Lehigh Football Nation

Though I haven't a copy of this literary masterpiece, somehow I doubt that the press gaggle bothered to check this out before interviewing former Saints QB Archie Manning and his son (who happens to be the QB for the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl this weekend). Supposedly written by Archie himself (though the credits include "with John Underwood", legendary ghost-writer for athletes such as Ted Williams), Archie pontificates about how messy Peyton was as a kid, raising kids who are now in the "family business" as NFL QBs, and his personal history. This book has a lot more facts than the " puff pieces " being written about the lead-up to the Super Bowl, which is becoming even more comical than ever this year. You know there's a problem when few people are talking about the Super Bowl around here, or about Peyton Manning, or about Tank Johnson, or anything. Without a doubt the best Super Bowl pieces are coming from the ESPN Sports Guy , my ...

It's that recruiting time of year that is simply excruciating for Lehigh fans. We seize on little bits of tomato or salad (like in this picture), scraping by for some sort of update on who Lehigh head coach Andy Coen is looking for, or sniffing around to think about where assistant coaches are driving (or flying) to talk to recruits. There are tireless folks out there (like RichH and ngineer on the voy board) that consistently get the steak for us, working hard and combing over the local press reports for scraps of tantalizing information... who reports for us, and we eagerly gobble down the information. I'm a fan, just like anybody else, and I admit I look over RichH's posts on the voy message board and look at the recruiting websites. But (with no offense to RichH) until I have an official announcement from Lehigh, I tend to make an attempt at curbing my enthusiasm - especially when it comes to reporting who's committed and who hasn't. It is not a stance that e...

Although football recruiting is going fast and furious - with rumors of the latest commits hitting our program just this past week - I'm going to refrain from talking about who's in and who's out until next Monday, and instead talk about the basketball and wrestling teams' big matches this weekend. The biggest game of all, undoubtedly, is Lehigh's appearance on ESPNU tonight at 9:00PM when they travel to Worcester, MA to take on the Crusaders (6-0, 15-6). The second leg on our "Theater of Pain" tour, we travel to Hart Center (where we haven't won since 1998) following our drubbing by Bucknell at Sojka Arena 62-44 last Tuesday. If we have any hope of getting higher than a #2 seed in the Patriot League tournament, it would be a massive help to get over the hump by beating a team we haven't beaten on the road in ten years - not to mention it would be our most impressive road win of the season. Although beating Lafayette at home was an expected ...

My wife and I are old movie buffs, and Turner Classic Movies is one of our favorite TV channels. As we were watching The Heroes of Telemark last night, we saw a classic campy 1965 tale of how playboy nuclear scientist and part-time Norwegian spy for the British Kirk Douglas basically singlehandedly thwarted the Nazi's attempt to create a nuclear bomb. Douglas played a character who could ski like Jean-Claude Killy (complete with Jean-Claude's choice in sweaters), could expertly sabotage the Nazi nuclear program like a Navy SEAL, could decimate half the Nazi empire with perfect marksmanship (must be all that biathlon training), and for good measure could save a bunch of Norwegian kids from sinking on a ferryboat. Basically, he's the perfect candidate for thwarting the nuclear aspirations of the Nazis. Richard Harris, playing the Norwegian underground resistance leader Knut Straud, certainly looked like someone who could probably have wiped out a battallion of Nazis hims...

I've decided to start a new feature, "Press Conferences I'd Like To See". I'm not ashamed to admit that the inspiration for this new addition to my blog was my viewing of the entire Saints/Bears mugging... I mean game. I have no idea why I put myself through things like this - maybe it's because I read too much of the ESPN Sports Guy - but maybe it's a sort of cathartic experience, where I simply spill my frustrations from last night and just pour them into the press conference I'd love to see, just once, in real life. "This will be brief. First of all, congratulations to Lovie Smith, the Bears for playing a good game. And I'd also like to thank the officials for basically making the outcome of this game a foregone conclusion before Rex Grossman threw his first incompletion of many to start this day. Next time, why don't we just not suit up any players, and give it to the Bears straight out? I know a Super Bowl involving the big-TV ...

It's not quite the same as a Lehigh/Lafayette football weekend, but for a cold weekend in January it's not bad - and you can still catch the Bears/Saints on Sunday. A full slate of Lehigh sports is on tap - and it should be a great sports atmosphere on both nights. The Lehigh wrestling team, coming off a rough dual loss last week to Navy (their first loss to Navy in ten tries), will try to rebound against EIWA foe Cornell (#11) Friday night at Stabler Arena. Playing Cornell for the 85th time, this one could be a challenge as we're coming off injuries in the middle weights. To avenge last years' loss to SUNY-Ithaca (Colgate's pet name for Cornell), we will need ranked senior heavyweight Paul Weibel and 141 lb Matt Ciasulli to continue their torrid pace. In wrestling, though, the key is the EIWA championships, and a win here could really get the ball rolling for March. The men's basketball team (8-12, 3-1), after falling 64-59 in the "trap game" to ...

The Saints playoff win -- only the SECOND in franchise history -- was sweet to these fans, but more bittersweet for me (see my post from last week ). It's strange watching a game with two teams you like - the emotions all get tempered. RB Reggie Bush fumbles the ball - you feel a pang in the gut, but you don't throw the remote at the TV. Eagle head coach Andy Reid elects to punt on 4th-and-15 - you shake your head, but you don't bang your head against the wall. It's probably the closest I will ever get to feeling what it's like to be a non-fan - the person that gets dragged into sports who simply could care less. (Kind of like me at a NASCAR race.) Like the week leading up to the Saints/Eagles game, it's bittersweet. It's sad to see my wife - who now is starting to bleed Eagles colors - low because the Eagles lost. She doesn't hate the Saints, but she's no fan either. When Westbrook scored that TD in the third quarter, she was standing u...