Daily Archives: October 1, 2006


Inside or Outside

If you think the system that brought you bill clinton, george bush, jack abramoff, mark foley or, well, you pick your least favorite politician, is broken you might try changing the system from the inside:
changethesystem117-thumb.jpg
Or, you might consider that it is time to replace the system.
Cartoon from The Gaping Void.


Why Was He Still in the Game?

Headline: High school back rushes for 658 yards
A short blurb about this story showed up in many Sunday morning sports sections today. Most reports were brief clones of what appears to be a wire service story. For example, here is part of one report:

Paul McCoy ran for 658 yards in a West Virginia high school football game but might not have set a national record.
His yardage tops the National Federation of State High School Association’s listed record of 619 yards set by Ronney Jenkins of Oxnard, Calif., in 1995.
But high school records historian Doug Huff said Saturday the recognized record is 739 yards by John Giannantonio of Netcong, N.J., in 1950, against Mountain Lakes.
“The National Federation book for some reason does not include that (the 739 yards), and I think the reason is there’s a formal process for submitting those things,” Huff said Saturday. “This school doesn’t exist anymore. The papers recognized it. The school had a special ceremony. It’s been in my records for years.”
McCoy piled up his yardage on just 29 carries — an average of 22.7 yards per attempt — and scored 10 touchdowns as Matewan beat Burch 64-0 on Friday. McCoy racked up 477 of his yards scoring on touchdown runs that covered 69, 1, 52, 56, 52, 20, 31, 84, 87 and 25 yards.
He also had a 77-yard touchdown run called back because of a penalty.

One paper condensed the wire article and the person who wrote the condensation noted that they were impressed by this performance.
What is there to be impressed about? Burch is clearly a very weak team. And, after the 4th or 5th score why was this player even still in the game as a back? Or at all? Surely, Matewan has a second team? Other players who need experience?

Nah, not impressed at all.