HHI's RIVALRY WEEKEND

By Your Athletic Supporter, Jack Strap

For HHI's RIVALRY WEEKEND we brought back Scott the Shot & Magnum as Captains noting we haven't seen much of either of them since they moved to Chicago & Wilson, respectively. Those RIVALRY WEEKEND Captains then in turn recruited these RIVAL teams:
* University of Magnum = Captain Magnum, Quick Mike, FUn Frank, Swoop, Radon Rader, and Sheriff Hacker Bob
* Shot State = Captain Scott, Scholesinator, Alan "The Question" I-Vath-son, Iron Mike, Mighty Kerr, and Your Athletic Supporter
* RIVALRY Rover = The Deputy B.C.

RIVALRY WEEKEND started with the Iron Bowl, named after Iron Mike of course, with Shot St. imitating "They Call Alabama the Crimson Tide" while surging to what appeared to the untrained eye to be an insurmountable 14-9 lead. But those with perfect 20-20 vision knew that U of Mag/Auburn would come back to win it which they did, although it was tainted by allegations that Captain Frank solicited offers during the recruiting of FUn Frank.

RIVALRY WEEKEND then continued with Shot St./Oregon's high powered offense running & shooting to an easy win as they repeatedly "quacked" the mystery of the U of Mag's Ari-Zona defense. But then in the Backyard Brawl RIVALRY, it was U of Mag/West Virginia going with the long ball early & often while turning Shot State into Shitt on Pitt State.

That just left the HHI Magnum-Shot RIVALRY Finale, but just when Captain Magnum was about to skip out on that (he was heard on his cellphone saying "Connor, fire up the hyperbaric chamber"), Legendary Coach Lip-Pa gave University of Magnum the "Win One for the Lipper" inspirational speech that gave them the strength to prevail for the RIVALRY WEEKEND Championship.

LIPPER!!!!!!!! SURPRISE!!!!!!!!

By Your LIPPER's 50th Birthday SURPRISE Supporter, Jack Strap

One of the first to arrive at LIPPER's SURPRISE Party was F'in Ross proving again that Chucky Boy was the main reason for their lateness problems back in the day. Also there for the LIPPER SURPRISE (some of them with their spouses) were the HHI Founding Fathers: Swoop, Mighty, Reitzy & Jack Strap (noting Scholesinator was flying to Italy today but called in). In addition from HHI there were Commissioners Wojo & Collin, as well as Old School Bruce, Iron Mike (who I learned wears bathrobes like Hugh Heffner--see below), Quick Mike (who was "mean" to both Collin & our waitress), Swishie Kurtzy, D.D. Bales, Sheriff Hacker Bob & The Deputy B.C.. Additionally there were legendary PSUers Brother Craiger & Tom "The Mon" Cramsey.
The LIPPER SURPRISE was disguised around watching the PSU @ Indiana @ Washington DC game which Guido was attending, but the "Meister" generously contributed $150 to this LIPPER SURPRISE Party @ the Railroad House. Note that with that & excess funds from those in attendance contributing to the RR House tab & the primary gift (more on that below), we ended up with $220 extra that will be donated in LIPPER's name to our American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

So every one was there watching the game & waiting for the big SURPRISE except we didn't have the Birthday Boy LIPPER who was helping his Dad with a project as evidently playing basketball this AM (see that story below) wasn't enough physical activity for LIP. So to amuse ourselves while we waited, we yelled LIPPER!!!!!!!! to everyone who walked through the door until he finally showed up well into the 2nd quarter at which time "you scream, I scream, we all screamed" LIPPER!!!!!!!! SURPRISE!!!!!!!!

At halftime, LIPPER opened his aforementioned primary gift which was a Flat Lip Mini-Me (see picture below). Commish Collin then led the group in a "rousing rendition" of Happy Birthday! LIPPER also received oooooey goooooey bars from my Wife Karen as well as booze & birthday cards. Penn State did their part by keeping the game interesting well into the 3rd quarter before pulling away to win #401 for JoePa. But the most important thing was SURPRISING LIPPER!!!!!!!!

