Author: UncleLar

The head orphan and eldest surviving member of the Fall Family Clan.
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Sometimes the internet is freaky…

I spend a fair amount of time on a sports forum called PennStateHoops.com dedicated naturally to Penn State basketball. There was a thread today that was off on a tangent where someone mentioned a couple of famous Fordham basketball players/coaches. In that thread it came to light that the poster didn’t know John Bach who coached at Fordham before he came to Penn State as their coach. I decided to educate the guy a little on Bach (see my post).

Since Natalie Berrena is John Bach’s granddaughter I couldn’t help but include a quick paragraph, and a little commercial, about her. I wanted to put a photo in the post so I naturally Google “Natalie Berrena” for images. Low and behold what popped up on the Google results page but this photo:

Needless to say I did a double take.

Google found one of my posts in our blog and I guess Natalie’s name was fairly close to our image so it tagged the image with her name.

Try it yourself – Google image search for “Natalie Berrena”.

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A real hero’s story

A friend of mine, Matt Emmerling, was just honored by the Carnegie Foundation’s Hero Fund. Honorees receive the Carnegie Medal



and a financial grant ($5000 in Matt’s case).

The award was established in 1904 by Pittsburgh Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. His deed commissioning the establishment of the fund noted:

We live in a heroic age. Not seldom are we thrilled by deeds of heroism where men or women are injured or lose their lives in attempting to preserve or rescue their fellows.

Matt’s story, as told in last week’s press release announcing this year’s award winners.

Matthew J. Emmerling and Kevin J. Mahoney saved Seth L. Mattleman and others from burning, State College, Pennsylvania, April 2, 2006. Mattleman, 20, was asleep in the 2.5-story house he shared with other university students, some of whom were also inside the building. Fire broke out before dawn on the back porch of the house and, spreading rapidly, entered the structure, including into Mattleman’s first-floor bedroom. Emmerling, 21, university student, was nearby when he saw the fire. He and Mahoney, 22, lifeguard, who was walking nearby, responded to the front of the house, where they entered through the front door, shouting to alert any occupants. Two of the residents fled the building. Although dense smoke limited their visibility, the men entered Mattleman’s room and shouted for him to leave, but Mattleman was disoriented. Emmerling grasped him about the arms and pulled him to the front door and outside, Mahoney following. Emmerling and Mahoney then re-entered the house, through a side entrance, and went upstairs, where they evacuated the second floor of at least one occupant. Finding a disoriented man in a bathroom on that floor, Mahoney pulled him by the arms to the stairs, and they stumbled partway down before exiting the house along with Emmerling. Flames soon engulfed the interior of the structure and destroyed it. Mattleman suffered burns and was treated at the scene. He recovered. Emmerling suffered smoke inhalation, for which he sought medical attention the following day, and Mahoney sustained a minor ankle burn. They too recovered.

The actual incident took place a year ago and was written up in a couple of local newspapers including the Penn State student newspaper, the Daily Collegian, where Matt works.

Here are some of them:

The Penn State Daily Collegian on the original incident:
After seeing smoke coming from the back of a house at 700 West College Ave., Emmerling ran into the burning building and was able to fight off the heavy smoke to wake the sleeping residents and, with Mahoney’s help, get everyone to safety before flames engulfed the house.

The Centre Daily Times on the Carnegie Hero Award:
Matt Emmerling, 22, and Kevin Mahoney, 23, didn’t even know each other when they spotted a fire about 4:30 a.m. April 2, 2006, at 700 W. College Ave.

They just happened to be nearby.

Together, they dashed inside and helped wake the eight college students sleeping there. The house ended up being a total loss, but no one was seriously hurt.


The Daily Collegian on a fund raiser to help the kids in the house:
For Brian McHale, this week has been hectic, to say the least. But the fire that brought his house down could not bring his spirits down, especially not last night.

“Without those two heroes, there wouldn’t be a celebration tonight at all,” McHale (senior-supply chain management) said.

Those two heroes are Matt Emmerling and Kevin Mahoney, who saved the lives of several of the students whose house burned down in a fire last weekend.

