Mark’s Musings – February 7, 2018
Mark Fortune
This will be almost exclusively a sports focused column so if that is not your cup of tea, I apologize in advance. How could it be anything else with the just concluded amazing Super Bowl win by the Eagles and the Olympics starting in South Korea later this week?
NBC had stated that if any players kneeled during the National Anthem they would televise their display but I did not see anyone kneeling. I did see players standing proudly with their hand over their chest during the singing of the National Anthem and even a few players humming the tune to “America the Beautiful’ during that performance. I thought both performances-along with the halftime show – were incredible. And having a Congressional Medal of Honor winner do the coin toss – very cool.
Of course the biggest story is why Malcolm Butler, the Patriots best cornerback, did not play in the game and was visibly upset prior to the game. Was it due to his illness during the week leading up to the big game? Doubtful. Something will come out about this at some point and we will know the real reason why Coach Belichick did not play Butler. This is despite the fact that he was the hero of Super Bowl XLIX when he intercepted a Russell Wilson throw late in the game and played over 97% of all snaps this year.
Nevertheless, the city of brotherly love is no doubt celebrating their win with lots of cheesesteak sandwiches. Who knows, maybe this Philadelphia momentum will morph into another Rocky movie. Let’s hope not.
Let’s hit the Super Bowl commercials for a moment. Not the best year by any means but some cool ones still hit the airwaves. At the top for me had to be the Steven Tyler KIA spot. Because he is just cool. And just for the not so faint of heart, a spot on the world’s biggest stage cost a cool $5 million bucks. So you better hit it out of the park. Oh, wrong sport. Pepsi stood out (not the Diet Pepsi spot) as did the Doritos Blaze ad while Tide spent a whole pile of dirty laundry money and Febreze should have kept theirs. The Amazon Alexa losing her voice and being replaced by a whole plethora of well-known Hollywood greats was a neat twist and some of the socially conscious spots were – well, socially conscious.
Let’s wrap up this week’s column by talking about another group of high flyin’ Eagles-in this case, the Ashland Lady Eagles who now own the all-time consecutive win record in Division II basketball-men’s or women’s with 58 wins. They have not lost a game since March 12, 2016. And of course, a couple of local ladies have put their own mark on the record. River View graduate Andi Daugherty is a senior on the team while her sister Kari (Daugherty) Pickens is the assistant women’s coach. And who can forget about older sister Kristin, who finished her career at the University of Dayton as the fifth leading scorer in school history. But regardless of how many records they establish the Daugherty ladies would tell you that basketball is a team sport. Good luck Ashland Lady Eagles!
Category: Mark's Musings, Opinion
