Paying a Sunday morning visit to the variety store...



Loyalty

Mitch Hewitt was a great football player during his high school days at Chardon, then went on to an excellent career at the next level at Bowling Green State University.

Tuesday night, the former Hilltopper was the top votegetter among a field of seven for four seats on Chardon City Council.

Already very well known in his community, Hewitt received a heavyweight endorsement the week before the election.

A campaign mailer that was sent out by Hewitt included a photograph of him with his college football coach.

The coach?

None other than Ashtabula’s own Urban Meyer, a 1982 St. John High School graduate.

Now perhaps the best-known college coach in the country with his University of Florida Gators having won two of the last three BCS National Championship games, the photograph includes the following quote from Meyer:

“You were as a good player/person/leader as I’ve ever been around.”



Congrats

Two of the nicest people in the world, Tom and Kathie Watts, were recognized for 50 years of marriage at a open house and in their honor at the Jefferson Nazarene Church’s Fireside Lounge yesterday.

Tom and Kathie are perhaps best known for their decades of service to the Jefferson Area Girls Softball league, where Kathie managed a ton of championship teams, with Tom always serving as her trusty sidekick.

The couple raised two children, son Brad, who was a standout defensive back and kicked off on the great Jefferson football team of 1984 coached by Reid Lamport, and Valerie, who was a fine softball player for coach Ed Pickard at Jefferson.

However, Tom and Kathie have given so much to so many through the years, having opened the doors of both their home and their hearts as they have been the host family for countless foster children through the years.

My sincere congratulations go out to Tom and Kathie on your half century together.

Here’s wishing you many more wonderful years together.



Kicked in the...

A University of Montana student who kicked a field goal to win a $10,000 prize likely won’t get the money because he hadn’t been away from the sport long enough.

Matthew Brenner, a sophomore, kicked a 45-yard field goal during UM’s “Kick for Cash” contest last Saturday.

But he didn’t meet the qualifications to be a contestant because he hadn’t been away from football for five years. Brenner kicked a 27-yard field goal to lift his high school team, the Sidney Eagles, to a 2007 homecoming victory.

Brenner says he wasn’t asked about his athletic background and didn’t really read the contest contract before he signed it.

Dan Ingram, account executive for contest organizer Grizzly Sports Properties, says the group is trying to come up with a consolation prize.



Perspective

OK, so the Buffalo Bills really... stink.

Any team that finds a way to come on out the short end against Eric the Dread’s Cleveland Browns as they did on their home turf a few weeks ago, 6-3, in a game that set professional football back to the stone age, is lucky to draw flies, let alone a crowd.

However, as the Buffalo News pointed out in a story last Monday, the smaller crowds at Ralph Wilson Stadium have made security detail much, much easier.

Check this headline on a story by News staff writer Janice Habuda: “Lousy game leads to fewer arrests.”

Though only 14 arrests were made last week at the stadium — about half the normal amount, according to Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz — three of the incarcerations deserve um... special mention.

Three Canadian men “borrowed” a golf cart to make their way through the parking lot before kickoff. According to Benz, a Bills employee reported the theft and the Three Stooges were shocked to see officers waiting for them when they pulled up in the stolen vehicle at Gate 1, where they were promptly arrested.

Bryan W. Bendo, 23, Steven L. Henry, 27, and James M. Hester, 46, were all charged with a felony count of grand larceny and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, which is a misdemeanor.

They were released after scraping together $400 bail apiece.

Makes the infamous “Bottlegate” episode at Browns Stadium a few years ago seem terribly deficient in the creativity aspect of knuckleheaded behavior, huh?



The Associated Press contributed to this report. McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.