Pearl of Wisdom #23

"He's an excellent defensive player, but he also adds a lot to our offense. He made the big play last night and had another great game today. He not only scored those goals, but he also broke the puck out well and did the things we expect from him on the ice."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Steve Kendall's game story in the November 5, 2006 edition of the Sunday Telegram, talking about senior defenseman Jon Landry's outstanding play (including a hat trick) as Holy Cross completed the weekend sweep of Canisius with a 6-3 victory at the Hart.


Does Steve Kendall know we're "24" fans? He led his story by comparing Landry to Jack Bauer. We know you were throwing us a bone, Steve. You've seen THIS, right?

The People Under the Stands

Either my freshman or sophomore year, Kimball Theater at Holy Cross showed the mediocre Wes Craven horror flick, The People Under the Stairs. I guess it wasn't so bad to be deemed "forgettable," since I do remember watching it there!


Well yesterday, it was The People Under the Stands. With 36 seconds to go in the first half of Lehigh's 28-14 win over HC, lightning was visible in the immediate area, and fans scattered out of the stands like rats, very quickly, and most gathered under the home grandstand for the next 45 minutes.

So who'd we see under the stands, anyway? Pretty much the same people who were in the stands to begin with, except you could actually recognize them without the big hats, ponchos and umbrellas.

We saw parents of football players. We saw many of the regular football diehard fans. We chatted with "Crossports" himself. We also saw Steve Silva.

CBS4/WBZ-TV anchor Scott Wahle was there, too. Found out he's a Holy Cross parent, and according to the HC Online Directory, his wife is a member of the Class of 1978. I didn't know Scott was another Boston TV personality with a connection to Holy Cross, joining former WCVB Channel 5 executive Paul LaCamera '64, along with current CBS4 colleagues Joe Bergantino '73 and Joe Shortsleeve '79. I'm sure there are others. Please drop a comment if you know of more!

I guess some would consider Dan Shaughnessy '75 a Boston TV personality, and maybe also current Celtics color analyst Tommy Heinsohn '56, but I'm thinking more of TV news anchors, reporters, and execs.

Geico

This commercial has been out for a while, but for some reason I can't get the jingle out of my head today! The brilliance of Burt Bacharach, even in a parody.

Banana Slug connection

Who knew? Holy Cross Football has a connection to the UC-Santa Cruz Banana Slugs! Yes, the same Slugs made famous by a T-shirt worn by John Travolta's character Vincent Vega in the 1994 Tarantino classic, Pulp Fiction.


These are the things you discover when picking up and getting sucked into the annual football media guide. According to the guide, senior DB Marc Crosby's "brother, Michael, played basketball at the University of California-Santa Cruz."

I didn't want to dwell, but...

Yeah, I know. I said in my previous post that I didn't want to dwell on the events of 9/11. But with the 5th anniversary, I've been thinking a lot about that day and the subsequent weeks. It sticks with me. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

For the music fans out there, here are a couple videos I found that remind me of the days and weeks following 9/11.

The first one is a video of Bruce Springsteen singing his powerful song, "My City of Ruins." This version is actually a live duet with Sam Moore of "Sam & Dave" fame. There are other versions on YouTube (including some post-Katrina versions, another event for which this song became an anthem), but I like the raw energy and soul displayed here.

The entire Springsteen album, "The Rising," draws from 9/11, and it's one heck of an album. This song in particular, for me, simultaneously captures the anguish and the hope of the days following the tragedy. Sam Moore and Bruce Springsteen, Asbury Convention Hall, 12/7/2003:



Another video I'll always associate with 9/11 is Maxwell's "Lifetime." After the 11th, MTV halted regular programming for a few weeks, and returned to its roots by almost exclusively airing music videos. One video in heavy rotation was this great neo-soul song from Maxwell. I don't know if it's the song's slow groove, thoughtful and optimistic lyrics, or the video's blurred images of NYC, but this one made an impression. I always think of the strange tepidity of September 2001 when I hear or see it. A favorite of mine.

Colin Comp #6

I might as well start counting these, sort of like the Pearls of Wisdom, right? This is our 6th suggestion for a lookalike for now-sophomore Crusader hoopster Colin Cunningham. A classmate of mine suggested this one to me months ago, but I didn't get around to posting it back then.


Vietnam-era John Kerry. Not too bad, 'eh?

In case you need a refresher, you can find the Ricky Nelson comp here, the Robbie Benson and Andy Kaufman comps here, and the Vinnie Barbarino and Dan Abrams comps here. And let's keep them coming!

As an aside, Colin strikes me as the men's basketball team "social director." Maybe Torey's occupied that role to some degree the last few years, but Colin is next in line. He's going to end up being the guy that figures out what the team's going to do after practice when they're on break, what movie they're going to watch while they're on the road, etc. Yesterday, Colin was sporting the aviator glasses and working the tunes during the basketball team's tailgate on the baseball field. You can tell he likes his music - Motown, Prince ("Kiss"), you name it. He seems to have a great personality and he'll be fun to watch, both on and off the court, while he's at Holy Cross.

Hope

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

-Andy Dufresne, in his letter to Red, from The Shawshank Redemption.

A New Lookalike

We'll put aside the Colin Cunningham lookalike quest, for the moment at least. (We're not finished with that, as we did receive another possibility for him via email.)

But here's a new one for y'all. One of these guys coaches the Holy Cross men's hockey team. The other is a television and movie actor, starring in such flicks as Toy Soldiers, Rudy, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and now appearing as the somewhat annoying and conveniently-quick-to-recover-from-a-mugging Lynn McGill on "24".


Paul Pearl and Sean Astin.

Mr. Ed Skinner

A coach is a coach, of course, of course,

And no one can whine like this coach of course

That is, of course, because the coach is the famous Mr. Ed.

Colin Cunningham, You're My Hero

I guess Colin Cunningham found his swagger. The freshman from Memphis, TN willed his team to overtime with a trey, a drawn player-control foul resulting in a change of possession, and a nifty layup, all in the final 9 seconds! Let's recap: 5 points, and a forced turnover, bringing HC from down 55-50 to tied at 55, in 9 seconds. The kid can play.

Colin didn't do it alone. In a masterful performance at the point, the warrior, Torey Thomas, played all 50 minutes and scored 23 points. Collectively, the team played inspired basketball as regulation wound down. This one had some postseason magic and atmosphere in the overtime periods and the final minutes of regulation.