“The Elmira Express” in his heyday.

I had last night marked off on my calendar for months, if not longer. In my mind, it was a night long overdue in the name of true story turned Hollywood cinema.

Just think……

Just think of what the reaction would be today if a noted American athlete dropped dead from an incurable disease at the age of twenty three. Dead just eighteen months after winning the Heisman Trophy(breaking racial barriers in doing so), just over a year after being the top pick in the NFL draft, the main cog in bringing his school its only national title ever in football.

We’ve seen the hype that took place after the tragic loss of Len Bias back in 1986 and how his memory lingers on enormously in the minds of basketball fans even now. Anyone who knows anything about baseball can recite the words “I consider myself…to be the luckiest man…on the face of the earth…” in reference to Lou Gehrig, who also was struck down way too early in life by an incurable illness.

Yet by comparison the story of Ernie Davis has been an afterthought in the world of sports, undeservedly. And hopefully the release of the major motion picture - “The Express” will go a long way in keeping Davis’ place in history intact.

The movie features Rob Brown in the lead role of Ernie Davis, and headlined by Dennis Quaid in the role of Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder. The film is grounded in the portrayal of the relationship the two men had and the high racial tensions that existed at the time.

Personally(full disclosure - I grew up near the same town as Davis did and attended an inconference rival high school of his, as a sports fan I’ve had his story hammered into my head since grammar school) I believe the movie portrayed the personality of Davis well. While being amidst the civil rights movement of the sixties, Davis was never one to speak up loudly about the issues but simply one to let his play do the talking. And while race played a role at times in his college/pro career(Cotton Bowl/Redskins trading his draft rights), I thought the movie completely overplayed that aspect and should have focused more on the events occuring after his leukemia diagnosis was revealed and the heartbreak that surrounds someone leaving life far too soon.

That said I still ate it all up, loving the fact that finally Davis was getting some long overdue recognition outside of central New York(In Syracuse, where the Carrier Dome’s trophy room is named after him and Elmira - where he is buried and a statue of Davis sits outside his old high school) and Cleveland…where the Browns retired his number despite never playing a down.

Local notes of interest - not featured in the movie….did you know??

Ernie Davis was drafted by the (then AFL) Buffalo Bills and was offered more money to sign for the Bills than with Cleveland.

The last game that Ernie Davis ever saw action in was in the 1962 All-American Bowl at “The Rockpile” in Buffalo.

And just one more note: here’s an article Davis penned for the Saturday Evening Post that was published just weeks prior to dying in May of 1963. It was more or less his own “Lou Gehrig speech” and a good read.

The movie opens nationwide next Friday. See it and give an unbiased comment about it if you wish.

-pjf

We just added a mini profile and thumbnailed photos of Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, as well as Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington. These are the two football venues we visited in mid September.

This brings our official USRT count to 22 NCAA Division 1 football venues.

Next weekend only one college game will be on our radar screen - a noon kickoff at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Indiana, home of the Indiana Hoosiers. We were hoping for a doubleheader but the planets did not align.

MTSU’S Eldred King attempts to ward off a Kentucky defender on the game’s final play.

We got our first glimpse of Commonwealth Stadium on the way down to Knoxville on Friday evening. We meandered slowly through the parking lots surrounding the venue, noted the double decked sideline grandstands, the single deck endzones with suites on top, and the newer design and feel to the place as this certainly didn’t appear to be a grand old venue nor one that had been expanded a ton of times through the years.

And then it hit me….Holy crap!! This place looks just like the Ralph! Indeed, save for the fact that the field is much closer to surface level the similarities are quite striking. Once inside, any Buffalo fan will notice them right down to the small 200 level atop the lower level, with a pressbox tucked into one of the sideline 200’s. And just like the Ralph, Commonwealth opened in the year 1973(though there was no end zone seating until 1999) and has had a propensity for witnessing mediocre football and long losing streaks to a particular rival club. See: Alabama(75 years between victories).

One thing we know about Kentucky is that they are all about the horse racing, and pregame at Commonwealth in some ways isn’t much different than the moments leading up to the Kentucky Derby. You want to hear the “Call to the Post”….you’ll get it. You want to hear “My Old Kentucky Home”…here it comes. I was half wondering where the mint juleps and the ladies stylin’ hats were while they were at it.

The Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee State were brought in to be the sacrificial lambs for the Wildcats, and oddsmakers thought lowly enough of them to set the line at 17 point underdogs.

