R-C Sports Notebook: Tigers appear to be in top condition

Conditioning has always been a main focus for Douglas head coach Mike Rippee's football program.

Every year during my first interview of the season with him, in inevitably comes up.

This year, though, he is especially excited about the shape his team is coming into the seasons with.

The indicator is the team's Tiger Run testing, which is a marathon of sprints including three 300-yard shuttles and a 400-meter dash in succession.

"That's what tells us what kind of condition we are in as a team," Rippee said. "We have more guys playing both ways this year than we have in the past, so our conditioning was even more important this year.

"The kids have put forth a great effort and they are in the best shape we've been in with this team."

Specifically, receiver/defensive back Davey Fisher impressed, breaking the school record with a time of 3 minutes and 27 seconds.

"We'd never had anyone come in under 3:30 before Davey," Rippee said.

Three more players came in between 3:30 and 3:40 (Rippee said an unusually good year usually has two players between those times) and the top 10 all came in under 3:46.

"It's a good indication that we are in great shape," he said. "That's what we use this test for."

While Douglas certainly put in its work in the weight room this summer, Coleville had a somewhat different approach.

With the school undergoing some rennovations, the Wolves football team found themselves construction a make-shift weight setup on the football field.

"Some of the school was in dissarray," Coleville coach Will Sandy said. "We made ourselves a portable weight room up on the field and did our best to set up a regular routine.

"We had about half the kids out there with us, so we'll see what the results are when the season starts. They worked hard and we're expecting some big things. That's one of the neat parts of working here is you get to watch the kids grow up and they can surprise you."

- Michael Phelp's pursuit of the Olympic record of eight gold medals in one Olympiad has dominated nearly every article about him from the moment he first dove into the water in Athens in 2004.

It's gotten to where the media can't mention him without also throwing the obligatory sentence about Mark Spitz' record set in 1972.

Heck, I can't even get through this paragraph without mentioning it.

That's why I laughed out loud Tuesday night after Phelps won his fifth medal when an NBC commentator prefaced bringing the record back up by saying, "We've been reluctant to talk about it until now ..."

- You couldn't help but feel awful for U.S. gymnast Alicia Sacramone who last week fell twice at critical moments in her routines during the women's team competition.

The thing of it is, as much as people have tried to lay blame on her, the Americans would have needed a miracle to surpass the Chinese after the uneven bars event earlier in the competition.

Media coverage so trumped up the event earlier in the day that people with little familiarity with the sport didn't realize that an American gold would have been a tremendous upset due to the higher start values of the Chinese routines.

Even if Sacramone had nailed her routines, it's highly likely China would have still walked away with the gold medal.

But this is America, and if there's a winner, we seem to always want someone to be the loser.

Bill Buckner took the heat of Red Sox Nation for years after his 1986 World Series gaffe, even though a run here or there on the offensive side of things would have made the mistake irrelevant to the outcome of the game.

Same goes with place kickers in football. They draw the blame of fans for missing a potential game-winning field goal when the guys on the field for the rest of the game are in reality the ones responsible for the close game in the first place.

As is often the case in sports, an inch the other way and Sacramone would still have been a silver medalist. Only instead of drawing blame, she'd be praised for her efforts and her representation of the country " which is exactly how it should be regardless of what actually happened.

- Three hours of marathon coverage on Saturday night. Are you kidding me? There was absolutely nothing else in the grand Olympic world that NBC could cut away to? I have a sneaking hunch they were waiting for a replication of the 2004 men's marathon disaster (do an internet search on Vanderlei de Lima, it's amazing and tragic in the same breath).

- I'm not saying the marathon isn't important, or that the competing athletes don't deserve that kind of coverage, but honestly, if I was running it, I wouldn't want a camera in my face on mile 25. Who am I kidding, I'd bow out after mile 3.

