and Penn State has it's first wrestling match of the season. It's at home in the friendly confines of Rec Hall and it's against Michigan. Ronnie Pifer is starting for the Nittany Lions and a bunch of the Nittany 33 dorm gang are in our seats, anxiously awaiting the start of the match. As we're waiting, I see a Michigan wrestler walk out onto the floor to look things over. The guy looks big and tough and I wonder what weight class he's going to wrestle. Then the Michigan wrestler goes back to his locker room and the match soon begins. I don't remember if Penn State beat Michigan that night but I sure do remember seeing Ron Pifer wrestle in his first match for the Lions. It turns out that he wrestles at 167 and goes up against the Michigan bruiser that I saw walk onto the floor before the match. I think it was late in the first period of the 167 pound match that Ron threw what appeared to be a "grapevine" onto the guy from Michigan and pinned him. Rec Hall went crazy and the Lion fans knew that they had a special athete on the wrestling team in Ron Pifer, our new sophomore sensation.
Ron continued to do extremely well for the Lions as his career progressed, much of it wrestled at 157 pounds with an occasional match wrestled at 147 or 167 pounds. He didn't lose very often and was a great leg wrestler who pinned a fair number of his opponents. He won All American honors three times at the NCAA wrestling tournaments of 1960 - 1962, finishing fourth and third at the NCAA's in 1960 and 1962 and took second in the nation in 1961 losing at 147 pounds to Larry Hayes of Iowa State in the tournament finals. Hayes was a senior that year and won his third NCAA championship when he beat Ron 4-0.
I recently had the need to gather some information about Ron's career that I am using in a book that I'm writing and found Ron's E-mail address online. He was very gracious in supplying me with that information just recently and it's something that makes a budding journalist's life so much more easy. Many thanks go out from me to Ron for giving a PSU classmate that he'd never met some information that I'd have had a great deal of trouble locating otherwise.
Ron is now retired from coaching and from his high school principal's job but still works part of the year as an assistant wrestling coach at State College High in State College, PA, the home of the Penn State Nittany Lions. And for you real wrestling fans, the ones who really know the intricacies of wrestling techniques, you might be interested in Ron's two CD four hour wrestling video titled "Ron Pifer's Leg Wrestling Techniques". It's $ 49.99 including shipping and can be gotten by contacting Ron at rvp12@scasd.org or writing to him at Ron Pifer, 2360 West Branch Road, State College, PA 16801.
While at Penn State I was not only fortunate enough to see Ron wrestle numerous times but was also able to see some other really good wrestlers such as Jerry Seckler who, rumor had it, wrestled at 167 and did very well at that spot for the Lions but had to wrestle there since he couldn't beat Pifer out in the 157 pound Lion wrestle offs. I also got to see some good wrestling from a former neighbor of mine in Canonsburg, PA, Bob Haney, who wrestled for Penn State and graduated in 1963, a year behind me.
In the process of seeing most of the wrestling matches that the Nittany Lions wrestled at Rec Hall I got to see two time NCAA champions Dave Auble of Cornell and Mike Natvig of Army, and one time NCAA winners Larry Lauchle of Pitt and Kirk Pendleton of Lehigh when they wrestled Penn State as well as some other really good wrestlers such as Dick Martin and Darryl Kelvington of Pitt and Thad Turner, Dave Angell and Billy Merriman of Lehigh.
I can still hear the PA announcer, when I daydream about those long ago evenings spent at Rec Hall, intoning, " .....and now at 157 pounds Mr. Makarainnen of Cornell versus Mr. Pifer of Penn State." Great memories. :)
But he was a young coach with a first year team in Mount Lebanon in the fall of 1956. How do you take a bunch of guys who have never wrestled before and win with them? But Lampy had to start somewhere and the gaggle of guys who turned out for team tryouts were oh so inexperienced, save one guy by the name of Turney Duff who had just transferred to Mount Lebanon that fall from I believe it was Pennsbury High School in Eastern Pennsylvania, just north of Philly. Turney was pretty good and for that year acted as an assistant caoch and generally whipped anyone who he went up against in the wrestling room, even the heavyweight aspirants. He just knew that much more than the rest of us. Interestingly enough, my freshman year room mate at Penn State, two years later, Bill Blackmon, was a graduate of Pennsbury High also. And Bill had a good friend from high school, Pete Hunt, who he introduced me to and who turned out to be on the same wrestling squad at Pennsbury as Turney Duff. Small world, indeed.
