The last two weeks have not been kind, all in all, to Wisconsin sports fans. The beloved Green Bay Packers lose a game, and their 220 Million Dollar Man quarterback, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Wisconsin Badgers, in the friendly confines of Camp Randall, get slapped around by an uber-talented Alabama football team.
Things got a little bit better when Malik "Been In Town Three Weeks" Willis played about as good a game as he could at quarterback on Sunday, leading the Packers to a 16-10 win. Shouldn't have been that close, folks, as by and large, the other 52 guys on the Green Bay roster played their hearts out before the home crowd.
The collective sign of relief around Wisconsin was long and loud.
Let's digress a bit to that season-opening game in Sao Paulo, a 34-29 loss to Philadelphia. Could well have been a win there for GB. But, for certain, this game was NOT a shining moment for the National Football League. Start with the slippery field that befuddled both teams. Go to the REALLY terrible effort by Peacock to broadcast the game.
Speaking of Peacock, my BFF, Charlie, is tech savvy as all get-out. That was the career he built on with 25 years in the Navy (yes, it was OURS) and later at Jacksonville University, running their IT department. Not spending the extra for Peacock, he figured a way around it -- says he watched it via a Canadian television feed. So, to break that down, here's a guy in Jacksonville, Florida, using Canadian TV to watch American football from Brazil.
If The Shield, as the NFL is often called, wanted to put it's best foot forward and grow the international game, it failed.
And by the way, announcers, the stadium where the Packers and Eagles met was already a football stadium one where soccer (football as it is known to the rest of the world) is played. Nit-picking, yes, but how many others caught that?
You can blame Ol' 61 for all this. Recently met up with Ol' 61 who said I should be blogging more. Be careful what you wish for!
Gotta love the season the Milwaukee Brewers are putting together. As this is written, the team is 23 games above .500 and hold a double-digit lead in the Central Division. The Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals both have sore necks from looking up at Milwaukee.
The Brewers' 87 wins passes what I predicted (86) for them back in late March. Will be happy to see them north of 90 wins -- though today starts a big series with Philadelphia, the team with the best record in the National League.
Had the opportunity to attend festivities last week in Oshkosh at Titan Stadium (or J.J. Keller Field at Titan Stadium as it is now known). Oshkosh Lourdes Academy honored the 50th anniversary of the school's first, and only to this point, state football championship. The 1974 Lourdes Academy Knights shocked the WISAA world with a junior-heavy squad that knocked off powerhouse Green Bay Premontre 15-14, then repeated the score against Marshfield Columbus. Columbus had beaten the Milwaukee Thomas Moore to reach the finals.
In addition to the players, the game's MVP was on hand -- the right upright, as a potential game-winning Marshfield field goal doinked off of it as time expired, giving Lourdes the win.
A dozen or so players from that squad attended, from all over the Fox Valley, Wisconsin and beyond. When I started college at UW-Oshkosh, working part-time for the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, I was assigned to Lourdes Academy as my beat, and remained there for five years or so. Met some great people, made some life-long friends and appreciate being included in their "football family" during the festivities.
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