The Lead Up to Thanksgiving Day

Mon. & Tues., Nov. 25-26, 2024

After two weeks on the road and a family gathering looming on Thursday for Thanksgiving, much of the last two days was devoted to clean up the old homestead.

But first, son Michael returned the camera that I loaned him to take photos of the Camarillo Stingers Blue team's GCYFL Junior American Conference Championship Game while we were wining and grazing in Santiago de Chile.

Here are some of those photos from the #8 seeded Stingers stunning 14-12 upset victory over the #2 seeded Simi Valley Bulldogs Black team.

Our favorite Camarillo Stinger

#99 DE Jacob Contreras

A team photo before the game

Jacob is in the back row between two of the coaches.

The mandatory pre-game check

The goal was to see if any of the Stingers were carrying a gun, knife, Afro-comb or any other unauthorized weapons not allowed under the rules of international Pop Warner football.

None were discovered on players of either team.

#99 recoiling off of a block . . .

. . . and making a tackle for a loss!

What a BEAUTIFUL night for an

American football Goal Line Stand!

RIDE 'EM, COWBOY!

Hanging on for another tackle

vs. a Simi Valley outside run

The Pit about to EXPLODE!

Dip, Rip and Pursue, textbook work!

One against 11?

These two disrupted the QB just

enough to force a bad pass

Another form tackle for #99?

The two Simi Valley tackles

both look large to me

Words of Wisdom during a Timeout

Relentless Pursuit is a GOOD thing!

IT'S OVER!

THE STINGERS WON!

JOY!

ONE HAPPY CAMPER!

What a great season filled with ups and downs that this resilient group of youngsters saw through to the victorious end.

The latest CFP poll has Alabama

at #13 and out of the playoffs

Thanksgiving is all about family,

friends, food and football

But not necessarily in that order.

Don't forget about the splendid Memphis (9-2) at Tulane (9-2) college game on Thursday night as well.

Thanks to the generosity of

Michael D'Antuono, we'll be

at the Rose Bowl on Saturday

We got the good news that the last 109 game jerseys that St. Francis H.S. donated to the cause of improving American football overseas had found a home.

Our old Spanish club near Madrid

will receive some of the jerseys

The bulk of the jerseys will be traveling with me next week to São Paulo, Brazil.

As you may recall from previous posts, I was scheduled to head to São Paulo next week to be the Special Teams Coach of the Brasil Onças National Team participating in a four country tournament trying to qualify for the IFAF World Championships next Summer in Germany.

This tournament was cancelled about six weeks ago when the other three countries announced their inability to pay the required fees for the trip to Brazil for the games.

My airplane ticket was non-refundable but I could change the flight dates, thus I shortened my stay to just one week.

For that length of time, I would only need to pack my carry-on bag and could pass on stowing a bag weighing up to 23 kilos in the plane's cargo hold.

Or could I?

I contacted the Brasil Onças Head Coach, Brian Guzman, about the jerseys and my travel plans.

Brian instantly got me in touch with Catullo Góes who is the QB of one of the better teams in the greater São Paulo area, the Guarulhos Rhynos.

Cool Rhynos logo

Blue and Orange

works for me

We came to an agreement quickly. I'll pack an old suitcase that we were going to discard in the near future with as many jerseys as the 23 kilos airline limit will allow and he will get them from me in São Paulo.

Total cost of this transaction, 100% FREE to the Rhynos!

Why don't more teams take

Rhynos/Rhinos as their mascot?

It seems like an obvious, natural choice to me for any rock'em-sock'em American football team.

I took a drive up onto Highland Drive in Camarillo where I had been just the day before the Mountain Fire to see what happened to the homes there.

Hills burned . . .

. . . but, miraculously, all the

homes were still standing

If only all of our Camarillo neighbors could have been so fortunate.

Finally, from the net . . .

If you did this to your bicycle

in the 1950s and/or 1960s then

we shared a fun childhood

Tying Up a Few Loose Weekend Ends

Sunday, November 24, 2024

It was good to have a quiet day after all of the hubbub of the last two weeks on the road.

Well, as quiet as could be when

this not so little imp of a grandson

had a sleepover with us on Saturday

He was great fun to be with as he instructed us on all things related to American football, the American Civil War and Marine Biology.

Our collective knowledge of these subjects continues to grow.

Great to see Coach Mike Moon's

Pacifica H.S. Tritons in another C.I.F.

Championship Game next weekend

It should be a good one as it's a rematch of their Marmonte League game on October 11th, when St. Bonaventure (9-4) edged out Pacifica (9-4) in a game played at Ventura College, 37-35.

In 2019, Pacifica enjoyed a 15-1 season while winning both the C.I.F.-Southern Section Division VI title and the California State 2A Championship.

Philadelphia Eagles at

Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night

It was not a pretty sight as the

Eagles (9-2) humbled the Rams (5-6)

This effort by Saquon Barkley

certainly was a factor in the Rams' loss

How the Rams Run Defense must

have looked to the Eagles today

San Francisco 49er Hall-of-Famer

Defensive Tackle Leo Nomellini

I love his state-of-the-art helmet and single bar face mask.

He spent his entire NFL career, 1950-1963, with the 49ers.

