I checked the game at halftime via the YouTube channel and it seemed odd, I mean the number of points scored by Barnesville.
Well congratulations to the third-ranked Trojans, they won. They beat our fifth-ranked Tigers by a very implausible score. It struck me as not a legitimate football game.
Why did this happen? Was it because the players are dealing with a limited season, perhaps affecting their sharpness? Or, maybe there was a mutual agreement between the teams, the players by themselves or involving the coaches?
Maybe there was an agreement to back off on the usual approach to defense. We are seeing winter-like conditions now. Who would want to exchange bone-crunching hits on a football field now? The sport of football has already entered controversy with its dangerous nature. With each passing year, the players must be more and more conscious of this. Maybe the Tigers and Trojans decided it would be more fun and safer to let the game become more of a track meet with less of the heavy hitting, or what former Morris coach Jerry Witt would call "smash-mouth football." I don't think a coach would use that term now for the public media.
I guess I was fortunate to never want to play football, probably wouldn't have been good enough anyway, and for that possible "shortcoming" I'm grateful.
The MN High School League board of directors voted in September to reverse course and put football and volleyball back on the fall slate. Seems to me now, given that the virus is showing no signs of backing down, the original no-go decision might have been most prudent. Yes it's tough to live with these things. If back in March we had gotten a call for real but temporary sacrifice from our leaders at the federal government level, we might be in a quite different position now, a better one.
South Dakota is now being singled out as a state with especially severe Covid issues, and this is being laid at the doorstep of political leaders with a Republican bent. Governor Kristi Noem is becoming the focus for the second-guessing, and it impacts us here in Minnesota because we are a proverbial stone's throw from South Dakota.
Our High School League originally decided on a spring start date for football and volleyball. They were totally focused on dealing with Covid. The concern was about the proximity of athletes like in football where physical contact is a defining feature.
Do you suppose the Tigers and Trojans felt that a more wide-open track meet style of game would be good for limiting physical contact? Is this far-fetched?
Seems a little conspiratorial, but I remember when Minneapolis newspaper columnist Dick Cullum had similar thoughts after the first-ever Fiesta Bowl game. I didn't just look this up, I remember it. Cullum was usually pretty straight-laced and restrained. But he speculated after an unusually wild and close initial Fiesta Bowl game, that maybe the coaches mutually agreed on a defensive approach that would lift the odds for this type of game. Games then were generally not as high-scoring as today. The marketing minds have been allowed in?
Obviously the Fiesta Bowl leaders wanted a good "sell" for the event's start, to get it established. Unethical? Maybe, but at least the winner wasn't "fixed." Still there's an opening for ethics discussion you could drive a truck through. The "pure" form of sport is when both contestants are going all-out playing the percentages to try to win.
Our MACA Tigers had a perfect won-lost record going into Wednesday. For them to give up so many points in the first half promotes suspicion that maybe the usual principles of competition were suspended. I guess I could get locked in an argument with people about this. Maybe on the other side, people would say the limited intense defensive contact would be good for everyone on such a winter-like evening. Good from a Covid consideration standpoint and good in a general sense because "smash-mouth football" cannot be justified IMHO.
I guess I took the most logical approach in my life: I never played football. Don't have to worry about cognitive issues now at 65 due to my sports background. Getting old is tough enough.
You weigh this risk against the rewards of the experience. I can't imagine having any warm thoughts about football had I actually played it so many years ago. I would cringe.
What was the score Wednesday night at Big Cat? I am not even going to report it. It would be nothing but a tedious exercise to go through the scoring and stats. I guess the West Central Tribune of Willmar went through these gymnastics. Hah!
My priority now is to emphasize that we need to protect everyone's health, with the situation apparently going to heck in South Dakota. We are becoming ever more like our neighbor to the west, as shown in how we elected a Republican congressperson, Michelle Fischbach. The Covid dilemma is one thing we do not want to have in common with the Kristi Noem state. Men say she's good-looking. Who gives a rip?
I had thought previously there would be no football playoffs in the shortened season. Guess I was wrong. So what's next for MACA? I really don't care about the competition now, I say let's hunker down and make some sacrifices like we should have done a long time ago, what we would have done under Democratic Party leadership, the party that really cares about human beings. Intense sacrifice would have been declared over a relatively short time, then we would be past the worst of it. But no, we chose another course.
We have two months left of the Trump presidency in which he won't do anything. Oh, but he fired that Esper guy.
Coronavirus attacks the heart. Some patients have suffered heart damage. Some Ohio State players came down with myocarditis.
I know, I'm a "Trump hater." Isn't he just one person? Why has he been elevated to near-divinity status? What has happened to my fellow man here in the USA? We are a government of laws, not of people.
Volleyball: Melrose 3, Tigers 1
Amidst the warmth of a gymnasium, the MACA girls faced Melrose Tuesday at Melrose. It was the host team enjoying the upper hand in the four-game affair. The scores with Melrose numbers first were: 21-25, 25-19, 25-15 and 32-30. Melrose achieved its sixth win against one loss, best record in the conference. Our Tigers are 3-5 in league and 4-5 overall.
LaRae Kram and Sydney Dietz paced our hitting attack with 12 and 11 kills respectively. Sophia Carlsen and Brianna Dybdahl each added seven kills. Emma Bowman supplied six and Maddy Grove four.
Carlsen came at the Dutchmen with four ace blocks. Grove had three, and Dietz and Kram one each. Kram and Dybdahl facilitated in setting with eight and seven respectively. Dybdahl led the charge in serve aces with four and she was complemented by Camryn Ostby (3) and Kram (2).
My podcast for Nov. 12
My "Morris Mojo" podcast for today ruminates about this lame duck period we're in, w/ the president. I should say "supposed" lame duck because he is not giving any ground. I wonder why we chose to elect a person like this. We wouldn't want such a person to even be our mayor, or for Rudy Giuliani to be our attorney. Please click on permalink:
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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