Anyhow, while Turney was chewing up just about all the new Mount Lebanon wrestlers, Lampy had gotten us into pretty good shape and was starting to conduct wrestleoffs. He put me up against George Schein, a terrific athlete and a guy who seemed much bigger than me, at 145 pounds (if I remember correctly). George proceeded to quickly dispatch me with a lightening fast pin. This wasn't the most devastating thing in the world but it gave me an idea where I stood, from a wrestling talent standpoint. It wasn't long until I got a nasty knee infection that kept me out of the wrestling room for several weeks and I soon quit the team, but my interest in the wrestling bloosomed even though it didn't seem a sport that I was cut out for, physically or, more important, mentally.
Fast forward two years and I'm now a freshman at Penn State studying electrical engineering but still incredibly interested in all sports. One day I'm having a conversation about the Penn State wrestling team with a guy in my dorm by the name of Ed Bradley, and he's telling me about a guy who'll be wrestling for the Nittany Lions starting in the fall of 1959 by the name of Ron Pifer. "Pifer", Bradley says, "is a two time PIAA (Pensylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association) champ from nearby Bellfonte, PA and is really going to excite Penn State wrestling fans." I store this information away for future reference.
Now it's late in the fall or early in the winter of 1959 and Penn State has it's first wrestling match of the season. It's at home in the friendly confines of Rec Hall and it's against Michigan. Ronnie Pifer is starting for the Nittany Lions and a bunch of the Nittany 33 dorm gang are in our seats, anxiously awaiting the start of the match. As we're waiting, I see a Michigan wrestler walk out onto the floor to look things over. The guy looks big and tough and I wonder what weight class he's going to wrestle. Then the Michigan wrestler goes back to his locker room and the match soon begins. I don't remember if Penn State beat Michigan that night but I sure do remember seeing Ron Pifer wrestle in his first match for the Lions. It turns out that he wrestles at 167 and goes up against the Michigan bruiser that I saw walk onto the floor before the match. I think it was late in the first period of the 167 pound match that Ron threw what appeared to be a "grapevine" onto the guy from Michigan and pinned him. Rec Hall went crazy and the Lion fans knew that they had a special athete on the wrestling team in Ron Pifer, our new sophomore sensation.
Ron continued to do extremely well for the Lions as his career progressed, much of it wrestled at 157 pounds with an occasional match wrestled at 147 or 167 pounds. He didn't lose very often and was a great leg wrestler who pinned a fair number of his opponents. He won All American honors three times at the NCAA wrestling tournaments of 1960 - 1962, finishing fourth and third at the NCAA's in 1960 and 1962 and took second in the nation in 1961 losing at 147 pounds to Larry Hayes of Iowa State in the tournament finals. Hayes was a senior that year and won his third NCAA championship when he beat Ron 4-0.
I recently had the need to gather some information about Ron's career that I am using in a book that I'm writing and found Ron's E-mail address online. He was very gracious in supplying me with that information just recently and it's something that makes a budding journalist's life so much more easy. Many thanks go out from me to Ron for giving a PSU classmate that he'd never met some information that I'd have had a great deal of trouble locating otherwise.
Ron is now retired from coaching and from his high school principal's job but still works part of the year as an assistant wrestling coach at State College High in State College, PA, the home of the Penn State Nittany Lions. And for you real wrestling fans, the ones who really know the intricacies of wrestling techniques, you might be interested in Ron's two CD four hour wrestling video titled "Ron Pifer's Leg Wrestling Techniques". It's $ 49.99 including shipping and can be gotten by contacting Ron at rvp12@scasd.org or writing to him at Ron Pifer, 2360 West Branch Road, State College, PA 16801.
