The Clinton County Lombardi Award banquet will be held Nov. 27 in the McCoy Room on the Wilmington College campus.
The event honors down lineman on Clinton County’s four high school football teams.
This year there are seven nominees for the award. They are:
• Chris Stewart, Wilmington
• Elijah Groh, Clinton-Massie
• Justin Beekman, Clinton-Massie
• Denver Day, East Clinton
• Alex Edison, East Clinton
• Tristen Malone, Blanchester
• Jude Huston, Blanchester
The Lombardi Award was last presented in 2019 to Davis Wulf of Clinton-Massie, who is currently attending Army West Point. He played football there two years.
This year’s banquet will be the 48th in the long-running program that honors the outstanding down linemen on Clinton County’s four high school football teams. Tickets are $25 each and can be purchased with cash or checks payable to the Clinton County Foundation (with Sports HOF on the memo line).
A limited number of tickets will be available to purchase at Wilmington Auto Center, Clinton County Motorsports and the Wilmington News Journal.
The Lombardi Award, also presented at the collegiate level, is named after the legendary Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi, who died from cancer in 1970. Clinton County started its version of the event in 1974 spearheaded by the late Clarence Graham (former News Journal sports editor at the time) and the late Harold Losey (local businessman who started Losey’s Pharmacy).
The college Lombardi Award was established in 1970 by the Rotary Club of Houston with the blessing of the Lombardi family shortly after coach Lombardi’s death. The Texas award has raised millions of dollars for cancer research since its inception. Orlando Pace of Ohio State is the only college player to win the award two times.
NFL RE-DO
Tom Bliss (@datawithbliss on Twitter/X) has offered a realignment of the NFL divisions.
And after studying the map, you know what, I am all for it.
Bliss uses linear optimization to get his divisions in order, recreated if the divisions were built to minimize distance between teams.
Also, Bliss notes, due to large computational times required for confirming divisional grouping with lowest distances, his map may not represent global minimum.
So using the Bliss map as a base, here’s what I have come up for the NFL to re-make its divisions:
1-Cincinnati, Chicago, Indianapolis, Tennessee
2-Cleveland, Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota
3-Pittsburgh, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia
4-NY Jets, NY Giants, New England, Buffalo
5-Carolina, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Miami
6-Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston
7-Kansas City, Denver, Arizona, Las Vegas
8-San Francisco, LA Rams, LA Chargers, Seattle
Now there are those of you who will immediately look at two teams (Bengals and Browns) and wonder:
1, Why aren’t the Bengals and Browns in same division?
2, Why aren’t Browns and Steelers in same division?
Good questions. And while the two games a year would be missed, the NFL can easily make certain the Browns play both the Bengals and Steelers each season. As they could the Packers and Bears.
Regardless, new rivalries will be made and, I think, be better. Most of the new divisions are within easy driving distance of other teams, making for more crossover fan support which promotes rivalries.
I doubt this would ever happen but if the NFL thought for one nanno-second it would create additional revenue, it would be done.
Reach Mark Huber at 937-556-5765, via email [email protected] or at twitter.com @wnjsports
