Are you ready for some football?

The following is another “Have Fun or Get Out of the Way” column by award-winning Don Leighton and Mike Granlund and their alter egos, Lance Boyle and Billy Pirkola, which runs occasionally in The Superior Telegram.

If you get up as the sun is rising or step outside after midnight, you can smell it; you can feel it in the air; it’s almost here. As Hank Williams Jr. used to belt out, “Are you ready for some football?”

Fall is in the air, and after an incredible summer, that’s OK. The Lance and Billy Meteorological Society’s long-term forecast is for great football weather every Friday night until the end of the season.

Next Friday, the Superior High School Spartans are on the road in Rhinelander at 7 p.m., and the Northwestern Tigers are hosting Ashland. Both games begin at 7 p.m., and if you can’t make either game, you can view them for free on the internet at ifan.tv.

The first home game for Superior is Sept. 7 against River Falls. In addition to the pageantry and thousands in attendance, DECA will be hosting a tailgate party prior to the game.

Get there early, eat lots, and donate to a great cause: Hunger Takes No Holiday. All proceeds will be turned over to the Second Harvest Food Bank where each dollar will provide $10 worth of food or five meals to needy Superior residents.

Thanks to the wonderful young people of the SHS DECA for their compassion and help to those in need. These kids, under the tutelage of Paul Zollver, are tremendous. You couldn’t have a better instructor, and Mr. Z could not have better kids. You are to be commended for seeing the big picture of life.

Back to football. The Spartans and Tigers will gear up for the upcoming season with a scrimmage at noon today at Rice Lake High School.

Superior and Northwestern will go up against the host Warriors as well as Somerset and Hayward. Each scrimmage is 20 minutes long -- 10 on offense and 10 on defense.

The Northwood/Solon Springs Evergreens will also participated in a scrimmage at 10 a.m. Saturday at Birchwood. The Evergreens will compete this season in the Lakeland 8-man Classic Conference.

Speaking of football, I ran into Doug Sutherland at McDonald’s on Wednesday morning. He looks like a million bucks. The only way he could look better would be if his career would have been in Green Bay, not Minnesota.

Sutherland is one of the 50 Greatest Vikings of all-time. Not too shabby for a kid from Superior who attended the University of Wisconsin-Superior. He is one of the best, if not the best, football players to ever hail from Superior.

He credits his fitness to three times per week workouts at the Superior YMCA. I drive by the YMCA 10 times a day and in no way resemble Mr. Sutherland. I must be doing something wrong.

I even stopped at Play it Again Sports in the Belknap Plaza, touched some exercise equipment and did not lose one ounce. There must be more involved in this exercise thing. I will look into it and report my findings in an upcoming article.

Seeing Sutherland got me thinking. (Oh, oh, not a good thing.) Anyway, remember the articles where we asked readers to send their opinions on who the best slow-pitch softball players of all-time were? How about we do that with the best football players from Superior and Northwestern?

This will be fun.

Having moved to this area as a 10-year-old in 1962, I have heard the names of many great players but never saw them play. Olson, McCauley and Peck are sure to be on the list. I saw “Packy” Paquette play one time. Words do not describe how good he was. What about his brother, Pat, who played for the Minnesota Gophers? Tom Burke, Jeff Anttila, Scott Moreland and others from Northwestern should grace this list.

I’m asking all football fans to let me know what they think. There is no limit to the number of times you can contact me with your choices. There are no parameters as to when they played.

Superior has had some great teams at Central, East and Cathedral High School. How about Ed Paquette and Greg Amys? I played against Amys and scored a touchdown against this great defensive back. So what if he slipped on the wet grass? I say it was the outstanding pass route I ran that caused him to fall. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Ah, great readers of Lance and Billy. Send your thoughts to our e-mail addresses given at the end of this article. Or, if you do not have a computer, please send them to Lance, in care of, Don Leighton, 10B Hayes Court, Superior, Wis., 54880.

Your selections will be in upcoming articles of “Have Fun or Get Out of the Way.” Give the name of your player, or players, with the school attended and a couple of sentences as to why you think they deserve to be on this hallowed list. This will be fun.

“Are you ready for some football?”

Opinions and/or story ideas can be e-mailed to dleigh1273@aol.com or wgranlund@centurytel.net

Tags: have fun or get out of the way, collections, sports, football, spartans, tigers, updates