#Illinois football

[collegefootballcountdown]

TWELVE DAYS AND COUNTING

[389]

sinkhole in Illinois, 2024

[thedoubleextrapoint]

Nebraska Football: Stop it, Husker fan!

I know, I know. Here we go again. We’ve seen this movie. I get it. After three glorious weeks, including what felt like a demon-exorcising win over Colorado, Memorial Stadium really felt like a party on Friday night facing Illinois. Unfortunately (regardless of what Pitbull says), parties do come to an end. And Nebraska’s party ended with what seemed like the return of all the things that have…

[jacksphotos]

American Football House Portra 400

[gauzeforconcern]

im at the 100 gecs tree, im at the american football house, im at the combination 100 gecs tree american football house

[mocury-moto]

god can you fucking imagine how wild minecraft must be in 17776. tens of thousands of new blocks and items. hundreds of biomes and mobs. someone will be grinding out mining away the entire world. a redstone machine in somebodys world has gained sentience like the satellites have. a full netherite beacon is considered early-game content. mooblooms still arent in the game. imagine

[septembermonologues]

tim walz will genuinely win over so many well meaning but slightly behind the curve white midwestern dads and uncles and friends of the dads. i cannot believe the dems made another incredibly smart choice so soon after the first one. wild times.

[saddestfans]

More like Notre DAMN HOW YOU LOSE TO NORTHERN ILLINOIS LOLLLLL

[marieslocket]

setting fire to the american football house and abusing threshold values in photoshop (would never actually set fire to this piece of history i would actually become a firefighter to save this house if this ever happened)

[goalhofer]

October 21, 1952 cover of Look.

[collegefootballcountdown]

COUNTDOWN 50

[t-is-for]

RED STARS VS. BAY FC BROKE THE NWSL ATTENDANCE RECORD‼️👏 📸: wearebayfc

via ESPN June 8, 2024

[thedoubleextrapoint]

Nebraska Football: A Big Ten-ny non-conference win

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Nebraska’s facing an opponent with a very clear game plan. The opponent runs the ball, milks the clock to shorten the game, plays stingy run defense, executes well, and waits for you to make a mistake. Sound familiar, Husker Fan? Saturday’s game against Northern Iowa sure felt Big Ten-ny. And for about as long as I can remember, that kind of game plan was…

[celineszoges]

[chaunceyandchumleysdad]

R.I.P. Mark Kellar

It is sad to see this news. I used to play racquetball with Mark when he lived in the Chicago area. He later moved to Minnesota, and I never saw him again. He had an outstanding collegiate football career as a fullback. In 1973, he led the NCAA in rushing, beating out notable future NFL players Tony Dorsett (Pittsburgh), John Cappelletti (Penn State) and Archie Griffin (Ohio State). He went on to play two seasons with the Chicago Fire (World Football League) and three seasons with the Minnesota Vikings (National Football League).

Mark was an excellent racquetball player and he taught me a lot about the game. In particular, he taught me patience. Don't panic and try to cut off the ball. Follow it to the back wall and set yourself up for a good shot. He had that part of the game mastered. He never looked like he was playing hard, but he always got to the ball and made good shots.

I have some good memories of Mark. The first time he played at our club, it was in a doubles match that included me and a guy that had a reputation for being ornery. There were a couple of hinder calls by Mark that Mr. Ornery didn’t agree with. At some point, Mr. O., knowing nothing about Mark’s background as a football player, decides to get in Mark’s face and read him the riot act. Mark got in Mr. O’s face, and shouted, “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TALKING TO” as I proceeded to wedge myself in between them to try to prevent any fisticuffs.

When Mark joined our club, I recruited him for our travel league team where he quickly became one of the top players in the league. There was a new team that joined the league the year before and their number one player went unbeaten in their first season. In the second season, he was still undefeated when we played his team on their home court. I matched Mark up with this guy, and Mark took care of business and won the match. His opponent did not shake Mark’s hand after the match. Instead, he stormed off the court toward the locker room. Mark causally strolled off the court, and nonchalantly quipped, “I guess I wasn’t supposed to beat that guy!”

I did manage to beat Mark once in our in-house morning league. Knowing that winning two consecutive games against him was virtually impossible, my strategy was to lay it all out and win the first game so that I would have a shot of winning the game three tiebreaker. My strategy worked. I won game three when I buried a ceiling shot in the back corner of his backhand side. When he tried and failed to dig the ball out of the corner, he said, “You talked me right out of it!” I took that as a great compliment from a former pro athlete.

Mark was always easy-going and if we weren’t playing racquetball, we’d always have a chat during our morning workouts. He would get on one those old white and black Stairmasters, set it at top speed, and do it for an hour straight. (By contrast, thirty minutes and medium-low speed was all I could handle.) Mark was never pretentious about his athletic career. However, he didn’t mind talking about it when asked. Though he seldom went out with the racquetball team after our travel league matches, I do remember one night when we sat in a bar, talked about his career and playing in Soldier Field, Metropolitan Stadium and Lambeau Field on cold December days.

Unfortunately, he moved to Minnesota just before cell phones became ubiquitous, so I had no contact information for him after he left. As I later traveled to Minnesota periodically for business, I did try to track him down but was unsuccessful. I played quite a bit of racquetball in the Twin Cities area, but nobody knew of Mark. So perhaps he quit playing the game or I just didn’t look in the right places. He was a part of my life for a relatively short but fun period of time. I hope he has found everlasting peace.