WEEKEND REWIND: Jeff Jacksits knows high school football, too

Looking back on some things that have transpired over the past couple of days ....

I seldom know the winners of the Groller-Zambelli Challenge. I only worry about embarrassing myself in that contest and don't even pay attention to the name of the winner.

But this week, we had a familiar name atop the leader board.

It was none other than Northampton girls basketball coach Jeff Jacksits, who had nine out of 10 correct and then won via the tiebreaker.

I thought it was a tough week in the contest with a lot of tossup games. I thought I was doing good at 7-3 and Jacksits' 9-1 kind of blew me out of the water.

Jacksits, though, knows football. He was an excellent football player in his day at Catasauqua High School.

He doesn't strike me as a big guy. I thought he would have been a wide receiver at Catty, but I am told he was a defensive end and started on Catty's 1981 undefeated squad, a team that beat EPC tri-champ Emmaus and Centennial League champ Northern Lehigh in going 12-0.

That was one of Ed Csencsits' best teams.

Anyway, good for Jacksits and I hope he and his wife enjoy the $25 certificate at Roma Ristorante, a place in the Airport Shopping Center that I have yet to check out, but hope to very soon.

As for the rest of the weekend:

BEST HIGH SCHOOL PICK: Parkland over Easton (I know the rain had something to do with it, but I figured Sam Senneca, Parkland's defensive coordinator, had seen enough of Easton over the years to figure out what they were going to do on offense).

BEST COLLEGE PICK: Lehigh by three over Liberty (I had it Lehigh 31-28 and it was 27-24. Of course, it was the only college pick I made, so I guess it was the worst pick as well).

BEST NFL PICK: Ravens over the Rams 34-10 (It was even worse than I thought it was going to be, 37-7. Sadly, St. Louis might not win a game until late October if they win one at all; but maybe the city's baseball team can keep playing a while longer if they get help from Phillies in Atlanta).

WORST HIGH SCHOOL PICK: Crestwood over ES North. (There were several to pick from here, but I thought Crestwood would destroy ES North and picked Crestwood 63-13. The final score: ES North 26, Crestwood 21).

WORST NFL PICK: Eagles over the Giants. (I have defended Andy Reid in the past, giving him credit for keeping the Eagles as one of the NFL's best franchises for more than a decade. But wow, he acts like such a jerk in those postgame press conferences. High school coaches handle losses with much more class, at least most of them. Talk about wasting people's time. No one does it better than Reid.

BEST INSIGHT: Tony Cocca telling me on our Saturday morning radio show that Whitehall defensive coordinator Mike Yadush spent some time at Navy last spring studying and learning ways to defend Liberty's difficult triple-option offense.

BIGGEST HIGH SCHOOL SURPRISE: Pocono Mountain East giving Stroudsburg its first loss, 7-3. Rain obviously had a huge impact here. The games on natural grass had fewer points scored than the games played on the fake stuff.

HAD MOST ENJOYMENT: At the DeSales Hall of Fame dinner on Friday night. Great food, great time. Always like the folks at DeSales. Tim Neiman, Scott Coval, Fred Richter ... they're all good people. It was a honor to introduce Sally Whittaker-Kahan as a new DeSales Hall of Famer. She is a special young lady, and one of the best female athletes we've ever had around here and now she's one of the area's most special coaches. It was also nice to see the DeSales men's basketball team of 1996 being inducted. I knew a bunch of guys from that team, including Greg Spang, Jason Moyer and Andy Stephens, as well as coaches like Ron D'Argenio and Kevin Foley.

RUMOR OF THE WEEKEND: Heard that the Notre Dame-Green Pond has a newly arrived exchange student from Nigeria, who is 6-foot-8 and a very talented basketball player. Of course, we hear a lot of this kind of stuff every year at this time, but there seems to be plenty of truth behind this rumor. We'll check it out soon.

COMING UP: We have former Lehigh football star and current Pius X coach Phil Stambaugh on our TV show today (we tape at 1 and the show is broadcast on Service Electric TV2 at 8 and shown on RCN-4 Tuesdays at 6). Joining Phil will be former Liberty and Muhlenberg College standout Jason Brader, who is doing a lot of work with star athletes at his FASST fitness facility near Quakertown. Brader is going into the Muhlenberg Hall of Fame this weekend.

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