Cleveland Sports Forum

Superb catch in center with the bases loaded saves the game for The Kent State Golden Flashes.

One more win, and a Northeastern Ohio team is going to The College World Series.

Firestone wins Academic Challenge Finale

Beacon Journal staff report

Published: June 10, 2012 - 11:18 PM

Firestone High School’s Academic Challenge team finished the season on top in the WEWS Channel 5 television competition.

Firestone placed first out of 78 teams in northern Ohio that competed on the quiz show during the school year.

Firestone seniors Katherine Gilbert, Bijan Pakdel and Sterling Shriber competed in the final show. Other team members included seniors Arian Daneshvar, Rowan Matney and Alex Pica.

Firestone is the first Akron Public School team to win the championship, according to the Akron district.

Each week, three teams battle for points by answering questions about math, science, history and current events. The three highest- scoring teams at the end of the year return for the championship match, which was taped April 21. Results were kept secret until the program aired Saturday.

The final score was 570 for Firestone. Hawken High School of Chesterland came in second with 540, and Beachwood High School came in third with 480.

This was the 44th season of the Emmy-winning program, which is one of the longest running locally produced shows in television history, according to Channel 5.

The Firestone team will be interviewed on Channel 5 today during one of the station’s news segments.

Teofilo Stevenson was a stud boxer and a worthy adversary in Olympic Boxing. The guy won Gold in '72, '76 (the year of American dominance in other weight classes), and again in 1980. He would have competed again for Cuba in 1984, but Cuba elected not to attend the '84 Olympics in Los Angeles.

It's not in the obit reports yet tonight, but what made the guy even more remarkable was he almost died from massive burns when he was 25 but rallied to survive and come back to win more Olympic Gold.

I watched Olympic boxing closely in those years, and rooted for him to lose in those times.

Tonight I remember what a great persevering individual and boxer he was.


Jun 11, 9:45 PM EDT

Olympic boxer Teofilo Stevenson dies

By ANNE-MARIE GARCIA
Associated Press

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/ ... 1-21-45-16

Most of my Medical tests over- lets start the weekend early with some early Joe Cocker. (I like the one where he benefits from age also)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y2RHMGq ... re=related

loufla wrote:Most of my Medical tests over- lets start the weekend early with some early Joe Cocker. (I like the one where he benefits from age also)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y2RHMGq ... re=related

As most likely know, that was adopted as the opening theme song for "The Wonder Years," one of my all time faves. It aired 1988 to 1993. The lead character played as a kid of the 50's and was in post time parallel in years with both Rusty and me.

(thank goodness I did not click and find "You Are So Beautiful."..........)

and Mt Fan !

rusty2 wrote:and Mt Fan !

OK! I knew he was close, but never caught he's from the same year as us.

Where did Mt Fan grow up?


I bet he never attended disco at The Big Apple......

Trivia, Donna Summer lived her final days quietly and without notice not far from where Loufla and I now live.

And speaking of the late 1970's, I have felt like a solid "old timer" since arriving in Southwest Florida as I have been quick to the trigger to share my remembrances of visiting here often starting 35 years ago. I haven't yet found many who have personal experiences here from that long ago.

The girl I dated in college had a wonderful Grandmother who spent winters in Naples and I drove her car back and forth to Ohio and stayed with her on the drive trips and on visits with my girlfriend. When I started law school and later did public teaching in Miami, I'd make the trip across The Everglades and along Tamiami Trail from west Dade County to Naples in my Fiat Spider 2000 to see to my girlfriend's Grandmother's place and help her out. My girlfriend and her parents were still living in Ohio.

I haven't driven the Tamiami Trail between Naples and Miami in over 30 years.

My wife asked me what I wanted for Father's Day.

After moving lots of little things and boxing things up and still thinning further after moving them 3,000+ miles from California to Florida I answered, "nothing I can touch or hold."

My wife sought clarity on my statement and I let her know I wanted nothing I could touch or hold, or hang or display, or would ever have to possibly move again.

Tomorrow we are driving across the Tamiami Trail to The Shark Valley entrance to Everglades National Park. We'll do lunch in Everglades City, and I hope the funky little "restaurant" in Chokolskee is still smoking mullet on the screened porch for a snack.

We'll do stuff in Shark Valley that was not available 30 years ago.

My wife is a bit afraid of the gators and rattlers and possible pythons we might see.

Go figure.

(Sunday I'll have dinner with my daughter and her friends and boyfriend's family and my lovely wife)

TFIS- Watch out for that drive if there is drought. One day my parents were headed that way and they say the snakes were so many and large that they could hear them as they ran over them with their tires. They stopped at one point to look and my stepdad said he counted 14 rattlers while my Mom trembled in the car. Sounds like that frog scene in MAGNOLIA. They were all moving trying to find water in the Everglades.

loufla wrote:TFIS- Watch out for that drive if there is drought. One day my parents were headed that way and they say the snakes were so many and large that they could hear them as they ran over them with their tires. They stopped at one point to look and my stepdad said he counted 14 rattlers while my Mom trembled in the car. Sounds like that frog scene in MAGNOLIA. They were all moving trying to find water in the Everglades.

