PIGSKIN PROGNOSTICATORS: Coaches issue - and accept - challenges
When you look at Page B5 today, you’ll immediately note that Ryan Davis is in first place, Mark Koerner’s in second, Blaine Bennett has surged into third place and nagging at Blaine’s heels is Steve Griffitts.
What you won’t see as the pressure mounts? The shots being fired from the sidelines of the 2016 Coeur d’Alene Press All-Star Pigskin Prognosticators.
These folks aren’t just playing for charities that will benefit from free advertising on behalf of the top three (and the last place) finishers. Nor are they playing purely for pride. They’re playing to plant their colleagues’ faces in the mud.
Listen to Rob Smith, the new GM at Findlay Nissan, who inherited the worst record in the league and promptly started prognosticating like a real pro. His short-term success has led to some blatantly bitter feelings across the field.
“I apologize if my vast knowledge of sports has ruffled some feathers,” Smith retorted in an email that went to League offices and the other gridiron guessers. “I can only be left to wonder how hostile the competition would have been to me had I had an entire season to dominate.”
Other prognosticators were throwing darts at Davis and his not-for-profit counterpart Jeff Conroy. Davis and Conroy are playing for each other’s organizations, and that fact was duly noted by several prognosticators who complained that the two good friends just happened to pick all the same teams last week — and finish with sparkling 12-3 records.
But the headliner came from two All-Stars who really hadn’t been heard from all season: Post Falls High football coach Blaine Bennett and his friend and foe, Lakeland High football coach Tim Kiefer. (For the record, PF won at Lakeland 34-32 this year.)
Bennett offered an admission and a challenge:
“Picking these games is definitely more stressful than calling a game, so I invite the winner of this very competitive group to call the opening play of the second half of his/her choice next fall for the Post Falls Trojans!” he wrote. So if the season were to end today and Ryan Davis won, Davis would be able to call the opening play of the second half of any Post Falls game he wants next autumn. (Suggestion: Throw deep to Mike Patrick!)
Kiefer conceded that he’s not likely to end up in the winner’s circle, noting “I am trailing by a few.” (The League notes that he’s trailing by a bunch.) But Kiefer also said that if he wins, he’ll attend Bennett’s passing academy and be recognizable as “the quarterback ... with the half shirt from the 1990s and tight shorts.”
The League isn’t about to touch that one.