Photo of Matt with the mother of one of the kids he saved:

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Not your average high school

Last night, I was chatting with Danny Morrissey, an UncleLar nephew and shooting guard for Penn State’s basketball team. Danny went to prep school at the Pendleton School in Bradenton FL. Pendleton is part of the IMG Academies, a world renown collection of training academies for youth athletes. Some of the academies you have undoubtedly heard of – the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, the David Leadbetter Golf Academy, the Chris Evert Tennis Academy.

Pendleton creates a unique educational environment where kids go to class in the morning at the prep school, then attend training sessions at one of the academies in the afternoon. As Danny described it “This was not your typical high school. Taurean Green (starting guard for two time national champion Florida) was my point guard, Maria Sharapova (world renown model/tennis player) was a classmate of mine, and Freddie Adu (soccer phenom) lived in the dorm room below me.”

Taurean Green

Maria Sharapova

Freddie Adu

All of a sudden my high school experiences seemed quite boring.

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More signs I’m getting old…

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed something on my back as I was toweling off after getting out of the shower. It looked like a piece of tar or something. I reached back and scratched it and it immediately started bleeding – not a good sign I figured, so I made an appointment with my dermatologist.

When I described the problem to him, he said it’s probably nothing and sure enough he took one quick look at it and said “that’s a seborrheic keratosis – nothing to worry about”. He then pointed to a bunch of other marks on my chest and back, which I had also noticed once I started taking inventory after seeing the thing on my back, and said they were nothing to worry about either, just a sign of aging.

However, he then pointed to this thing on my upper lip near my nose and said “how long have you had this little white spot?” I told him it had been there a long while and I never really thought much of it. The doc said “well the thing on your back isn’t a problem, but I’m pretty sure this is”. He then decided to take a close look at the rest of me.

He then found what I thought was just a itchy dry spot that I often scratched on the back of my leg and asked how long that had been there. I had to admit that it had been there a while too, at least a couple of years. He decided to do a biopsy on both the leg and the lip thing. The doc was reasonably sure that the lip thing was a basal cell carcinoma but thought the leg thing would turn out to be OK.

Turns out he as only half right – the wrong half. The thing on the lip was cancer and the thing on the leg wasn’t alright. It was a cancer growth too, albeit a different kind, a squamous cell carcinoma. The good news is that neither of them are melanoma and neither of them metastasize very often.

I’m scheduled to have surgery to remove both them in a couple of weeks. It will be done in the dermatologist office with a local anesthesia and I should be fine afterward.

The only thing I need to do is reduce my exposure to the sun. Of course, considering that I usually golf 5-6 times a week that will be somewhat of a problem. The doctor says there are three preventative measures, with declining efficiency, that I need to decided among:

1. Avoid the sun altogether, particularly between the hours of 10am-4pm.
2. Wear pants and long sleeves when out in the sun.
3. Use sunblock.

He also said I should definitely wear a wide brim hat whenever I’m out in the sun.

I’m going to start by cutting back on my golf but I haven’t decided how much yet. One thing that I know is that I’m going to do is continue to play in my men’s league which is Wed nights after 4PM. After that, we’ll just see.

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Every Day is Valentine’s Day – Redux

I’m on my MSNBC portal when I notice a sports story titled

“Refs should be whistled for traveling”

so I click on it and discover an article about how many college basketball refs are overworked. The thought immediately goes through my mind “Boy – would my map be perfect for his guy’s column?”

Sure enough – 3/4 of the way down is this paragraph.

Welmer, who generally only takes Friday off, and Shaw have called in excess of 85 games already this season. Ted Valentine has worked more than 70 and there’s even a web site called Valentine’s Day that tracks his every move.

and it includes a link to my map. 🙂

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Capping my THON coverage

With various stories about the event.

Hazleton Standard Speaker:: Dance of Love: Nittany Lion football players help make THON memorable for local youngster

A dozen kids and their families get a personal tour of the Penn State football facilities.

The Daily Collegian: Players grant wishes

Another article on the tours hosted by the football players.

