Heavyweights and Champions

It is Senior Bowl  (click to gamesite) week.  Tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., the college seniors deemed to be the best  prospects to enter the NFL will be convened in Mobile, Alabama to put on the final football game of the season.  The Senior Bowl has been played annually since 1950 (the photo at the right is from 1958, that's FB Ray Nitschke #31), with all but the first game taking place in Mobile.  It has been a newsy week in Mobile:

• Alabama's nose tackle and sometimes fullback, Terrence Cody, weighed in at 370 pounds.  It is not what you would call a svelte 370, if there is such a thing.  Click here to see a photo of the man-mountain, but beware, this is not for the squeamish.  Clothes make the man. Put some on him, quickly.
• Tim Tebow, the pride of Gatorland for these last few years, has been making news for a pro-life commercial he's done.  Women's rights groups have been raising a ruckus, decrying Tebow's position.  I find this absolutely absurd, these people bitching about this young man speaking his mind on this matter.  Whatever position you personally support, don't you find it refreshing that a talented young athlete has the strength of character to express his opinion as Tebow did?  I am seeing Tebow's position in juxtaposition to the plethora of young athletes who bang their ways through their celebrity years with no thought to the consequences.  Let him speak his mind, I say.  Make up your own mind and teach your children about responsibility and consequences.
• The other area of Tebow's celebrity, his on the field performance, has been drawing criticism, too.  It seems that he hasn't looked good taking snaps under center and that he's been locking on to receivers instead of working through progressions.  In other words, he's performed as everyone expected, given the context in which toiled in college.  Stay tuned.
• There was robbery in a frat house at the University of Oregon.  A couple of laptops and a guitar were swiped. Two of the Ducks' star players have a cloud hanging over them...actually, they're being accused by one of the victims.  Other local sources are suggesting that the two players were not involved, pointing out inconsistencies in the accuser's story.  Once again, stay tuned.
•  Making a positive impression in Mobile has been Idaho guard Mike Iupati, who is 6'5", 325 lbs and measured 35 inch long arms.  This man has arms like legs!

Finally, a non-Senior Bowl story about a football dinosaur, Jack Pardee (click).