Well…as they say, that’s why they play the games as MTSU had a 14-10 lead heading into the final quarter before Kentucky rallied to take a 20-14 lead and the ‘Cats appeared to be wrapping things up as they lined up for a chip sot 32 yarder with 20 seconds to go.

And that’s where the fun began…..or as they say in Kentucky….and DOWN the stretch they come!!

MTSU blocked the attempt, picked up the ball and raced deep into Kentucky territory before being brought down with eight seconds to go. A flag for a block in the back against MTSU would put the ball back at their own 38 yard line for one final play.

With recievers stacked to the right, QB Joe Craddock fired a bomb that connected with Malcolm Beyah at about the twenty five….who deflected it into the hands of a wide open Eldred King a few yards behind him inside the twenty. Unfortunately King didn’t have enough speed to outrun the army of blue coming for him and was brought down at the 1 yard line…. just inches away from as wild of a finish as those back in Buffalo were able to witness just hours earlier.

Kentucky wins….by a nose….in a photo finish!

As we wandered off into the Kentucky evening, it was mission accomplished. Another college football doubleheader in the books and two more great venues knocked off the list. Next up for college football: Michie Stadium at West Point(maybe), can’t wait!

-pjf

An exterior shot of the marquee entrance

This venue opened in 1973, same year as Ralph Wilson Stadium

And we’re guessing it was the same architect. The upper decks, club level contours and pressbox looks exactly like our stadium in Orchard Park.

Lucky we swallowed hard and bought ourselves 8 gallons of gasoline at $4.499 a gallon before we hit the sack… by morning it was five bucks.

Anyways…

We got downtown early on this warm, muggy and sun drenched day in Knoxville, eagerly anticipating the big day ahead of us. And while we were looking forward to all the pageantry and tradition that goes with Tennessee football, one thing we were not anticipating was a competitive football game. As it turned out we were spot on in that assessment.

When we arrived outside the stadium, we saw the “Vol Walk” was well underway. What is the Vol Walk? It is sort of a parade of the players from the athletic center down a windy path, where Tennessee fans assemble along the path and cheer on their players. The parade is led by head coach Phillip Fullmer and their coonhound mascot, “Smokey”. The marching band is perched on a hilltop, playing the state’s unofficial anthem, “Rocky Top”. Yeah, we’re in for one special day.

From there we walked around the outside of the stadium, and despite my gimpy leg (I fell off a ladder a week ago, fractured fibula) we got all the way down to the shores of the Tennessee River, and checked out all the boaters decked out with their tailgate gear as they were parked in their slips. Absolutely awesome!

Neyland Stadium is one of those venues built decades ago and added on to again and again, and its current capacity is a tad over 102,000. But this is one intimate venue despite its size, the second deck pitch is steep, and you sit right on top of the action. Being a completely enclosed stadium, the place gets noisy (yes even when UAB is the opponent). Rocky Top is the signature sing along song, and everyone sings. The entire building is decked out in Tennessee orange.

Which, by the way, is not just any orange. Wanting to fit in, I wore the only orange shirt I had, a polo shirt for the Clemson Tigers. Unfortunately, Clemson orange has almost a reddish/purple hue to it, and I ended up getting called out on this more than a few times. Oops!

The game itself was a clunker - UAB managed to do something stupid each time it had the ball, Tennessee moved the ball with precision and efficiency, and by the time it was over Tennessee had itself their first win of the season by a 35-3 score and it could have been much worse.

As we headed out of the building to make our way to the car and begin the second part of the day’s adventure, we were hitting “refresh” on the mobile phone web browser to keep an eye on another game back home… Temple had just scored to take a late 28-24 lead against UB… one last chance…

Then we saw it - “Buffalo 30, Temple 28, F.” Holy crap, what did we miss back in Buffalo?!

One of America’s classic football stadiums, Neyland Stadium is located on the UT campus right in downtown Knoxville

How about tailgating by boat! This is one of only three major college venues that is situated along a waterway and can be accessed by water. Can you name the other two?

At over 100,000 seats, the steep pitches and close proximity to the field makes this an intimate venue and a loud one as well.

Well, we’re at it again! Bright and semi early tommorow your favorite roadtrip duo hops into an ‘03 Kia Sorrento for a sports tour of the Ohio Valley.

Stop one was SUPPOSED to be in Charleston, WV tommorow night where the Augusta Green Jackets and West Virginia Power were going to play in Game 4 of the best of five South Atlantic League Championship series.

