I have always been a pretty good law-abider.  Maybe it’s because I am still racked with guilt due to a crime I committed 37 years ago.  I think it is finally time to make a confession and free myself from this prison of shame.

I was taking a spelling test in 2nd grade.  For some reason, we took our tests in the back of the spelling book.  So when the teacher was going through that week’s list and said the word ‘hoof’, I hit a mental wall.  I wasn’t sure if it was ‘hoof’ or ‘hoff’.  Unfortunately for me, this was a couple years before this ‘Hoff’ hit it big…

Anyhow, in my pursuit of academic excellence, I put my grade before my integrity, and peeked in the front of the spelling book for the answer to this great mystery.  And fortunately, I got away with the crime.

Well, ‘fortunately’ would only fit my status in the short term.  But in the long term, the guilt haunted me for many a sleepless night.  Finally, tonight is the night I can lay my head on my pillow in peace.

I bring up this anecdote in relation to the current cheating scandal that is the star of the current 24-hour ESPN sports loop.  The one has even spilled into the mainstream news cycles of CNN and Fox News.  The New England Patriots and their evil genius of a coach, Bill Belichick, are headed to their sixth Super Bowl trip in the past 14 seasons.  But most of you know that their success on the the field isn’t the talk of the moment.  Instead, it’s the Patiots’ appalling disregard for rules that threatens to destroy the integrity of the game!

What rule did they break that has the nation in an uproar?

Are their players taking steroids or HGH?  Not that anyone knows of.  (and surely no players in the NFL take any illegal substances!)

Did they illegally record the opponents in practices,  pre-game warm-ups,  and games?  No. That story is soooo 2007.

Did they trip an opposing player as they were running down the sideline?  No, that’s more of a Steelers’ thing…

Did they steal their opponents’ play book?  Nope, but I seem to remember that being a big story when I was a kid.  What team was it?  I remember!

Caught red handed!  If this pic doesn’t jog your memory of this historic crime, let me refresh your memory…

Some high school football player decided to date a girl from a rival school…

But his courtship of the lovely Marsha Brady was simply an evil plot to steal the playbook of her older brother, Greg!

Who needs the newfangled teen drama and angst of The Hunger Games  or Twilight ? The Brady Bunch has more deviant plot twists that William Shakespeare on his best day!

Back to the Patriots’ dastardly crime.

The footballs they used were, ummm, well, slightly deflated.  Instead of being at the league-required 12.5 pounds per square inch, they were about were at about 10.5 PSI.

Say it ain’t  so, Tom (Brady).  Say it ain’t so!

All this ruckus over some soft footballs?  Sounds pretty lame on the surface.  On the other hand, Coach Belichick’s history and reputation of blatantly disregarding league rules to gain an advantage makes this uproar a little more understandable.

But who would think of gaining an advantage by taking a little air out?  I am guessing that cheating is just about as old as dirt.  I am almost positive that some caveman gained an advantage in a rock-toss  match by illegally altering his boulder.  And how about Cain and Abel, the first children mentioned in the Bible.  When any story that ends with one brother killing the other, you know that started with shenanigans going on in a game.  I envision it as a heated game of cow-tipping…

Cain:  “Mom, Abel cheated!  He made his cows sick so they would fall over easy!”

Eve:  “Abel, quit poisoning the cattle.”

Abel:  “I didn’t, mom!  And Cain is tipping all the little cows!”

Eve:  “Come on, Cain!  He’s your little brother!  Let him have some little ones!”

Cain:  “I did!”

Abel:  “Owwwwww!  Mom, Cain hit me!”

Cain:  “He hit me first!”

Eve:  “WOULD YOU TWO STOP FIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  For once, can I sit in my cave and weave baskets in peace!”

Cain and Abel:  “MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Eve:  “ADAM!!!  WOULD YOU GET OFF YOUR ROCK AND DO SOMETHING!!!”

Adam (hiding in a back room of the cave, thinking to himself):  “If I just stay quiet, she won’t know I am here.”

Eve:  “Adam, I know your back there!  Get out here and do something!”

Adam (thinking to himself again):  “Stupid idiot!  You just had to eat that apple back in the Garden of Eden!”

Cheating is a temptation that is planted in everyone’s brain.  But like any other ‘forbidden fruit”, some can resist it well, while others quickly take a bite.

Golf, supposedly ‘a gentlemen’s game’, reeks of dishonesty for the typical amateur golfer.  It’s as simple as saying it took you 5 shots on a hole instead of 6.  And the cheater rarely gets called out.  Because you know, it’s pretty hard to count to 6.

Pick-up basketball lives by the mantra of “call your own foul”.  And when the players also act as refs, you know you’re in trouble.  I seem to remember hearing a story in the Bible of the first one-on-one hoops game during a 2nd grade Church Sunday School class…

Abel:  “Foul!”

Cain:  “I didn’t touch you!”

Abel:  “You hammered me!”

Cain:  “I’ll show you a hammer!”

Abel.  “Owww.   OWWWWWW!  That hurt!  Wait.  I think you just killed me!  Literally!”

Cain:  “Ooops.  Sorry.”

And cheating isn’t limited to sports.  Any of you out their guilty of these fibs???

Card Player A:  ‘Do you have any Queens?”

Card Player B:  “Ummm.  Go fish.”

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Battleship Player A:  “G-4”

Battleship Player B:  “Ummmm.  Miss.”

Monopoly Player A:  “Hey, where did you get that ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card from?”

Monopoly Player B:  “What are you talking about?  You think I’m cheating?  And I don’t remember you ever buying  that ‘B & O Railroad’ card you got there!”

So whether its Cain & Abel, Belichick and Brady, or you and me, the opportunity to cheat will always be whispering sweet nothings in our ear.

So remember these two important points:

1.  Cheating is a choice, not  an addiction.  Just say no.  You might end up losing the game, but if you play honestly, you are a winner in my book.

2.  ‘Hoof” has two O’s and only one F.

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If I was gonna put an album together to summarize the state of the State of Ohio right, now, I would have two songs to lead off…

(By the way. ask your kid what an album is.   I just asked my son.  He said, “It’s sorta like a CD with alot of songs on it?”  WAY TO GO ETHAN!!!)

Song #1 who be a duet with my beautiful bride (or if she was under the weather, maybe someone like, umm, Carrie Underwood)….

“Baby It’s Cold Outside”

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Man it’s cold!

Song #2 would be dedicated to the Ohio State Buckeyes…

“(You Give Me) Fever”

Buckeye Fever is definitely an statewide epidemic.  It’s symptoms are easy to spot: Scarlet attire and the impulse to blurt out “O-H”.

Widespread passion for Buckeye football is nothing new to Ohio.  Since Senator Tressel came to town, it’s become much a birthright for every Ohioan.  Of course, the Buckeyes have always ruled the state, but I remember seeing a whole lot of this logo growing up in Louisville, Ohio in the 1970’s…

And when I started teaching in that same town in 1995, I am sad to say that actually saw more of this logo roaming the school hallways than the Scarlet and Gray…

That might be extremely hard to believe.  But let me dust off your memories and give you two pieces of evidence that swung the hearts of middle schoolers towards the Maize and Blue…

The Fab Five dominated on and off the court.  And who can forget Michigan’s favorite football coach…

Good old Coop!   My, how the tables have turned since then!  Hopefully Coach Harbaugh can bring some spice back to this historic rivalry.

As I recently blogged, this is the guy responsible for bringing this highly contagious fever to the Buckeye state…

Larry Culpepper’s invention of the college football playoff definitely caused this fanatical outbreak.  Prior to this season, the typical Buckeye national championship fires would slowly grow throughout the fall as the wins piled up.  One loss would cause some serious flickering of those flames, and a late season defeat would quickly quench every remnant of that fire.

And if the Buckeyes were fortunate enough to make it though the regular season unscathed, they would usually be sitting for at least 6 weeks before a Rose Bowl or BCS Championship game(remember that the Big 10 championship only a few years old, and that OSU-Michigan game usually took place prior to Thanksgiving).  That December lay-off, along with Christmas and the NFL taking over the minds of sports fans, would take much of the wind out of the sails of the Buckeye bandwagon.

