Surprise.

Last night I filmed at Garinger.  Garinger?  Sound familiar?  Do you remember the one-way circle speed bump infested asphalt moat?  Do you remember this face:

Parking Attendants!

That was Garinger, one positive this time was that I was sure the game was at Garinger before going there.  Regardless I enjoy the work, and it’s the only work I have, so I was happy to go film it.

A few web sites said the game was at 8:00, which I found odd so I double-checked and a couple of other sites said it was at 7:00.  After a pregame meal with Her Sweetness at Bojangles, I headed to the game.

Mmmmmmm, this stuff.

I got there at 6:30 to be safe, but found out at the gate that it was in fact starting at 8:00.  The home and away bleachers were relatively the same size, but there was a press box with roof access that I was hoping to film from.  I made my way up a rickety stair case behind the press box to see if there was anyone around to give me permission and access.  I opened the door and walked into what I’m guessing was an ROTC storage room.  Either that or there’s an underground militia forming at Garinger, I’ll be on the lookout.  Upon seeing the camouflage and army helmets strewn about, I spun around and just waited for someone important-looking to ask.  I tracked down a Garinger coach walking off the field after warm-ups at about 7:35.  He kindly granted me access and I made my way up to the roof.  I went through the militia hideout, through the press box, and up a ladder that I probably exceeded the weight limit of.  There’s nothing like scaling a flimsy, narrow ladder with my livelihood (video camera/tripod) dangling from my neck.

Cut. It. Out.

I should mention that I spent some of my waiting time coming up with names for my camera and tripod.  I’m leaning toward Candace Cameran and Captain Trips.

Upon arriving on the roof, I set up my tripod and camera only to realize that there was a metal sign on top of the press box that my camera was not going to clear.  I found a chair and set one tripod leg on that and two on the railing to no avail.  It was about 7:50 at this point and I quickly decided to hustle over to the away bleachers and film from there, because there were still open seats in the top few rows.

I made it over in time for kickoff.  One disappointment was that the National Anthem was a recording played over the PA.  I thought, “There’s not one musician, kazooist, anyone that can entertain me a little bit?”  To boot, it was just a run of the mill recording.  If you’re not going to give me a live musician, at least throw on the Whitney Houston version.  At the start of the game there were no bands to be seen.  The Garinger band didn’t make their way to the stands until there were 8 minutes remaining in the second quarter.  Rocky River had no band at all.

I knew nothing about Rocky River heading into the game, but I gathered from watching them, and the lack of a band, that it was either a new program or new coaching staff.  There was a bit of disorganization that just didn’t seem right.  Some Googling this morning informed me that the school itself is new, so there you go.  The Rocky River Ravens were huddled in the end zone doing their pregame breakdown, while coaches, the officials, and Garinger were ready to kick off.  This happened a few times during the game following time outs, and there were several times when Rocky River only had 10 players on the field.  At one point following a time out, Garinger was ready to run a play and Rocky River wasn’t out of their sideline huddle yet.  Garinger’s coaches were yelling at the offense to run the play, but I think they were so caught off guard that they didn’t know what their assignments were without someone standing in front of them to block.

As is becoming the standard, most big plays were called back, except Garinger’s first touchdown.  I’m not sure of the yardage, but it was a pass and catch of about 70 yards for the games opening score.  I won’t say that Garinger dominated, but the game wasn’t close.  To the dismay of their fans, Rocky River’s coaches kept calling a hitch/screen play that just wasn’t working at all.  Even down 7-0, they just didn’t seem interested in running the ball.  Their defense held up nicely, though, keeping the game close, but it just wasn’t happening on offense.  At one point in the 3rd quarter with the game still close, Rocky River recovered a fumble, only to give the ball right back to Garinger on the very next play.  Garinger went up 21-0 following a safety and started running the ball to milk the clock.  The Ravens scored a late touchdown to make the score 21-7 and that was all she wrote.

Two side notes:  First, I forgot until halftime that the Garinger band is the band that played Christopher Cross’ “Sailing” as part of their halftime show.  They played it again, it made me smile.  Second, I managed to find another parking lot and avoid the one-way circle speed bump infested asphalt moat.  To the footage!

Division Titles: AFC North

Finally we’ve reached the end of our division renaming journey, the AFC North.  In the AFC we have divisions named for Marino, Elway, and Unitas.  In the NFC we have the L.T., Rice, and Butkus divisions.  The NFC South poll is still open (scroll way down in the previous articles for that), Warren Sapp is the current leader.

It seems cut and dry that we just call this the Brown Division, be done with and go about our days.  If you recall, though, I have an issue with naming a division after a color, especially an earth tone.  Let’s see if anyone else comes along to ease my mind.

