Well, the summer is almost over, the kids are headed back to school and it’s football season.   You can just start to feel it .  A little chilly at night now, not as much daylight in the evening and getting out of that vacation routine brings us to this point.   What do you expect ???   The Steelers start without Ben Roethlisberger for at least four games, Joe Paterno’s health a big question mark at Penn State and which high school teams will come out of the gate with some wins before the calender turns to October.  It makes September just a bit different and special than any other month of the year.

   It’s sad to see Joe Paterno finally look his age (he’ll be 84 in December).  You have to wonder with his recent appearances and illnesses  if he can make it through one more season.  A coach of his stature should go out in style, being celebrated as one of the greatest ever in college football.  My fear is that he will go out differently, health problems and being remembered as staying one season too many.  Maybe he has us all fooled, but at his age, that’s hard to image.  Let’s hope it works out for the best…especially for him.

     A few rambling thoughts as we near the mid-summer point of 2010.  

I’ve enjoyed the World Cup. While I’ve never been a big soccer fan compared to our football or hoops or baseball, the drama of the World Cup, since it happens every 4 years plus the passion that other counties have for the sport makes it special.

It’s ashame the Seawolves have one of the worst teams in the Eastern League.  The fan support from Erie has been great but the team has been very disappointing !!

If you like to play golf like I do, check out my golf challenge and sign up right here on the web site under the contest page or at Scenic Heights Golf Course or Off-Road Express.  I’m not a great golfer and that’s what makes it so much fun.  One hole can end up in a birdie or a double-bogey.  We do it for love of the game and to have some fun so sign up today.

If Lebron James leaves Cleveland it will be a blow to the city but they’ll get over it.  I’ve said all along that Cleveland is a “football” town first and foremost….with baseball second.  That’s the way it’s always been with a lot of interest in the Cavs in the last few years due to Lebron.  Cleveland fans will recover if Lebron leaves especially if the Browns become competitive again.  That’s when you’ll see real passion from the Cleveland sports fan. !!!

  Some rambling thoughts about the world of sports on a warm late May Day.    Whatever comes to mind !!

 The Blackhawks should win the Stanley Cup.  It has been a great playoff season for the NHL and because of the popularity gained by the Olympics, the NHL could be in a good position to get a new TV contract with more exposure in the near future.

Love to watch the NBA Playoffs this time of year too, especially Kobe Bryant and the Lakers right now.  They seem to be playing very well and Kobe has become the ultimate team-player.  He can shoot, he can pass, he can rebound and he can do it anytime.  Most importantly, he can do down the stretch. 

The Seawolves are a hard team to figure out.   They can look like the best team in the Eastern League and then again, the worst…like when Altoona swept them of four games at Jerry Uht Park.  I guess that’s minor league baseball.

High School umpires deserve a lot of credit. They take a lot of crap and remember, these guys don’t do it fulltime.  This is a part-time job but they are expected to be perfect.  I could never be an umpire or official.    Yes, some of their calls are outright AWFUL.  But if these guys were really good, they would not be high school umpires.  Although there are a few umps out there who think they are the game, and not the players on the field. 

I think Lebron will either stay in Cleveland or go to the Chicago Bulls.  In some respects, it makes sense for Lebron to go elsewhere and get away from the pressure of having family and friends around him all the time putting pressure on him to win for the “home fans.”  I’m sure lebron would love to do that but maybe getting away from that culture will free him up at least mentally.   I think he needs a good, solid, experienced coach to help him become a more mature basketball player just like Kobe Bryant. 

I’ve visited a few golf courses so far this spring and summer and all of them seem to be in great shape.  It’s amazing, with the brutal winters we have in this part of the country, how greenskeepers can get these courses into great shape seemingly overnight.  I wish I could do that with my yard.

That time of the year too….Golf, Grill, Beer, Friends and Family…..Welcome to summer !!!

  Although we are still four months away from the start of the NFL regular season, all eyes are on the league right now for both good and bad reasons.  The good reason, the NFL Draft, when teams hope they pick a player that could turn around their fortunes right away.  The bad is Ben Roethlisberger and his recent antics that have the entire league watching what Roger Goodell will do.  No question that Roethlisberger has been reckless in his off-field behavior for years now and he has given the Steelers, one of the cornerstone franchise of the NFL, a black eye again.  In the past, the Steelers have dealt with problems one way and that is….get rid of the guy.  No one player in Steelers franchise history is bigger than the pride and image the Rooney’s have tried to represent over the years.  Doing it the right way.  They have let top quality players leave because they did not believe the money they were asking was fair.  They have let other players go because off-field problems have been a huge distraction and embarrassment.  Do they back down that philosophy now ????  I know Roethlisberger has not been charged with a crime, it seems, because circumstantial evidence could not be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.   If the Steelers are true to their past and the history with it, they will get rid of Roethlisberger no matter now many Super Bowls he’s won or could win in the future.  I don’t believe he’s learned his lesson.  Why didn’t the accident on his motorcycle that nearly killed him several years ago teach him a lesson then ???   I would be disappointed if the Steelers backed down now.  In my mind, it would add to the black eye that Roethlisberger has already given the franchise.

