Go Mount Union!
The Daily Dose/November 25, 2016
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Foremost Humorist
HUT, HUT HIKE: Official Daily Dose Faves the Mount Union Purple Raiders football team continues their march to their 13th NCAA football national championship (a record!) today in Baltimore taking on the misfits passing themselves off as the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays.
Breakdown Segment: This is the second round of the 2016 NCAA Division III football tournament, also known as the Mount Union Invitational. Mount Union, the defending national champion, is the second place team out of the Ohio Athletic Conference after 24 consecutive championships, beaten by a fine John Carroll for the title in a thrilling final regular season game.
Johns Hopkins is the champion of the Centennial Conference, whatever that is. The Blue Jays are making their eighth trip to the NCAA playoffs and their sixth straight. Their highest finish was a quarterfinal appearance in 2009, where they were smacked around by Wesley 12-0.
Looking Ahead: The winner of this game – meaning Mount Union, of course – will take on the Alfred/Western New England winner.
Last Time Out: Mount Union opened the playoffs by naming the score in a 38-21 defeat of Hobart. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, showed a lot of weaknesses in barely squeaking by Randolph-Macon 42-21.
Getting To Know You: While a lot of Division III football schools you only really hear about when reading this column, Johns Hopkins is rather well-known and is one of the highest rated universities on the planet. It was founded in 1876 after a $7 million gift by Hopkins established both the university and the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Dry, Technical Matter: No, we don’t why Mr Hopkins has an ‘s’ at the end of his first name, either.
Uh, Yeah, That’s A Sport: Johns Hopkins athletic department is mainly known for their lacrosse teams, which has won 44 national champions under a variety of jurisdictions and in a number of divisions since 1891. Their program is so highly regarded it represented the United States at the 1928 and 1932 Summer Olympics where lacrosse was a demonstration sport and at the 1974 World Lacrosse Championships, winning in 1932 and 1974.
Live From Hell: Both John Carroll and Wisconsin-Whitewater – the only two teams to beat Mount Union since the Harding Administration, are still in the playoffs. John Carroll will host Wesley and UW-Wherever will host Wittenburg.
Presuming both have bribed the officials an amount sufficient to ensure victory, John Carroll and UW-Wherever would meet next week in the quarterfinals. Should one of them, somehow, manage to still be alive after the quarterfinals – and presuming none of their players got the clap from their cheerleaders – they would meet Mount Union in the national semifinals.
OH WHAT THE HELL: Thanksgiving is proclaimed as a yearly holiday in the United States for the first time on this date in 1863. President Abraham Lincoln, perhaps grateful for the Civil War, made the proclamation. Originally it was celebrated on the last Thursday of November, but since 1941 it has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.
Dry, Technical Matter: The earliest possible date for Thanksgiving is November 22, the latest November 28.
“Yes. Wonderful Things!”: Brits Howard Carter and George Herbert, then rolling as the 5th Earl of Carnarvon become the first humans in 3,000 years to enter the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun on this date in 1922.
Carter, financed by Herbert, had been chasing this prize for years. The stairs to the tomb had been discovered earlier in the month and the tomb was best preserved of the tombs that had been excavated to date. Clearance of the tomb took ten years.
The Original Five: The National Hockey League is formed on this date in 1917 with five teams: the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs and Toronto Maple Leafs, then known as the Arenas. It’s president is Frank Calder.
The Bulldogs were broke and suspended operations before the season started, and the Wanderers did not finish the season. Toronto won a two-game, total goal series over the Canadiens for the first NHL title and then beat the Vancouver Millionaires three games to two for the Stanley Cup.
FunFact: The NHL was originally planned to last for one season, until the National Hockey Association could back on its feet.
I Guess We Can’t All Get Along: A series of coordinated shooting and bombing attacks begin in Mumbai, India on this date in 2008. Ten members of a Pakistani militant group would kill 164 people over the next three days. Nine of the attackers were killed and one, Ajmal Kasab, was arrested, tried, convicted and executed for his role.
Now Wait A Minute: Kasab was hanged, in secret, in November, 2012. The Indians mailed to a letter to the Pakastani government announcing Kasab’s death, but Pakistan declined to accept it, so India faxed it.
And You Thought This Election Was Contentious: Florida Secretary of State Kathleen Harris certifies George W Bush the winner of Florida’s 25 electoral votes in the 2000 presidential election. A complete recap of this fiasco is beyond the scope of this column, but Vice President Al Gore did not take this well, and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which had enough members appointed by Republican presidents to deny his appeal, giving the presidency to Bush.
Thought For The Day: The Buddha’s sacrifices are not of animals, but of the animal in the self. – Gore Vidal, Creation
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: William Hartnell was the first actor to play Doctor Who, and Peter Capaldi is the latest.
Today’s Stumper: Who scored the first goal in NHL history? – Answer next time!