While at Penn State I was not only fortunate enough to see Ron wrestle numerous times but was also able to see some other really good wrestlers such as Jerry Seckler who, rumor had it, wrestled at 167 and did very well at that spot for the Lions but had to wrestle there since he couldn't beat Pifer out in the 157 pound Lion wrestle offs. I also got to see some good wrestling from a former neighbor of mine in Canonsburg, PA, Bob Haney, who wrestled for Penn State and graduated in 1963, a year behind me.
In the process of seeing most of the wrestling matches that the Nittany Lions wrestled at Rec Hall I got to see two time NCAA champions Dave Auble of Cornell and Mike Natvig of Army, and one time NCAA winners Larry Lauchle of Pitt and Kirk Pendleton of Lehigh when they wrestled Penn State as well as some other really good wrestlers such as Dick Martin and Darryl Kelvington of Pitt and Thad Turner, Dave Angell and Billy Merriman of Lehigh.
I can still hear the PA announcer, when I daydream about those long ago evenings spent at Rec Hall, intoning, " .....and now at 157 pounds Mr. Makarainnen of Cornell versus Mr. Pifer of Penn State." Great memories. :)
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Patriots
I've seen some great pro football teams since I became interested in the sport in the late 1940's. And the New England Patriots certainly look like the belong right up there with the teams that I've considered to be dynasties over the years. Their 16-0 record so far this year and the way they have always been coached to really focus on playing football the right way demands that the world give them incredible respect.
Bill Belichick seems to have the ability to have all his players buy into the almost Zen concept that no one's really a star; that each guy, even Tom Brady, is just a cog in a well oiled machine. Belichick appears to be the modern day paradigm for the position of head coach.
Of course, the Patriots will look even better to historians if they win this year's Super Bowl but if they stumble, then the taking of their place in my pantheon of really great football teams will have to be put on hold.
The teams that the Pats look like they're going to join in Pro Football Valhalla are the Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi (who by the way, could, in my opinion, be winning Super Bowls if he were coaching today, instead of in the 1960's), the great 1970's Pittsburgh Steelers of Chuck Noll and the wonderfully talented 1980's San Francisco Forty Niner teams led by Bill Walsh.
I think the Pats will do it this year even though my heart is with the Steelers of the town where I was born. And if they don't do it this year, I can't imagine them them not doing it next year. It seems that as long as the Pats have Belichick and Brady they are capable of almost anything.
The next five weeks will tell us if the Pats will march to the Vince Lombardi Trophy and join my three Super Teams in Kurt's Hall of Pro Football Dynasties.
Go Steeler's, but you probably won't beat the Pats. They're too good this year for anyone to beat. Even Peyton Manning and his wonderful Colts. :)
Bill Belichick seems to have the ability to have all his players buy into the almost Zen concept that no one's really a star; that each guy, even Tom Brady, is just a cog in a well oiled machine. Belichick appears to be the modern day paradigm for the position of head coach.
Of course, the Patriots will look even better to historians if they win this year's Super Bowl but if they stumble, then the taking of their place in my pantheon of really great football teams will have to be put on hold.
The teams that the Pats look like they're going to join in Pro Football Valhalla are the Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi (who by the way, could, in my opinion, be winning Super Bowls if he were coaching today, instead of in the 1960's), the great 1970's Pittsburgh Steelers of Chuck Noll and the wonderfully talented 1980's San Francisco Forty Niner teams led by Bill Walsh.
I think the Pats will do it this year even though my heart is with the Steelers of the town where I was born. And if they don't do it this year, I can't imagine them them not doing it next year. It seems that as long as the Pats have Belichick and Brady they are capable of almost anything.
The next five weeks will tell us if the Pats will march to the Vince Lombardi Trophy and join my three Super Teams in Kurt's Hall of Pro Football Dynasties.
Go Steeler's, but you probably won't beat the Pats. They're too good this year for anyone to beat. Even Peyton Manning and his wonderful Colts. :)
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