Underdogs Are Winners, Too !

After the game up date:
CONGRATULATIONS to those Louisiana Tigers who have won the national BCS championship. http://www.lsusports.net/

I was surprised to learn the LSU head football coach, Les Miles, is a native of Elyria, Ohio. He played and later coached for the University of Michigan's Bo Schlembacher.
http://www.secsportsfan.com/les-miles-biography.html

Buck up you Buckeyes -- you're still winners -- there's always next year!


Written before the game:
Ohio State University and Louisiana State University representing the NCAA' s Big Ten Conference and the Southeastern Conference, respectively, are set to play each other at New Orlean's Louisiana Superdome in the 2007 national Bowl Championship Series BCS.) Ohio State has been designated as the "underdog" in this game.

Some folks prefer to support winners. Others pride themselves in championing the underdog's cause. The criteria for applying the "underdog" label is sometimes loosely used, but those who do so are usually well-intentioned. The result when that happens, though, is we don't always agree on who is really an "underdog."

Readers of earlier posts I've written, know the Ohio State University Buckeyes past two football seasons have assumed a special significance for me since my husband's death two years ago. He was an avid OSU fan of his alma mater's team. Then, his older sister, in her eighties, who religiously attended every game, though she had not been an Ohio State graduate, joined him this past year. I have fantasized here that they resolved some of their serious (to them, but especially her) disagreements from previous years, over the fortunes of this team, which enabled OSU to have the winning season they did in '06, but lapsed for their final bowl game.

Well, I'm convinced these family members have come to some 'meeting of the minds,' possibly with the counsel of many great sportsmen with whom they've been able to consult in that great football stadium in the sky. They're up there with Woody Hayes, a famed OSU coach in his heydey and whose teams my husband and I witnessed win many a game in the horseshoe shaped stadium in Columbus, Ohio.

Another expert able to offer them his perspective on the game, Bo Schlembacher, an Asst. Coach, with Hayes, later became the winningest coach in the University of Michigan's history. Michigan and Ohio State have continued to be arch rivals in the NCAA's Big Ten Conference.

I believe we have two winner teams in this BCS bowl game, that on any given game day, one could defeat the other. I think my husband and his sister have finally managed to merge their two perspectives and coaching styles, that the results of this game will reflect their strength working together with an outcome they would each desire.

Yeah, I'll be rooting for those Ohio State Buckeyes to win that national championship title.