We are the mundane
I was at the game. One of the best football games I’ve ever seen (also one of the coldest). The CB West kids really gutted out the victory. The guy that wrote the story did his homework. Most accounts of the game that talk about Piccotti being out don’t mention that CBW was actually down to their fourth string running back (the kid had just gotten moved up from JV a couple of weeks earlier) but the guy that wrote this piece got it.
Click on the image to read the whole article.
or probably more correctly, ever created since it’s a panorama of five shots I took at the home opener of the State College Spikes Thursday.
I hope. For those of you who weren’t able to make Gary’s 50th birthday party, we gave him what may turn out to be just that gift. We gave him a $25 bet that the Yankees would win the World Series (oh well), and another $25 bet that the Giants would win the Super Bowl. What I don’t recall is the odds…I think either 30 to 1 or 40 to 1. Funny thing is, Gary isn’t sure where he put the ticket. At this point, he has decided not to look for it so as not to jinx them. I agree, but I certainly hope he’ll have to look for it after the game.
Five years ago I was in Arizona at a business conference. Archie Manning was the motivational speaker at one of our meetings. At the question and answer session, one of my co-workers asked Archie which son was a better quarterback. Surprisingly he said Eli! He stated that Eli had better control than Peyton. He certainly seems to be showing that control in his last few games. Hopefully it will continue.
Wish Gary and the Giants luck!
These two were probably destined to play for the title. PSU ended the season as the #1 ranked team. But Stanford got the #1 seed in the tournament. PSU has now won 25 straight matches with their last loss coming September 15th against, you guessed it, Stanford. Stanford and Penn State are also the only two teams in the country who have made every NCAA tournament.
Stanford needed five games to win their semifinal match against USC, fighting off a match point in the fifth game to do it. Penn State, on the other hand, swept Cal in three, continuing the roll that they have been on since the start of the NCAAs. PSU got stronger in every game winning 30-28, 30-25, 30-16. Cal was actually the first team in the entire tournament to score 20 points on PSU – they have been that dominant.
The finals will be on ESPN2 Saturday night at 9PM EST. Unfortunately, that the same time that I’m having my fifth annual State College Santa Crawl (poor planning on my part). The good news is that I can maneuver the crawl so that we’ll just move from one bar to another between games so we should be able to catch most of the action anyway (weather permitting, that is, the forecast isn’t too good right now).
On a related side note, I was down at the Tavern last Saturday after watching PSU beat BYU for the regional crown when one of PSU’s players, Kate Price (Kate’s the one who went into the stands for that spectacular save that I mentioned last week), came in with some former players. I’ve known Kate for about three years now (her older teammates corrupted her and used to sneak her into some of the local taverns as a minor).
Kate begged me to show the others one of my tricks that I rarely do. It involves someone freely picking a card out of a deck, signing it, returning it to the deck, then shuffling the deck. After giving the deck back to me, I toss the deck into the air and the signed card winds up sticking to the ceiling. I don’t do the trick very often because it ruins the deck. In addition to the one card on the ceiling, the other fall to the floor and just scatter everywhere. Even if you bother picking the cards up off of the floor, they’re usually too messed up to use anymore. But it was near the end of the night, the deck I had was kind of messed up anyway, and Kate had just won a big match, so I relented.
One of the secrets of doing the trick is to make sure that you put it on a ceiling that’s high enough that someone can’t just pull the card down. The Tavern ceiling is about ten feet high so I figured I was safe. Wrong. I overlooked the fact that while Kate is a girl, she’s also 6’4″ tall and a top caliber NCAA athlete. The card stuck cleanly to the ceiling but as her girlfriends stood there staring at the card, Kate just took a running jump and cleanly picked it off of the ceiling. I was caught red-handed with wax stuck to the back of the card. Of course, they still couldn’t figure out how I found the card and got the wax on it, but a little bit of the awe and amazement was gone. Next time I need to remember not to underestimate my audience.
Your story isn’t gone forever.
I was afraid that your Phi Psi 500 moment in the sun might have been lost forever but the Penn State Daily Collegian has just finished digitizing all of their back issues (there was a gap from 1977-87 that was incomplete for the longest while). Guess what made the archives?