Small problem, the Power were swept out in three straight games. I guess we’ll just do a day long drive to Knoxville and park ourselves in town for Saturday’s home opener at renowned Neyland Stadium. Ahhh yes, the rivalry that is Tennessee/Alabama! Can’t wait!

Oops, actually it’s Tennessee vs. Alabama-Birmingham at 12:30 aw heck!

Not much time to worry about that, because that’s just the first of two college football games on tap for us. The nightcap occurs 170 miles to the north where Kentucky invites Sun Belt cupcake Middle Tennessee State to Commonwealth Stadium for a good ol’ fashioned non conference beatdown.

Useless trivia of the day: Middle Tennessee State and Peter’s high school alma mater(Horseheads) have the same nickname….the Blue Raiders. I dare you, try to come up with a more useless piece of info than that!

After that pasting, we head the car northwest to the Steel City and one of our favorite ballparks in PNC Park for a Sunday matinee. Don’t know and don’t care who the opponent is since I’ll have thoughts of Primanti’s and Quaker Steak on my mind, wanna have some of mine Andrew??? Hah!!!

Too bad that game three of the NY-Penn series is in Batavia. I could seriously see doing that one(7pm) in Jamestown on the way home. Eh, with our luck the series will be a sweep and the point will be moot.

Check back for updates as the weekend progresses:)

PJF

Schedule day is always a big one for the Ultimate Sports Road Trip.

By now we know the routine… the NFL releases their schedule in mid April with big fanfare; ditto for the NHL, which usually is released right around the baseball All Star Break. The NBA comes out with theirs two weeks later, and then the AHL piggybacks on them. As for MLB, the teams each release their respective schedules in dribs and drabs… some teams announce the following year as soon as the regular season is over, while others (i.e. Mets, Yankees, Braves and Red Sox) are exasperatingly late in announcing.

As for NCAA college football… the big aggravation there is that many teams don’t release start times until 12 days before the games are played, and that makes it tough to plan, say, a Saturday college doubleheader, or calculating driving times.

Even now, we’re going to be in Bloomington. Indiana on Saturday, October 11 for the Indiana/Iowa football game, as a prelude to our visit at Lucas Oil Field the following day. What time is that game? Who knows! Why does it matter? Well, the Sabres season opener is Friday night October 10. If the kickoff in Bloomington is 12 noon, we have to hit the road Friday and will miss the hockey game. If it’s a night game, we can depart after the Sabres, catch some zzzz’s in Cleveland, and continue on Saturday.

Anyways, we got very little help in terms of “alignment of the planets” from the NHL schedule gods (a Sabres at Leafs game 12/6 in Toronto the night before the Bills/Dolphins game would have been awesome, for example).

These past few days, we sliced and diced the schedule, and since Artvoice gives us a small travel budget for us to cover road games, that certainly helps out, so we decided on these hockey games:

Thur 1/1 Buffalo at Toronto

Mon 1/19 Buffalo at Florida

Wed1/21 Buffalo at Tampa

Sat 2/28 Buffalo at New York Islanders

We’ve added a couple more OHL games (including the soon to be shuttered Windsor Arena, home of the Spitfires and former venue for the NHL Detroit Red Wings, we’re stopping there on Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving as we make our way back from Indy). We also are filling out a roadie the second weekend of September, which may yet change depending on college football start times.

We’ve got the last weekend in October open as well, and right now we’re thinking AHL venues in the midwest which remain on our “to do” list. Or we might just stay home.

Here is the USRT schedule. Lotsa cool adventures await!

(By the way, we’ve also updated the roster of “new venues” on our web site. Construction is currently underway on seven new venues in the four major sports. Here is the lineup.)

The NFL released their 2008 regular season schedule this afternoon.

The Buffalo Bills return to the Monday Night Football schedule on November 17 against the Cleveland Browns, and that is certain to be the “hot ticket” on this year’s home schedule.

The opener is set for September 7 against Seattle. And the one thing everyone was certainly watching was who was going to be the opponent for the game up in Toronto.

The answer to that is the Miami Dolphins. Remember a few years back when the NFL realigned its divisions? Buffalo then had the golden opportunity to move into the AFC Central, and annual games against geographical rivals - Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati. “No way” said The Old Geezer, who waxed poetically about the great Buffalo-Miami rivalry and how he didn’t want to lose that by shifting divisions. Well guess what? These days Don Shula is off selling his steaks, Jimmy Johnson is on his boat and combing his hair, Bryan Cox is giving the finger and spitting in someone else’s direction, and nobody really gives a rats ass about the Fish anymore. And now the Dolphins will have the nice warm and cozy Rogers Centre to visit in December, and at worst a neutral crowd in their grills. Nice job all around!

