So says the link on ESPN to a story on the Manheim Central football team. One player from Manheim Central's 2003 state championship team told me that a teacher told him winning the state championship will go down as the greatest thing he ever did!
As a swing state in November, PA has gotten plenty of attention from the political parties but we Pennsylvanians do not get the constant prep football props that California, Texas, and Florida do. However, you need look no further than the Professional Football Hall of Fame to see that the gridiron glory is a Pennsylvania tradition. The Keystone State has 26 inductees, second to only Texas with 27. Moreover, PA just defeated Ohio in the first round of ESPN's competition for who has the best high school football to make it the final four with the 3 overpublicized heavyweights mentioned above. PA and OH were unfortunate to face one another in the first round because I feel both states may not have the vaunted speed of the above 3, but playing in the heat and humidity of preseason camp as well as the blustery cold of the late season games allows PA and OH to produce tougher players than the other 3 possibly could. Heat wears players out, but cold makes even the stoutest player shiver. Everything hurts more in the cold.
Right now, I bet you are asking, 'What does PA football have to do with http://www.picsofmeinfrontofstuff.blogspot.com/?' I write it, I am from PA, I am obsessed with football and recently I have taken to seeing the final resting spots of my football forefathers. So I have mentioned one so far, but now you can increase that count by one as I have gone to visit the grave of the 1943 Heisman Trophy Winner, Angelo Bertelli. That is a 100% increase all for the sake of my faithful blog readers!
Legerdemain is not a word I use in my everyday vocabulary or ever really, but it was the first word in the first draft of this blog. That's right, I actually proof read this!!!! I will assume most of the people reading this do not know what legerdemain means, in fact if not for the downright necessity for literacy when using the internet I would assume most of the people looking at this can not even read. That is if I had friends, they would look at this blog, but if there were people dumb enough to want to hang out with me I would assume they could not read as well. Of course, if you look at the previous post you would note that there is clearly a picture of me with other people who appear to be having a wonderful time.
It is amazing what a few beers will do.
Getting back to the SAT word mentioned earlier in this posting, legerdemain, according to dictionary.com, is sleight of hand and/or someone who performs of sleight of hand.
Example: The accountants at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were excellent at accounting legerdemain.
Legerdemain is also the word used to describe the exploits of 1943 Heisman Trophy Winner Angelo Bertelli in the Notre Dame Football team's backfield.[1] Obviously, Bertelli was a damned good football player and since 1) I am obsessed with football 2) Bertelli's final resting place is in north Jersey[2] and 3) I am clearly weird enough to take pictures of me in front of graves wearing my college football jersey I decided to visit Mr. Bertelli's grave.
Unfortunately, saying a small prayer at the grave of Coach Lombardi did not guarantee gridiron victory for my favorite football teams, (PSU won, while both sets of Eagles – Philadelphia and Juniata – lost) it did give me something to do on a lovely Wednesday evening. With that in mind, a few weeks later I found myself following directions, despite the incredible cost of gasoline, to another Italian-American gridiron hero who had passed on. Once there I paid my respects to Mr. Bertelli, took the picture below, and returned home.
If you read all that you will see that after ~650 words I actually I described the trip in approximately 15. Who knew the trip would be so brief?
[1] Angelo Bertelli. Heisman.com[2] Angelo Bertelli. Findagrave.com
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