I have always used sports analogies to help me out in my day-to-day life. Also, while growing up, I used to have a much easier time learning things if I could find some way to relate it back to sports. Board races were a great way to learn mathematics. I remember a certain "baseball" version of trivia we used to play for Social Studies in Middle School. No big surprise, that those were my two favorite subjects.
My first lesson in Indiana Geography came thanks to high school sports. When I was younger, I used to watch Hilliard Gates draw the names for the IHSAA State Basketball tournament. It was one of my favorite television programs of the year. (this was before the NCAA Selection show was cool) It allowed me to read the names and hear the pronunciations for schools all over the state, not just the ones on the Peru or Maconaquah schedule.
Once I was a little older, I would help my dad with a fun high school sectional basketball prediction contest in which we would predict the winner of every sectional in the entire state. While I didn't know much about many of the teams I selected, and we weren't blessed with the Internet as a means to research records and results, it was a great way to both talk about and learn things like "Where is Rising Sun?" or "How do you pronounce Loogootee?" or "Why are there two schools called Mount Vernon?"
Before technology and Google answered these questions for us, it was a great way to have simple Indiana History discussions and to learn about geography as it related to the thing I cared most about, High School Sports. For this reason, I'm expanding the Sectional Opener edition of JJ's Pigskin Picks to include a few more than 10 games involving Central Indiana Teams.
We're going top-to-bottom, predicting the final score of EVERY sectional football game this week. While I admit that I won't be putting hours upon hours of research into this project...Muncie South fans, don't be mad I'm picking Central...I will take a glance at the best power rankings I know of, the Sagarin Ratings, John Harrel's excellent breakdown, along with my 30 years of living in this state (15 months were spent in Hazard, KY) as a background to help formulate a quick opinion on winner and final score.
Last Week's Record: 8-2 Overall Record: 57-25 (17-3 The Last Two Weeks) While time will not permit a witty analysis for each game like in previous Pigskin Picks columns, I will give you the reader, something more and pick a Sectional Champion for each as well. (Feel free to look back at this in a few weeks and email/call/facebook/twitter me telling me how wrong I was. My overall goal is 67% for this weekend, 40% for Sectional Champions.
CLASS 5A
Sectional 1 Portage 21 at East Chicago Central 10
Chesterton 10 at Crown Point 13
Valparaiso 7 at Merrillville 28
Munster 35 at Lake Central 14
East Chicago is the lowest ranked team (by Sagarin) in Class 5A, Merrillville has won four of the last five Sectional Titles. The strength is clearly on the bottom half of the bracket, but we'll take the safe play (Pirates) in Sectional 1. WINNER: Merrillville
Sectional 2 Elkhart Memorial 20 at Michigan City 21
LaPorte 6 at Mishawaka 10
Elkhart Central 27 at South Bend Adams 17
Goshen 13 at Penn 56
Great Draw for the Kingsmen! Even though Penn lost their first conference game in ages this season, they are still the class of Sectional 2. WINNER: Penn
Sectional 3 Huntington North 35 Fort Wayne North 7
Kokomo 21 at Fort Wayne Snider 24
Homestead 27 at Carroll (Fort Wayne) 7
My first lesson in Indiana Geography came thanks to high school sports. When I was younger, I used to watch Hilliard Gates draw the names for the IHSAA State Basketball tournament. It was one of my favorite television programs of the year. (this was before the NCAA Selection show was cool) It allowed me to read the names and hear the pronunciations for schools all over the state, not just the ones on the Peru or Maconaquah schedule.
Once I was a little older, I would help my dad with a fun high school sectional basketball prediction contest in which we would predict the winner of every sectional in the entire state. While I didn't know much about many of the teams I selected, and we weren't blessed with the Internet as a means to research records and results, it was a great way to both talk about and learn things like "Where is Rising Sun?" or "How do you pronounce Loogootee?" or "Why are there two schools called Mount Vernon?"
Before technology and Google answered these questions for us, it was a great way to have simple Indiana History discussions and to learn about geography as it related to the thing I cared most about, High School Sports. For this reason, I'm expanding the Sectional Opener edition of JJ's Pigskin Picks to include a few more than 10 games involving Central Indiana Teams.
We're going top-to-bottom, predicting the final score of EVERY sectional football game this week. While I admit that I won't be putting hours upon hours of research into this project...Muncie South fans, don't be mad I'm picking Central...I will take a glance at the best power rankings I know of, the Sagarin Ratings, John Harrel's excellent breakdown, along with my 30 years of living in this state (15 months were spent in Hazard, KY) as a background to help formulate a quick opinion on winner and final score.
Last Week's Record: 8-2 Overall Record: 57-25 (17-3 The Last Two Weeks) While time will not permit a witty analysis for each game like in previous Pigskin Picks columns, I will give you the reader, something more and pick a Sectional Champion for each as well. (Feel free to look back at this in a few weeks and email/call/facebook/twitter me telling me how wrong I was. My overall goal is 67% for this weekend, 40% for Sectional Champions.
CLASS 5A
Sectional 1 Portage 21 at East Chicago Central 10
Chesterton 10 at Crown Point 13
Valparaiso 7 at Merrillville 28
Munster 35 at Lake Central 14
East Chicago is the lowest ranked team (by Sagarin) in Class 5A, Merrillville has won four of the last five Sectional Titles. The strength is clearly on the bottom half of the bracket, but we'll take the safe play (Pirates) in Sectional 1. WINNER: Merrillville
Sectional 2 Elkhart Memorial 20 at Michigan City 21
LaPorte 6 at Mishawaka 10
Elkhart Central 27 at South Bend Adams 17
Goshen 13 at Penn 56
Great Draw for the Kingsmen! Even though Penn lost their first conference game in ages this season, they are still the class of Sectional 2. WINNER: Penn
Sectional 3 Huntington North 35 Fort Wayne North 7
Kokomo 21 at Fort Wayne Snider 24
Homestead 27 at Carroll (Fort Wayne) 7
