Performance Of The Year Semifinal 1 (of 3)

Yes, it's that time of year again.  Be sure to go to the full web-site and vote in the poll at the top of the left sidebar.  Vote for your top 3 in each Semi-Final.  Three from each will advance to the Finals.

These performances are randomly selected from all the submissions during the year on the right sidebar.  There is still more opportunity to submit more items to be included in the other 2 Semi-Finals.

1. Ron Moore's victory at the 100K Firecracker Ultra.
2. Isaiah Harris's school record and Big Ten Championship in Outdoor 800M.
3. Pre-Olympics Diamond League win by Joe Kovacs.
4. Brannon Kidder, Athlete of the Year at Penn Relays.
5. Bridget Franek making her 2nd 3000M Steeplechase Final at Olympic Trials.
6. Brian Leap, 6th at NCAA Triple Jump 52' 11".
7. Darrell Hill drafted into the Tracktown League by the Philadelphia team.
8. Tessa Barrett's dominance at the Spiked Shoe Inv. XC and USTFCCA Athlete of the week.

Now I Know What I Want For Christmas

The big day is rapidly approaching, and I think I will revert to childhood and see if I can get a couple of toys for presents.  Us old-timers remember the days when we rifled through the Sears or JC Penneys catalog for ideas on our Christmas lists.  Now JC Penneys is barely limping along and Sears is about to bite the dust completely.

But the spirit of the catalogs lives on, at least on the internet of today, although it is muted by vast amounts of worthless material hogging most of the bandwidth.  I found this new LEGO set is about to be added to the annals to go with the already available Big Bang Theory set!  LINK FIXED

A Large Hadron Collider LEGO set!

And don't sit in Sheldon's spot!

Stolen Photos From The Blue/White Scrimmage

Either the Blue beat the White, or the White beat the Blue.  I'm not sure which.  And everyone ran weird distances in bizarre shirts.  The only consistent thing was Owen Dawson rabbiting many events and rocking the Alumni Singlet! All photos were stolen from our great friend Bob Trump.

Michael Slagowski's debut on the Ashenfelter Track.

AND The Story Goes He Once Blew Up Coach Groves' Mailbox*

Penn State Track and Field Alumni Golfer Tom Kleban continues to make track and field better, both at the high school and college level.  The former decathlete gives a perspective to the sport that almost no one else can. 

Now he is a star of Town and Gown, my wife's go-to State College reference. 

Tom Kleban On The Track

* Coach Groves once told me that the Kleban brothers, Tom and Rick, lived in his neighborhood as kids and once blew up his mailbox with firecrackers as a Halloween prank.  The Interns have been unable to verify this claim.

More Old-Time Goodness From The Garage Museum Of Mike Fanelli

I have bumped into the Fanelli family many times throughout my running "career".  Our paths even crossed a few times, although I have never met Mike face to face.  I have met Gary Sr., and even purchased bee pollen from him back in the late 70s at a road race or two.

Since I have become a certified, professional Movie Producer (Go ahead and look me up on IMDb!), my next project has been rolling around in my head for 2 years now.  It is a rip-off of the current hit and my favorite TV show, The Goldbergs.  I figure we could simply switch the "1980-something" catch phrase to "1970-something" and use the same suburban Philly motif and locations many of us are familiar with.  Work in running in all its forms and the episodes would practically write themselves.  The Fanelli family would literally become America's Running Royalty, and take us to many places where we would all smile ear to ear.  Like I have said many times, I am just an idea person.  I will put the Interns on the case to make something happen!

Anyhoo, here's the latest submission from Mike Fanelli that highlights PSU and my idol, who would certainly be offered a guest spot on my show, The Fanellis.

Steve Prefontaine, Donal Walsh, Don Kardong, Greg Fredericks, John Bednarski.

Notice that a certain "good" runner in Marty Liquori didn't make the podium and Mark Covert of Running Streak fame was a high finisher on the William and Mary course.

Also, that jacket with the old-school lion  probably still fits Greg.

Throwback Thursday Tribute To Al Porto

The Interns finally woke up today and got to work on the question of when Al Porto (1950 NCAA Championship team member mentioned in comments to the last post) won our longest drive contest!  Turns out it was the 2013 Coach Groves Golf Tournament, the same one where Happy Gilmore made an appearance! (Now the Interns want an upgrade to the ObamaCare Gold Plan when I can't even afford the Silver Plan for myself, and the Bronze Plan has been banned by the State of Pennsylvania as Cruel and Unusual.)

Ryan Foster, Larry Mangan, Al Porto and Steve Balkey. Photo by Mark Hawkins.

Three of the four were/are PSU 1500M/Mile Record Holders and the fourth happened to be an NCAA Cross Country Champion in 1949 and 1950  And let's not forget that Al Porto happens to have won the Longest Drive competition in our Golf Tournament.

