The kmrs online article tells us Kaylee Harstad had eleven kills for the winner. And, Whitney Bruns accumulated 40 assists. The Benson standout was Lilly Slaughter: eleven kills. The Braves are struggling and came out of Thursday 4-15.
It's too bad we had another Homecoming week sports event on Friday - I say that because the opposing team quarterback experienced what might have been a significant injury. If it was, I hope the Minnewaska interests just step forward and call a spade a spade. In other words, please do not give "cover" to the sport of football. A part of us, men mostly of course, might be inclined to do that. It's an old knee-jerk thing to sing the praises of football. How can we not be in love with the sport?
Decades of special infatuation with the sport are coming home to roost now. All those coaches' speeches at banquets where they implore the underclassmen to "lift lots of weights in the off-season." I have heard plenty of such speeches as I covered sports fetes through the years. Sounded harmless at the time. The audience would applaud through the course of the banquet.
Then, slowly, alarm bells started going off about the dangers of football. The enlightenment process has been excruciatingly slow. My, shed football in our popular culture? Many people are still inclined to laugh at the notion. However, I feel more and more people are starting to wake up.
It's amazing how MACA was not called for an unsportsmanlike penalty with about four minutes left Friday. Was the 'Waska quarterback left with a concussion? Odds seem high it's yes. I sure hope there isn't some sort of cover-up on this. I hope there's no cover-up done in the name of protecting our cherished tradition of football.
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| And the MAHS pep band played on (Del Sarlette photo) |
So now I'm criticizing the sacred cow of football. Trump is a sacred cow and so is football. Which one is worse? I'm not sure, but young men are put at great risk playing football. They spend all that time "lifting weights" as their coaches implore, so they can punish opposing players. On Friday we saw this aggression with this Gibson fellow throwing the 'Waska QB down on the turf. The QB needed attention for some minutes and had to be removed from the game.
I couldn't care less if the Tigers lost the game 50-0, my only concern is for the player's health. The 'Waska QB, name of Johnson, should have spent Friday night in the warm comfort of his family's home, maybe doing stuff online. Any concussion can have long-term effects for the sufferer. Were he to suffer another one, risks would increase greatly. So why do we as a society continue to permit this?
Yes, I know there is some degree of physical risk in all sports. What makes football different is that violence is the whole point. We still admire the "hard-hitting" stance of a team. Our former coach Jerry Witt would talk about "smash-mouth football." A masculine attribute, right? No, it is a stupid attribute.
Could there be lawsuit potential from what we saw Friday night at Big Cat? You might laugh: players' parents sign release forms. The real question to ask in connection to lawsuit potential is this: Was it unjust how the injury happened? Simple question, and if the answer is yes, then I say let the lawsuit wheels begin turning.
I seem to recall a different Gibson causing some notoriety in MACA sports in the last academic year.
I sent an email to Mark Torgerson Saturday night. He has not answered. I share my email here:
Hello Mark - Well we got lucky last night with temp over 40 degrees so the band could play.
I checked West Central Tribune website this morning and no paywall. I clicked on "football roundup" and MACA was not there. Not really surprising, but it was good to be able to check. I wonder if WCT is getting lots of complaints about paywall, not that it's expensive, just that it's irritating.
As for the game last night, I'm concerned about the "bear hug" tackle by Hunter Gibson. Remember many years ago when the Vikings were playing the Rams and a Rams player - Jack Youngblood? - wrapped up Tommy Kramer, threw him to the ground and Tommy lay there for a few seconds with "hands twitching?" Scared the heck out of me. Today that would get a lot more media attention.
In the way of constructive criticism, I think maybe the game announcers last night should have speculated on the possibility of an unsportsmanlike conduct call, and spoken more frankly about the concern that should be felt over this injury. This is precisely the type of injury that has football in the hot seat now. Maybe the Morris player wasn't trying to hurt the guy, so he just got caught up in intensity of the moment? Desperate to make a play on third-and-one? I don't give a rip that it was third-and-one, player safety always has to come first IMHO.
I enjoyed being at the parade, weather so perfect even if a bit chilly. No wind! I rode bike out to the bike trail afterward.
- BW
I share here also an email I sent to my Bonanza Valley friend, an old newspaper compatriot:
Hello Randy on Saturday morning, when the "football roundup" link on WCT site would be most popular. I always check just to see what's up, and NO PAYWALL this morning. I was using my standard Chrome browser. Man, remember "Internet Explorer?" That's the first browser we all used at the newspaper. At first I didn't know there was more than one browser. I eventually learned that Google systems tried sabotaging people who used Internet Explorer. So I found a forum where I came across the suggestion to use "Firefox." That solved everything for me as I started blogging, in about 2010. Chrome wasn't around then. Eventually I read the heads-up that we'd all better shift to Chrome. I have, but I use Firefox just for blogging because I like the spell-check system there. I use spell-check as the initial check for typos, obviously it's just a first step in proofreading.
Comedians started telling jokes about Internet Explorer. My first online computer at the Sun Tribune was a HOPELESS hand-me-down. Inexcusable. All the pitfalls of having a "job." Remember when we had to process so many obits from scratch? I could tell stories and stories.
Your (BBE) football team handled ACGC nicely, 48-12. Lots of highlights for podcast.
The MACA game, our Homecoming game, was not in WCT. Doesn't surprise me. I don't think our coach likes calling in late at night. For Homecoming the game goes long because of the length of the halftime ceremony. Not just the MAHS royalty announced, it's C-A too.
Morris won nicely but my blog post of this morning does not focus on that. I am concerned about a brutal take-down of the 'Waska quarterback late in the game - he got slammed onto the turf by this Gibson kid on a third-and-one play. Then the QB had to lay there and be attended to for a while. He walked off, assisted, was replaced. I'd have to guess concussion, possibly serious one. I take the announcers to task for not acknowledging the severity of the play. I also ponder if unsportsmanlike should have been called. I emailed Mark Torgerson a couple hours ago, he hasn't responded yet. He's a game announcer. I also noticed that at mid-morning today, the YouTube post of the game disappeared. At least I can't find it anymore. Maybe administration wants it removed because it could present "evidence" in any formal action. That's a risk of having so much on videotape!!! My God, our YouTube kids are using DRONES now. Amazing. Weather was barely good enough for the band to play. I watched parade in person, sunshiny, nice.
I'm happy to share Randy Olson's response here as well. All very interesting, n'est-ce pas?
I was thrilled when we (at BBE) decided to hold all the Homecoming festivities prior to kickoff. And prior to the National Anthem. I am part of the footballl team's mass group messaging, so I saw their entire pre-game schedule in the afternoon. The coach marked 6:55 as "coronation" when they announced the royalty students. This keeps that awkward moment at halftime when multiple football players who were king candidates have to distract themselves from the game and be part of the Pomp and Circumstance.
It was worth noting at 5:55 the team schedule said "Hearfelt speech by Coach Rambow" (an assistant) and whatever he said must have helped because we completely took them apart limb from limb across 8 series when it was the first teams meeting one another. By the 9th series, we were up 48-0 and promptly installed our JV unit. The Falcons did the same. They have only 31 players on their roster, while we've got 50.
It would have been fun to take in Coach Rambow''s speech but then I usually say some team-related things are best done without media present. A coach may be more apt to throw in a curse word or be really colorful or say something off the cuff. I think that's all fine and well. I can always follow up later and ask a player or to what they remember from the coach's speech.
I know I have almost always stuck to Firefox and it's usually gone well for me. Chrome has seemed to have too many bugs, not sure why.
Randy continues giving yours truly a "bridge" to the newspaper profession. Thanks Randy. - BW
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