2007 Week 8
October 26, 2007
We had some major action last week in college football. Kentucky's cinderella season took a major hit when R Ben Myer's Florida Gators came to town and topped the Cards. Another cinderella, South Florida, got knocked off by last year's cinderella, Rutgers. Meanwhile, Oregon survived Washington's upset bid, pulling away for a 21-point win.
Another Saturday game getting some attention was Pittsburgh's upset over a previously unbeaten Cincinnati squad. I don't understand the scheduling of NFL games on Saturday.
I was looking forward to watching the Southern Cal at Notre Dame game this weekend. For some reason they showed a rerun of the 1977 game, where the Irish donned green jerseys and godawful sweat socks and stuffed the Trojans. I thought Joe Montana wore #3, not #13, but I have to say that Coach Robinson looked pretty healthy. Coach Divine looked a lot fatter than I remembered.
Many of you asked what my thoughts were about the end of that LSU vs. Auburn game. I've pointed out before that LSU is like Dracula, they suck the most at night. So I was surprised when the Tigers pulled out that game, crushing those other Tigers like they were some sissy animal mascot, like the Bengals.
Some people noted that LSU coach Les Myles showed some major cajones. And that reminded me of a coaching story from years past.
When I worked at Pitt I was pretty close to Coach Majors. We'd go out and toss back a couple drinks, then start on the next fifth.
One night while carousing we ran into the coach of Pitt's biggest rival. We'll just call him "Joe", or "four-eyed putz". Joe was a bit grouchy that night, and even a few drinks did nothing to brighten his mood. Pretty soon he and Johnny began yelling at each other about a disputed call in their game the prior year. They almost came to blows, then wanted to find a way to settle their dispute via competition.
Joe, due to his Italian heritage, suggested a game of bocce ball. Johnny, who could barely stand by this point, agreed, but only if they played using the "Nashville Rules".
"Nashville Rules" bocce involved two men sitting 5 feet apart lobbing the bocce ball into each other's laps. When on the "receiving" end the competitor was not allowed to move, even if the bocce ball was headed straight for the lap.
Well, after a couple rounds Joe lobbed one quite high that landed almost dead square on Johnny's pain zone.
Johnny yelped and would up and delivered a slider that would have made Ted Williams flinch. He hit Joe right in the gut.
Both started yelling at each other and the bartender, a guy named Tony, came over to break up the argument. Eventually Tony volunteered to officiate the competition.
Joe tried a new approach, a softball style underhand rise ball. And that finished the competition, as Johnny had to be carted off to the local hospital. Tony yelled out "boy, he really busted your balls!" and thus was born the new drinking game known as "Ball Buster".
These days on gameday, young men all over the country entertain each other by hurling bocce balls at each other's groin, as "Ball Buster" has overtaken "Beer Pong" as the #1 game for the fraternity set.
As for Tony, he moved to New Jersey and eventually starred in an HBO documentary series, where he brought the gospel of ball busting to the entire nation.
And now you know the rest of the story.