August 29, 2002

It seems like just moments ago that we all celebrated New Year's Day by sitting in front of our TV sets and enjoying the best in college football. In fact, it does feel like it was just moments ago for me, because Ma accidentally turned up the knob on my Stoli IV drip and I've been a bit out of it for over seven months.

But all that's been straightened out, and I did take advantage of my time off to drop a few pounds (my neck's all the way down to a size 25 now). My doctor said there's nothing about obesity that can't be cured by a lengthy coma.

Fortunately everything got back to working order in time for the start of the football season. I look forward to this weekend's opening slate of college games.

Last week, in order to whet my appetite for the return of football, I tuned in some of those professional exhibition games. I don't follow the NFL as closely as I used to. I started losing interest a couple years ago when they started playing games in February and March and having wrestlers like Jesse "The Blob" Ventura do the broadcasts.

If I'm watching a broadcast, then I want an athlete whose sports past isn't an embarrassment. Not to mention someone with an intelligent nickname. Ex-athletes like Pat Summerall or O J Simpson. Or the Pony. Anyone know what happened to the Pony?

Exhibition games are important because they let teams try out new players and new plays on the field, as well as new uniforms. One disadvantage for the audience is that you don't get to see the stars as much as they're usually only in the game briefly, probably for contractual reasons.

Most of the professional exhibition games last week were pretty lousy, but a couple of them got to be interesting, such as the new Texas NFL team's exhibition game which, for some reason, was played against Ohio State. The Buckeyes won the game fairly easily.

As I said in my ESPN chat yesterday, I will never again predict a player to win two Heisman trophies, but I will predict that Ohio State's Marcy Clarette will win three Heismans.

This college vs pro exhibition game thing might be catching on. I saw the semi-pro contest between the brave firefighters and policemen of New York City and one of the teams was dressed up in Notre Dame uniforms, so maybe they'll schedule a game between the Irish and the Fighting Irish.

I also enjoyed the exhibition game that the Rams played against Al Groh's team. The Rams were fun to watch, they kept the same wide-open offense. I tuned in late, so missed what must have been a brief appearance by former PSU star Curt Warner.

I bet Warner looked really sharp in those brand new green and gold Rams uniforms. Coach Vermeil apparently took a page out of Dan Divine's notebook and switched from blue uniforms to green ones. But he should have waited for a big game, the way Notre Dame did when they switched uniform colors for that Rudy game against Georgia Tech.

As I said, I haven't kept up really closely with the NFL and there have been some changes that I missed out on. Al Groh's Jets team moved to the state of Virginia and, much like that Tennessee Tuxedos team, changed their team colors from green and white to some sort of black and orange combination.

The most interesting part of the game was the exciting comeback of former Michigan State and NFL star Brad Van Pelt. Van Pelt threw for a lot of yards in a mop-up role for the Rams. He looks pretty good for a guy who was playing college football nearly 30 years ago and has to be almost half my age.

Most former NFL players don't try to make comebacks, instead they move on to other fields. One of the most famous of these was former Iowa great and NFL star Alex Karras, who moved into acting.

Karras' first role was playing himself in the movie "Paper Lion". That was the story of a writer with a strange accent named George Plimpton, who went to an NFL training camp and tried to become a quarterback in the NFL. Karras beat the living hell out of him on play after play, screaming "take that you sissy Limey".

Karras moved on to other film roles, such as his role as a boxer in "Blazing Saddles", where he beat the famous Secretariat in a TKO.

Finally Karras settled down with a more normal role, playing the adoptive father of former college star Gary "Mill the Thrill" Coleman in the TV show "Webster". The adoptive mother on the show was actress Susan Clark, and she and Alex fell in love and got married at the 50 yard line of the LA Coliseum.

They rented a honeymoon suite at the Century Plaza, and Alex was all ready to consummate the marriage. Alex turned out the lights and, after the deed was done, Susan yanked off her wig and her dress. Alex screamed "oh my God, you're not Susan Clark, you're MONTE Clark". Somehow Alex had been tricked into making the sign of the cross-eyed monkey with the former NFL lineman and coach.

Monte replied, "wrong guess, fat boy. Let me show you the FULL Monte." He then unzipped his outer layer of skin and, lo and behold, it was George Plimpton! After all these years he finally had his revenge! "Ha ha, Karras, the joke is now on you, how do you feel now?"

Karras muttered, "awww, Mongo straight", then beat the living hell out of Plimpton.

And now you know the rest of the story.