Marquee Matchups - This past Monday Night Football Game between the New England Patriots and the Houston Texans was supposed to be a possible preview of the AFC championship game. The people who picked that game to be on MNF long before the season began had to be smiling to have the Patriots with a 9-3 record and the AFC East title wrapped up against the Texans with an 11-1 record.
Then the game started.
New England jumped out to a 21-0 halftime lead and rolled to a 42-14 win. The game of the year ended up being a dud.
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Speaking of duds, the next Monday night game features teams with a combined 10 wins - the New York Jets (6-7) at the Tennessee Titans (4-9). Since the team I root for is involved, I might be the only person in this area to watch this matchup of teams going nowhere.
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Yes, It's True - Sometimes when I tell people about the huge crowds the Jamestown Community College men's basketball team drew in the early 1980s, they don't believe it. But when the Jayhawks made three straight trips to the NJCAA national tournament at Hutchinson, Kan., in 1981, 1982 and 1983, the JCC athletic complex was the place to be.
Above is photographic proof. That is a packed house before an NJCAA Tournament first-round game at JCC in 1981 against Roxbury CC for the right to advance to Hutchinson. The fans are holding newspapers because it was a popular gimmick at the time for the fans to appear to be reading them and showing no interest when the visiting team's lineup was announced.
The change in the size of crowds must be the same for Indiana State basketball fans when they hear about the days of the Sycamores' sellouts when Larry Bird played for them in the late 1970s.
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Where Is The Snow Belt? - There might not be that large of a crowd to watch the Jayhawks play today, but at least there will be tournament games at the JCC gym. That's because the weather will be ''perfect'' for Dec. 15.
Today is the start of the 20th Post-Journal Classic men's basketball tournament, but it isn't the 20th annual because the event has been canceled five times.
One cancellation was very strange. Like now, the tournament was scheduled in December and despite JCC being in the snow belt, on the weekend The P-J Classic was to be held we had perfect weather with no snow on the ground and clear skies. But one of the visiting teams was snowed in and couldn't make the trip to Jamestown, so the tournament was canceled.
That team was Potomac State College located in Keyser, W.Va. While we were in the ''tropics'' in Western New York, Potomac State, located about 250 miles to the south, was stuck in Western New York-like weather.
Speaking of Potomac State, in case you didn't know, one of college's most famous alumni is former major leaguer John Kruk.
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Familiar Face - In the last column I mentioned the best part of the book 106 Yards by Al Carmichael were the 370 photos of football in the 1950s and 1960s. But I forgot to mention that one of the photos had an area tie-in.
The photo above shows Carmichael, playing for the Green Bay Packers, being tackled by Chuck Bednarik of the Philadelphia Eagles and helping him out in back is teammate and former Jamestown Red Raider Jim McCusker.