Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Kenny Chesney sings about high school football

I may not be a country music fan (at least not pop country), but but I still got chills down my spine watching Kenny Chesney's newest music video for "The Boys of Fall", a song about the fall football season. This week it reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country chart.

The speech by New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton is touching and should resonate with any person who has played high school sports (not just football).

Check it out:



Chesney, of Johnson City, Tennessee, is singing about high school ball despite all the professional faces in the video. Every fall, towns of all sizes come together to support one school team in an act that transcends the label of sport.

This song and video is just another example of sport being more than "just a game."

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The top six changes soccer should consider

By Perry L. Novak
Dispatch Sports Editor

The Oneida Daily Dispatch Sports Blog has begun. To get thing rolling here are the top six things soccer should consider changing:

1. Eliminate penalty shots and award a free kick - direct or indirect - at the spot of the foul.

Why should a foul in the farthest corner of the penalty box - about 22 yards from the goal - be punished as severely as one, say, in the middle of the box five yards from the goal? The latter scenario actually punishes the attacking team by making the shot come seven yards farther from the goal than the foul.

2. Eliminate the offside rule.


It would also stretch the field and make for more action.

3. Have soccer be like ice hockey in regard to players going to a penalty box for 90 seconds or two minutes for fouls like tripping and pushing.

It would eliminate a lot of fouls and get more scoring chances in a sport that could use it.

4. Stop letting players take throw-ins five and six yards from where the ball went out.

If they do, immediately give the other team a throw-in from the proper spot.

5. Make the scoreboard clock official.


Why have a clock at all if it isn’t official the whole game. Having the referee hide the real time invites the wrong type of speculation. It takes away hurry-up strategy away from the players at the end of a half. Can you imagine doing that in basketball? Calling a play for a winning or tying score and not knowing how long you have? It’d be ridiculous.


6. Make teams wear uniforms where the numbers are clear enough for fans to see from a distance.