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The Daily Dose/December 13, 2008
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...Pics will return!
GAMEDAY: Official Writer's Shack fave the Mount Union College Purple Raider football team continues their quest for their tenth NCAA Division III national championship, hosting Wheaton College from outside of Chicago in a national semifinal game this afternoon.
Our Purple Raiders' march to the semi-finals has not been too strenuous, as they have won their three playoff games by an average score of 46.3-7.
Breakdown Segment: Last Saturday Wheaton won their quarterfinal game at Franklin College, 45-28, and the Lightning are making their first national semifinal appearance.
Dry, Technical Matter: Mount Union is in the national semi-finals for the 14th consecutive season.
FunFact: Since 1996 Mount Union has lost five games, one in the regular season, twice in the semifinals and twice in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, the Division III national championship game, including last year's loss to the Wisconsin-Whitewater Bastards.
Oh Yeah: Speaking of which, the Bastards will travel to Texas to play Mary Hardin-Baylor today in a rematch of one of 2007's semifinals.
Real. Football. Playoffs: In the Football Championship Subdivision, the highest division the NCAA offers a playoff in, Montana clinched a spot in the national championship game with a35-27 win over James Madison, and will meet the winner of today's Richmond at Northern Iowa semifinal.
Richmond is coming of a 33-13 victory over defending national champion Appalachian State in the quarterfinals, which avenged a 55-35 loss in the 2007 semifinals.
All The Marbles: In Division II, two teams coming off of blowout semifinal victories will meet in Florence, Alabama for the national championship as Northwest Missouri State takes on Minnesota-Duluth.
Northwest Missouri State, already the first team to lose three straight national championship games, will try to become the first team to lose four straight, though it should be noted they did win the title in 1998 and 1999. Minnesota-Duluth is in the title game for the first time.
Sigh: Meanwhile, in the highest NCAA division, the Football Bowl Subdivision, there are no games today, because the BCS computer - which will eventually make playoffs obsolete - has considered input from a variety of human and computer sources and has decided that Oklahoma and Florida will play in this year's BCS championship game. To insure that each team is fully rested and at its best, the competing teams are given over a month to prepare for this game. In the interim, there will be a lot of other bowl games featuring the very best teams in the NCAA's top division playing each other, so we'll be sure not to lose interest, even though every single one of the games leading up to the BCS championship game is about as meaningful as a family touch football game.
GOING BACK, AWAY BACK: On this date, in 1294 Pope Celestine V abdicates the papacy, after five months in office so he could go back to his prior life as a hermit. A clue he didn't really want the job to begin with was provided the night he was elected - the last pope who was not elected by a conclave of the College of Cardinals - when Celestine promulgated an order allowing popes to abdicate. He would die a couple of years later after having been imprisoned by his successor, Boniface VIII.
Around The World In One Thousand and Eighteen Days: On this date, in 1577, Sir Francis Drake leaves Plymouth, England on his around-the-world voyage. Drake commanded a flotilla of five ships and 164 men. He would return in September, 1580, with one ship and 59 men.
Uh, I Think This Is A Violation Of Our Collective Bargaining Agreement: On this date, in 1981, Polish authorities impose martial law, in a crackdown against the Solidarity labor movement. The trade union was suspended and some of its leaders temporarily imprisoned. Solidarity would be banned in October, 1982, and martial law would not be lifted until July, 1983. Solidarity would not be legalized until 1989.
Thanks, It's Great To Be Here: On this date, in 1988, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat addresses the UN General Assembly, which was meeting in Geneva, Switzerland because the United States would not grant him a visa to enter the US so he could address the body in New York.
Well, That Solved All Our Problems: On this date, in 2003, ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces while hiding in a hole near a farmhouse in Adwar. He would be executed in December, 2006.
I Do Solemnly Concede: On this date, in 2000, 36 days after Election Day and one day after a Supreme Court decision went against him, Vice-President Al Gore concedes the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush.
Thought For The Day: But the youngster, the collegian, the boy, the scrub, who all but bursts his lungs and breaks his gut trying to put his team across...to me, he is football's eternal answer to those who would put it down as all too commercialized sport. - Grantland Rice
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Apollo 17 splashed down a little more than a third of a mile from its intended site in the western Pacific Ocean, which, when you consider the extent of the mission and the vastness of the western Pacific Ocean, is more or less amazing, a term we do not throw around indiscriminately.
Today's Stumper: How did the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor get its name? - Answer next time!
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