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Don't miss the documentary 'PINNED'
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Mon, 01/18/2010 - 6:16pm
It will be available for viewing in a few weeks, but I don't want to put it on the back burner of my mind. I might get distracted and neglect to tell you about it later. If you're a fan of high school sports -- especially wrestling -- you'll want to see the 90-minute documentary "Pinned."
It chronicles the St. Edward wrestling team of 2005-06 with an interwoven parallel story about Lakewood High wrestler Matt Curley. It follows the St. Ed wrestlers on each step of the season which culminated in the state championship and a fourth straight state title for St. Ed werstler Lance Palmer.
Cleveland Area High School Football Weekly Top 20
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Tue, 09/22/2009 - 10:52am
I wish The Plain Dealer would get a good agate editor to handle the high school football schedule. Don Kerr was the best they ever had but they treated him so miserably that he quit several years ago.
Now, to the top 20.
1. St. Ignatius 4-0. Unstoppable. By 40 over Mentor. Out of town this weekend up in New York.
2. Glenville 3-1. The rest of its Senate schedule is a cakewalk. Glenville should leave the Senate and put together an independent football schedule.
Monte Clark Memory
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 9:07am
Football was serious business to Monte Clark, the starting right tackle for the Browns in their glory days of the 1960's. But besides his passion for the game he had depth and sensitivity and he was unfailingly courteous. He and I hit it off right away.
In the Browns jubilant locker room after a big 31-20 playoff victory over the Dallas Cowboys in 1968, Clark motioned me over. I was working the room, getting quotes for my sidebar story in The Plain Dealer.
Cleveland Area High School Football Rankings Show No Movement
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Sun, 09/06/2009 - 10:34pm
The high school football ratings.
I''ll continue to make this my weekly habit primarily because I sort of enjoy it. Remember, now that I'm semi-retired I don't have to do the unpleasant parts of my old job, such as waiting around for an hour and a half to interview the Cavaliers or working an empty locker room at Browns camp. You can't imagine how we hated that. And you can't imagine how huge corporations like the Cavs and Browns with big PR staffs don't give a damn.
Quit Whining and Enjoy the Music
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 3:02pm
I wanted to write this a couple of days ago, but my damnable machine locked me out of my own blog. I hate this damn thing. I truly do. I yearn for the good old days when I wrote my story on a mechanical Underwood or Royal typewriter that went tappetty-tap as each letter was imprinted on paper. Then I would personally hand that paper to a copy editor who would use a pencil to correct any typos before rolling it up into a cannister and sending it up a vacuum tube to the composing room where it would be set in lead type on a Linotype machine that went clackety-clack.
Recap from Week One of Cleveland Area High School Football
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 3:43pm
I can't tell you how many times in recent years the opening night of the high school football season has been adversely affected by the weather. Al Gore is right. The weather is changing.
This past Friday night lightning created havoc with our coverage at Fox 8, which we promoted all week. Our schedule of 17 games was carefully laid out. Tony Rizzo, John Telich, Dan Jovic and yours truly, along with seven photographers, were already in place at our games when lightning flashed across the sky. Game after game was postponed until the next day.
Dino Lucarelli Talks About Memorable Characters In His 50 Year Career
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Fri, 08/28/2009 - 2:56pm
Called Dino Lucarelli to wish him good luck in his retirement from the Browns. We go back to the sixties together when he was the PR man for the Barons hockey team. Then he moved to the Indians and then to the Browns, where he's been one of this town's most beloved goodwill ambassadors for the last 35 years.
Glenville Should Leave the Senate League
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 3:36pm
It's time for Glenville to get out of the Cleveland Senate and go independent in football. Only in football.
The other 10 Senate schools can no longer compete. Under head coach Ted Ginn Jr., Glenville has become a magnet for Cleveland's best public school football players who inevitably leave their neighborhood schools and gravitate to Glenville. They're also transferring from mostly white suburban schools to the all-black Glenville, as though they're returning to their roots. This has become quite a phenomenon. I've never seen anything like it.
Glenville is the Cleveland all-star team and we don't see that changing for many years..
Fox 8 Friday Night Football: Back & Bigger Than Ever
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 12:02pm
I'll be back in the saddle this Friday night when the high school football season opens. In fact, today I started putting the schedule together.
That's been my job at Channel 8 for several years -- plotting our course to maximize our game coverage. Nothing is done haphazardly. There isn't time for a "seat of the pants" operation, not when we cover up to 20 games that start at either 7 p.m. or 7:30 and we get them on the air by quarter to eleven. This is as close to a miracle as television can get. It's the most intense four hours of the week. It's like election night every Friday and we don't give you projections. We have finals. All the precincts are in and we've got the winners for you.
Here's our plan.
Tribe Should Pull the Plug on Andy Marte
Submitted by Dan Coughlin on Mon, 08/24/2009 - 9:25am
We've seen enough of Andy Marte. How long will the Indians prolong this agonizing audition? Please, get him out of the lineup.
The Indians released him once already. In spring training they "designated him for assignment." When no other team picked him up, the Indians re-signed him and sent him to Columbus. But this bad penny wound up with the varsity again and has been in the daily lineup for over a month contributing nothing.
