Category: default, Mon Valley Miscellany, Pointless Digressions, Wild World of Sports || By

This is one of those infrequent Sunday Almanac updates to let you know that I had the pleasure last week of interviewing Bill Scully Sr., drummer for The Arondies, a garage-rock trio from Clairton that had a monster local hit with "69" in the summer of 1965, then disbanded.

If you're within range of WRCT-FM's massive 1,750-watt blowtorch signal on 88.3 mHz, you can hear excerpts of the interview at 7:30 p.m. tonight. You'll even find out what an Arondie is ... well, sort of.

Yes, I should have mentioned this earlier, but I just finished editing the program at 3 o'clock this morning.

Depending on the wind and whether any puffy clouds or kites are in the way, WRCT's signal sometimes reaches as far east as the Homestead Grays (nee High-Level) Bridge, so if you're in the Mon Valley, your reception is likely to be poor. But you can listen online at wrct.org.

In other news, I'm hearing rumors that Terrelle Pryor has signed a letter of intent. He plans to attend Penn State Greater Allegheny.

I don't think they're credible rumors. In fact, I think they're the voices in my head. (It's the sleep deprivation talking.)

Along the same lines, Professor Pittsblog made a provocative point last week. Everyone keeps talking about where Pryor is playing football, he pointed out. No one has mentioned where he might get an education.

Silly professor. Everyone knows that the football gravy train runs forever. Just ask Mike Webster.

I understand that several pro athletes have been advising Pryor about his future. I kind of wish --- for his sake --- that one of them was retired Steelers defensive back The Honorable Dwayne Woodruff.

Woodruff and many other members of the "Super Steelers" of the 1970s have conclusively proved that there's life after football ... if you get an education.

During the high school football playoffs at Heinz Field last year, I was disturbed at how carefully and consciously the WPIAL and its member schools are emulating the trappings of professional sports, right down to the graphics on the scoreboards. To me, this rush to commercialize high school athletics is the biggest argument against holding the football championships at Heinz Field.

College athletics at the Division I level have been big business for decades. It wasn't inevitable that high school athletics had to follow.

Yes, sports pundits on cable TV and the Internet have turned Pryor's story into a three-ring national media circus. But they're just following the lead of the WPIAL and local school districts, who invest very little time emphasizing the "scholastic" part of "interscholastic athletic league."

Maybe Western Pennsylvania taxpayers need to remind our local school boards why we pay school taxes. It's to educate our kids, not to provide a farm system for the Big Ten Conference.

Yeah, I really do need a nap.