- The surge the marathoners were greeted with upon entering the stadium for the final lap of the race, though, was fantastic. That's all you really needed to see of the whole event. It can be done. The network summed up the entire women's discuss final in less than two minutes.

- For as much grief as I give the NBC commentators, the network really does an outstanding job with covering the Olympics. Nothing else on television can have me cheering for someone I'd never heard of five minutes ago like one of NBC's famed pre-event featurettes.

- Apparently the new McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Biscuits are a staple to any successful Olympic training regimen (if you've watched the Olympics at all this year, you know what I'm talking about).

It's a tough sell, but the company is advertising that 24 grams of fat, 45 percent of your daily value of saturated fat and 54 percent of your sodium in one serving is a balanced part of any athlete's diet.

- Sure, it is a pretty big stretch that McDonald's should be one of the Olympics major sponsors when it has also been sued for causing the lethal obesity of Americans. But still, the old marketing campaign where you got a tab saying that you might get free food depending on how the American athletes did in a given event was a stroke of genious.

I suspect that is why I have such an affinity for the Olympics to this day. That, and Sausage McMuffins with egg.

Douglas takes on McQueen Saturday in a preseason football scrimmage. When was the last time the Tigers defeated the Lancers in varsity football?

The top athletes, regardless of sport, at Douglas High determined by production during competition, overall value to their team, ability to perform with consistency in routine situations, performance compared to others at the same position throughout the state/region, ability to come up big in clutch situations, versatility, attitude, sportsmanship, overall athletic ability, heart, potential at the next level, and a host of other intangibles (emotional leadership, role-playing value, work ethic, etc.) This is all, of course, just my opinion.

Fall Sports Preseason

1. Amelia Ritger, tennis

2. Bethany Wurster, golf

3. Megan Mitchell, volleyball

4. Jessica Waggoner, volleyball

5. Parker Robertson, football

6. Edgar Arceo, soccer

7. Tim Rudnick, football

8. Taylor Biaggi, cross country

9. Jeff Crozier, soccer

10. Taryn Williams, volleyball

Ah, sports movies. We have no less than 15 in our personal collection. Something about the underdog team finding a way to overcome insurmountable odds to win the championship, get the girl and really show up the bad guys in the process. It seems the basic formula gets a little more stretched out each time a studio producer trots it out. Doesn't keep it from being entertaining anyway, even if for reasons not originally intended.

Victory (1981)

"In World War II, a group of Nazi officers come up with a propaganda event in which an all star Nazi team will play a team composed of Allied Prisoners of War in a Soccer (Football) game. The Prisoners agree, planning on using the game as a means of escape from the camp."

If the synopsis weren't crazy enough, add to it that Sylvester Stallone plays a Green Beret/makeshift goalkeeper and Michael Caine (you know him better as Alfred from this summer's Dark Knight) is a former soccer star. Oh, and Brazilian soccer legend Pele makes an appearance.

It's supposedly based on a true story where of a group of allied POWs challenged to a football match by the Germans. The deal was that if the Germans won the match, the POWs would be set free in Switzerland. However if the POWs won, they would be shot. The POWs decided to go for 'victory', won the match and were consequently executed. Needless to say, that is not how the final script flows.

The true story sounds very interesting. What you get instead is complete madness, ending with the victorious Allies walking out of the stadium past armed Nazi guards to freedom. Sorry to spoil it for you.

Greatest gaffe: While the film is depicting World War II Europe, the crowd for the grand finale match is wearing a collective wardrobe better suited to Saturday Night Fever.

Reason to watch: Rocky-era Sylvester Stallone attempting to play soccer. Do I need to say more?

The Football Uniform Site

http://www.oursportscentral.com/uniforms/wlafunis.html

Someone went through and created depictions of all the professional football league uniforms not related to the NFL. You'll find some retro treasures like the defunct World League Sacramento Surge and the Arena league Iowa Barnstormers (probably the only team in the history of sports to use aviator's goggles as a logo).

1987