Coaching for Pizza

Monday, June 3, 2024

Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame's 40th Annual Induction Dinner

Sunday, June 2, 2024

This evening I attended one of my favorite events of each and every year.

The 40th Annual Induction Dinner

The event was held at Camarillo's Padre Serra Center to honor the five distinguished 2024 Hall of Fame inductees and 55 male and female Athletes of the Year.

These 55 Athletes of the Year hailed from Ventura County's 24 high schools, three community colleges and one university.

The Chairperson of the Hall of Fame, Brian FitzGerald, says that this function is tantamount to having to plan a wedding every year and I think he might be right.

Once the evening is over and you have seen the smiles on the faces of the 60 honored people and their families and friends, you know that it was well worth it.

As a member of the Hall of Fame's Executive Board, my main roll today was to greet the honored athletes, get their name badges and insure that the biographies that we had prepared on each of them were mistake free and up-to-date.

Mission accomplished.

The Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame's Class of 2024 included:

Elaine Cancholla, Nordhoff H.S.

Cross Country and Track

Cliff Farrar, Nordhoff H.S.

Football Coach

Jackie Newman, Oxnard H.S.

Men's Fast Pitch Softball

Natalie Sanderson, Buena H.S.

Soccer

Samantha Whitcomb, Buena H.S.

Basketball

With their induction tonight, the Hall of Fame has now inducted a total of 202 athletes, coaches, officials, administrators, organizers and sports reporters.

With Cliff Farrar

Cliff is one of the Class of 2024 Inductees and was a great football coach at Nordhoff H.S. in Ojai and simply a good human being wno always made things better for all of us in the coaching fraternity.

Some of the 202 Hall of Fame

plaques on display

This evening's honorees to the left

"GO RANGERS!"

The evening's Honored Guests

A crowd of approximately

400 guests were on hand

As I said at the start, this is a wonderful event that I look forward to every Spring.

While we were meeting, the ELF

finished Week#2 game's today

The Paris Musketeers (1-0) easily

defeated the Hamburg Sea Devils (1-1)

The Berlin Thunder (1-1) in a rout

over the Prague Lions (0-2)

The Cologne Centurions (1-1) over the

struggling Fehérvár Enthroners (0-2)

The defending ELF Champion

Rhein Fire (2-0) with a crucial win

over the Frankfurt Galaxy (0-1)

All of the ELF Week #2 Results

17 ELF Teams in three Conferences

all vying for the league's fourth

championship trophy

Only five undefeated ELF teams

remain after just two weeks

They are the Rhein Fire (2-0), Stuttgart Surge (2-0), Vienna Vikings (2-0), Madrid Bravos (1-0) and Paris Musketeers (1-0).

With the Bravos traveling to play the Fire next weekend, this number of undefeated clubs will be no more the four after Week #3.

Speaking of the Bravos-Fire game

The Barcelona Dragons (1-1) are

looking to bounce back at home

against the Tirol Raiders (1-1)

European League of Football Schedule

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Madrid (1-0) at Rhein (2-0)

Tirol (1-1) at Barcelona (1-1)

Helvetic (0-1) at Milano (0-2)

Sunday, June 9, 2024

Frankfurt (0-1) at Paris (1-0)

Fehérvár (0-2) at Berlin (1-1)

Vienna (2-0) at Wroclaw (1-1)

Prague (0-2) at Munich (1-1)

BYES: Cologne (1-1), Hamburg (1-1)

and Stuttgart (2-0)

Results from the Italian DIII/9FL

Wild Card Weekend

Our beloved Sicilian club, the Catania Elephants (6-0), had a Bye and now play the Wild Card winning Bologna Doves (5-2) in the playoff Quarter-Finals in two weeks.

The Villeurbanne Falcons won a

French DIV regional title this weekend

Coach Michael Wood's Helsinki

Roosters (3-0) play a mid-week Derby

game against the Helsinki Wolverines (0-2)

Saturday, June 1, 2024

Some Good Family News and, As Usual, Lots of Football

Saturday, June 1, 2024

We open today's report with some fun photos that arrived via text this morning.

A new Championship Banner now hangs

in the Las Colinas Middle school Gym

It celebrates the Mustangs undefeated flag football season last Fall and was unveiled at Las Colinas' Open House on Thursday.

Jacob was both excited and proud from what I gathered, rightfully so in my opinion.

Jacob and Mary both have been taking piano lessons for quite a few years now.

Jacob has recently expressed an interest in learning to play a third instrument. Mary and Jacob are already proficient with the classical kazoo in addition to their piano skills.

Jacob's newest interest, you ask?

The Cello

Today Jacob's family committed to his newest endeavor and procured him the cello of his dreams.

