Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

King Philip football will again be coming your way on North TV this fall.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while trying to find something other than gymnastics on my TV set this past week ...

** It's now officially less than a month before I'll be back behind the North TV microphone for another season of high school sports coverage, starting with the King Philip football team's visit to Turco Field at Walpole High School on Sept. 6, a 5:45 p.m. start.

This will be my seventh season at North TV and sixth doing play-by-play. My, how time does fly when you're having fun. And to think, I wasn't even collecting Social Security when I started doing this gig.

I got a tentative schedule from the bosses a couple of weeks ago, and in addition to my usual fall forays into field hockey, soccer and volleyball, I have a substantial schedule of games involving the defending Division 2 state champion KP football Warriors as well as one game apiece at Bishop Feehan and Tri-County.

Here's the tentative football schedule I'm looking at: Sept. 6, KP at Walpole (5:45 p.m.); Sept. 13, Marblehead at KP (7 p.m.); Sept. 20, KP at Norwood (6 p.m.); Sept. 27, Foxboro at KP (7 p.m.); Oct. 5, Diman at Tri-County (1 p.m.); Oct. 18, Taunton at KP (7 p.m.); Oct. 19, Bishop Fenwick at Bishop Feehan (1 p.m.); Oct. 25, KP at Milford (7 p.m.); Nov. 1, KP at Attleboro (6:30 p.m.); Nov. 8, 15 and 22, MIAA Football Playoffs, time and sites TBA; Nov. 28, Franklin at KP (10 a.m.). And if KP makes it to its fourth straight Super Bowl berth, I'm pretty sure we'll be at Gillette Stadium to bring you the call.

The only KP football game we don't have on the docket right now is the Warriors' Oct. 10 game at Sharon (a Thursday due to the Jewish holidays), but I'll let you know if that changes. 

Some of these road games may pose a few problems for the North TV telecasting crew, in that most of these fields don't have large press boxes that can accommodate visiting media. We've been at some of the fields before in the past and have made adjustments by sitting in the stands (all the while praying for good weather to protect the electronics from harm). The last time we broadcast a game from Walpole, in fact, we didn't even do the game; it was in 2018, my first year with the North TV crew, but we picked up the Walpole Cable telecast (featuring former Sun Chronicle sports correspondent Rick Brown on the play-by-play).

In preparation for the challenges ahead, I visited all of the potential road sites a little more than a week ago to scout out possible broadcast locations where we can access electrical power (very important). And of course, I'll try to employ my well-known charm (ha!) to coax athletic directors of the host schools to look fondly upon our requests.

There are bulges in the boards.

I also have to get in touch with the folks at Tri-County to see if indeed they still have a press box. 

Last year, Alex Salachi and I did an early-season game against Case High at T-C, where there is a wooden press box with a great view built atop a berm behind the stands. But it has felt a little creaky in recent years, and a week after we did that game, Tri-County condemned that structure because there were bulges and holes in the front wall, as the accompanying photo shows.

Oh, well, if there wasn't an element of challenge to the job, it wouldn't be hardly as much fun.

** As the opening salvo of this column indicated, I'm a little fatigued by all of the gymnastics coverage NBC puts on prime-time TV in the Olympics.

Simone Biles is the GOAT. Now, 
what else is happening in Paris?

By noting that, in no way do I mean to disparage the outstanding performances of the U.S. team, which will be bringing tons of glory and gold back home. And if anything, I feel really good about their success, because the 2024 U.S. team is made up of mature women and not the tiny teens of olde who used to be force-fed puberty-blocking drugs to keep them in their waif-like forms. Simone Biles is 27 years old and still the best in the world, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if she finds a way to be ready for the Los Angeles games in 2028. That feels a lot more normal.

But my beef is that NBC seems to think that there are no sports worth watching in prime-time other than women's gymnastics. Now, even as I typed that, I know it wasn't entirely true -- we got a lot of swimming this past week, and I'm glad we did, because Katie Ledecky's ongoing successes are simply wonderful to watch. 

We even got to see Stoughton native Frederick Richard compete at a high level for the men's gymnastics team. And once the track and field competition began, NBC grudgingly carved out a few minutes for it.

But what about men's basketball? Women's basketball? Women's soccer? High-profile sports guaranteed to have a lot of built-in interest for the American audience? They've been relegated to the USA Network (I was amazed it's still on TV) or streaming service Peacock. I don't have to pay extra for Peacock because it's part of my Comcast/Xfinity cable subscription, but a lot of people must pay for it -- and I've heard my share of complaints about that, especially since NBC has started to put some NFL telecasts exclusively on its streaming partner.

Of course, I'm a 70-year-old white guy. I'm not NBC's target demographic for prime-time telecasts of any sort of entertainment programming, let alone the Olympics. So I know that these complaints are basically an exercise in pissing into the wind. But I just wanted to get it off my chest so I can get the blood pressure down a few notches.

** I watched the introduction of Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, if for no other reason than to find out exactly who the guy was. Can't say I knew beforehand.

But I've got to admit, I was impressed.

The Dem ticket: Gov. Walz and VP Harris.

Some might have been concerned because the VP passed on other, more famous possibilities such as Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who gave one hell of an introductory speech before the announcement in Philadelphia on Tuesday. And some look askance at Minnesota voters because, you may recall, they also elected pro wrestler Jesse Ventura as their governor years ago.

Gov. Walz (pronounced Walls), however, is a real slice of middle America with a huge conscience.

