Season begins, just in time
Thursday night, up on the hill, the first sign of civilization for a lot of us will make its first appearance in quite a long time.
About 48 hours later, a few hours to the south and west, it will rise again, this time in a horseshoe.
College football.
You can argue that the phenomenon, in perhaps its purest form, has already made an appearance. But that's high school -- still a wonderful spectacle, I grant you -- but that's your community against mine, with loyalties divided among some imaginary lines, and you'll be darned if you'll ever root for those kids.
But, you can live in Boardman or Warren, Campbell or Howland, the North side or the South side, and when the lights come on at Dike Beede Field, everyone's a Penguin.
(Beede invented the penalty flag. You probably already knew that fact, but we are required by law to make note of it at least once every season.)
Fun at The Ice Castle
Edinboro University coach Lou Tepper, who's coached at Illinois and Virginia Tech and Colorado and Louisiana State -- places where the fans know a little something about raising a ruckus -- says Stambaugh Stadium is "a unique experience in Division I-AA football."
That means, it gets l-o-u-d. Consider the task Edinboro's players face: the average attendance in Div. II last year was about 3,300 per contest, which is roughly the size of a couple tailgate lots before a YSU game.
It promises to be, at the very least, an interesting year at The Ice Castle. The defense is relatively young and the offensive line had to be rebuilt, but expectations are pretty high among the players and coaches.
And let's be honest -- the last two seasons haven't been up to expectations around here, but when trips to the national championship game become the norm for, oh, about a decade, it's a bit unfair to look down on 8-3 and 7-4. Think about this: how many fans around the country would like to complain about their team winning only 68 percent of their games?
Then there's the team a few miles to the west that's also made a habit out of winning national titles. They're calling for a down year at Mount Union, though -- their chances for winning the Division III championship have been downgraded to "outright favorite" from "let's just give 'em the dang trophy now and be done with it."
(By the way, one of the Purple Raiders' offensive tackles, Larry Kinnard, has been named a player to watch in Division III ... of course, at 6-foot-6 and 307 pounds, it's not like you can miss him.)
Finally, a game
And in Columbus, the cheering just before the opening kickoff may very well be replaced by a huge sigh of relief.
Given all the off-season distractions involving Maurice Clarett, the sight of an actual game has to be a welcome respite.
Not that the Buckeyes will engender any sympathy from the Washington Huskies, whose former coach reportedly spent the weeks before spring practice debating whether to revamp the offensive line or just bet it straight.
And what of the guys who will play tailback for the Scarlet and Gray? (They actually have names -- Lydell Ross and Maurice Hall, not "Two Guys Who Aren't Clarett" -- and actually possess talent, quite a bit of it.)
One thing that the whole Clarett debacle could endanger is the Buckeyes' chemistry, a very, very important piece of their run to the national championship a season ago.
Fifteen years of up close and personal experience tells us the coach has the ship on course, despite the turbulent waves that rocked the boat this summer.
There will be tests, however, tough ones in Madison, Wis., State College, Pa., and Ann Arbor, Mich.
Winning them all again will be tough -- it takes a special program to do that.
But think about this -- if the preseason polls hold all season, all of us could be pretty darn proud of Youngstown the night of January 4, 2004.
XRob Todor is sports editor of The Vindicator. Write to him at todor@vindy.com.