Lehigh Football Nation

In a typical Lehigh football season, there is one early "stretch game" that tests the Mountain Hawks in regards to their potential stature in thw wider FCS world. There's little question that Lehigh's trip to Harrisonburg, Virginia is going to be that test. Last year, first year head coach Everett Withers guided the Dukes, whose fan base expects FCS playoff appearances and deep playoff runs, probably exceeded expectations, going 9-4 and making the playoffs in his first year as James Madison head coach. In 2015, the Dukes will be in an unfamiliar place - living up to the expectations.

The nostalgia kind of crept up on me. I wasn't expecting to feel nostalgia on our family's trip to Montreal, a trip designed (mostly) by my wife to get us away from the stresses of the day job and the business of running a family. But somehow I found myself in front of Olympic Stadium today, or the "Big Owe", as it was called at one time, with memories of piling in a car in Connecticut eighteen years ago with a pal of mine to watch a baseball game there.  Here. I never expected to be here talking about the Montreal Expos.  But I am. I never expected to want to buy a Montreal Expos hat today - to want that hat more than any other souvenir I could buy on this trip.  But I did. The memories of a baseball game I went to so many years ago became a trip down memory lane of the Expos franchise - the most amazing, improbable, groundbreaking, doomed franchises in the history of professional sports.  Their story is one of optimism triumphing over reality to come in...