FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[K-Mack]

Guys:

I was on the HSC team in 1976 that played Madison on TV. I remember (or at least I think I do) Coach Fulton telling me that game was the first HSC game to broadcast live. Several others have been tape delayed. ABC picked that game because Madison was ranked #1 and HSC was ranked #5. The Tigers prevailed 21-7.

     Hey Tiger....you must have been hanging out with 78's friend in the 70's and not remember it.  Just messin with you. The score was 21 to 14. The game was the first regional live telecast of a D3 game.

The crazy thing is that they cared to show small-school football once in a while on ABC.

Then again, they showed a lot of sports back they that they don't show now. Obviously it was a different time and sports climate ... but you'd think with 500 channels these days we could get some more TV.

What? That's our job? Damn.

[allsky7]

Whoa, what the heck ... Have you H-SC guys ever heard of Shorty, The Movie. I assume yes. I'd never heard of this. Perhaps my larger D3 role is keeping me out of touch at home.

One Simple Wish. One Extraordinary Man.

Shorty is an inspirational documentary film about Walter "Shorty" Simms, a 55-year-old man with Down Syndrome, and the Hampden-Sydney Tigers football team's #1 fan.
This season in particular is very special to Shorty. His beloved Tiger football squad is poised to make the playoffs for the first time in 26 years, he is being inducted into the Hampden-Sydney College Athletic Hall-of-Fame and he is celebrating his birthday on the day of the final game of the regular season against the Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets - a 107-year rivalry known simply as "The Game".

The film's climax takes place on November 16th, 2002 at "The Game". The 108th meeting between the oldest archrivals in the South: Hampden-Sydney vs. Randolph-Macon. After weeks of rain the field is in barely playable muddy conditions. After three hard fought quarters, the game is knotted at a zero-zero tie going into the game's final fifteen minutes.

Will the Tigers beat the Yellow Jackets to make Shorty's birthday wish come true?

You had Shorty. We had Dickie Champ.

They always said we were more alike than we cared to admit.

Funny thing is, me and the crew skipped that game because of the rain. I wanted to go, but people didn't want to grill out in the rain or get mud on their Expeditions and Navigators. (rented?)

The DVD is only $9.98. I'm gonna order that joint just to support the rivalry.

     I have known Walter since the 1970's. Not sure when/where the name Shorty came from. I had never heard him called that until the movie. He is still at H-SC. Saw him just a few weeks ago and as far as I know, he is still delivering mail and helping out around campus. Walter has a way of teaching you patience and keeping you straight about life priorities. The last time I talked to him, I teased him about his belly (he has steak and eggs for breakfast every Sunday AM) and the fact he was slipping a little in his old age in ID'ing some of the old Tiger players and their numbers. (namely, my father) Then I realized I had thrown him a curve. My father coached in the 70's but played in the 50's and 60's. That is why he struggled trying to figure out his number. Walter came to H-S in the 1970's and can still identify most players and their numbers from that point forward. And whatever you do, do not try to fool him on 1950's rock and roll. He knows his stuff.
     I have seen the movie but don't recall everything that is in it. I do know it is a touching story about a deserving person that will always be an icon in Hampden-Sydney history. And I'll spoil the ending for you. Shorty DOES get his birthday wish when the Tigers win the 108th meeting over the Jackets in what will be remembered as the Mud Bowl.   
      I only wish the movie had more info about the early days and how/why Walter ended up at H-S. Perhaps that will be in Shorty II, the prequel.  IMO, that in itself is a testament to the human spirit and the fact that all of us need a purpose in life. I have no doubt that Walter coming to H-S when he did and being given "a purpose" has contibuted to his longevity.

[allsky7]

Whether you want to admit it or not, there is something to be said for some academic rigor in your undergraduate work.  Learning to read critically, write persuasively (spelling aside Hasa), formulate a thesis and defend it are tantamount to what the was intended by a liberal arts training.  Whether you continue to use those skills after your graduation is up to you, but there is value to mastering those skills beyond being a good person.

All that falls under the "working hard" aspect of what my dad was trying to get across.

A student can find easy courses or easy professors at any college or university (yes, including W&L).

I think there may be a misconception with schools with "high academic reputations."

Schools like W&L will just get high school students who performed really well in the classroom, were active in extracurricular activities, and are good standardized test takers.