Centre Daily Times: Cancer benefit kickoff, impact larger than life

More than 2000 students prep the Jordan Center for THON. A mother of one of the young cancer patients is quoted as saying – “When they’re with those Penn State students,” Sharon Otstott said, “you see these kids (become) normal kids again.”

CentreDaily.com: Students raise $5.2 million at Thon

Crowd estimated as 10,000 to 12,000 for Sunday’s afternoon wrapup.

The Daily Collegian: Thon breaks record by $1 million.

Tavern employee quoted in the article – Independent dancer Jen Shaffer (senior- kinesiology) wore an orange cape during Thon, which her moraler gave her so she’d be easy to spot on the crowded floor. “My moraler made it for me, and in her first shift, gave it to me as a surprise,” she said.

The Daily Collegian: Families enjoy each others’ company at Thon breakfast

On Sunday morning, organizers host a breakfast for all the families in attendance who have a child that has been helped by the Four Diamonds Fund. From the article – Catharine Scott, whose daughter Colleen was diagnosed with cancer when she was only 5, said without the Four Diamonds Fund, paying for Colleen’s treatment “probably would have bankrupted us.

The Daily Collegian: Former Thon kid relives her experience

As a teenager, Kern had the most common type of bone cancer among children, osteogenic sarcoma, in her right knee. She was a Four Diamonds child in 1992 and is now cancer-free. Still, someone from her family has returned to Thon each year for the past 15 years.

The Daily Collegian: Thon supporters trek 135 miles for the kids.

Runners brave brutal conditions to relay a backpack of letters from kids in the Four Diamonds Children’s Ward at Hershey Medical Center 135 miles to deliver them to dancers at the Dance Marathon. This was the first time they did this run and it worked so well that it’s apt to become an annual tradition now.

The Daily Collegian: Mail call delights, energizes dancers.


Mike “The Mailman” Herr danced around the Thon stage as members of the crowd cheered him on, creating a buzz that flooded through the Bryce Jordan Center early Saturday morning.

“You’ve got mail!” he screamed. “Lots of mail!” he added, eliciting cheers and whoops from the tired crowd at this weekend’s Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.

Left: Dancer Kerri O’Rourke reads a letter she received during mail call.

StateCollege.com: Familes share experience, find support at Thon.

Article talks about three families and their battles with childhood cancer. One family talks about a special day the Four Diamond Fund hosts for siblings of cancer patients, oft times forgotten victims as the disease hits a family.

The Daily Collegian: Family Hour evokes emotion from all.

At 1PM on Sunday, families of the cancer victims and survivors take the stage to share their stories with the dancers. It is annually the most emotional moment of the event and serves to remind everyone why they are there.


The Daily Collegian: Athletes add excitement

Bears kicker Robbie Gould: “It’s awesome,” said former Nittany Lions kicker and current Chicago Bear Robbie Gould, who signed autographs and took pictures with the kids. “As an alum, this is important to me … it’s the reason you’re here, and it’s the reason you come back.”

The Daily Collegian: Kids work it on the stage

Thon children “worked it” Saturday morning as they strutted, tossed their hair and were treated like celebrities during the kids’ fashion show. The children wore brand new clothes that were donated to the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon by local merchants. Each child was allowed to keep the outfit he or she modeled.

FTK

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$5,240,385.17

Just got back from THON – the Penn State Dance Marathon charity and they hit a new record topping $5 million for the first time.

Julie Myers, who is quoted in the attached article, is a Tavern employee and the daughter of a Sonny Myers, friend of mine that worked with me at the Tavern in the 70s. Julie was one of five Tavern employees who danced in the event. Others were Lisa Scarborough, daughter of John “Doc” Scarborough, also a former Tavern waiter, friend, and onetime roommate of mine (1967-68 academic year); David Gray, Penn State soccer player, and son of Gary Gray whom I have mentioned on this blog several time; Jen Shaffer, a Facebook buddy of mine; and a fifth employee whom I don’t know.

I stopped in at THON at 2:30 AM last night to see the kids and I thought they were all doing remarkably well. For being the middle of the night they had quite a crowd there cheering the dancers on.