From the April 14th, 1986 issue, on page two…
Craziness was the norm at this year’s Phi Psi
For some of the runners the event was a true family affair. Larry Fall, class of 1972, has run in the race approximately 15 times, and has won the masters division in the past (UL note to Collegian writer: I won the hole damn thing too). This year, however, his brother Ron, 14 years younger, ran against him in Saturday’s race.
“I’ve heard about this race for years, now I’m going to challenge him in my first time running it” Ron Fall said.
But experience paid off in the long run as Larry Fall best his brother by about two minutes.
“It’s a pain for about 1o minutes, but from then on it’s great. I’ve met some of my best friends here at the Phi Psi 500” Larry Fall added.
I feel much better now that I know the results of the race are preserved for posterity sake.
BTW – Some added notes culled from the results piece at the end of the article:
My buddy Randy Woolridge (mistakenly spelled Woolrich in the article) won the masters in a pedestrian 8:10 time (when in shape I usually finished around 7:00 with my best time 6:35 recorded as a master).
The third place masters finisher in the race was Dave Barsda, who was a former employee of mine from Harrisburg. Dave came up from Harrisburg to see me (I had moved to CT a couple of years earlier) and run in the race.
The remark about meeting some of my best friends at the rate was quite true and reads even more eerily when I realized that I’m still in touch with three of the students who ran on the team that placed second in the race. Eric Brugel, along with his brother and sister, worked at the Tavern. He comes back to State College for an annual golf tournament that I play in. Tim Flynn, is the wrestling coach at Edinboro University.
The most successful of the bunch though is Chris Bevilacqua, who went on to make millions in the sports and TV business. Chris went to work for Nike out of college – he’s the one that started the first Nike shoe and apparel contracts with college programs. He left Nike to work for Major League Baseball for a while, then started his most successful venture College Sports Television, aka CSTV. CSTV was eventually bought out by CBS which put considerable coin in Chris’s pocket. He worked for CBS for a while as the head of the regional sports programming but then left to go out on his own. He’s currently working on some soccer/TV startup deal but I’m not privy to the details. However, on that spring Saturday, some 21+ years ago, Chris was just another beer jugging, pavement pounding College student out to have some fun.
Better late than never. October is such a busy, fun-filled month for us; Steve’s father’s birthday, Steve’s birthday and Blake’s birthday so we’re having a party and even a play ground for the kids from www.softplaydesignandinstallation.co.uk. But best of all this year, was getting together with family to celebrate Gary’s 50th. My pictures are a little out of focus (hopefully Kenny & Gary have better), but I thought my few pictures might get the ball rolling with others posting theirs.
The first two pictures are from our evening at Havana’s. The third is a shot of the Neshaminy Creek in Chalfont from the bridge (remember when it was an old wooden bridge?). The last is one of the covered bridges we visited.
The fans really responded to the call for a stadium “White Out” for last night’s game against Notre Dame. This shot was taken from the student section (actually it’s a panorama of 6 shots stiched together).
EDIT: Found another notable shot
One thing that is interesting about the shots is that they are taken directly opposite each other. It’s like each of the photographers were directing their camera at the other.
Reminder that you can click on the photos to see an enlarged version of each shot.
And one more for good measure (this one is already at max resolution).
Couldn’t leave out this one from Sports Illustrated
by request (since it appears that he isn’t about to tell the story).
Sometime in the mid 80s, Ron called me up and said that he wanted to challenge me in the Phi Psi. I wasn’t in the greatest shape but figure my experience would count for something so I gladly accepted the challenge. Ron flew into New York from Chicago and we headed up to State College for the weekend (I’m pretty sure that Gary came along too).
I used some of my influence with the Phi Psi’s to make sure that Ron and I would be teamed together at the start – racers go off five at a time in 30 second intervals in order to space out the hordes. That way we’d be able to go head-to-head.
At some point shortly before the start of the race, a local newspaper reporter got wind that Ron had flown all the way in from Chicago to challenge me in the race so she interviewd him. I wasn’t privy to the actual interview but someone told me that Ron was brimming with confidence in the interview. He evidently said something to the effect of “I’ve been listening to these Phi Psi stories for years and, even though my brother is supposed to be pretty good, I think I can out run his butt handily.”