Vanessa captured Jacob's great

reaction on playing his first cello notes

While Jacob and family were out shopping for a cello, I was involved in more set up work for Sunday night's Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame Induction Banquet at the Padre Serra Church Hall in Camarillo.

Today's work crew

Kevin Smith, Brian FitzGerald, moi,

Koreen FitzGerald and Blake Selig

Thun Tigers vs. Geneva Seahawks

in Switzerland should be a good one

The Central European Football League

Tournament Semi-Finals were today

A total of thirteen clubs from Austria, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom had entered this single elimination tournament that started in April.

Games are played sporadically during byes in each club's national schedules.

Austria's Danube Dragons defeated

France's Thonon Black Panthers

Switzerland's Calanda Broncos blanked

the CEFL's defending champions

France's Flash de La Courneuve

The Championship CEFL Bowl XVIII

should be a real corker

Week #2 of the ELF season

started today with four games

I liked this Barcelona Dragons'

poster for their Spanish Derby

against the expansion Madrid Bravos

Madrid Bravos (1-0) with a dominating

win over the Barcelona Dragons (1-1)

Stuttgart Surge (2-0) with a key

win over the Wroclaw Panthers (1-1)

In the Austrian Derby, the Vienna

Vikings (2-0) beat the Tirol Raiders (1-1)

Finally, the Munich Ravens (1-1)

demolished the Milano Seamen (0-2)

In their two games this season, the Seamen have now been outscored 79-7.

I referred to the ELF Power Rankings and noted that the higher ranked teams won each of today's four contests.

Four more ELF games are

on tap for Sunday

Life continues to be a highly satisfying affair.

A HUGE Opportunity, Treasure Hunting and Lots of Recruiting for the Gijón Mariners

Mon.-Fri., May 27-31, 2023

It had been a good week and then I got a phone call on Friday that made it a GREAT one!

Brian Guzman, the Head Coach of the

Brazilian National Team, was on the line

The Onças would be playing in a South American tournament in December whose winner would earn an automatic bid into the 2025 International Federation on American Football (IFAF) World Championships.

Team Brazil would first be playing against Argentina's National Team. If the Onças win this game, then they would play the winner of the Panama vs. Chile game for the coveted IFAF ducat.

The losers of these first two games would also face off for third place in this South American tournament.

Brian said to me, "Would you be willing to be our Special Teams Coach? We would need you in São Paulo from December 9-16, what do you think?"

I said, "CLARO QUE SIM!"

This response loosely translates from Portuguese to "HELL YES!" in English.

LIFE IS GOOD!

A few weeks ago we brought home some furniture from my Mother's home that included an old fashioned, antique tea cart.

This tea cart has been locked for close to 40 years as the skeleton key needed to open it had been purloined oh so long ago.

After Laurie talked to several locksmiths in Camarillo we realized that none were proficient with making a skeleton key to fit the lock.

Desperate times lead to desperate measures.

Laurie's knowledge of all things hardware store related led to her using a tiny hack saw to shear off the locks two pins and voilà it was finally open!

It looked wonderful

It even came with four packs of

Cuban cigarettes

How old were these cigarettes?

The white packs were made by the Pedro Murias Cigar Company of Habana, Cuba. The lone red pack was also made in the Cuban capital by the English company Henry Clay and Bock Ltd.

Well then, so how old were they?

The Pedro Murias Cigar Company sold out to Henry Clay and Bock Ltd. in 1897.

In turn, Henry Clay and Bock Ltd. sold out to an American company in 1904.

If my math is correct, then the white Pedro Murias packs are at least 127 years old and the red Henry Clay pack is a much fresher minimum of 120 years old.

SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM!

Less than 100 days until the

Washington Huskies open the season

at home against Weber State

I helped this Spanish DI team a

lot this week in their quest to add an

import QB, LB and OL/DL to the roster

I did this on behalf of Mariners Team President Enrique Prado Alonso who I first met in 2015 in Gijón during our infamous "Circumnavigation of the Iberian Peninsula."

I later had the privilege of coaching Enrique in our first Europe Warriors game in Mexico City in 2017.

So far, I have contacted fifty colleges on their behalf and received some solid leads to fill these three spots.

Italian Football League playoffs

start on June 8th

Coach Michael Wood's Helsinki

Roosters played on Thursday night

JUGGERNAUTS!

The Roosters now sport a perfect 3-0 record and sit high atop the Maple League standings.

Still looking forward to this

tournament in Argentina

It will be played in Mendoza which is

in the heart of Argentina's wine country

This is a tournament featuring clubs, not National Teams, including Argentina's Sudaca, Chile's Truenos and Nativos, Costa Rica's Sharks, Paraguay's Black Dragons and Peru's Black Lions.