2008 Woodie Awards
Unnecessary Roughness
On the offensive
Corey Kempf
Issue date: 10/7/04 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 2 next >
The week after the Whitewater football game, running back Nick Hunter approached me about the skybox lead on the top of the front page of the paper that read "Muskie football opened its season with a win, but how long would they be celebrating?"
His concern was that it was too harsh. I replied, "I'm not saying you guys didn't play a hell of a game, but I've never heard of anybody celebrating a loss."
Apparently Hunter and the team took it to heart because the next week, the Muskies sent Benedictine through to floor with a 75-7 trouncing. The 75 points were the third highest point total in Division III this season, and the 738 total offensive yards was the highest output of the season in Division III and more than likely, but unconfirmed at this time, the highest in Lakeland's history.
The day after the game, I stopped at one of my favorite sites, the incomparable d3football.com, and found one of the writers almost condescending to the idea of dropping 75 points on another team.
Well, I say the Muskies should've felt worse for making the cheerleaders do that many push-ups. (A few sympathetic fans even ran out by them to do jumping jacks for encouragement.) I felt winded just watching.
Anyways, should the team and the coaching staff feel bad for scoring that many points?
Well, in this election year, do you think George W. Bush or John Kerry would mind if one beat the other by a 60% margin? NO!
Fact is, yeah, the Muskies won by 68 points, danced with a few Division III records, and unofficially shattered school records. But, more facts are that Lakeland's starters were removed from the game midway through the third quarter. Ryan Mauiri (the quarterback!) led the team in rushing yardage with 150, and the second and third stringers tallied more broken tackles than the amount of empty beer bottles and cans strewn over the lawn by the apartments; all this with Benedictine's number one D on the field.
How can a team not put 75 points on the board if the other team can't tackle? How can you blame that on anything but the Swiss-cheese like defense (full of holes)? You're not going to tell your players to just fall down.
His concern was that it was too harsh. I replied, "I'm not saying you guys didn't play a hell of a game, but I've never heard of anybody celebrating a loss."
Apparently Hunter and the team took it to heart because the next week, the Muskies sent Benedictine through to floor with a 75-7 trouncing. The 75 points were the third highest point total in Division III this season, and the 738 total offensive yards was the highest output of the season in Division III and more than likely, but unconfirmed at this time, the highest in Lakeland's history.
The day after the game, I stopped at one of my favorite sites, the incomparable d3football.com, and found one of the writers almost condescending to the idea of dropping 75 points on another team.
Well, I say the Muskies should've felt worse for making the cheerleaders do that many push-ups. (A few sympathetic fans even ran out by them to do jumping jacks for encouragement.) I felt winded just watching.
Anyways, should the team and the coaching staff feel bad for scoring that many points?
Well, in this election year, do you think George W. Bush or John Kerry would mind if one beat the other by a 60% margin? NO!
Fact is, yeah, the Muskies won by 68 points, danced with a few Division III records, and unofficially shattered school records. But, more facts are that Lakeland's starters were removed from the game midway through the third quarter. Ryan Mauiri (the quarterback!) led the team in rushing yardage with 150, and the second and third stringers tallied more broken tackles than the amount of empty beer bottles and cans strewn over the lawn by the apartments; all this with Benedictine's number one D on the field.
How can a team not put 75 points on the board if the other team can't tackle? How can you blame that on anything but the Swiss-cheese like defense (full of holes)? You're not going to tell your players to just fall down.
Be the first to comment on this story