We avoided road kill today, but in my earlier years driving The Trail I can certainly corroborate the legitimacy of your stepdad's story. After summer late afternoon rains I many times swerved to avoid snakes in my Spider 2000 convertible back in the late 1970's and early 80's. I used to catch wild snakes by hand and harbor them while they had babies back in my Ohio kid years. That said, I have a supreme desire not to encounter poisonous snakes these days.

Shark Valley was a lot of fun. We stopped on the touristy Miccosukee reservation on the way and had had gator tail and "pan bread." Pan bread is a healthier version of Native American "fry bread," which we love. I also had the "grits soup." It was interesting. I only ate a little as I ordered it for the novelty and was uncertain about the fat content.....
We spied four alligators along the way, but none in a position worthy of a photo op. This turtle did oblige us with a pose.

We ended our trip with a drive down to Chokoloskee, the first time I have been there in over 30 seasons.

We ended up having a great casual dinner by the water in Everglades City at the old train depot, the terminus of the Atlantic Coast Line back in 1928. The town was empty at this time of year, but the food was good and a good value.

The scenery was fantastic.

There's a tour boat operator based at the Everglades National Park ranger station there at the "Gentle Ben" (TV show from the 1960's) National Park entrance. They offer a large pontoon style boat tour of The Ten Thousand Islands for 90 minutes for $26.50.

I've been all through The Keys, and have been on boats South of them often.

I've never been on the water in The Ten Thousand Islands of Florida.

I'm going to go, and Diane says for now she will join me. She was a little more hooked when the tour operator offered there is a restroom on board, and we can bring aboard and consume all the beer or wine we care to carry.

A nice BYOB beverage and a cruise on the water in a place I have never been.

I'm sold.

If anyone here cares to join me or likely us, just let us know.....

If you are into that Chocoloskee and Everglades city stuff talk to my wife next time we are together she helped with the setting up of the historical store project there years ago. Also for real Everglades City stories try to watch the Documentary SQUARE GROUPER. If you have on Demand you can look it up. Everglades city is the third section. When I first arrived here in Florida years ago one could not get Snook to eat as they had been overfished, but you could go to Everglades City and order "Winking Grouper" (they would wink at you and say would you like some fresh Grouper) It was Snook.

TFISC- Further proof I am older than you - I had a Fiat 1600 Spyder. Bright Orange! Got a few tickets from SC Highway Patrol in that one.

loufla wrote:If you are into that Chocoloskee and Everglades city stuff talk to my wife next time we are together she helped with the setting up of the historical store project there years ago. Also for real Everglades City stories try to watch the Documentary SQUARE GROUPER. If you have on Demand you can look it up. Everglades city is the third section. When I first arrived here in Florida years ago one could not get Snook to eat as they had been overfished, but you could go to Everglades City and order "Winking Grouper" (they would wink at you and say would you like some fresh Grouper) It was Snook.

I'm very familiar with "square grouper." When I taught high school in Miami in the late '70's and early 80's I had kids who would take airboats into The Everglades and looked for those mis-jettisoned or not yet found. Ironically, the topic of "square grouper" came up at a casual grill/pool dinner tonight at the parents of our daughter's boyfriend and their assorted young friends. As I was relating yesterday's Everglades City visit, the other Dad told the story of the night in the early 80's when nearly every male over the age of 18 in Everglades City was arrested in a raid over "square grouper."


Winking grouper in Everglades City is in the same grouping as a "dirty coke" in the after hours of South Carolina late night dining establishments.....

I would like to know more about what's evolved down there in the past 30+ years. I remember a funky place that was not exactly a restaurant but sold smoked mullet as it came off their smoker on the screened porch. Yesterday I thought it would be easy to find as I knew what it looked like 30 years ago. Someone recently told me they thought it was still there. Seems like they built a bunch of stuff in the interim years and I couldn't for certain pinpoint it, and doubt that it looks anything like it did around 1979. Maybe Smallwood Store is the connection.

I just watched "New Year's Eve" on On Demand.

It wasn't great, and was a step or two above bad, but it was a fun watch as I worked through it.

Tribe Fan in SC/Cali wrote:

rusty2 wrote:and Mt Fan !

OK! I knew he was close, but never caught he's from the same year as us.

Where did Mt Fan grow up?


I bet he never attended disco at The Big Apple......

Trivia, Donna Summer lived her final days quietly and without notice not far from where Loufla and I now live.

Mt Fan - Western Pa - Sharon