Schools like BC will get high school students who performed really well and not so well in the classroom, were active and not active in extracurricular activities, and are good and not so good standardized test takers.

This may be difficult to grasp, but that may be the difference (academically) between a W&L and a BC.  A W&L won't have any kids who barely made it through their HS studies, or the students who couldn't (or didn't want to) be involved in school activities beyond the classroom, or the students who don't take standardized tests well.  A BC will have some of those kids.

But that doesn't affect W&L's and BC's quality of professors or difficulty of courses.  If you think that, you're suggesting a BC professor couldn't get a job at W&L or that W&L's Linear Algebra is more rigorous than BC's Linear Algebra.

Hats off to the BCs of the world that give kids another chance who, intentionally or not, faulted in an area or two.

I tend to agree with Barnhart more than WL78 here.

I'm a strong proponent of the 'what you get out of it is what you put into it' theory. There are a lot of people (myself included at times) who learned early how to beat the system, master the answers they want you to master by paying attention during lectures and completing your assignments. While those are also useful skills in the real world, along with being able to follow directions, it's not necessarily the same thing as being engaged in a topic and having a passion for learning. Furthermore, in college, there is certainly learning that goes on beyond the textbooks and tests, and outside the confines of academia.

In some sense, there are probably people at W&L and other more highly-regarded schools who are just getting by by beating the system, so to speak, and there are people who are at Bridgewater and other places who are fully engaged in the process of educating themselves and will be better off for it.

I disagree with Barnhart on the point that more highly-regarded schools have the same quality of faculty as other schools ... but we could also disagree on what makes a quality faculty. Good credentials or the ability to push students, or connect with them. We had a Harvard grad at R-MC in the English Dept., and he was really a prick about his class ... in the end though, I really appreciated him for pushing me, as I would have done whatever it took to get by. So by demanding a lot, I did a lot ... and the people who were just trying to coast through his class, he wasn't having that.

I'm guessing, generally speaking, there are more professors like that at highly-regarded schools than less-highly-regarded schools ... but there's more than one way to get through to students. Some teachers encourage freedom and exploration and challenging thought, not just gobs of busy work.

One other point that may have been lost the first time around. There are fields, journalism being one, in which your degree generally means very little. Now, if you go to Columbia or Missouri or Syracuse, chances are they pushed you harder or had more resources to better prepare you, and you may come out into the real world more qualified for that first job than a guy from Gulf Coast Community College.

But the bottom line is, especially after your first job in the field, they don't care whether you had a 3.4 GPA at Washington & Lee or earned a Master's at Columbia or did two years at Camden County College ... the person with the best clips and the strongest references (i.e. the person the interviewer believes is going to be the best journalist for the open position) is probably going to get the job.

So in that sense, it doesn't matter where you go as much as it matters what you got out of wherever it is you went.

    I have lots of thoughts on this topic but will keep it short. I know over the years, the academics at Ferrum College have taken a pounding  by many people. I do not know where they stand today, but lets just say that back in the day, it was one of the easier schools to get in. In 1981, Ferrum gave an academically immature, seventeen year old high school kid a chance. That kid did more growing up (personally and academically) in two years there than any other two year period in his life. For that, he is forever thankful. I only hope that there are still schools like this today. I know there are many "late blooming" high school kids out there today that just need that chance.  8)

[allsky7]

I have confirmed from my HSC friend that in either 72 or 73 that Jim Lampley called the game from the sideline for ABC.  He reminds me that the Tigers went 36-4 during his career '70 to '74.  He says he was full of adult beverages and vaguely remebers it being against W&L or RMC.  He is working on verifying this.  In his words, "if you remember the 70's you weren't there."

     The 1970 and 71 Tiger teams (along with the 77 team) were two of the greatest ever. The 1970 Tiger D posted 6 shutouts and only gave up 35 points all season. This included a controversial two point conversion (and 7 to 6 loss) in the Knute Rockne Bowl in Atlantic City against Montclair St. Game film later revealed that the zebra missed the call. 
Incidently, the only regular season loss for th Tigers in 70 was a 6 to 0 loss to Maryville (my alma mater)
     The 1971 Tiger D posted 5 shutouts and went 10 and 1. Their only loss to Bridgeport in the Knute Rockne Bowl by a score of 17 to 12.
     BTW 78....I was there in the 70's and I do remember them. Actually, probably better than I do the 80's, 90's, up to present. However, I was only six years old when the 70's arrived. 

