TexasTerror
September 5th, 2006, 10:29 AM
Hasn't this columnist made some remarks in the past about I-AA? Apparently he's got choice words for our playoff system among other things...
Everyone knows I-AA performs in smaller stadiums, hands out fewer scholarships and stages a postseason tournament that only the players' mamas and daddies and the student bodies mostly care about.
Contact information is Bob Lipper at (804) 649-6555 or e-mail [email protected]
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What's in a name? I-AA is what it is
BOB LIPPER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Sep 5, 2006
Billy Shakespeare, who coached the Stratford-on-Avon 11 back in the 1600s (when Joe Pa was an assistant in Happy Valley), had a way with words. "What's in a name, lads?" he'd tell his players in the locker room before they faced Oxford or Coventry or some other team from a higher confederation. "We all put on our iambic pentameter one foot at a time."
Right.
Four centuries later, the message still resonates. It resonated over the weekend in Durham, where Richmond shut out Duke. It resonated in Boulder, where Montana State whipped Colorado. It resonated in Albuquerque, where Portland State zapped New Mexico.
The news angle: Each of the winners is a card-carrying member of not-on-Lee Corso's-radar-screen Division I-AA. Each of the losers belongs to big-dudes-on-campus Division I-A. And these upsets . . .
Oh, pardon me. To be diplomatically, semantically and slavishly correct, it should be noted that those I-AA and I-A labels comfortable as they might be for most of us -- are facing extinction. On Dec. 15, in time for postseason exposure, Division I-AA football officially will become the "NCAA Football Championship Subdivision" and Division I-A will be known as the "Football Bowl Subdivision."
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149190420415&path=!sports&s=1045855934844
Everyone knows I-AA performs in smaller stadiums, hands out fewer scholarships and stages a postseason tournament that only the players' mamas and daddies and the student bodies mostly care about.
Contact information is Bob Lipper at (804) 649-6555 or e-mail [email protected]
----------------
What's in a name? I-AA is what it is
BOB LIPPER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Sep 5, 2006
Billy Shakespeare, who coached the Stratford-on-Avon 11 back in the 1600s (when Joe Pa was an assistant in Happy Valley), had a way with words. "What's in a name, lads?" he'd tell his players in the locker room before they faced Oxford or Coventry or some other team from a higher confederation. "We all put on our iambic pentameter one foot at a time."
Right.
Four centuries later, the message still resonates. It resonated over the weekend in Durham, where Richmond shut out Duke. It resonated in Boulder, where Montana State whipped Colorado. It resonated in Albuquerque, where Portland State zapped New Mexico.
The news angle: Each of the winners is a card-carrying member of not-on-Lee Corso's-radar-screen Division I-AA. Each of the losers belongs to big-dudes-on-campus Division I-A. And these upsets . . .
Oh, pardon me. To be diplomatically, semantically and slavishly correct, it should be noted that those I-AA and I-A labels comfortable as they might be for most of us -- are facing extinction. On Dec. 15, in time for postseason exposure, Division I-AA football officially will become the "NCAA Football Championship Subdivision" and Division I-A will be known as the "Football Bowl Subdivision."
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149190420415&path=!sports&s=1045855934844