Of interest is that although he played his high school football at Crane Tech in Chicago and his college ball at Minnesota, he was born in Italy's lovely city of Lucca in the Tuscany region.

Those were the days . . .

On Sunday, we received all of the

updates from the South American

football tournament that we attended

in Mendoza, Argentina last week

These were the results of the two

games that we attended on Tuesday

The Black Lions and Black Dragons

had to play on back-to-back nights

on Wednesday

Now it was the Nativos and Condores

who had the daunting chore of

back-to-back games on Thursday

After three days of play, the final Group standings were set.

GROUP A

1. Chile Nativos 2-0

2. Argentina Team Sudaca 1-1

3. Peru Black Lions 0-2

GROUP B

1. Costa Rica Sharks 2-0

2T. Argentina Mendoza Condores 0-1-1

2T. Paraguay Black Dragons 0-1-1

There were no games on Friday night leading to the Championship Game on Saturday between the two winners of Group play.

Costa Rica Sharks (2-0 in Group B)

vs.

Chile Nativos (2-0 in Group A)

at

Polideportivo Padre Jorge Contreras

Don't you just love the name of that stadium?

No Contest

The Costa Rica Sharks World Tour

continued in dominating fashion in

outscoring their three opponents 112-6!

Look closely to the upper left

between #3 and #57

There you can spot our luxury sky box with Koreen, Brian, Laurie and I rehashing the Sharks' opening night win over the Black Dragons on Tuesday night.

In the final analysis, one thing must be said about the players on these six teams representing five different countries that met in Mendoza last week . . .

THEY ALL PLAYED FOR

THE LOVE OF THE GAME!

I'll be heading to Gijón to help coach

the Mariners in about five weeks

I've only visited 11 of these 16 great Spanish cities. I guess I need to do a little traveling when time permits during our three months in Gijón.

By the way, my missing five cities are Las Palmas, Malaga, Valladolid, Vigo and Zaragoza.

Since Las Palmas is located on the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located off the northwest coast of the African continent, I probably will not make it there but the other four are distinct possibilities.

News from the net . . .

I knew this already, but it

is a good yarn worth repeating

Actually, it is us and in recent

years I have started sharing

EXHIBIT A: Our shared Tomahawk mega-steak in Mendoza, Argentina's La Barra Parrilla last week.

Married life can change one's attitudes over time.

Our First Two Days Back in the Northern Hemisphere

Fri. & Sat., November 22-23, 2024

First and foremost, we have to talk about the Big Game in the desert on Saturday.

Grandson Kevin playing in a tournament

in Orange County, California in 2023

Kevin was having a good season for his AYSO team in Las Vegas coached by his father Andrew.

It was playoff time and Kevin had a great game in the semi-finals last weekend with a hat trick, three goals, to start the second half to help propel his team to the championship game this Saturday against an undefeated team.

No problem, Andrew and Kevin's team prevailed 2-1 to sew up the championship trophy as Kevin scored the winning goal!

AWESOME!

I purposely avoided posting up anything non-trip related while we were on our South American Adventure, so let's catch up a bit.

Our Gijón Mariners officially announced

our three import players for 2025

Taye is from Southern Oregon University

This will be his first EuroBall experience.

James is from Livingstone College

in North Carolina

A EuroBall veteran, he played for Romania's Timisoara 89ers in 2022 and in Poland for the Warsaw Mets in 2023.

Spencer played for the club team at

THE Ohio State University

He played in Germany in 2024 for the Cologne Crocodiles.

The European League of Football

will operate with 18 clubs in 2025

2025 Italian Football League

A twelve team circuit next season is the biggest IFL configuration since 2016.

Team Great Britain beat

Team Spain in a recent U17 game

 

We were getting into the

interesting part of the college season

Seven of this week's CFP Top 25 teams suffered losses on Saturday including:

#5 Indiana (10-1)

#7 Alabama (8-3)

#9 Ole Miss (8-3)

#14 BYU (9-2)

#15 Texas A&M (8-3)

#16 Colorado (8-3)

#19 Army (9-1)

Oregon (11-0) is the only undefeated team left in the NCAA's Football Championship Subdivision. They play the Washington Huskies (6-5) in Eugene next Saturday to end the regular season.

Speaking of the Huskies,

the win over UCLA, while we were

in Argentina, made us bowl eligible

WOOF!

Notre Dame (9-1) vs. Army (9-0)

at Yankee Stadium in New York City

NUTS!

I back all of our service academies week in and week out no matter who they play.

The Battle for the Bell

The USC Trojans (6-5) defeated

the UCLA Bruins (4-7) to bring

the Bell back to their campus

OH MY!

In Norman, Oklahoma (6-5) throttled Alabama (8-3).

It is the Crimson Tide's first 3+ loss season since 2010.

Does this mean that they won't have the top seed in this year's playoffs?

The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday should be a hoot.

Here are a couple of things that I saw on my stroll this wet Saturday morning.

Deadpool and Wolverine in the 

Navy Housing area of Camarillo

Rain drops on a fallen leaf

True, so incredibly true

Logic worthy of Mr. Spock

It only took us two days to ease back into the rustic, laid back life that is Camarillo.