Week 3 Picks and results

[ctrabs74]

Northern Michigan at Davenport
Saginaw Valley at Northwood
Wisconsin LaCross at Wayne State
Lincoln (CA) at Grand Valley
Michigan Tech at Midwestern State

[bankslaker]

Northern Michigan at Davenport
Saginaw Valley at Northwood
Wisconsin LaCross at Wayne State
Lincoln (CA) at Grand Valley
Michigan Tech at Midwestern State

[WOLaker]

Northern Michigan at Davenport
Saginaw Valley at Northwood
Wisconsin LaCross at Wayne State
Lincoln (CA) at Grand Valley
Michigan Tech at Midwestern State

[Tony Nicolette]

Yikes...bottom of the barrel guy over here. Hope you guys aren't reading my columns and having your minds warped...

Northern Michigan at Davenport - Quality win for DU in the opener on the road. Two weeks to get ready. Northern always less effective away from the Dome.
Saginaw Valley at Northwood - Rivalry game. Woodies will be ready to go, if they snuck up and won this one I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. SV should simply have too much.
Wisconsin LaCross at Wayne State - This one scares me. La Cross can play, and I guarantee you they believe they can win this game. Still not sure what Wayne is...haven't found much of a passing attack yet. La Cross hasn't either, but...
Lincoln (CA) at Grand Valley - Nothing to see here.
Michigan Tech at Midwestern State - MSU D is almost non-existent, but Tech's O has been alarming feeble thus far. Kinda feel like I need to see them do something before I'll bite.

[mtsax305]

Saturday's result notwithstanding, Tony, I've never heard Tom Adams Field called The Jewel before. Is there a story behind that?

[Tony Nicolette]

Saturday's result notwithstanding, Tony, I've never heard Tom Adams Field called The Jewel before. Is there a story behind that?

Oooh, mt....Saturday's result. What are we going to do with the Warriors?

So, The Jewel is just a bunch of nonsense from within my own head. I'm one of those knuckleheads who always has screwy nicknames for things and people. Many of them are 37 cross-references deep and wind up on obscure lines from Seinfeld or The Hangover or Coming to America or whatever. Sometimes, someone will say a sentence and the words or the context will jog a memory of somewhere I was, something I heard, a piece of the various vernaculars I share with different pockets of family and friends, or one of the references I mentioned above. Sometimes it is just a play on words...juxtaposing a place, leveraging a homonym or synonym, a bad Dad-joke or pun, whatever. More often than not (translation: nearly always), these things are only funny to me.

In my years of being in sales, I have had the good fortune to see a lot of the country. I've spent significant amounts of time driving and seeing stuff as I roll by. Being a lifelong sports fan (and quasi athlete) I always love seeing ANY kind of an athletic/competitive facility: high school or college stadium, golf course, NFL or MLB stadiums, NBA/NHL arenas, rec-softball complexes, tennis courts, soccer complexes, frisbee golf courses, dog tracks, police driving courses, underwater basket-weaving pools, alligator wrestling pits...whatever, you name it, my eyes are always drawn to them.

One company I was with for a particularly lengthy period of time had operations around metro-Detroit. I also had a significant # of customers in the area, so I was in metro-Detroit on a very regular basis. So regularly, in fact, that I used to be able to rattle off every exit of I-96 between Exit 38 (East Beltline) and Exit 162 (Novi Road) from memory. Sorry...I digress...

At any rate, there was one afternoon where I had some meetings in Downtown Detroit. Couldn't even begin to tell you how long ago...certainly 20-25 years ago or more. I got onto M-10 (aka, The Lodge) to work my way up to 696 so I could head west toward home (have always lived in West Michigan). It was winter, so it was cold and there was no foliage on the trees. The sun was still pretty far to the south as it would be during that time of the year, and it was late enough in the day where it was starting to sink to the west as well. But it was out, which is always welcome since so many of those winter days are gray. It was in a perfect spot that as I looked out my window to the west I saw the grandstand of the home side rising into the sky. The sun was hitting it in such a way that you could almost "see in" to the stadium, while the press box still cast a neat shadow. I just remember being struck by it...I always knew where it was, but for some reason it really caught my attention that day in particular. And, every time I have taken that same path since then it is absolutely my favorite thing to look for. I always see it, and I always smile.

When I started writing for D2Football back in 2007, I'd be up late often (kinda still am these days) creating my posts for each week. My mind would go in a bunch of different directions as I wrote, and I'd often think of whimsical names for things or ideas for nicknames or whatever...just as I referenced above. That's when I started calling Lubbers "The Shipyard". I referred to UIndy's Key Stadium as "The Dog Track" once or twice. And my love for Tom Adams Field rising from the City towards the sun kept popping into my head. While I realize that it is physically closer to I-94, the real view of the facility is when you are Northbound on The Lodge. It almost "sparkled" in the sun that day, and it's precious to me since I love seeing sites like that so much as I trudge along my way. Hence, to me, it will always be "The Jewel of the Lodge". AKA, The Jewel.

After that diatribe, I would wager you are sorry you asked. LOL. My apologies for the piece of your life you spent reading this that you can't have back.

[mtsax305]

Love it! And I'd rather read your post than walk in darkness lol