Today was USRT schedule planning day, and with Pete being off from work, we both met up at Dunn Tire Park and the Bisons day game, fired up the laptop in the pressbox and waited for 2PM to come around.

The planets did not align well at all… we had hoped for a Colts home game on 9/28 so we could tie in two major college venues on the same trip; the Colts are on a bye week. For 10/26, we wanted a Saints game in New Orleans, so we could also visit the LSU Tigers that weekend. The Saints have a “home” game that weekend… but it will be played at London’s Wembley Stadium. Dave Ricci asked pointedly what kind of wusses we really are that we just don’t hop over to the UK that weekend. We ignored Dave and left him to his merciless heckling of former Bisons and now the Syracuse Chief’s Hector Luna.

So as of now, this is kind of what our fall USRT football schedule looks like, although only the Indy weekend is a lock:

Sat 9/21 Akron at Army (NCAA-f)

Sat 10/11 Iowa at Indiana (NCAA-f)
Sun 10/12 Baltimore at Indianapolis (NFL)

Sat 10/25 Alabama at Tennessee (NCAA-f)
Mon 10/27 Indianapolis at Tennessee (NFL)

Sun 11/23 Grey Cup - Montreal (CFL)

For the October trip, Florida is our “Plan B” - Saturday in Gainesville with Kentucky at Florida, then the Bills and Miami at Dolphins Stadium. We’re going to wait for the NHL schedule in July and see what else might fit before making final plans.

Our first day of the California adventure is in the books, and what a day it was!

We got up early and rolled out of San Diego to meet up with one of our sports buddies from LA Ray Oropeza, who invited us to join in for breakfast at a really nicely appointed downtown bistro. Ray is a USC alum and a big Trojans fan, and we shared some great sports anecdotes over omelets and eggs benedict. He also fixed us up with a parking pass in the Museum of History parking lot two blocks from the Coliseum, which as we found out came in very handy, as parking is scarce and VERY expensive.

After getting situated, we walked around the stadium and the adjoining neighborhood, and discovered two things - the area around the Coliseum really isn’t as scary as some would make it out to be. Lots of new condos and retail going up or opened, the park surrounding the Coliseum is very nice, and the talk is rampant that this will be USC’s last year there, as the NFL has designs on razing the building, saving the iconic arches, and building a brand new stadium for an eventual pro team (and what team might that be?!). The second thing we found is that USC tailgating and pregame partying is absolutely awesome; there was entertainment, food, canopies, grills and decorations everywhere and it was an electric and festive scene.

USC was playing their arch rival UCLA, for the right to a berth in the Rose Bowl. The crowd was energetic right from the get go, and the dueling bands during the pregame set the stage for the hatred these two programs have for each other. Form there it was pretty much all Trojans, capitalizing on multiple turnovers to take a 17-7 halftime lead and went on to win the game 24-7. This gave them a record 6th conference championship in a row and their 32nd Rose Bowl appearance. Absolutely amazing!

One cool element during the game is that they light the Olympic cauldron in the arched end zone at the end of the 3rd quarter, to the delight of the crowd.

Coolest t-shirt: “A Bruin is forever, while a Trojan you use but one time.” Heh heh.

It’s Saturday night relaxing at our hotel, gonna grab a bite in a bit and gear up for our big NBA doubleheader at the Staples Center tomorrow - Clippers in the matinee and then the Lakers in the nightcap.

Well, we’re at it again folks! The USRT is off on a weeklong visit to the West Coast to catch some college football, Sabres hockey, and NBA hoops, some of which has its roots back in WNY. Ostensibly I’m heading out to see my sister/husband and newborn nephew but c’mon….who the heck are we kidding!

Posting this now while we’re in the Vegas International Airport being delayed(no shock) while laying over on the way to San Diego.

Schedule lines up as follows:

Sat 12/1: 4:30 UCLA/USC @ LA Coliseum
Sun 12/2: 3:30 Pacers/Clippers
9:30 Magic/Lakers….both @ Staples Center
Wed 12/5 10:00 Ducks/Sabres @ Honda Center
Thu 12/6 10:30 Kings/Sabres @ Staples Center

Check back for daily updates and then some as we enjoy kinda, sorta sunny California…..

Hmmmm….still delayed….wonder if I should hit the slots here in the terminal. Nah….

A BCS playoff. What do you think?