Great history lessons in this thread.

Basically, if D3 had formed in '69 instead of '73, we'd all have some Stagg Bowls to bragg about.

Macon smoked Bridgeport in the '69 Rockne Bowl, 47-28 or something.

All hail Howard Stevens (No. 26, I might add)

     He was a man amongst boys. Dad and I talked with him at the 1999 H-S / R-M game in Ashland. BTW....you think I have stories to tell. I wish I could get my father on this sight. I can't even get him to get a computer. 

[allsky7]

I have confirmed from my HSC friend that in either 72 or 73 that Jim Lampley called the game from the sideline for ABC.  He reminds me that the Tigers went 36-4 during his career '70 to '74.  He says he was full of adult beverages and vaguely remebers it being against W&L or RMC.  He is working on verifying this.  In his words, "if you remember the 70's you weren't there."

     The 1970 and 71 Tiger teams (along with the 77 team) were two of the greatest ever. The 1970 Tiger D posted 6 shutouts and only gave up 35 points all season. This included a controversial two point conversion (and 7 to 6 loss) in the Knute Rockne Bowl in Atlantic City against Montclair St. Game film later revealed that the zebra missed the call. 
Incidently, the only regular season loss for th Tigers in 70 was a 6 to 0 loss to Maryville (my alma mater)
     The 1971 Tiger D posted 5 shutouts and went 10 and 1. Their only loss to Bridgeport in the Knute Rockne Bowl by a score of 17 to 12.
     BTW 78....I was there in the 70's and I do remember them. Actually, probably better than I do the 80's, 90's, up to present. However, I was only six years old when the 70's arrived. 

Great history lessons in this thread.

Basically, if D3 had formed in '69 instead of '73, we'd all have some Stagg Bowls to bragg about.

Macon smoked Bridgeport in the '69 Rockne Bowl, 47-28 or something.

All hail Howard Stevens (No. 26, I might add)

     He was a man amongst boys. Dad and I talked with him at the 1999 H-S / R-M game in Ashland. BTW....you think I have stories to tell. I wish I could get my father on this sight. I can't even get him to get a computer. 

Site.....had to correct quickly before Hasa saw this. 

[hasanova]

     He was a man amongst boys. Dad and I talked with him at the 1999 H-S / R-M game in Ashland. BTW....you think I have stories to tell. I wish I could get my father on this sight. I can't even get him to get a computer. 

Site.....had to correct quickly before Hasa saw this. 

allsky7 - If I sight something similar on this site, I'll cite your post  lol 

[WLU78]

Whether you want to admit it or not, there is something to be said for some academic rigor in your undergraduate work.  Learning to read critically, write persuasively (spelling aside Hasa), formulate a thesis and defend it are tantamount to what the was intended by a liberal arts training.  Whether you continue to use those skills after your graduation is up to you, but there is value to mastering those skills beyond being a good person.

All that falls under the "working hard" aspect of what my dad was trying to get across.

A student can find easy courses or easy professors at any college or university (yes, including W&L).

I think there may be a misconception with schools with "high academic reputations."

Schools like W&L will just get high school students who performed really well in the classroom, were active in extracurricular activities, and are good standardized test takers.

Schools like BC will get high school students who performed really well and not so well in the classroom, were active and not active in extracurricular activities, and are good and not so good standardized test takers.

This may be difficult to grasp, but that may be the difference (academically) between a W&L and a BC.  A W&L won't have any kids who barely made it through their HS studies, or the students who couldn't (or didn't want to) be involved in school activities beyond the classroom, or the students who don't take standardized tests well.  A BC will have some of those kids.

But that doesn't affect W&L's and BC's quality of professors or difficulty of courses.  If you think that, you're suggesting a BC professor couldn't get a job at W&L or that W&L's Linear Algebra is more rigorous than BC's Linear Algebra.

Hats off to the BCs of the world that give kids another chance who, intentionally or not, faulted in an area or two.

I tend to agree with Barnhart more than WL78 here.

I'm a strong proponent of the 'what you get out of it is what you put into it' theory. There are a lot of people (myself included at times) who learned early how to beat the system, master the answers they want you to master by paying attention during lectures and completing your assignments. While those are also useful skills in the real world, along with being able to follow directions, it's not necessarily the same thing as being engaged in a topic and having a passion for learning. Furthermore, in college, there is certainly learning that goes on beyond the textbooks and tests, and outside the confines of academia.

In some sense, there are probably people at W&L and other more highly-regarded schools who are just getting by by beating the system, so to speak, and there are people who are at Bridgewater and other places who are fully engaged in the process of educating themselves and will be better off for it.

I disagree with Barnhart on the point that more highly-regarded schools have the same quality of faculty as other schools ... but we could also disagree on what makes a quality faculty. Good credentials or the ability to push students, or connect with them. We had a Harvard grad at R-MC in the English Dept., and he was really a prick about his class ... in the end though, I really appreciated him for pushing me, as I would have done whatever it took to get by. So by demanding a lot, I did a lot ... and the people who were just trying to coast through his class, he wasn't having that.

I'm guessing, generally speaking, there are more professors like that at highly-regarded schools than less-highly-regarded schools ... but there's more than one way to get through to students. Some teachers encourage freedom and exploration and challenging thought, not just gobs of busy work.

One other point that may have been lost the first time around. There are fields, journalism being one, in which your degree generally means very little. Now, if you go to Columbia or Missouri or Syracuse, chances are they pushed you harder or had more resources to better prepare you, and you may come out into the real world more qualified for that first job than a guy from Gulf Coast Community College.

But the bottom line is, especially after your first job in the field, they don't care whether you had a 3.4 GPA at Washington & Lee or earned a Master's at Columbia or did two years at Camden County College ... the person with the best clips and the strongest references (i.e. the person the interviewer believes is going to be the best journalist for the open position) is probably going to get the job.

So in that sense, it doesn't matter where you go as much as it matters what you got out of wherever it is you went.

Look I just have to call BS on that.  I left Matt's thesis alone because the arguement was so weak I thought it would be rhetorical to refute it.  But KMack your statement boarders on idiocy and may be the reason why newspaper readership is in a nosedive, and ad revenues along with it.  There is a reason Jason Blairs and others are discredited, a lack of professional discipline and integrity.  At the better schools you learn that kind of stuff.

It does matter because the better schools have stronger programs.  Period, that is how they got to be the "better academic schools", and the kids that don't screw around, who are disciplined enough to make the good grades, have the extracurriculars, etc will generally outperform those that "didn't" have it.  Put this same thesis on the football field and I will show you a 2-8 team, or worse.  

If any of you would saunter over to the future of DIII thread you would see most of my statements have been in line with guys that have thousands of posts and have forgotten more about DIII than I will ever learn.

But don't come on here and tell me that Camden Community college is as good as W&L after one job.  It really makes your RMC degree look like a piece of paper.

A quick disclaimer, KMack your statements could very well be true and accurate in the world of the minimum wage earners, I confess I am unfamiliar with that world.

[allsky7]

     He was a man amongst boys. Dad and I talked with him at the 1999 H-S / R-M game in Ashland. BTW....you think I have stories to tell. I wish I could get my father on this sight. I can't even get him to get a computer. 

Site.....had to correct quickly before Hasa saw this. 

allsky7 - If I sight something similar on this site, I'll cite your post  lol 

      And if you cite, you may have to smite, for the lack of sight , in using this site. 

[Jacketlawyer]

Whoa, what the heck ... Have you H-SC guys ever heard of Shorty, The Movie. I assume yes. I'd never heard of this. Perhaps my larger D3 role is keeping me out of touch at home.

One Simple Wish. One Extraordinary Man.

Shorty is an inspirational documentary film about Walter "Shorty" Simms, a 55-year-old man with Down Syndrome, and the Hampden-Sydney Tigers football team's #1 fan.
This season in particular is very special to Shorty. His beloved Tiger football squad is poised to make the playoffs for the first time in 26 years, he is being inducted into the Hampden-Sydney College Athletic Hall-of-Fame and he is celebrating his birthday on the day of the final game of the regular season against the Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets - a 107-year rivalry known simply as "The Game".

The film's climax takes place on November 16th, 2002 at "The Game". The 108th meeting between the oldest archrivals in the South: Hampden-Sydney vs. Randolph-Macon. After weeks of rain the field is in barely playable muddy conditions. After three hard fought quarters, the game is knotted at a zero-zero tie going into the game's final fifteen minutes.

Will the Tigers beat the Yellow Jackets to make Shorty's birthday wish come true?

