FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[edstone]

1916 Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech football game

I believe the current attitude that everybody should win and be rewarded sounds like our current society's attitude right now... 

Pulling that back to sports - it all started with All-Star games and fan voting. It was decided that every team, every sports town, had to have a "star." Reality is that some teams just don't have a star . . . 

[sfury]

The football bullying thing is obviously ridiculous but I don't know if it's a sign of the apocalypse considering I have not seen a single person online who has agreed with the parent's stance. It's like the one thing that has ever united the Internet.

I know, I know, it's a pattern in society, etc., etc., but go back to 1950 and you could find 100 things a day that would make you think the country was going to hell. Or go back to 1970. Or 1940. Or any date. The first person to ever complain about the direction of the country probably did it on July 6, 1776, when he said, "God, things were so much better when this country first started." Plus, I sort of like the times we are living in, issues with those soft youngsters who won't get off the lawn and go home to their idiot parents aside. When is this magical age people would like to return to when things were so much better than now? When World Wars raged? When segregation ruled? When violent crime numbers were much higher than today? When women couldn't vote? When medicine wasn't this advanced? When airplanes didn't allow us to travel the world? When online messageboards didn't allow us to talk about D3 football?

And I say this as someone who's *obsessed* with the past and love it and think about it and write about it constantly (ask Robert Zimmerman to confirm this), whether it's a historical event or everything that happened in high school. I spend more time thinking about a great moment from my junior year and how awesome things were than I do about my future. I'm all about the good old days. I love the way things were...but also realize in 20 years someone's going to be complaining about "this damn country" and wishing for things to be the way they were in 2013.

Oh, and since we're talking about lopsided scores and with Christmas just, what, two months away ("No! This country was so much better when Christmas wasn't so commercialized and the season didn't start four months early!") how about a book about one of the most lopsided games in football history?

amzn.to/1ae6kYk

[57Johnnie]

I'm waiting for a report on 'Snake Venom' beer 

[AlmostEx]

these parents better hope their kid never plays a game vs an MIAC team:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/10/22/dnt-football-team-accused-bullying-after-outrageous-score.ktvt&iref=allsearch

they'd probably be seeking federal protection!

I am with SFury on this, I am not sure this is a sign of the apocalypse.  It is so much easier for me to yield to that great philosopher Forrest Gump and simply accept that "stupid is as stupid does."

The trend I find much more troubling in our "entertainment-based" culture, in which I include sports, is the fact that everybody has a "story" and the "production packages" that are put together to tell those stories.  Anybody who attains the age of majority, or older, is going to have "stories" AND you never stop acquiring "stories" while living.  Life can be hard.  Parents can suck.  Bad things happen to people.  Life can suck.  Empathy and coming to the aid of a fellow human being is one thing, but please, please, please stop trying to sell me something or someone by virtue their ill-fated "story."

[USTBench]

these parents better hope their kid never plays a game vs an MIAC team:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/10/22/dnt-football-team-accused-bullying-after-outrageous-score.ktvt&iref=allsearch

they'd probably be seeking federal protection!

I gotta say I'm really unimpressed by this soft gloves treatment people are asking for. Getting thrashed is an important lesson - dealing with adversity and disappointment. Also in order to bring the bottom up they are pulling the top down. That, too, is a bad lesson although maybe with fewer hut feelings. Maybe all the more nefarious because of its non-hurtful nature.

According to maxpreps.com this was a matchup between #24 and #10,812 in the nation.  What did this parent expect to happen?

The winning coach seemed really sorry about the score, but was flummoxed about what he could have done differently. He said it could have easily been 150-0!

The parent who filed the complaint was quoted as saying:

I did not know what to say on the ride home" to his or her son to explain the behavior of the coaches.

How about this: Son, life is hard. We can't control what others do, we can only control how we respond. And the nature of life is that there are winners and losers. How you respond to defeat will define you as much as how you respond in victory. It's hard to lose and it's hard to lose like that. But you have a great opportunity to get up off the mat, continue to fight and work to improve. If you do that, this loss can be a source of refining.

I agree 100% with this.  Most of us on these boards, with the possible exception of AO (kidding), are reasonable, rational, and well-thought individuals, not representative of the typical football "meathead" image...and yet virtually no one (this game has come up in several threads) has thought the coach of the winning team (or losing team, for that matter) did anything wrong.  I don't use the following phrase lightly: the attitude of the parent is some combination of loathsome and laughable.  What does the parent intend to tell his son if, God forbid, he doesn't get accepted to the first-choice college he applied to, or if someday, some girl breaks his heart, or if basically anything else ever goes wrong ever?

My junior year of HS we were coming off another playoff year in which we had graduated an outstanding senior class. A couple of guys had gone on to UND and won a D2 National Championship and our QB was Brooks Bollinger who went on to a few Rose Bowls and an NFL career.

Without those guys it was pretty clear to our coaches that we were in for a rough year. Our very first game was against Bismarck who started Gopher All-American Greg Eslinger on an O-line that went about 300+ across the board. And they could move. Well, the very first series of the game we held them to a 3 and out, blocked a punt in their own endzone, recovered for a TD and got a two point conversion. "We can play with these guys" I thought to myself.

All of the sudden I blinked and we were down 49 to 8 going into the locker room at half. And our coach made a speech that I won't soon forget.

"Fellas, we're going to lose a football game, and let me tell you something. I know that coach across the sidelines there. I know him well. He WILL hang 100 on you if he can. I look around this room and I see our backup sophomore quarterback over there, he looks petrified. Do you think he wants to play? Hell no."

