August 24, 1999
Pigskin Prophets
The time: This Friday night until the end of the football season.
The place: This page.
The task: Picking the correct winners in high school and college football games of area interest.
At stake: The Snout. The coveted prize sought by all A-T employees and their greedy relatives. It goes to the winner.
The beauty of it: There is only one winner. If there should be a tie, it will be broken with a tie-breaker, such as a coin flip, a bake-off or a fight to the death.
The horror of it: Just look at Andrew Cole's picture.
With those formalities out of the way, we're ready to start the 1999 version of the Advertiser-Tribune's Pigskin Prophets. Now that you know, more or less, what you're getting yourself in to, let's meet the contestants.
Our queen returns in all her glory, having survived yet another attempt on her crown. Janet Vallery has held the snout for the last two seasons, and is sure now that she has this whole prophet thing figured out.
Lurking in the shadows is the sports editor, Dave Feltner, who wants the world to know that he's ready to take back what rightfully belongs to him. Feltner has been telling anyone who will listen that he "loaned" the prize to Jan for two years, just trying to build up dramatics in what had become a world without competition for a master prognosticator such as himself. The bobble-head Chief Wahoo doll on his desk stands ready to have The Snout resting upon it once more.
Publisher Dave Frisch has mastered the ways of the business world, but the picking world is still a mystery to him, as evidenced by his record last season. This season, he vows to keep better tabs on the teams to make more informed decisions and be a force in the prophets. Also, he's willing to offer a big raise to any prophet who will voluntarily take a dive to move him up in the standings.
Ron Clark is back and is determined to be a force. He has a reputation as one of the world's nicest guys, but is willing to part with that reputation for the purposes of posessing The Snout. The chewed-up gum on Vallery's car seat and 445 large pizzas delivered to Feltner's house are exhibits A and B of that.
A newcomer to the Pigskin Prophets is Feltner's sidekick...the Barney Fife to his Andy Griffith, the Dave Roberts to his Manny Ramirez, the Ricky Williams to his Master P, the...well, you get the idea. His name's Ed Fox, and although he's new to this thing, he's been mentally preparing by mastering hypnotism and yoga for quite some time now. Don't expect him to let the sports editor or anyone else run all over him. "The Sly Fox" wants The Snout just as much as anybody.
Andrew "Dice" Cole returns to the fold. Now that Heidelberg has new uniforms, Cole is convinced that the old uniforms were the problem all along, and now Larry Shank can lead his troops to Heidelberg's inevitable national championship. Cole, a student and football manager at Heidelberg, will pick The 'Berg in every game. Whether this is because he really believes in the team or because he doesn't want to be hung in effigy from the goalposts, he may never say.
Then, there are the wild cards. The guests. You never know where the guests get their information from or how they were chosen, and we must always fear the unknown. People like Vallery and Feltner can ignore the guests, knowing that they'll probably never challenge for The Snout. People like Cole, Clark and Frisch, however, live in constant fear of finishing behind the guests. This week's guest prognosticator is Bill Reineke, President of Tiffin Ford-Lincoln-Mercury.
The initial picks are below. Pick your own games at home. See if you can beat the prophets. Chances are you can. We never claimed to be an army of experts. We're just the ones with the pictures at the bottom. Like the parole officer says to Lawrence Phillips, "see you next week!"