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Cup of Coffee: December 4, 2008

Brian Cardinal with an 8 trillion last night!

This entry was posted by SBG on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 6:33 am and is filed under Cup of Coffee. It is one of 3098 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post.

24 comments to Cup of Coffee: December 4, 2008

  • freealonzo
    December 4th, 2008 at 7:26 am

    Wow, 2 more minutes and he could have logged the coveted but elusive 1 zillion!

  • SBG
    December 4th, 2008 at 7:42 am

    From the everybody is a winner department: South Dakota has six classes of football including two classes of nine man football. How ridiculous is that?

    • Rhubarb_Runner
      December 4th, 2008 at 7:57 am

      That's a lot of class!

      From the half-baked headline department, compliments of USAToday's money section:

      Senior citizens can be lose life savings via power of attorney

    • SBG
      December 4th, 2008 at 9:04 am

      Oy! There are three nine man and three eleven man classes, not two and four. Three classes of nine man football! WTF!

    • Jeff A
      December 4th, 2008 at 9:07 am

      About as ridiculous as the number of teams the NBA allows into its playoffs.

      • SBG
        December 4th, 2008 at 9:23 am

        At the end, there's one NBA champion. In SD, there are six football champions. This isn't a problem only in SD. In Minnesota, there are 6 classes, too, and every team makes the playoffs. But, only one nine-man class. But, six classes in a state of over 5 million people. SD has around 800,000 people. If Minnesota had as many classes per capita, there would be about 40 classes of football. ND has four classes of football (one nine man) and that's just ridiculous. Three was just fine. I love nine man football, too, but good grief, do we need to crown that many champions?

        • Jeff A
          December 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am

          I really don't have a strong opinion either way. On the one hand, it makes the football season more fun for people, because it gives more teams a chance to make the playoffs, and high school sports are supposed to be about fun. On the other hand, there's also an extent to which they're about excellence, and the more classes you have, the more diluted the term "champion" is.

          I guess I come down on the side of "fun", because nobody is actually being fooled. No one pretends that being the "champion" nine-man class B is the same as being the champion of 11-man class AA, or that it would be any kind of competitive game if the two "champions" played each other. There obviously becomes a point at which it becomes the equivalent of handing out participation trophies, but I don't think we're there yet.

          • SBG
            December 4th, 2008 at 11:07 am

            I really don't care, either. I happened to stumble across that factoid and thought it was a little absurd.

            The fact is, high school football in North Dakota is in real trouble. There are fewer and fewer actual programs actually playing football, and the number of divisions compounds the problems associated with fewer programs (namely more travel).

            For example, SBGville plays with another nearby town and is nine man. There are seven other teams in their region. The closest town in their region is 25 miles away. The next closest town is 32 miles away. Not too bad, but then there's the distance to these towns: 72 miles, 85 miles, 88 miles, 102 miles, and 136 miles. Meanwhile, there are a bunch of schools closer than that are part of the smallest 11 man division. If they went back to a much larger 9 man class, then travel would be drastically reduced. If they had six classes in North Dakota, the travel would be even more insane.

            Not fun.

            • SBG
              December 4th, 2008 at 11:12 am

              Another problem with the proliferation of classes is that SBGville and their arch rival were both on the edge of classifications (in other words, they had almost the same number of students). Unfortunately, for about 10 years, they were in separate classifications and so they never played each other! (They would take turns being the largest school in the lower classification in the state or the smallest school in the state in the higher classification.) Two schools, pretty close together geographically, rivals for decades, nearly equal in terms of tradition (both schools had good programs), but with the proliferation of classes were prevented from playing each other for about a decade, despite having almost the identical number of students. BAH!

              • SBG
                December 4th, 2008 at 11:28 am

                Or in the top two classes where there are multiple instances of some schools in the same region that are 300 miles apart. 300 miles. One way. For a high school football game. Every year (or every other year, taking turns traveling). That's ridiculous.

              • SBG
                December 4th, 2008 at 11:38 am

                Of course, I've gotten way off of the original point. The apparent motivation for all the classes is to allow for more teams to get to play for titles. The price paid for this dubious goal in some instances is to break up natural rivalries and force teams to travel huge distances to play far away schools, instead of schools that are located much closer. Silliness.

              • socaltwinsfan
                December 4th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

                I think having different classes has more to do with competitiveness, in that the schools from small farming towns would have no chance against schools from Fargo or Minot Sioux Falls or Pierre, etc. But I agree three nine-man classes seems excessive. In Idaho, they have four six classes, but only two nine-man (or eight-man, I forget which). And the nine-man is divided up only because otherwise it would have by far the most schools competing in the division in the state. Might be a similar situation in N.D. S.D.

                Then there's California, where not only do they not have a state championship, but they allow ties in their section title games in each division, meaning no overtime. So, everyone gets a trophy and that would say something like "2008 CIF-Southern Section Inland Division Co-Champions!" Of course, they would most likely destroy any state champ for N.D. S.D.

                I've lost count as to how many 11-man divisions there are in the Southern Section. They have attempted to group the divisions geographically as well as by competitiveness. And I don't mean necessarily by school population. If a team gets too good, they will get bumped to a better division.