It won’t be a Bengal, that’s for certain.  Left tackle, Anthony Munoz is their only Hall of Famer and the team’s greatest player by far, but he doesn’t stand up against the other greats in the division.  For the record, this is the greatest moment in Bengals history.

Maybe the best player in Baltimore history.

The Ravens/Browns thing is just very confusing.  Art Modell moved the original Browns to Baltimore in ’96 and changed their name to the Ravens, but took all of the Browns’ franchise records with them. Looking at it that way, Jim Brown is the greatest player in Ravens history.

Sleep well, Lebron.

The move left Cleveland’s Dawg Pound with nowhere to go to bark until ’99 when the NFL “reactivated” the Cleveland Browns and a brand new era of suffering began.

Of the current Ravens, Ray Lewis obviously stands out as a great.  He’s as close to a first ballot Hall of Famer as there is in the league right now, but he’s still active and thereby eliminated from the discussion.  You tell him.  Shannon Sharpe and Johnathan Ogden may both get in the Hall of Fame some day, but Sharpe only played in Baltimore for 2 years and Ogden may not have been better than Munoz.  Special consideration goes to Elvis Grbac for the ’01 season when he dooped me into thinking he was going to put up big fantasy numbers.  Thanks, Elvis.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention former Steelers receiver Louis Lipps.

Why couldn't you have been better, Louis?

The Lipps Division!  Awesome name, not a great player, it truly saddens me, this could have been easy.  I also want to mention former Steelers linebacker, Greg Lloyd.  He was a mean looking dude, and he hurt Dan Marino once.

Rod Woodson presents a very interesting argument.  Playing ten seasons with the Steelers as a cornerback and early on as a punt returner, Woodson became an All-Time great.  He was named Defensive Player of the Year in ’93, was named to the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year.  After a stint with the 49ers, Woodson went on to play safety with the Ravens for four seasons.  There he won his first and only Super Bowl, before moving on to finish his career with the Raiders.  He holds the NFL records for career interception yards (1,483) and interceptions returned for touchdowns (12).  That’s one hell of a resume.  Were he in the AFC East or NFC South, he’d  getting a division named after him, but I’m not sure it’s happening here.

I don’t mean to glaze over the Steeler offenses of the ’70s, but we’re going to move along to the Steel Curtain.  No offense to Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, Mike Webster, and everyone else, but let’s not kid ourselves in to thinking that those teams would have been as successful without that defense.  If the division could have a picture as it’s name it would be of Jack Lambert’s face. Then there’s another great, Jack Ham.  The Ham Division!  I honestly hadn’t thought about that until just now, this may require another poll.  The foundation of the defense, though was defensive tackle Mean Joe Greene.  First, some nickname history I learned from Wikipedia: “He got his nickname when the Pittsburgh fan base mistakenly assumed that the North Texas team nickname of “Mean Green” was Joe Greene’s nickname; however, Coach Rust’s wife wanted to give a nickname to the team’s outstanding defense. Since green is the school’s main color, she gave the defense the name “Mean Green”.  I did not know that.  Something else I learned is that during a game early in his career, Joe Greene spit in the face of Dick Butkus and challenged him to a fight!  I’d pay $50 to see that fight right now.  The man was an animal, wreaking havoc and keeping blockers off of Lambert, Ham, and everyone else.  To be regarded as the cornerstone of the Steel Curtain takes a legendary player and Mean Joe Greene is just that.

He presents the same problem as Jim Brown, though.  His last name is a color, even with the “e” at the end, it still counts.  There’s little argument that it comes down to these two, though.  Jim Brown is obvious, I’ve gone on long enough and he’s never regarded as anything less than the third greatest player of all time whenever that discussion is had.  It’s like the greatest music videos of all-time countdown on MTV.  “Thriller” almost always wins, but occasionally they’ll throw Nirvana a bone just to change it up.  I won’t waste time on his stats or what he did, Google it if you don’t know or watch this.

Aside from my issues with a color-named division, naming this the Brown Division just confuses the hell out of everything.  It wouldn’t immediately make me think of Jim Brown, which I want the division title to do.  It might make me think of the Cleveland Browns, or Bengals owner Mike Brown, or his father, Paul Brown, who founded the Browns and the Bengals.  There’s just too much going on with brown.

Where does that leave me?  I got to thinking about the ’08-’09 AFC Championship Game between the Ravens and Steelers.  The game was a concussion fest and really hammered home how much these teams dislike each other.  As Sam Wyche made clear even the Browns and Bengals can’t stand themselves.  I think I’m going to be fine compromising and calling this the Mean Division.  Of course that means it has to be the meanest division in the league, which I think it is.  Recently, I can’t think of another division that comes close, with respect to Philly fans for trying to up the mean ante.

Ultimately, though, I still feel like it should be a player’s name so I’ll leave it to a vote: