| Winning football games requires a true team effort
You hear the buzzer and look up at the scoreboard, and it isn't in your favor. Your body feels sore and your spirits broken. That is how I felt on my last football game as a junior. I play football for the Madison Academy Mustangs, and we lost to Leeds High in the first round of the playoffs. Football is probably my favorite sport because of the way the team pulls together. In other sports, you might win with a few good players, but not football. Your team must be solid. If the line doesn't block then the quarterback can't throw the ball. If the quarterback can't be accurate, the wide receiver doesn't get catches. If the running back can't get positive yards, then the offense must look elsewhere to score. You have to be a well-oiled machine to be a great team.
Seth Davis: Postcard from Gonzaga
SPOKANE, Wash. -- Here in this sleepy town in the Pacific northwest, a basketball hoop still hangs over the driveway of the house where John Stockton grew up on, appropriately enough, Superior Street. After Stockton graduated from Gonzaga in 1984 and became a star with the Utah Jazz, he purchased a small, three-bedroom house next door. That house would hardly merit a spot on MTV's Cribs, but as Gonzaga coach Mark Few drove me past it last Friday, it provided a snapshot not just of Gonzaga's past, but also its present. "Do you see Stockton much?" I asked Few. "Oh, yeah," he replied. "I just got done working out with him." You see, John Stockton may have graduated from Gonzaga, but he never really went anywhere. The same is true for Gonzaga.
FYI: Advance planning urged for Cowboys fans Thursday
Q: Where around Lufkin can I go to watch the Cowboys-Packers game on Thursday night? I'm asking what places with TVs might have the proper hookup or feed to carry the game. And short of that, is there any radio station around here that I can pick up at night that will be carrying the game? Help! A: We feel your pain, along with hundreds of other Cowboys fans who don't have the NFL Package from DirecTV so they can access the NFL Network, this year's new innovation of the National Football League that brings new meaning to the phrase "pay per view." We polled about 20 restaurants around town that have televisions in their customer service areas. Of those, the ones that responded in the affirmative to having access to the NFL Network package with the likelihood of having it tuned to the Cowboys-Packers game included Applebee's, Chili's and Logan's.
Fans are losers in NFL Network impasse
The NFL knew it had something special when its scheduling formula spit out a Packers-Cowboys matchup this season. While the league could never have anticipated they would rank as the top teams in the NFC, it did know the value of tradition and could document each team's enormous drawing power on national television. So when the schedule maker divvied up 2007 games among the league's television partners, it decided the Packers-Cowboys would not go to Fox, the network of the NFC, or the prime-time packages on NBC or ESPN, a trio which anted up $2.41 billion in rights fees this season. Instead, the NFL delivered the game to its own fledgling NFL Network, which will deliver the game to only one-third of the country. It's part of the league's plan to help transform an ugly duckling into a cash cow.
Sports flash
PHILADELPHIA � Kelenna Azubuike made a 3-pointer from the left corner with 6.1 seconds left in overtime, giving the Golden State Warriors a 100-98 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday night. The 76ers had one last chance after Azubuike�s basket, but Louis Williams lost his footing in the lane and turned the ball over. Azubuike�s basket came after Lanphier High School graduate Andre Iguodala gave Philadelphia a 98-97 lead on a runner in heavy traffic with 13.4 seconds left. Iguodala led the 76ers with 26 points, 11 rebounds and five steals. Golden State�s Monta Ellis equaled his career high with 31 points. It was the second tough loss in two nights for the 76ers, who lost Friday at Detroit. �We just have to get a win; we have to do more than just compete,� Iguodala said.
FootballGenerals.com Debuts Weekly Pro Football Head Coach Rankings - Belichick, Dungy, Phillips at Top After Week 12
Statistically, the New England Patriots' Bill Belichick has been the best coach in professional football this year, according to the website FootballGenerals.com. Launched today, FootballGenerals provides the only statistical, weekly rankings of NFL head coaches, along with coach-related news. .
Hardly the retiring type: Salem's Gosselin still can be found where the action is
SALEM, N.H. - The wide array of school photos which have taken over the table in Bill and Irene Gosselin's Salem home tell the story of this busy, but happy retirement.
It's been better than a half a century since Gosselin played his last down of football for Arizona State. It has been nearly as long since he last held a clipboard in a high school football coaching career that saw him crisscross the Merrimack Valley with three different teams (Lawrence, Woodbury in Salem, N.H., and Methuen), and it has also been 14 years since Gosselin last spent the bulk of his waking hours in the Methuen's AD's office.
But the fall is still all about sidelines and whistles for the Gosselins. Whether it be a middle school field hockey game in Windham one day or a freshman football game at Central Catholic the next, when you had seven athletic children who correspondingly add another 22 grandchildren into the mix, it goes with the territory.
|