The rest would be paraphrased at best, but it was a rather inspirational character building speech about playing with pride even when you know you're beat. I think we lost 63 - 14 or something, but after the rug-burn from the Bismarck Community Bowl healed a valuable lesson set-in: Don't directly take on a pulling Greg Eslinger. 

[OzJohnnie]

these parents better hope their kid never plays a game vs an MIAC team:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/10/22/dnt-football-team-accused-bullying-after-outrageous-score.ktvt&iref=allsearch

they'd probably be seeking federal protection!

I am with SFury on this, I am not sure this is a sign of the apocalypse.  It is so much easier for me to yield to that great philosopher Forrest Gump and simply accept that "stupid is as stupid does."

The trend I find much more troubling in our "entertainment-based" culture, in which I include sports, is the fact that everybody has a "story" and the "production packages" that are put together to tell those stories.  Anybody who attains the age of majority, or older, is going to have "stories" AND you never stop acquiring "stories" while living.  Life can be hard.  Parents can suck.  Bad things happen to people.  Life can suck.  Empathy and coming to the aid of a fellow human being is one thing, but please, please, please stop trying to sell me something or someone by virtue their ill-fated "story."

Ah, you make me smile. I'm a grumpy old' coot at times and it's good to see someone else hit on one of my grumps. I was grumping about this just two nights ago. We had the company's high achievement awards. The boss was handing out his 'captain's pick' award and spent a few moments talking earnestly about the winner's story. I've got a story. Any of you have a story?  What? Your life has no story?  You sad little non-suffering happy person. How it would suck to be you.

It's like it's a marketing exercise on yourself. It seems wrong to me.  Anyhow, in my story I was sold by slavers to ruthless tyrant with 103 dirty bathrooms and dire wolves in the dungeon...

[OzJohnnie]

Well told story, bench.  Very funny.

[AO]

Don't directly take on a pulling Greg Eslinger. 

Did Eslinger get hurt at some point in a NFL training camp?  How did the Outland trophy winner drop to the 6th round and never play a regular season NFL game?

[Knightstalker]

these parents better hope their kid never plays a game vs an MIAC team:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/10/22/dnt-football-team-accused-bullying-after-outrageous-score.ktvt&iref=allsearch

they'd probably be seeking federal protection!

I am with SFury on this, I am not sure this is a sign of the apocalypse.  It is so much easier for me to yield to that great philosopher Forrest Gump and simply accept that "stupid is as stupid does."

The trend I find much more troubling in our "entertainment-based" culture, in which I include sports, is the fact that everybody has a "story" and the "production packages" that are put together to tell those stories.  Anybody who attains the age of majority, or older, is going to have "stories" AND you never stop acquiring "stories" while living.  Life can be hard.  Parents can suck.  Bad things happen to people.  Life can suck.  Empathy and coming to the aid of a fellow human being is one thing, but please, please, please stop trying to sell me something or someone by virtue their ill-fated "story."

Ah, you make me smile. I'm a grumpy old' coot at times and it's good to see someone else hit on one of my grumps. I was grumping about this just two nights ago. We had the company's high achievement awards. The boss was handing out his 'captain's pick' award and spent a few moments talking earnestly about the winner's story. I've got a story. Any of you have a story?  What? Your life has no story?  You sad little non-suffering happy person. How it would suck to be you.

It's like it's a marketing exercise on yourself. It seems wrong to me.  Anyhow, in my story I was sold by slavers to ruthless tyrant with 103 dirty bathrooms and dire wolves in the dungeon...

The last time I saw a Dire Wolf he was grinning at my window, so I told him to come on in, don't murder me, then we sat down to play cards and they were all the queen of spades.

[Boys of Fall]

Too much Bench took its toll on Eslinger.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Don't directly take on a pulling Greg Eslinger. 

Did Eslinger get hurt at some point in a NFL training camp?  How did the Outland trophy winner drop to the 6th round and never play a regular season NFL game?

He was put on IR in his first season, but I think the book on him, even coming out of college, was that he was a really, really good college lineman that was just not quite big enough or athletic enough to play in the NFL.  Do with that information what you will.

Also, USTBench, good story.  Kinda neat to hear the way your coach chose to handle it.

[OzJohnnie]

The Grateful Dead.  I should have known, KS.  I thought it was Alice in Wonderland at first.

[Knightstalker]

The Grateful Dead.  I should have known, KS.  I thought it was Alice in Wonderland at first.

Love that song and the album it is from, Working Mans Dead, aural anti-depressant for me.

[USTBench]

Thanks Oz!

BoF,

Back before I located the weightroom, and made the switch to the backfield, I was a 175lb wr/cb. I don't think Eslinger even broke stride. Worst part of the whole experience was the Bismarck Community Bowl aka Coca Cola Stadium was the brand new baby to the capitol city in ND, so, naturally they were proud of the astro-turf they had installed, which seemed to me to have been nothing more than steel wool laid across the top of a gravel road.

ExTartan,

Mike Berg is his name, somewhat of a coaching legend in these parts. Some of the very best and unintentionally hilarious life-lessons I've ever had.

[sjusection105]

I would like your opinions, which is the marquee this week? Is it Augsburg vs, Concordia or is it GAC vs. Bethel.
If GAC can pull the upset over Bethel,then we really have a shootout coming down the stretch. On the other hand,if Augsburg defeats Concordia,the Cobbers are all but eliminated from post season participation.

How do you see these two match up for Saturday?