Big Stan Hangs a Blank Board, and the Senior Starts in Lexington
Cleveland State33
Kentucky14
- Game
- 2028 Week 1
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 1-0
Friends, there is a fourth sandwich board at Big Stan’s, and it’s blank.
Not empty. Blank. Stan painted the frame, the little Viking horn in the corner, and then, across the middle, in careful gold letters, one word: RESERVED. The counter council asked what it was reserved for. Stan just pointed at the ceiling. Chester looked up. There was nothing on the ceiling. Chester kept looking anyway, the way you look at a sky before a storm, or a miracle.
Then our guys opened in Lexington and beat Kentucky 33-14. Nineteen points of daylight, on the road, in an SEC building, to start Amar’e Hocker’s senior season. He’s an 86 now. He was a three-star freshman out of Florida three years ago, and now he’s the most important man in Northeast Ohio not named after a sandwich. Well, he is named after a sandwich. You know what I mean.
Jersey thirty-five in the closet. Donna has started labeling them by year with masking tape. She says it’s “for the estate sale.” I’ve asked her not to say “estate sale” during the season.
Four pierogi. Put it in the time capsule.
A nineteen-point road win in an SEC building to open the season. Respectfully: that’s a good start, and I don’t say “good start.” I usually say “start.”
I’m going to be honest about what this roster looks like, because readers deserve it: a senior quarterback in his fourth year as a starter, a junior running back named Baraka Nwangwu rated 87, a sophomore receiver who already holds school records and plays with my name, an offensive line built around a lineman named after the city, and a defense that’s older and more experienced than any I’ve covered here. On paper, this is the best team the Vikings have had in my lifetime. I hate paper. Paper gets your hopes up.
Teresa came to the opener. She’s now been to five games. She brings a book every time and has never opened one. She’s stopped pretending she might.
“Lil,” for the new readers: it was from my time as a crossing guard in fourth grade. I was the little one with the sign. The big one had a whistle.
Back and forth
A blank board, Kenny. RESERVED.
That’s the most reckless thing I’ve ever seen a deli do.
What do you think it’s reserved for?
I know what it’s reserved for. I’m not saying it out loud in August.
A road win in Lexington to open the senior season, Donna labeling jerseys for an estate sale, and a blank board at Big Stan’s that nobody will name out loud.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.