Last Friday’s all-day snow and the typical cold weather follow-up has brought winter back to southwest Minnesota and we are going to experience more cold and snow this week. But the last week of January is approaching and next Saturday is Ground Hog Day and it will still be light at 6 p.m. — which is a good thing.
The day after that the Los Angeles Rams will tangle with the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Both the Rams and the Patriots won overtime thrillers on the field’s of the top seeds as LA kicked a 57-yard field to edge the Saints, and the Patriots had the ball first and marched all the way for a sudden death touchdown to eliminate the Chiefs.
The Chiefs never even had a chance to have the ball. That’s unfair and a ridiculous rule. That should be changed.
I remember well, as a second grader, watching the famous sudden death victory by the Baltimore Colts — game winning touchdown by Alan “The Horse” Ameche — over the New York Giants in the famous (Greatest Game Ever Played) 1958 NFL championship game at Yankee Stadium. That touchdown ended the game, but the Giants did have the ball first and didn’t score.
The NFL kept the sudden death system in place for many years and didn’t have that many tie games in the playoffs Somewhere along the line, the sudden death rule was modified. The first field goal won’t win the game, each team must get to “possess” the ball once. Well, the same should be true for a touchdown. The Chiefs should have had one chance to have the ball. They would have needed a touchdown to keep the game going. But they should have had that chance.
In both high school and college overtimes, both teams have equal chances to be on offense. The NFL needs to get as smart as the colleges and high schools.
A big Red Rock Conference boys’ basketball game was scheduled to be played at Southwest Minnesota Christian High School in Edgerton last night (Tuesday, January 22) when the Eagles hosted Mountain Lake Area / Comfrey. Both teams are really good and that game’s outcome will have a huge bearing on the conference title chase, in which both Murray County Central and Westbrook-Walnut Grove will have a strong role in the final finish order.
A big event is on tap this weekend in Fulda as the community and school remember and honor so many great Raider teams and athletes that had success at the state tournament and state meet levels. The 1975 boys and the 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 girls all put FHS on the map with their state tournament basketball success.
Fulda had a great boys’ basketball team in 1945 and, according to one basketball historian, was the mythical state champion if the current four-class system had been in place back then. I need to do some research and find out more about that remarkable Raider season of ’45, the final year of WW II.