The way that the Phi Psi course is laid out, you have to run about a third of a mile to the first bar. The six bars are then strung closely together for about the next third of a mile. Then you finish by running the third of the mile back to the starting line. When you get to the first bar, you’ve run a decent distance and you can be quite winded but you can’t wait to catch your breath, you need to quickly slam that beer down and move on.
I knew that Ron was in better shape than I was so my plan wasn’t to try and out run him. It was to make up time IN the bars drinking the beers. I knew from experience that the Phi Psi isn’t like any other run that you have ever done and the first time you do it, it can be quite difficult.
I had no idea what Ron’s strategy for the race was going to be but having caught him mentioning several times about how he thought he could outrun me, I didn’t expect him to just run along with me. I figured he’d take off on his own and that’s exactly what he did. That was just what I had hoped. All I had to do was maintain contact with him and just look for the right moment to make my move.
Ron went off at a nice pace and I settled in a few yards behind him. I’d estiimate he probably had about 20 yards on me as he ran into the first bar, aptly named The Phyrst. The Phyrst is a basement bar so you have to run down a dozen or so steps to get into it. The beers are all lined up waiting for you on the bar right smack at the bottom. You just slam your 50 cents on the bar to pay for the beers (archaic PA laws meant that each runner had to actually pay for his beer when they came in), chug the beer, then turn to the right and go out the back door which was only about 15 feet away. There wasn’t a whole lot of room in the bar and you didn’t stay in it very long.
The 20 yard lead that Ron had meant that he probably got to the bar maybe 4-5 seconds ahead of me (however even thought he was in front of me he had no idea how big a lead he had while I knew exactly how far behind I was). As I came down the stairs, he was staring at his beer which was maybe a third empty. This was my moment. As many people have said the first time they run the race “you think you are going to be thirsty when you get to the bars but when you look at that first beer, it’s not the least bit appetizing”. I quickly chugged the beer, turned and ran out the back door and that’s the last I saw of Ron until the end of the rest.
I continued on my way and forced myself to finish the race. I wasn’t in particularly good shape, so a victory over me was really there for the taking. I don’t remember what my time was but it was one of my worst ever. I struggled but finished and then waited for Ron.
He came in a minute or two after me. He was in considerable discomfort and bent over trying to keep from getting sick. Just about that point, the reporter saw him. She came over and asked “how did you do?” Reportedly, Ron’s response was “It was a LOT harder than I thought it would be – but at least I think I beat my brother”. At that point the reporter pointed in my direction and said “I don’t think so. He’s been back here for a while.” Ron looked like this 😯 .
After he regained his composure, Ron explained what had happened. He said that he felt relatively good going off and that he thought he was running well under control. He said that when he got to the bottom of the stairs at the Phyrst and tried to drink the beer he had a little trouble getting it down. He said he took a couple of gulps and then tried to catch his breath (this was the moment that I saw him staring at his beer). He then took another couple of gulps but had trouble with them too (while he was forcing those gulps down, I had finished my beer and was headed to the back door). Ron said that at this point he decided to change his strategy. He decided he would just make sure he stayed ahead of me so he kept an eye on the front stairs waiting for me to come down as he finished the beer (unfortunately for him, at this point I was already headed UP the back stairs).
At each succeeding bar, Ron invoked the same strategy – drink the beer as fast as he could without forcing it but while also keeping one eye on the door so he could stay in front of me. Of course, while he was doing that, I was just stretching my lead.
So, although my time was one of my worst ever, my head-to-head victory made it one of my more satisfying races.
Ron – feel free to correct anything that I might have wrong (or add anything that you would like) 😆
Today was the Beer Mile. I would have to label my performance a qualified success. I had a few goals in mind when I committed to the race a couple of months ago and I met several.
My first objective was to lose some weight. When I decided to do this back in July I weighed 244.5 lbs – grossly overweight. I ambitiously set a goal of losing 30 lbs by race day. My battery died on my scale Friday so I don’t know exactly what my weight was today (the scale uses a 3 volt watch battery which isn’t exactly carried by your local mini mart). However, I was at 222 lbs Friday so I’m pretty pleased with the 22.5 lb loss even if I didn’t make my target weight (I’m going to keep working on getting it down further).