You had Shorty. We had Dickie Champ.

They always said we were more alike than we cared to admit.

Funny thing is, me and the crew skipped that game because of the rain. I wanted to go, but people didn't want to grill out in the rain or get mud on their Expeditions and Navigators. (rented?)

The DVD is only $9.98. I'm gonna order that joint just to support the rivalry.

I was at that game.  A mudfest.  And the last game I went to that kept me enthralled to the end.

Dickie Champ!

[Jacketlawyer]

The DVD is only $9.98. I'm gonna order that joint just to support the rivalry.

I bought a copy this morning.  Thanks for reminding me about that movie, K-Mack.  I remember when it came out, but never saw it.  Pretty sure it premiered in Richmond at the Westhampton Theater.

To the rivalry. . . 8)

[allsky7]

Whoa, what the heck ... Have you H-SC guys ever heard of Shorty, The Movie. I assume yes. I'd never heard of this. Perhaps my larger D3 role is keeping me out of touch at home.

One Simple Wish. One Extraordinary Man.

Shorty is an inspirational documentary film about Walter "Shorty" Simms, a 55-year-old man with Down Syndrome, and the Hampden-Sydney Tigers football team's #1 fan.
This season in particular is very special to Shorty. His beloved Tiger football squad is poised to make the playoffs for the first time in 26 years, he is being inducted into the Hampden-Sydney College Athletic Hall-of-Fame and he is celebrating his birthday on the day of the final game of the regular season against the Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets - a 107-year rivalry known simply as "The Game".

The film's climax takes place on November 16th, 2002 at "The Game". The 108th meeting between the oldest archrivals in the South: Hampden-Sydney vs. Randolph-Macon. After weeks of rain the field is in barely playable muddy conditions. After three hard fought quarters, the game is knotted at a zero-zero tie going into the game's final fifteen minutes.

Will the Tigers beat the Yellow Jackets to make Shorty's birthday wish come true?

You had Shorty. We had Dickie Champ.

They always said we were more alike than we cared to admit.

Funny thing is, me and the crew skipped that game because of the rain. I wanted to go, but people didn't want to grill out in the rain or get mud on their Expeditions and Navigators. (rented?)

The DVD is only $9.98. I'm gonna order that joint just to support the rivalry.

I was at that game.  A mudfest.  And the last game I went to that kept me enthralled to the end.

Dickie Champ!

     I was at that game as well. Wasn't it a C. W. Clemmons TD run late 3rd Q or possibly early 4th Q that was the difference? That dude was a hoss....and had good speed too.

[allsky7]

The DVD is only $9.98. I'm gonna order that joint just to support the rivalry.

I bought a copy this morning.  Thanks for reminding me about that movie, K-Mack.  I remember when it came out, but never saw it.  Pretty sure it premiered in Richmond at the Westhampton Theater.

To the rivalry. . . 8)

     It was at the old Mosque I believe. Isn't that what is called the Westhampton these days?

[Jacketlawyer]

     I was at that game as well. Wasn't it a C. W. Clemmons TD run late 3rd Q or possibly early 4th Q that was the difference? That dude was a hoss....and had good speed too.

I believe that's right.

Allsky, I try to forget things like that!  I think after that score was when I departed on the proverbial Vacation in the Bottle!

[Jacketlawyer]

     It was at the old Mosque I believe. Isn't that what is called the Westhampton these days?

Old Mosque is now the new (well somewhat new) Landmark.  The Westhampton is on Grove Avenue right next to Phil's Continental Lounge.

[Jacketlawyer]

I believe it was 1982--even years are always at Death Valley.

They are, aren't they?

We played much worse there in the years I can remember. All the games at Macon went pretty well, right up until the 53-21 game which happened to represent the last one I saw in person.

I thought this chart would show how things have gone better at Day Field, but it really just shows we kicked a lot more ass in the 90s, and have taken it on the chin bad since '03:

Results in Ashland
93 W 17-10 to clinch ODAC title
95 W 35-14
97 W 49-18 to clinch share of ODAC title
99 W 33-7
01 L 38-26
03 L 53-21
05 L 50-17

Results in Farmville area
94 L 24-10
96 W 20-10
98 W 45-42
00 W 26-17
02 L 7-0
04 L 50-16
06 L 46-21

The more glaring stat is the lack of wins over the Tigers in the '00s. 

But thanks for that information!!