A fifth member of the group showed up at one point.  Happy Gilmore made his appearance and impressed the group with a trademark running shot.  No word on who he later punched.

Happy Gilmore. Photo by Mark Hawkins.

A New Officer, A Look Back And Just A Peek Forward

We haven't had a new Officer installed in a little while and I came across this pic online...

This is Mercedes and Teddy Quinn's new dog, an adopted Jack Russell terrier (or as they will learn, terror!) named Bo (I think!).  Seeing as Teddy is our group's Director of Fun, Bo is now our Ambassador of Fun!  There is never a dull moment with a Jack.  I look forward to this year's head-to-head match-up of Bo and my Jack Spott in the basketball bracket fiasco!

The Fanelli family from Jenkintown, PA is as close as America comes to Track and Field royalty.  Mike brings us this great PSU tidbit from the last team championship for the Lions!

And coming soon will be more from the Fanellis AND one of our own Olympians when I reintroduce our 10 Questions feature (give or take a few!)

98 Is The New 60

"All I got was a plaque."

-Michael Delligatti.

Instead of reading the obituaries of 60 year-old men way too often, it was great to see the odes to two giants of the food industry at the ripe age of 98.

Two 98 year old creators of dishes that the Center for Science in the Public Interest called "heart attacks on a plate".  But then the CSPI advocates dishes like kale salad and tofu turkey, the kind of dishes no family gathered around with smiles on their faces.

Chef Peng Chang-kuei passed away in Taiwan. In 1952 he created General Tso's Chicken, a dish that attracted fans like Henry Kissinger and much of the West.  Although General Tso was a real Chinese leader, mainland China doesn't really know anything about the dish.  I'm happy we can keep it to ourselves.

Inventor of General Tso's chicken

And Pittsburgher Michael James Delligatti also passed away at the age of 98. He invented the McDonald's Big Mac in 1967.  The keys were the two patties of beef, the center slice of bread and his "special sauce".

Creator of the Big Mac

The Little Engine That Could

I only made it to halftime, and gave up on them AGAIN.  Every single prediction I have made about this team has been wrong.  And I haven't seen 3/4 of their offensive production because I have either given up or fallen asleep during all the 8:00PM games, and maybe even some of the 3:30PM games.

I will let Major Payne explain what the Penn State Nittany Lion  team is all about...

Our Members Flood Into Indianapolis

Today marks the first time PSU is represented in the Big Ten Football Championship Game in Indianapolis, and our Group will be well represented there.

Included in the fans urging on a Nittany Lion victory will include Vivian Riddick, Larry Mangan, Paul Souza, Don Skerpon and Harry Smith.  Any others?

I am happy to hear of the enthusiasm for the team, even though I will probably nod off during the first quarter of action.  I will await more photos from the middle of the country!

Larry Mangan and Paul Souza BEFORE the tailgate!

More Phil Bephore Track Season

As the current team works out in preparation of the upcoming season, and the recruiting of future athletes continues to restock the team with more and more talent, I am left with a collection of submissions to fill my posts.  But they are all good ones!

• Update on my favorite Hot Dog in the world...  Easton PA/Phillipsburg NJ's Jimmys, in all of its iterations...

•  The new rule on entries to a NCAA track meet are horrendously written, and thankfully delayed for a year now.  Read up on how horrible the rules committee screwed this one up.  As I have said before, any four of us could do better in a hotel room with a keg of beer over a weekend.
• I have told you many times that running does not injure your knees.  That is still true, even though this article is merely feel-good clickbait...
• How many times does this have to happen until authorities in our sport finally figures out how to handle it appropriately?  Good people doing good things do not need punishment.
• Everyone knows I do not take golf seriously (if at all!), but that doesn't mean others don't.  For the record, I know the rules, I just don't follow them...
• I'm still ahead of this guy, even with his new world record. But not by much!
• We should not put much stock in anecdotal science.  And will Nike sends some goons to Britain to retaliate?  Are your running shoes conspiring against you?

Phun With Physics Bephore The Phabulous Indoor Track Season

There's a lull in the action after Cross Country as the troops train and prepare for the Indoor Track Season.  And it's too darn cold to hit the Links.  So, what can a Track/Golf/Physics Blog do about that?

How about I put a post up with Physics topics that my hundreds of readers (12,000 page hits last month!!!) send me for possible inclusion!  Sounds good to me.  Put your thinking caps on, and not the tin-foil hats all of us have been wearing throughout this election season!

• Barns are painted red BECAUSE OF PHYSICS!!!!  This is some pretty cool stuff. 

• More of an explanation of Richard Feynman's 3 Simple Steps to learning anything. 

• All of Physics explained by this Map!