My next objective was to break 15 minutes. As a reminder, the rules of the race call for the runners to drink a 12 oz can of beer, run a quarter mile, then repeat three times. When I told my buddy Kevin (he’s the Tavern bartender, and former race winner (specifically in 2004), that invited me to participate) that that was what I wanted to do, he looked at me askance and said “that’s pretty aggressive, that would have beat my time last year”. I assured him that I thought it was doable.
However, I also acknowledged that one of my competitive advantages in the Phi Psi 500 was going to be negated by a specific Beer Mile rule. One thing that set me apart in the Phi Psi was the ability to throw up without having it affect my ability to run (one year I ever ralphed without breaking stride). In the Beer Mile, though, you are penalized if you throw up by having to run an extra lap (once you throw up though, you’re golden – you can throw up as many times as you would like after that – the max penalty is just that one lap). While I continued to publicly state that my objective was 15 minutes, I privately acknowledged to Kevin that I was worried about throwing up and would be happy with a 20 minute time if I had to do the extra lap.
One of the things that my experience in this race has taught me is that getting the beer down while you are breathing heavily is difficult (Ron will attest to this 😆 ). That factored into my strategy. Basically, I formulated a plan that called for me to walk about the last 100 yards of each lap so that I would get my breathing under control before I chugged the beer. I figured I could make up considerable time in the beer drinking part of the race by doing this.
Last night I upped the ante a little. I told two of Kevin’s roommates – one current – one ex, who was back in town for the race – that I was planning on beating them. They are both in their late 20s and had run previously with times in the 15-25 minute time frame. I’m not sure that they took the braggadocio of this 62 year old too seriously.
When I got to the race this afternoon I found out some more details of the race. There were about 40 people participating (maybe 30 were running individually but some others were just competing in a relay version). The entrants were broken up into 8 person heats. Kevin and I were in the second heat. Also in heat two were Kevin’s girlfriend Ellen (a runner who had actually beaten Kevin last year), Kevin’s brother Ryan, Kevin’s old roommate Rob who I had boasted that I would beat, and a couple of people that I didn’t know. We would all stand around this high table and would start the chug at the beginning together. At that point, I made another prediction. I told the group that I planned on being first away from the table. I also said that I would probably be last at the halfway point but that my strategy would mean that I would be catching people in the last half of the race.
The actual race started at about 4 PM. In the first group was the two time defending champion so Kevin paid particular attention to him since Kev was intent on winning it again. The champ got away cleanly and was off to the races. His first lap split put him under record time (at least the State College Beer Mile’s record time) but he clearly looked like he was struggling a little with the second beer. By the time he finished the second lap it was clear that he wasn’t going to set a record. He also really struggled with the third beer – he must have taken a good 45 seconds getting it down (Kevin was smiling the whole time). He finally finished it and pulled away from the table. Now the course is set up so that you run about 50 yards to a small track where you do about a 300 yard loop then run back to the start along the same 50 yard stretch that you started out on. As the defending champ started out on his third lap, a girl was approaching him just finishing her second. When they were about 6-8 feet apart he let lose with a projectile vomit that just missed her by inches (I when I say missed, I don’t mean missed her feet, she ducked and it went right over her head). Needless to say that got a HUGE roar from the crowd (it also delighted Kevin because it meant the guy had to do an extra lap and the race was wide open). The winner of that heat finished around 11 something – the former champ’s time was around 12 minutes. At that point, I told Kevin the race was there for his taking. I told him I expected him to lap me during my second and his third lap.
Our group was next. Now while there were a couple of guys running who were 40 or 50ish, I was clearly the oldest and I’m sure some people were looking at me askance. Right then Kevin pointed to me and announced to the crowd “Don’t underestimate him. He’s a former Phi Psi 500 champ”. One of the guys in our heat that I didn’t know turned to me then and said “Yeah but how long ago was that”. “OK. 20 years” I admitted “but experience IS a factor in this race”.