But this new-fangled play-off has turned Ohio, as well as the entire sports world, on its ear.  The NFL divisional play-offs start tomorrow, which I would argue is the top weekend of the sports year.  It has the perfect combination of play-off elimination pressure, quantity (4 games that eat up the entire weekend)  and quality (we are down to the top 8 teams).  But if you turn on ESPN, there is more Bucks/Ducks talk than Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and their professional bretheran.

This new play-off passion makes me think back to similar sports  tsunamis that overwhelmed our area through the decades.  My earliest memory would be of the Miracle of Richfield in the spring of 1976.  I was 5 at the time, so my recollections are pretty much limited to having a sweet hoodie that bore the name of the greatest sport song ever:  COME ON CAVS!!!

As a music critic, I have to say:  this song rocks!  It mixes a perfect trio of soul, jazz, and funk. Bruno Mars could turn it into a #1 hit right now!

Wanna see play-off fever at its most passionate?  Watch this video clip of final moments of the Eastern Conference semi-finals series-clinching victory over the Washington Bullets.  These crazy fans not only rush the floor;  they tear down the baskets!!!  The 1970s were a whole different world craziness!  Most true sports fanatics could actually afford courtside seats back then!

My first full memory of play-off fever would be December of 1980.  That is when the beloved Kardiac Kids took Browns’ fans on a season-long roller coaster ride that got them to the play-offs for the 1st time in eight seasons.  Was there a song for this run of football fever?  I would bet you 12 Days of Christmas that there was!  Unfortunately, this hero of mine…

threw an ill-fated pass when coach Rutigliano called “Red Right 88” on a frigid -4 degree day, and Northeast Ohio went back into another deep sports freeze.

A small dose of the play-off passion returned  when World B. Free and the 1985 Cavaliers made an underdog run into the play-offs and gave the defending champion Celtics a big scare in the 1st round.  But that just scratched the surface of the onslaught of craziness that followed the next year when this guy became the King  of Cleveland…

Did this guy have a song? And did I eat a dog biscuit at school for lunch back in January of 1987?  Both of those questions get a resounding ‘Yes’!  “Bernie, Bernie, oh, yeah, how you can throw!!” The Browns won their 1st play-off game in the 1986 and 87 seasons, which would pour some serious gas onto the play-off fever fire.   For those play-off periods of “Dawg Domination”, the radio airwaves were filled with numerous jingles worshiping these Gridiron Gods.  Kasey Kasem could have done at least a top 20 countdown of the various songs.  My neighbor was part of a girls group that sang the tune that mimicked “Walk Like an Egyptian”.   Too bad John Elway had to be the devil and ruin the dreams of Northeast Ohio.  Those times were seriously C-R-A-Z-Y in terms of play-off passion.  Just imagine if the Browns would ever make it to a Super Bowl!  The whole region might spontaneously combust!

Around that time, Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, and company began their own period of play-off pushes.  I am trying to remember how that went…

THE SHOT!!!  My buddy, Mark Maz, was at the top row of the Richfield Coliseum for this  game, and he could here the Bulls players cheering after this buzzer beater & series ender silenced the crowd.

In 1992, that Cavs group made their furthest push, winning two series to get to the Eastern Conference finals.  My junior year of college was wrapped up in early May, so I remember going to the Coliseum a couple of times to wait in a long line for buy tickets for upcoming games.  Remember when you waited in lines at stadiums or even the Ticketmaster booth at the mall for tickets.  None of this quick click internet stuff!   I got to see Larry Bird’s last game when the Cavs bounced the Celtics in a game 7.  I got their about an hour early, and the place was already buzzing.

The Cavs then lost an ugly game 1 to the Bulls, and earned the ‘soft as marshmallows’ label with their uninspired effort.  I went to see game 4 where Danny Ferry threw punches at Jordan  and the Cavs evened  the series with a win.   I can remember that during a late time-out after the Cavs took control, they showed a video where this guy eventually appeared…

The roof of the Coliseum nearly blew off as the 20 thousand fanatics went berzerk.

