by Brian Hoffman
The weekly ST-R football contest has returned this week with a full slate of high school and college games. This is opening week for most, although Lord Botetourt did play a “Zero Week” game last Saturday as former Salem High quarterback Nick Leftwich made his debut as Cavalier coach.
The rules are simple and the same as last year. Just go to each block in the facing page and find a game, then put the team you expect to win in the corresponding advertiser’s blank below. All the rules are listed on the contest page, and remember you must turn your picks in on an official ballot of the current week. I suspect in the past some folks have been digging through our dumpster to retrieve past issues and turn in multiple entries. You can enter as many times as you like, but it must be on a current entry blank. The only exception is folks who subscribe online, and I know who you are.
The prizes are the same as in the past. The one who picks the most games gets a $50 gift certificate from Mac & Bob’s, and that’s a great prize. We also have a “19th Hole” question each week, and the best answer will get a free round of golf at the Salem Municipal Golf Course. For this week, I want you to predict the score of the game between Glenvar and Liberty Christian Academy. Put your answer in the space provided and the closest to the actual score gets a free round of golf. You want to win early in the season when the weather is still nice, but please note the certificate will not expire.
Along those lines, Roanoke College has a field goal kicking contest at halftime with certificates to Bojangles as the prize. Last year a boy from Craig County nailed a deep kick and won something like 30 Bojangles certificates. Thing is, he could only use one at a time and they expired at the end of the month. I love their chicken but I don’t know I’d want to eat it twice a day for two weeks.
You might notice that this year I’m included in the Roanoke Times weekly panel of folks picking the high school games. Matt Case of the Times asked me to be involved and I agreed, although I’ve had second thoughts since that time. I’m going to have to pick the outcome of teams I cover on a weekly basis, and that could get hairy.
For example, on week four Salem will host Dinwiddie. Salem lost to Dinwiddie 42-0 last year and the Generals always have a state contending team. Not to get too far ahead, but after three weeks of the season what if I think Dinwiddie would present a particularly difficult challenge for our Spartans. What do I do?
If I pick Salem, people are going to call me a homer. And there’s going to be Roanoke Times readers outside of Salem who are going to think what kind of dumb@$$ is picking Salem to beat Dinwiddie.
See my predicament? I’m a very competitive person and I want to beat Case and Robert Anderson and Jimmy from Crunch and the big guy from Channel 7. However, I don’t want our faithful Salem readers to see me as a turncoat. Please understand I’ll do my best to back our local teams but I’d still like to win the contest.
With that said, I picked LCA to beat Glenvar in the Roanoke paper this week. I hope I lose that one.
