Those Fighting Blue Jays!

[JohnnySavage]

The Johns Hopkins football team, which won the 2009 Centennial Conference Championship en route to an appearance in the NCAA Quarterfinals, tops the 2010 Centennial Conference Preseason Poll, which was announced Thursday. The Blue Jays picked up 11 first-place votes and totaled 154 points in the poll of league coaches and sports information directors. This is the fifth time in the last seven years that the Blue Jays have topped the poll as they were also selected in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2009.


They open the season on 9/11 at Randolph-Macon. Get your tickets early!

 

[tactful]

Nesting.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

I only attend tail gates...

 

[JohnnySavage]

Just wait till KRC gets here. She's a big Blue Jay fan.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Someone has to be...

 

[JohnnySavage]

I'm surprised this thread didn't take wing.

 

[trysail]

Losing to Randy-Mac? Good grief!


The NFL scouts were no doubt disappointed.

It is a well-known fact that I am not a fan of "professional" college football, viewing it as a large and seminal corrupting influence in our culture. It is, in short, a colossal racket. College football coaches making million-dollar salaries, football athletic "scholarships", athletic recruiting, and the fact that the colleges serve as free farm leagues for the NFL are every bit as sickening and obscene to me as the felonious rip-off artists of Wall Street.

Lest you conclude that I am a completely humorless S.O.B. ( I am a S.O.B., but like to think that I'm, at least, not humorless ), here's a vignette that is representative of the regard with which college football was held at the college I attended.

The "cheerleaders" ( all male, as was the student body of the time ) were always completely drunk ( at least that's what the administration and alumni presumed rather than contemplating the strong likelihood that certain other controlled substances were hard at work ). In preparation for game day, the grassy area in front of the home stands was transformed into a mud bog by copious applications of water. The "cheerleaders" ( a motley crew to begin with ), generally attired in diverse white or denim coveralls and equipped with an assorted collection of douche bags, hot water bottles, megaphones and enema bags suspended from sticks assembled in front of the stands. They inaugurated their performance with a cacaphonous, completely unchoreographed whooping and hollaring closely resembling primal therapy. This was followed by a series of anarchic grunts, general noise-making, mayhem and ad hoc cheers— the most memorable of which was the rhythmic chant:

Kill, maim, destroy!
Rape, pillage and burn!​

As the game progressed, things degenerated. By the end of the third quarter, amply fortified by multiple applications of alcohol ( and god knows what else ), mud-sliding commenced. Like broad jumpers, our stalwart and fearless "cheerleaders" would take running starts from the 10-yard line or thereabouts and plunge headlong into the mud-pit with the apparent object of sliding the furtherest or burrowing the deepest.

Halftimes featured the school band, a forlorn and discordant group equipped with an assortment of kazoos, Jew's harps and harmonicas. It is possible that that they once struck a uniform chord or produced a recognizeable tune but not within my memory.

The football game itself was largely ignored by the spectators. I have always maintained the highest regard for the players. Over the years, that regard has done nothing but grow. Theirs was as pure a spirit as you're likely to find, seeing that there was never any doubt that their participation was entirely ascribable to love of the sport— very clearly, no consideration was given for current or future emolument.

 

[trysail]

They've surprised people this year.

http://www.laxpower.com/graphics/Mackey/resized/2011_Maryland_Johns_Hopkins_12.jpg​

 

[stephen55]

I thought the Blue Jays were in Toronto.

 

[trysail]

The Blue Jays are seeded #3 in the NCAA tournament. They easily dispatched Hofstra today.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/5486240516_637bd75766.jpg​

It's a very young team; nine of ten starters are either freshmen or sophomores. As one ESPN wag put it, "If you don't beat the Jays this year, they're going to be mighty hard to catch in 2012 and 2013." Pietramala's got a lot of horsepower to play with.

 

[shoulderblade]

I thought the Blue Jays were in Toronto.

Right. Wasted my time looking at this thread.

 

[trysail]

Holy mackerel. Are you a binge Litster?


When you decide to return to this place, you sure as hell don't go halfway— sorta like Sherman marching through Georgia. You're a regular postin' fool.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Holy mackerel. Are you a binge Litster?


When you decide to return to this place, you sure as hell don't go halfway— sorta like Sherman marching through Georgia. You're a regular postin' fool.

Whenever I have some times on my hands, I try to spread some knowledge and perhaps a chuckle or two.