Then our heat started. I slammed the beer down and, true to my prediction, I was the first one away from the table. The race start takes place in this women’s backyard and she has a raised porch which the racers run parallel to for the first 30 feet or so. Most of the crowd spectates from the porch. As I took off, it gave me great pleasure to hear someone in the crowd say “Wow. The old guy is off first”.
I held the lead for about 30 yards before Kevin blew by me. One by one, everyone else in the group passed me too. Sticking to my strategy I walked in the last 100 yards of the lap. I was the last one to get to the table. Kevin had already taken off on his second lap and his brother might have also. This would have to be the point where I made my move. Pop!. Slam! (ok – semi-slam. I did stop to take a breath about 2/3 of the way through the can), and I’m off (I think in third place but things start getting a little fuzzy at this point).
In retrospect, I was perhaps a little too aggressive on the drinking end. I got all of about 15 yards away from the table and started to ralph. I held back the first spasm but realized that there was no way I was going to hold it back for the whole race so I just let it go. Upchuck city – although it was just a small one and wasn’t nearly as spectacular as others I would see that day. However, that meant I was doomed to another lap.
The second lap was a carbon copy of the first. One by one, even though I was third out, one by one, most, if not all, of the others in my group passed me. Also as I predicted, Kevin lapped me with about 50 yards to go in that lap. When I got to the table for my third beer, the others were all standing around drinking their beers… but none of them were downing them too rapidly. Once again, I drew upon my strength – Pop! Semi-Slam! (this time I stopped twice while chugging the beer though), and I’m off again. I even left Kevin at the table doing his fourth beer (he admitted later that he was quite impressed that I arrived after him but left before him). Of course, he repassed me about 10 seconds later.
Again the rest of the group passed me during the lap (to be honest I don’t know if they all did or not but certainly MOST did). As I arrived at the table there was the usual cast of characters there, however, they most definitely were struggling. Once again, I made my move, chugged the beer, and left others standing around nursing theirs. As I pulled away from the table I heard Kevin yell for me to go. I yelled back that I had to pace myself because I had to tack a penalty lap on. Right then, Kev said “Don’t worry. Rob has a half mile to go too.” That helped inspire me.
My strategy now became to just make sure I stayed ahead of Rob. It helped that decidedly fewer people passed me on this lap. Now that was partially because two or three had lapped me and had already finished but it was also true that I had left several of the others a good distance behind still drinking their last beers.
I was walking the last few yards of my mile when the crowd started to yell at me to run because someone was gaining on me. I started to run but yelled back in protest that I still had another penalty lap to run. In retrospect, I’m glad I did because I touched the table just before the guy who was trying to catch me. It was the guy who made the comment to me at the start about “how long ago was that?” It did give me a little satisfaction to know that my time for the mile was actually better than his even if he did beat me in the race because I had a penalty lap tacked on (it also meant that I was able to exactly pinpoint my mile time as 15:41 – not the 15 minutes I had hoped for but also not too bad).
For the last lap, I pretty much went into one of those survivor trots that you’ve no doubt seen many a runner do at the end of their race. I had a couple of hundred yards on Rob and I just had to basically hang on to beat him which I managed to do. A couple of other people, including Kevin’s girlfriend Ellen, did pass me on the last lap though. I think I came in 7th in our group. My final time for the mile and 1/4 was 19:13, so I did get under the 20 minute window that I was worried about with a five lap run.
Jason was in the next group and he started out with a vengance. He downed the first beer and was the first one out in his group. I looked like I might be in trouble. He wasn’t near as quick with the second beer though and by the time he got to the third, I knew he didn’t have a prayer. In fact he must have spent about five minutes at the table downing the third beer (much of the time hanging over the fence behind the table losing his lunch). He finished around 25 minutes.
Kevin did wind up winning the race although it did turn out to be a little difficult. As he was finishing, his brother was a few yards behind him. Kevin slowed up so that they could cross the line together (they finished in 9:48). However, the race commitee refused to recognize this gallantry, declaring that no ties were allowed and made them run a two lap two beer tie-breaking match race. Kevin beat his brother by about 5 seconds this time to win the title for the second time.
I had a lot of fun doing it and might continue to work out to give it a go again next year. I’m curious about how well I coud do if I were actually in any kind of decent shape.
