A Chip Off the Old Block, By George
From the fathers and sons section of the sports world — Warren Central High School’s starting quarterback, senior Jeff George Jr. (yes he’s the son of that Jeff George) is definitely following in his dad’s footsteps. Jeff Sr.’s alma mater, the University of Illinois, seems to be very interested in recruiting Jeff the Younger and has already offered the Warren Central senior a scholarship in 2014. Jeff Jr. is listed at 6’ 3” and 185 pounds and wears jersey #3 for the Warriors as his father did a quarter of a century ago. Jeff Sr. was one of Indiana’s most revered high school football players. As a senior and High School All-American at Warren Central in 1985, he was one of the most highly recruited athletes in Indiana high school history. After a disappointing freshman year at Purdue, George transferred to the U of Illinois and had two outstanding years for coach Jon Mackovic, taking Illinois to an overall record of 16-7-1 and trips to the All-America Bowl in 1988 and the Citrus Bowl in 1989. George had a really sensational year in 1989. He led Illinois to a 10-2 record and second place in the Big Ten and a 10th place national ranking in the AP Poll. He threw for 2,738 yards and 22 touchdowns. He won the Sammy Baugh award as the National Outstanding College Passer and was the MVP in the ‘89 Citrus Bowl. The Colts selected George as the number one overall pick of the 1990 NFL Draft. Purdue, Indiana, Louisville, and Akron have expressed interest in Jeff Jr. and at the end of the Warriors 2013 football campaign he will be hearing from several other college teams. The Warren Central Warriors opened their 2013 season with a 21-10 loss to Decatur Central last Friday night.
Another Title for the Tribe
Congratulations to our Indianapolis Indians for clinching their second straight International League’s West Division Title last Saturday against Rochester. The Tribe’s final two regular season games are at home this coming Saturday and Sunday against Louisville. The International League’s playoffs for the Governor’s Cup will start on Sept. 4th. The Tribe will meet the Durham Bulls at Athletic Park in Durham for two games and return home to the Vic on the 6th. The League Championship round starts on Sept. 10th. The Gildan Triple-A National Championship game will be held at Allentown Penn. on Sept. 17th when the International League champ meets the Pacific Coast League champion for the Minor league Baseball crown. Here’s to the Tribe taking the whole ball of wax. That is, if the parent club Pittsburgh Pirates doesn’t call up too many of the Tribe’s top players for a September run.
Penske Pit Crewman Gets Hit by Dixon
At the Sonoma California GoPro Grand Prix last Sunday, Team Penske driver Will Power picked up his first win of the season in a hard fought duel with Ganassi racing rival Scott Dixon. The Aussie hasn’t won an Indy Car event since April of 2012 and has no chance to win the Indy Car Championship this year, but the victory was a bit of a consolation for what has been a rather dismal 2013 season for him and his crew. His teammate Helio Castroneves, however, has led in points for the 2013 series crown all season long. Castroneves has only one victory this season but has a string of top 8 finishes in all the races but one this year. As hard as it is to believe, Helio has yet to win an IRL Championship and is trying as hard as he can to win the Indy Car crown in 2013. Several teams, most notably Team Ganassi, have accused the Brazilian of racing for points not victories. After a dismal first half of the season, Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon found his mojo and won three straight races and was making a strong late run for the championship. The New Zealander’s Honda-powered Target Special seemed to have worked out the horsepower problems that plagued it at Indy and elsewhere early in the season and is now posing a serious threat to Helios’s championship hopes.
Anyway, Dixon was looking to pick up his fourth win of the season and was sparring with Power for the lead. They pitted together and as their pits were next to each other, a Penske crewman carrying a tire away from Power’s car was bumped by Dixon as he sped off to the race course. Indy Car Chief Honcho Beau Barfield charged Dixon with a drive through penalty which effectively took him out of a top finishing position and a chance to overtake Castroneves’ point advantage. Team Ganassi accused Penske of a bit of gamesmanship and charged the crewman with deliberately walking into Dixon’s car to incur the penalty for Dixon and eliminate him from contention. They further charged that Barfield blew the call and the penalty was unwarranted. Power called the charge absurd, After the race was finished, Roger Penske confronted Marco Andretti about bumping Power and Dario Franchitti, who finished third, faced down Penske with the complaint that Power had tried to block him off the course. Oh, for the days when A. J. Foyt or Parnelli Jones would just punch somebody in the nose at the end of a race if they were irritated.
The big winner was Castroneves, who won more championship points with a seventh place finish and saw Dixon, his main challenger, finish fifteenth and stay 39 points behind him. Scott is a distant second place in the standings. There are four races left in the series and Dixon could still catch Helio and win the title. However, Dixon is pretty much going to have to win at least three of the four and have Castroneves not score any more points. Could happen but it’s very unlikely. Helio is probably going to have the number one on his car in 2014.
snicewanger@yahoo.com