Sports Notes

The national media folk following football have what, for them, is an irresistible urge to hero worship. Sometimes it is downright nauseating. My case in point is the Steeler's oft-injured QB Ben Roethlisberger. I have no difficulty conceding that Roethlisberger is a fine QB. The results speak for themselves.  But he is not a great person.  Those results are also speak for themselves.  Does that mean he cannot redeem himself?  No.  He can and presumably has at least started down that path.  My complaint is that the sportswriters and broadcasters have this urge to make him some sort of god.  After Sunday night's game in Pittsburgh, some reporter actually asked the Steeler's coach, Mike Tomlin, if having Roethlisberger cheering on the sideline was special for the team.  Tomlin suffers fools poorly.  It's why many people like and respect him.  He could barely contain himself on this question and answered something to the effect of "are you for real?"

It was said of Johnny Unitas that he displayed his real raw ability and toughness during those years in the 1960's  when the talent around him wasn't what it was when the Colts won back-to-back NFL titles in 1959 and 1960.  When the talent wasn't there, Johnny Unitas was.  When the offensive line gave way, he was tougher than ever and still performed at peak efficiency.  Roethlisberger is pretty tough too, but his performance these last two years isn't what it was when the Steelers were loaded with talent. Quick hits:  Leading the charge for the suddenly rejuvenated Raven defense Sunday night was the enigmatic Paul Kruger, who is tall and quick and increasingly strong and is finally taking to his role on the Ravens.  After the Ravens drafted him out of Utah, he spent two years on the bench and on special teams. Only last season did he land a regular role, joining those defenders who came on the field on passing downs.  His job was to rush the QB and he got pretty good at it.  Turns out he is quicker than most offensive linemen and with his size (6', 4") and long arms, he was a mobile lineman and a fast lineman and increasingly, as the season wore on, he was a force on the Ravens already solid defense.  Then, in the offseason, the Ravens lost outside linebacker Jarret Johnson to free agency.  Then they lost the defensive player of the year, Terrell Suggs, to a torn achilles.  Courtney Upshaw, a high draft choice out of Alabama, was the Ravens pick to fill in for Suggs, and Kruger was their choice to take over for Johnson.  It wasn't a smooth transition.  Upshaw was hurt in the preseason and his recovery has been slow.  But he, too, is showing signs of what the Ravens thought he would be when they drafted him out of Alabama. Kruger had hardly played in cover position during the first three years and it was not easy to learn on the fly.  Things have improved quickly, however, partly because Kruger has learned and partly because the Raven's defensive coordinator, Dean Pees, has developed a rotation that calls for a lot more rushing the QB duties for Kruger.              

So the Ravens are now 8-2 and two games ahead of the Steelers with a rematch planned in Baltimore in two weeks.  In between Baltimore must travel of San Diego while the Steelers will take a trip to Cleveland.  In this season, neither game will be easy.  Even though the Chargers are struggling, they will be a severe threat to the Ravens because of the effects of a long flight and because Phillip Rivers is Phillip Rivers.  The last two times the two teams played in California the Ravens won one and the Chargers won one.  The Ravens managed a narrow victory because Ray Lewis somehow charged right through the offensive line of the Chargers on a fourth and short play in the final minute deep in Ravens territory and tackled the halfback as he was taking the handoff.  Rivers had marched the Chargers relentlessly, but needed a TD because his team was down four.  In the other game, last season, the Chargers crushed the Ravens.

Without Roethlisberger the Steelers won't be a decided favorite to beat anybody.  The Browns are improving - they outplayed the Cowboys Sunday, leading for most of the game, only to lose when the Cowboys rallied late to force overtime, and then won in overtime - but the question will be whether they can score on the Steelers still-proud defense. Charlie Batch, the third-stringer, will start at QB for Pittsburgh, and the Steelers have signed another QB, Brian Hoyer, because QB No. 2, Byron Leftwich, was injured in the Ravens game and has been scratched from the Browns game. A field goal either way will decide this game.

The other team from this division to make the playoffs last season was the Bengals.  But they stumbled badly out of the box, getting crushed in Baltimore on opening weekend and going downhill from there.  They appear, however, to have righted the ship and after ten games are at .500.  They probably can't catch the Ravens but they can catch the Steelers.  Even now, the 5-5 Bengals are only one game behind Pittsburgh.  If the Steelers stumble in Cleveland and then lose again to the Ravens, it will be the Bengals who have a chance to walk through the open door and into the wild card hunt.  Over the next two weeks the Bengals are home against  the Raiders and at San Diego.  The second one will be a tougher game, obviously, but they will be getting the Chargers one week after the Ravens beat up on them.  Things could be worse.

An Iowa lad playing at tiny Grinnel College in Iowa threw up over 100 shots Tuesday night against equally small Faith Bible College.  A whole lot of those shots went in the bucket.  His team, however, surrendered over 100 points and one player on Faith Bible, David Larson, poured in a mind-numbing 70 points on 34-44 shooting.  The sad part of this story for Faith Bible is that Larson's incredible performance barely got a mention on ESPN.  The reason:  despite scoring 104 points and despite Larson's performance, the team lost to the Grinnel Pioneers by 75 points!  Huh?  

You score 70 points, your team scores 104 points and you lose by 75 points?  Grinnel and their amazing scorer, Jack Taylor, scored early and often in a 179-104 rout of Faith Bible.  Jack Taylor has 138 of those points to break an all-time NCAA record.  And Taylor didn't just break the record, he crushed it.  The previous record was 113, set in 1953 by Bevo Francis of Rio Grande in a game against Hillsdale College.  Francis actually had a better game, scoring 116 in a game the following season, but it came against a junior college and didn't count against the record.  The only other triple figure game in college came in 1954 when Frank Selvy of Furman scored exactly 100 against Newberry.  In the NBA everyone, almost, knows that legendary center Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 in a game in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a venue Chamberlain's Philadelphia 76'ers played in from time-to-time.  Kobe Bryant had 81 points in one game.

The Division I NCAA soccer tournament moves now to the round of 16.  The University of Maryland hosts under-the-radar power Coastal Carolina Sunday at 5 pm.  (Wouldn't you know it, the game is at the same time the Ravens play in San Diego.)  The Terps advanced with a thrilling win over Brown, a team that was bigger and just as fast and quick as Maryland and led the game for much of the first half.  Patrick Mullins, the Terps leading scorer, sent a 100-foot rocket-of-a-shot past the Bruins' superb keeper, Same Kernan-Schloss, with just three minutes left before the half to tie the game, 1-1.  The second half was 45 minutes of superb soccer, played on a cold and windy night in Maryland.  Despite excellent opportunities, neither team could score until the final minute.  Then, Junior Helge Leikvang's scintillating free kick from some 100 feet away found the foot of a streaking Dan Metzger just in front of the Brown goal, and Metzger one-touched into the net.  Leikvang, who came on to the pitch early in the first half and never came out, added needed stability to the Terp midfield.  His kick started from well right of the Bruin goal and seemed destined to sail wide left, but curled beautifully to the turf at point blank range, where Metzger met up with it.

Coastal Carolina edged Wake Forest, 2-1 in overtime in the second round after beating Elon in the first round.  They were not seeded in the 48 team field even though they were ranked  most of the season in the coach's poll.