| | Home
The Human Zoo/September 8, 2011
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around The Human Experience...
HUT, HUT HIKE: Official Writer's Shack Faves, our Mount Union Purple Raiders football team, open up the 2011 season Saturday, hosting Wisconsin - Oshkosh-by-Gosh.
Uh, Guys, We're New Here. What The Hell's An Official Writer's Shack Fave? A Writer's Shack Fave is an entity, usually a sports team that wins an awful lot, but former President Theodore Roosevelt is also one, that we look upon with particular favor. Other Writer's Shack Faves include the All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team, the Norwegian chick team handball squad and the United States men's volleyball team.
Selection is rather subjective, there is neither a nomination process nor established criteria though once selected, Writer's Shack Fave is a very difficult designation to lose. Witness our Mount Union Purple Raiders, who have lost the last two NCAA Division III national championship games to those bastards at Wisconsin-Wherever. Please, do not hold your breath waiting for UW-Wherever to replace Mount Union as Writer's Shack Faves.
Yeah, Yeah, We Know: Mount Union is simply one of the most successful college football programs ever. They have won ten (10) NCAA D-III football titles: 1993, 1996-98, 2000-02, 2005-06 and 2008. They've been runners up four times and Mount Union and UW-Wherever have met in the last six Amos Alonzo-Stagg Bowls, which is the NCAA D-III title game. They have split the six meetings.
Game Day: Mount Union leads the series 1-0, demolishing the Titans in last year's opener 45-28. UW-Oshkosh-by-Gosh is 1-0, having defeated Central 31-28 last week.
The School From Up North: UW-Wherever is 1-0, opening up last week with a typically weak performance, a 26-7 win at UW-Lacrosse. This week they travel to Franklin, an offensive powerhouse that leads all D-III schools, gaining a total of 669 yards in Week 1.
Fly In The Ointment: Unfortunately, they have no defense, and allowed 463 yards.
Numbers Racket: Legendary Larry Kehres is in his 26th season as trail boss at Mount Union. He has a career record of 303-23-3, which means he is averaging 0.92 losses per season. His Purple Raiders have won the last 19 Ohio Athletic Conference titles.
We Are Not Making This Up: For those unfamiliar with the small college football, you might be wondering who votes for the Division III national champion. The answer: no one! It's true! The NCAA actually sponsors real, honest to goodness playoffs for its three (3) lower level programs!
You're Kidding, Right? It's man-sized playoff in D-III, too, a heaping 32-team tournament that keeps Mount Union and UW-Wherever busy right up until the middle of December, a full 15 games, ten regular season, plus five playoff games.
The Bottom Line: UW-Wherever and Mount Union are ranked 1-2 in the latest D-III poll, and there is no reason to expect both won't run the table until they meet in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl for the seventh straight year.
This Is Casey Counting Them Down: The rest of the D-III top five includes Wesley, St. Thomas and Mary Hardin-Baylor.
OH JESUS H: A Danish family, plus a couple of crew members, were released this week after six months of captivity that followed their yacht being hijacked off the waters of Somalia. An actual Somali pirate bragged to Rueters that the their freedom cost $3 million, but this has not been confirmed.
Friends, there are some things you just don't do, and yachting near the Horn of Africa is one of them. So is hiking near the Iran-Iraq border. We don't support hijacking and pirating any more than you do, but if you are stupid enough to sashaying into Somali waters in a yacht, you deserve what you get.
SEE YOU AT THE NEXT ONE: The Treaty of San Francisco, a peace treaty between 51 nations and Japan is signed in San Francisco on this date in 1951.
Yeah, This Is A Bulletin: Us humans can't even agree on peace, and there was, of course, the usual amount of squabbling attendant with any international agreement. The Soviet Union objected and, along with Poland and Czeckeslovakia, refused to sign the treaty. Burma, India and Yugoslavia were invited but declined to come. India, among other countries, got snitty and signed their own peace treaty with Japan.
Ah, What The Hell: President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon on this date in 1974.
Get Your Official Writer's Shack Policy Right Here: Though generally condemned at the time, mainly because it let a criminal off and because it spelled the end of his political career, Nixon's pardon was an extremely farsighted move that was probably for the best. Ford had always insisted that a trial would be too divisive a distraction for the country still reeling from both Vietnam and Watergate, and he was probably right.
Ten Hut: Air Force Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich appears on the cover of Time magazine on this date in 1975 along with the career enhancing headline "I Am A homosexual".
Though a decorated Vietnam War veteran, Matlovich would eventually be thrown out of the service.
More Get Your Official Writer's Shack Policy Right Here: Gays have been serving this country honorably since the Revolution. We might as well let them out of the closet.
Great Moments In Tolerance: Matlovich was a converted Mormon and was kicked out of the Mormon church twice. The first time was in 1975 for being gay, and for good measure they kicked him out again in 1979, also for being gay and apparently just for funsies because there is no evidence Matlovich ever rejoined the church, although he had recently appeared on The Phil Donahue Show.
Epilogue: Matlovich died in 1988, of AIDS, at age 44.
Thought For The Day: When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one. - Leonard Matlovich's tombstone, Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: On September 7, 1993, Mark Whitten tied Jim Bottomley's single game RBI record (12), and Nate Colbert's doubleheader RBI record (13).
Today's Stumper: What was the name or number of the official act that pardoned Richard Nixon? - Answer next time!
Comments? Recipes? Complaints? Email the Writer's Shack here!
Home |
| |
