Super Bowl Sunday

The NFL finishes its season today, while those of us with younger players are all in the thick of basketball, wrestling, and various activities of winter. It is the end of things for one season, even as the beginnings of things for next season have already commenced.

College signing day is behind us now, though many are yet to decide. My son Austin, for those of you that follow the ONW program, is still debating between Benedictine and the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

Some college coaches have taken off for greener pastures - see Carrol, Kiffin, Gill, etc. Other college coaches have been shown the door - Mangino, Charlie Weiss, Mike Leach, etc.

Local small colleges have made news - William Jewell's Fran Schwenk has retired. Kirby Cannon has resigned after 11 years at Missouri S&T to take an assistant coaching gig at D I Central Michigan with a new coaching staff there.

Even the high schools change things a bit, as former St. Thomas Aquinas coach Kevin Kopecky finds himself in Leavenworth. Happily, he's not behind bars - just coaching at the high school - but a college coach told me that the two are much the same. He called the Leavenworth job a "coaching graveyard". Coach Kopecky had a great run with the Saints. It will be interesting to see if he can get it going that way with Leavenworth. They've always had some athletes - they've just never seemed to be able to put it together as a football team.

Ryan Majors is out at Shawnee Mission North and in as an assistant at William Jewell. Jewell will transition to Division II by 2012, and I wonder if it is out of the frying pan, into the fire, for Coach Majors.

Closer to home, rumor has it that 4th grade dad/ONW math teacher Greg Morgan will coach the freshman football team at Olathe Northwest next year. Let's hope so - it that pans out, what a great grab for ONW.

Soon enough we will be talking about NFL draft prospects, FCCJC board meetings, summer football camps, league sign-ups, and a new season of football will roll around again before you know it. But until then, and for today, enjoy the game.