But the biggest 1990s play-off fever originated at a beautiful new sports venue…

To put the passion of Indians’ fans of that era into perspective, consider this:  for about a 5-year period, they would sell out all 82 regular season home games.

BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

Over 3 million tickets gone, all in a period  of about two weeks.  Albert Belle.  Kenny Lofton.  Carlos Baerga.  Omar Visquel.  These guys and their teammates were rock stars!  And the great thing about play-off baseball was the constant pressure.  Since runs can be few and far between, every pitch is pressure-filled.  An early home run can pretty much end a game.  Another neat thing about play-off series of baseball and  hoops, as opposed to the single games of football, is the roller coaster ride of joy and sorrow with each win and loss in the series.  And unfortunately, every year, the Tribe roller coaster eventually went off a cliff.  Especially 1997 when Joe Table–a.k.a Jose Mesa–gave up a 2-1 lead in the 9th inning of game 7 vs. the Marlins.   Mike Hargrove, why didn’t you just leave Jared Wright in?

The Indians many a couple more play-off runs in the 2000s.  Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, and friends got within one win of making the World Series that year.   I got to see the bug game victory over the Yanks as well as their last play-off victory over the Red Sox.

But in the new millennium , the local post-season dance crown belonged to the King…

LeBron took us on some fun rides, including his break-out performance over the powerhouse Pistons to get the Cavs to the NBA finals in 2007.   Now that he is back in town, let’s hope that he can get us that long-awaited championship.

With the Buckeye fever nearing its frenzied peak, let’s hope that this is the year that the play-offs end in pandemonium instead of a poop sandwich.  The only thing we are missing with all of this hoopla and hype is a good old-fashioned play-off song.   So I have an idea to share.   I just need someone with musical talent to take it for a spin ASAP.   Let’s take this recent #1 hit from this young lady…

What could “Shake It Off” possibly rhyme with???  Ok, I got it.  Here it goes…

And the Buckeyes are gonna play, play, play, play, play…

They’re gonna shut up Mark May, May, May, May…

Make you think of Woody Hayes Hayes Hayes Hayes …

Win Play-offs!    Win Play-offs!

I think it’s time to quit this blog thing and head to Nashville to be songwriter!

Go Bucks!

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HOW ‘BOUT THEM BUCKEYES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Scarlet and Gray rolled the Tide in a game for the ages.

Here is my question for the readers today:

Who deserves the Sugar Bowl MVP?

The answer for me is obvious.  Let’s see how you do.

Candidate A:

 

it’s gotta be Ezekiel Elliot, who galloped for a Sugar Bowl record 230 yards against the defensive genius Nick Saban and his vaunted Alabama defense.  Zeke’s 4th quarter 85-yard touchdown run will be shown during Ohio State Bowl games 50 years from now.

But if you guessed #15, you would be wrong.

So it’s gotta be Candidate B:

Five weeks ago, Cardale Jones was was a second string nobody quarterback whose football future looked non-existent.   Now he is a star quarterback heading to a national championship game.  His MVP performance in the 59-0 demolition of Wisconsin was  surprising, but far from improbable.   Ohio State’s speed and athleticism was vastly superior to the Badgers, which set-up Jones for good chance for success.   And he made the most of it, using his strong arm to carve up the Wisconsin secondary.

The Sugar Bowl looked to be a whole other story.  Alabama was widely considered the better team, and giving Nick Saban three weeks to prepare for a rookie quarterback seemed just unfair.  Many of us pictured Jones struggling greatly with Bama’s blitzing pressure and disguised pass coverages.

But someone forgot to tell that to Cardale.  He stayed poised all night, minimizing his mistakes while standing tall in the pocket and making  big plays against that Alabama pressure.  Pretty much the complete opposite of recent performance of this guy…

To be honest, if Jones has a solid performance vs. Oregon, I think he should head straight for the NFL.  When it comes to the draft, it seems like less is more.  As in the more you play, the more flaws the talent evaluators can find in you, and the less you are worth.  If Jones stays at OSU, he is likely back on the bench behind J.T. Barrett and/or Braxton Miller.  But when it comes to NFL potential, his size and arm strength make him the best of the trio.  And the poise he has shown so far shows that he could play on Sunday afternoons.