BEST OF 3-1/2 GAMES SERIES

By Your Athletic Supporter, Jack Strap

In today's Illini-Northwestern game at Wrigley Field, both teams offenses will "Go West, Young Men" all day because there's a safety issue in the east end zone. That's odd, so not to be outdone, HHI oddly decided to have a BEST OF 3-1/2 GAMES SERIES with only a Great 8 Players--many who are in the Who's Who of HHI Basketball. Swoop & Quick were the Captains picking these Teams:

• Quick's Picks = Mighty Kerr, Alan "The Question" I-Vath-son, Radon Rader, and Captain Quick
• Swoop's Hoops = Giant Lipper, Iron Mike, Your Athletic Supporter, and Swoop

Game 1 saw Lipper establishing himself down low early as Swoop's Hoops jumped (not literally) into the lead, but Quick's Picks came back after bloodying Lip and got the "W" at the end with their Captain leading the way.

In the 2nd game of the BEST OF 3-1/2 GAMES SERIES, Mighty didn't know what was on the back of his shirt when Lip asked him, but he did know where the basket was as he was not only able to "Look At It" (a location joke, a.k.a. you had to be there), but scored extra credit points in leading Quick Pick's to the victory.

Game #3 of the BEST OF 3-1/2 GAME SERIES saw Captain Quick asking some of his Picks to "Watch Him" with "Him" being Iron Mike & he also had a secret plan to bloody Jack Strap. They accomplished the latter, but the former plan was a fail as Iron shot Swoop's Hoops to the win.

Like Jessie "The Body" Ventura in Predator, Lipper & Strap didn't "have time to bleed", but they did have time to beat Quick's Picks in the 1/2 GAME to 7 points, but but (the dreaded "double but") Quick Picks took the BEST OF 3-1/2 GAMES SERIES: 2 GAMES to 1-1/2 for the Daily Championship.

WON'T PLAY FOR FREE GANG

By Your Athletic Supporter, Jack Strap

It was Comeback Saturday as a number of HHIers who weren't in action much or at all during the last months of the HHI Outdoor Season returned Indoors this AM. This group is heretofore known as the WON'T PLAY FOR FREE GANG (i.e. our counter to Coach's "Will Only PLAY FOR FREE Movement") and included Pat's Steaks, DJ Jazzy, Floor Burn Phil, Alan "The Question" I-Vath-son, and The Giant Lipper. Today's Captains from the WON'T PLAY FOR FREE GANG: DJ & Vath, who I'm now asking (as our HHI I.T. guys) to work on an App that automatically creates teams for HHI, manually picked these I.T.-acronym'd virtual franchises:

• EBC-DIC's (Extended Binary Coded-Decimal Interchange Code) = Captain Vath, Pat's Steaks, Iron Mike, Radon Rader, and Lipper
• GUI (Graphical User Interface) = Captain DJ, Quick Mike, Diggetty Doug Bails, Mighty Kerr, and Your Athletic Supporter
• Terabyte-me-doughboy Rover = Floor Burn Phil

Game #1 saw the DIC's (for Short, although pun not intended) getting Big (again, pun not intended) 2-Balls (once again, pun not intended) including the game-winner from Radon Rader who as Captain Vath said "went from awful-to-awesome" for the DIC's triumph. Note Rader visually depicted his deuces with the "foghorn longhorn" sign shown below (although his hands were neither orange nor black).
On to Game 2 where GUI started hitting shots and jumped to what looked like an insurmountable lead until WON'T PLAY FOR FREE GANG Member, Pat's Steaks (with what looked like dryer lint on his head) brought the DIC's back with some impressive sharpshooting including hitting a late deuce while in a Neo-Matrix position (as shown below). But at the end DJ & Quick hooked up (just to clear up any misconceptions, I don't mean romantically) for a TD-like winning basket.
The Terabyte-me-doughboy Rover & WON'T PLAY FOR FREE GANG Member, Floor Burn Phil (FBP) entered the Grande Finale undefeated & with the inside track on the Daily Championship (DC). But FBP only left with a share of the DC as his DIC's were beaten & left in a GUI state (puns intended) by the Graphical User Interfaces who celebrated their Daily Championship by paying their $6 for PLAYING.