  Time to put a cap on the winter sports seasons and head into the spring.  The Masters is just around the corner, MLB is about to start and the warm weather will be returning but not without a thought or two about what happened in March.   Villa winning another state title.  I’ve never seen a group so focused on getting back and winning the title again.  With a player the caliber of Kayla McBride you could have very easily just relied on her to do all the damage every game.  This was truely a team without egos and head coach Scott Dibble deserves most of the credit.  While it was disappointing that the Mercyhurst Women’s hockey team did not make it to the NCAA title game again this season, most of that team is back and Meghan Agosta will return as well.   Plus, the Frozen Four will be at Mercyhurst….. so the Lady Lakers may have been just a year away.   I feel the most for the  Gannon Lady Knights who blew an 18-point lead and lost in the NCAA semi-finals.  A great group of seniors who will have to remember that game as their last.   They had a great season, better than any other women’s college basketball team ever.  If only they could replay the last eight and a half minutes.  But you can’t and that is both the beauty of sports and the agony of it as well.

      Many of you may not know, WSEE is the CBS affiliate in something like 32 Caribbean Countries.  We provide lots of weather, as well as business and sports reports that are viewed in the Caribbean, but not around the Erie Market.  In sports, we recently had the pleasure of covering the World’s Best 10K in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  We went in January for the initial press conference and to do  stories that ran for the next five weeks until the race itself on Febrauary 28th, which we also covered.  The event and the experience were awesome as dozens of Elite runners from around the world as well as over 10-thousand other runners took part.  There were also wheelchair races, kids races and a weekend-long Fitness Festival going on.  So we had lots to cover but it was all enjoyable.  I’ve had the chance to cover other major sporting events like the Super Bowl and World Series and this ranked right alongside those in terms of how the media was treated.  It’s a Gold Label Race as sanctioned by the IAAF, showing how important it was.  The hot and humid weather did not make it easy for the runners, but a course record was set by a runner from Kenya in a time of  27:19 seconds !!!!   My thanks to all who made our job easier and enjoyable as well as all the new friends we  made in San Juan Puerto Rico over the course of the last two months.   I hope to go back next year and do it all over again !!!

   With Fort LeBoeuf winning a state title in team wrestling, it could be the start of a blockbuster time of the year in local sports, perhaps of historic nature.   The Mercyhurst womens hockey team is ranked #1, the Gannon womens basketball team is #2 in the nation, Villa is #1 in the state in girls hoops not to mention the East boys and Mercyhurst Prep boys teams ranked in the top ten of the state.  All of those teams have a chance at winning a title !!  Odds are against all of them taking it the distance but the effort to get it should be pretty exciting over the next month or so.   Two national champs, a couple state champs….are you kidding….nothing in Erie sports history would compare to it.  We’ll be there for all the action so I hope you join us for the ride !!!

    When it comes to sports years, 2009 has to rank as one of the best locally….maybe not THE best…but one of the best.  The Steelers win the Super Bowl, the Penguins win the Stanley Cup, Villa wins a state title in girls hoops, Gannon wins the East Regional and goes to the Elite Eight, the Mercyhurst womens hockey teams reaches the NCAA Final and gets the bid to host 2011 Frozen Four,  the BayHawks come to Erie and so on and so forth.   Yes, a great year indeed.  Personally, the combined WSEE-WICU sports department was one of  the highlights of my year.  We are able to do so much local sports coverage, unseen before for this market.   For example, just in the last calender year  we did half hour shows before and after the AFC Championship game, half hour shows before and after the Super Bowl, three half hour shows live during March Madness, 2 half hour shows during the Penguins Stanley Cup Final Series, three live PSAC Football games, a combined 20 minute show every Friday night at 11:15 called the Friday SportsBlitz and a weekly half hour show called Sunday SportsBlitz at 11:30 am prior to the start of the NFL coverage on CBS.  Yes, we were able to do that much not to mention just the daily highlights and stories we gather for our own local sportscasts.   I think now you understand why 2009 was one of my best years of local sports in Erie.  Happy Holidays !!!!!

        I have to chuckle at the whole Tiger Woods situation right now.  He has had the national sports media wrapped around his finger but the national media and the tabloids….that’s a whole different story.   I really don’t care what Tiger Woods does in his personal life, but I do have a problem with a guy who has make hundreds of millions of dollars on his public image off the course when that public image is a farce.   Woods privacy is different that you or I…that’s the price you pay when you are a world renowed athlete and celebrity and it is also the price you pay when you feed off the public who buys tickets, clothing, video games, etc, etc, etc with your name on it.  Yes, the public deserves an explanation.  Maybe what bugged me the most was this….at the same time Woods is apologizing, he’s also lecturing the media about privacy issues.  He’s not the victim here…his wife and kids are.   He brought it on himself, not the media.   Woods will get through it, fans will forgive him and forget and perhaps he can be a better person learning through his own mistakes……  He is a dedicated golfer, dedicated athlete, dedicated to making big money, dedicating to everything…except  apparently his own family.

 
Here are my two-cents on the the decision by the Patriots to go for it on fourth and two, two minutes left, against the Colts.  I understand the logic. What few have mentioned is that the Colts still had to score a touchdown to win the game so the Patriots defense had to come up with a stop, whether it was 30 yards or 70 yards, they had to stop Peyton Manning at some point and did not.  Not making the fourth down play didn’t cost the Pats the game…..not stopping the Colts offense from scoring a touchdown did !!!!  Yes, Manning had a better chance from 29 yards out than 69 yards out, but c’mon defense, step it up and make a stop with the game on the line.  Belichick had confidence in the offense to make it….I think what was lost….is that he had confidence in the defense to stop Manning if they didn’t make it.   Bad decision ????  Not really since he had the chance to keep Manning on the sidelines for the rest of the game.  It was a big gamble….a gamble that simply did not pay off in a regular season game.  Playoff game ????  Maybe a different story.