But this QB is not my Sugar Bowl MVP.

Those of you that think outside the box see the obvious answer in Candidate C:

 

Coach Meyer slayed coaching rival Nick Saban, mighty Alabama, and the evil SEC!!!!  His record in bowl games:  8 wins and 2 losses.  8-2!!!!  He is one January 12th win away from being carved into Ohio State’s Mount Rushmore along side his coaching  hero, Woody Hayes.

His troops outplayed the top-ranked Crimson Tide dynasty while starting a 3rd string quarterback.  And this youthful team is widely considered to be a year away from reaching their full potential.  He’s gotta get the MVP award!

Sorry, Urban.

Who’s left.  Joey Bosa?  He looked mortal and tired last night.  Devin Smith?  He caught his usual long TD pass, but it’s not him.  Alabama’s punter?  He better have eyes in the back of his head, because some small nation is gonna kidnap him and install him as a missile defense system the way he launches balls off his foot.  His seven punts averaged 55 yards, with 5 of them being downed inside the 20 yard line.

Speaking of punts, can the Browns and Buckeyes join together for a bake sale to raise some $ to hire a punt return coach?  It’s real simple.  If the ball is going to land outside the 10 yard line, you catch it.  CATCH IT!!!  Don’t let it land and roll 20 yards!  And if it is gonna land inside the 10, LET IT GO!   Here is one more suggestion for our Ohio coaches:  try going old school and put two guys back there.  You are not getting any return yards, anyways, so at least you can prevent those rolls!

Time to end the mystery to this MVP case.  The winner is………………

Larry Culpepper.

Larry Culpepper?   Who?  Did he have an interception?  Did he make a big special teams hit?

No and No.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words…

 

LARRY CULPEPPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This Dr. Pepper vendor is the genius who invented the College Football Playoff!!!!!!

I am a math teacher, and here are a few equations I know:

1 + 1 = 2

Length x Width = Area

COLLEGE FOOTBALL + PLAYOFFS = AWESOME

Let’s face it, the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) of the last two decades weakened college football.  The magic of the New Year’s tradition of bowl games had lost much of its luster.  Pre-BCS, all of the big games seemed to have some meaning.  Once the BCS and the championship came to be, the other bowls became pretty meaningless.  For example, the last time the OSU was in the Sugar Bowl was 2011.  The Buckeyes, led by Tyrelle Pryor, courageously held off Arkansas to win an exciting and tension-filled game.  That victory ended an 0-10 bowl record for Ohio State vs. SEC teams.  I was pumped.  The next morning, I turned on ESPN radio on my half hour drive to work to hear them talk about this great game.  To my surprise, hardly a word of the game was even mentioned.

But the BCS was created to produce a true champion, right?  But even that championship game was a buzz kill.  There extended time off between the regular season and the championship game (up to 50 days) deflated the hype that a national championship game deserves.  I noticed this during my morning commutes.  Early January talk was all NFL play-offs until the morning of the BCS championship game, when the radio hosts would seem to go, ‘Oh  yeah, we need to talk about this BCS game.’  And that extra time off also tended to cause for sluggish play by one or both teams.

Now this new-fangled playoff system that Mr. Culpepper brought to the masses is a completely different story.  The Rose and Sugar Bowl television ratings were both up over 50% from last year.  50%!  That is a huge jump!  And I am guessing New Year’s Day football parties were up by at least 50% as well.

And the three-week off period between the regular season and the semi-final games was just the right length to rest, but not rust, the four teams, while allowing ESPN and their media friends to ramp up the hype machine.  These next 11 days until the championship game should be the perfect amount of time to get fans into a frenzy.

So let’s give Larry Culpepper his due credit.  The intricate, beautiful, perfect play-off plan that he drew on a napkin (if you don’t know what I am talking about, quit skipping all the commercials on your DVR)  has revolutionized the sports world.  What can we give him to show our appreciation?  How about giving him some time to spend with his one true love…

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