                Now that I think about it, they also have a state ranking system so that after all the section titles are decided, a select few section winners are invited to a "state title" game so they can decide a "large school" state champ and a "small school" state champ and maybe even a "prep school" champ and/or a "medium school" champ. I'm not sure what all they have.

              • brianS
                December 4th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

                here in California, we have like sixty jillion high schools. The Sac-Joaquin Section alone has 174 high schools and junior highs and over 200,000 kids. Currently, the section has seven conferences in the large school division and 26 conferences overall.

                The section is one of ten sections in the state (6 north and 4 south). I think I counted 148 large-school division football schools in NorCal (enrollments of 1,700+).

                For the purposes of state championships in football, there are only five divisions (I, II, III, "small schools" and "open"). Divided by 9-12 enrollments:
                Div. I: enrollments of 1,700+ in the North, 2,400+ in the South
                II: 1,001-1,1700 in the North, 1,101-2,400 in the South
                III: below 1,000 in the North, below 1,100 in the South
                Small: 400 and below, North; 500 and below, South
                Open: the top North school vs. the top South school, regardless of enrollment.

                Selection Guidelines
                * Won – Loss Record (Preseason – League – Section Playoffs)
                * Strength of Schedule (Preseason – League – Section Playoffs)
                * Head to Head Competition
                * Common Opponents
                * Suitability to represent the State in a Bowl Championship with regards to Pursuing
                Victory with Honor and acceptable standards of sportsmanship.
                Special Note: Point differential in final scores will not be considered in the selection process.
                Media input and computerized rankings will only be used as a guide in the selection process.

                Teams are selected by Section chairs from among the section champions, one from the north and one from the south in each division, for the state championship games. That means that a whole bunch of section champs won't get to go forward, despite having won their last playoff games.

              • E-6
                December 4th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

                we have like sixty jillion high schools

                California math at it's Bertin' finest.

          • AMR
            December 4th, 2008 at 11:57 am

            When MN Hockey was one class, it was kindof fun because small towns would be obvious underdogs and would still win some. Unfortunately, they would also lose most. I'm not sure when it changed, but it was fun for the one year that New Ulm made the tournament. (I actually went to the Catholic school, but we didn't have a hockey team, our 3 or so hockey players were on the public team.) I don't remember much about it though, as I was just a spectator who didn't attend games... I think I remember watching some on TV. I did go to a send-off parade though.

            • brianS
              December 4th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

              The change was all economic. Before the spread of indoor ice arenas in the suburbs and all the youth hockey leagues that went with them, the Iron Range/north woods schools pretty much dominated. Eveleth alone won five of the first 7 state titles. International Falls won 6 titles during 1957-72; Roseau 4 between 1946 and 1961; Grand Rapids 3 in 1975, 1976, 1980.

              Edina was the first real suburban power (titles in 1969, 1971, 1982, 1984, 1988; Edina East in 1974, 1978, 1979). That was all about money and a deep, deep youth program.

              I remember the system shock when Rochester JM won in 1977, the first southern team to win.

              • SBG
                December 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm

                North Dakota started playing holding a state hockey tournament in 1961. Grand Forks Central won the first 13 state titles, finally losing in 1974 to Grand Forks Red River (which split off of Central in 1967). GFC won the next two before GFC and GFRR tied in 1977. I remember that game. It had something like six or seven overtime periods before the officials declared it a tie. So either or both of the GF schools won the state title the first 17 seasons of ND Hockey. The next year, Grafton, a small town (in fact, I believe the smallest town with hockey) won the title. GFC won two more after that. So, twenty years in and GF won 19 titles. Between GFC and GFRR, they've won 36 of the 48 titles handed out. Only one school, Minot, located more than ten miles west of Minnesota has ever won the title.

  • meat
    December 4th, 2008 at 8:53 am

    The pork chop got her first call for an interview last night. Lately, she had been getting down about the whole job search and desperately needed a win. 30 minutes after the first interview was scheduled she got an e-mail offering her second. So, it was a win-win night for team meat. I am one step closer to being top chef a kept man.

  • Jeff A
    December 4th, 2008 at 9:10 am

    Lara scored three runs in the seventh to defeat Aragua 4-2.

    Matt Tolbert has joined the Tigres and made a rather inauspicious debut, going 0-for-4 as the DH. Luke Hughes was 1-for-3 with a walk. Carmen Cali started the seventh and gave up no hits, but didn't retire anyone, either--he gave up two walks and a hit batsman. The next pitcher allowed all three to score, although only one of the runs was earned. Jose Mijares pitched a scoreless ninth, giving up a leadoff single, but nothing else. He struck out one.

  • Rhubarb_Runner
    December 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am

    This article mainly talks about KC, but StL's gas is in the same range. Makes me almost wish I didn't telecommute. Okay, not really.

    • Big Mak
      December 4th, 2008 at 10:45 pm

      It's going to be a strange thing when I move to KS (Lawrence) next year. I'll be moving from one of the cities (chicago) with the highest price of gas to the area with some of the lowest gas prices.