He's 60, bald, and looks a lot older than that (actor Brad Pitt is actually older), but he jokingly credits that to his many years as serving as a middle school lunch hall monitor during his teaching career. He was a social studies teacher and football coach at a school in Mankato, Minn., and he has the distinction of having been the defensive coordinator for a team that went from a winless finish to a state championship in one year's time. Many of his former players have already come forward to praise him for being not just an inspirational coach. but also a concerned and committed teacher that served as a positive role model.

As an aside, the company in Wisconsin that owned my former newspaper, The Sun Chronicle, also owned a television station in Mankato, Minn. About all I know about that is that a lot of the money we made in Attleboro back in our fat-and-happy days helped keep that TV station afloat for many years.

Coach Walz also became the first member of the school's faculty to serve as advisor to the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, which further illustrates the depth of his commitment to the well-being of his school's students.

A long-time member of the Army National Guard that was deployed overseas after 9/11, former Sergeant Major Walz was a U.S. congressman from Mankato's district (usually notoriously Republican) for 12 years. He was known at the time as a relatively conservative Democrat that was willing to work with his GOP counterparts to get the business of the country done. And as governor, he helped codify women's reproductive rights into state law, and he was a staunch defender of transgender rights. He helped ensure free meals for students in Minnesota public schools.

And he's getting some flak from MAGA trolls for another of his accomplishments -- free distribution of sanitary products for women in the state's high schools. 

Let me tell you why this resonates with me. 

No, I've never menstruated. But one of my closest female friends used to, and there was a time in her life when she would use nothing but the "all-natural" cotton tampons from a famous manufacturer because she feared the dangers of using tampons that were made from synthetic materials. Unfortunately, the major manufacturer decided to phase out the "all-natural" product, and they rapidly disappeared from supermarket shelves around here.

The phase-out was gradual and regional, so on one of my Patriots road trips (to Cleveland, in fact), I embarked upon a "quest for tampons" for my friend. I must have hit every Wal-Mart, KMart and supermarket within a 50-mile radius of Cleveland on the day before the game, and I bought every box of the "all-natural" product that I could find -- so many, in fact, that I had to buy another duffel bag to pack them for my return flight home.

Now, who does that? But anyone with a beloved female friend, or with daughters, might actually understand how important it is for them. Gov. Walz obviously understood that high school is a very sensitive time for girls that have just reached sexual maturity, and that the least he could do was to make sure they had the product available to them in case of need.

The Repugnicans are calling him "Tampon Tim" because of that action. That's just another example of how, during the Trump era, the Grand Old Party has become an engine of hate and intolerance -- especially against women.

Anyway, Gov. Walz gave one hell of a speech Tuesday, and I have to admit, I would have been willing to run out onto the field ready to play football for him -- even at my advanced age, with my excessive girth and two bad knees. But more importantly, I'll vote for him.

It's true, I probably would have voted for a loaf of bread before I'd ever vote for Donald Trump and his sleazeball VP nominee (who, rumor has it, has been barred from all Bob's Discount Furniture stores). But I'm feeling really good about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, and I hope my fellow voters of good conscience will as well. It is time for the MAGA movement to be repudiated in totality.

** I saw someone driving a Tesla Cybertruck around my hometown the other day. I wanted to pull up aside and ask the driver why he (or she, I didn't know) wanted to buy anything made by Elon Musk, whose true colors have come out of late with his unabashed conversion to the MAGA movement. But discretion proved the better part of valor.

Seriously, I've always wanted to make the personal conversion to electric. I've owned two hybrids in my lifetime, a Toyota Prius and a VW Jetta, and I was quite pleased with the higher gas mileage and the knowledge that I was using less fossil fuels.

Cybertruck: Truly, a steaming heap of shit.

But I'm a little bit of a hypocrite. At this stage of my life, I own two members of the Mercedes-Benz family, a GLC 300 SUV and a C 300 cabriolet. They are both pre-owned, they both have the same 4-cylinder engine, they both get around 25 MPG and I don't drive either anywhere near as much as the cars I owned when I was fully employed. If I make it to 10,000 total miles a year these days (as opposed to 20,000 back in 2018), it's more than I expected. Besides, I'm worth it.

I actually did consider a Tesla in my last round of frenzied buying, but the price for a new one was still prohibitive, and I still have concerns over the mileage range and how adverse weather affects the life of a charge. Plus, as I have learned of late, Tesla build quality is notoriously poor, with uneven trim gaps and a multitude of interior upholstery problems, and even the slightest glitch can lock you out of your car and shut down all functions, making it practically impossible to get to a service facility. 

And the Cybertruck? Well, it's just a piece of shit. 

No thanks, I've had it with Musk. He absolutely ruined Twitter, turning the renamed "X" into a sanctuary for hate speech -- including his own. He recently posted a comment saying that civil war in the U.S. was an "eventuality."

Well, fuck him and the Cybertruck he rode in on. If I'm still driving when the Benzes have worn out, I may yet consider an electric car -- but the last company to get my business and hard-earned dollars will be Tesla.

** One last summer basketball league session for me, and that's tonight (Wednesday) at Franklin High. I'll be watching Mansfield playing Medfield at 7 and Foxboro taking on Franklin at 8. 

Kudos to FHS coach John Leighton for running an excellent league this year. Can't wait for the season to begin -- but I'm not ready to give up the warm weather quite yet.

** As I prepare to close this column, I'll leave you with one thought. I now know why high jumper Dick Fosbury created the "flop" method of jumping so many years ago. 

He never would have known this, of course, but going over the bar back-first definitely prevents the fate that befell French pole vaulter Anthony Ammirati when he was denied an Olympic gold because his "junk" dislodged the bar.

Does it really pay to advertise? 

Mark Farinella still wishes that Caitlin Clark was on the U.S. women's basketball team. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.