But that crowd paled when compared to the scene this afternoon. There had been some criticism about moving THON out of our cozy gym called Rec Hall. Over the last few years they had to stop letting people into Rec Hall on several occasions because it was filled to capacity (probably about 5000 or so). As a result, the event was moved to the Bryce Jordan Center with a capacity of about 16,000. There was a fear that the size of the Jordan Center would cause the event to lose it’s intimacy and everyone would seem lost in the arena. Those fears were unfounded as the BJC was pretty much packed and the event was hugely uplifting as usual.

Here’s a photo I took from the upper deck and you can see how the place was crammed with people.

The kids on the floor had been going for 44+ hours at this point. The kids in the stands are the spectators and various sponsoring sororities, fraternities, and other groups who have dancers on the floor. Typically the groups will have T-shirts made up to match their dancer(s) which is why the whole scene is so colorful. Here are two shots I took from opposite sides of the arena.


“JR and Natalie Band” were the last band to take the stage for the event. They went on at 2PM this afternoon. Here’s Nat acknowledging her biggest fan before she takes the stage.

In this one, taken from the back of the arena, if you look on the screens behind the band you can see one of the kids who decided to climb up on stage and dance with Natalie. He stayed up there most of the set and the crowd loved it. Mark, the lead guitarist, even had the kid strumming his guitar during one of the songs. The kid was having an absolute blast.

And here’s Ernest Hemingway with the rock star after her set was over.

Here’s a short video that I took from backstage with my photo camera showing the kids rocking to the band. I just wish I had some audio to go with it but it is an obsolete photo camera that’s considerably old technology – you know 4-5 years old.

One final thing that I want to show is another short video with my photo camera. This time the video starts out with the morale leaders on stage leading the dancers in the line dance that they do every hour. It then scans out over the actual dancers and the crowd and you can see how enthusiastic and pumped everyone is even though they are 46 hours into the marathon.

It’s quite an event and there’s really nothing even close to it when it comes to student fund raising. The kids can be immensely proud of themselves.

Many more stories if you are interested.

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THON 2007

Tomorrow features one of the big Penn State tradition – Dance Marathon Weekend – aka THON. THON is the largest student run charity event in the world and has been going on at Penn State for over thirty years. This weekend several hundred students will participate in a two day long dance marathon to raise money for the Four Diamonds Fund. Monies raised for the Four Diamonds Fund go to fight childhood cancer. The fund picks up the medical bills not covered by insurance for all children who are treated for cancer at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center. No child treated for cancer at Hershey ever gets a bill.

The actual dance event is actually just the culmination of months of work that thousands of PSU students have put into the fund raising. Planning for next years THON will start immediately after the conclusion of this year’s event. The logistics of pulling this thing off are incredible. There may be a couple of hundred kids dancing but there are thousands who participate in one way or another. Each dancer will have a support crew that numbers in the dozens and will work in shifts to help the dancers make it through the weekend.

Hundreds of others have spent months spearheading the actual collection of monies through all sorts of sponsorships and auxiliary events such as charity auctions (want to buy a raffle ticket on a Joe Paterno autographed Penn State Chopper? – go here), or canning events up and down the East Coast. Last year THON raised over $4M for the Four Diamonds Fund.

Others work hard on generating nationwide publicity for the event and more importantly raising awareness of childhood cancer issues. If you turn on your favorite network morning news program tomorrow you will undoubtedly see a segment devoted to THON.

Everyone that I know who has participated in this event has told me it’s been a life changing moment for them (and no I am not exaggerating). The emotional connection that the students make with the kids that they are helping is impossible to put into words, particularly by someone like me who is quite inept with them.

To get a flavor for the event, watch this video of a past segment from a few years ago on CBS Window on America.

Here’s a short video shot from the bleachers at the Recreation Hall gymnasium in 2005. Rec Hall is a 6000 seat gym that is ordinarily home to the volleyball, wrestling, and gymnastics teams. The dancers are all down on the gym floor while the crowd packs the bleachers cheering them on. You can see how packed the gym is. The event has gotten so big that this year they are moving it to the 16,000 seat Bryce Jordan Center to help accommodate spectators who had to be turned away in past years.

One of the things that keeps the dancers going over the course of the weekend is the once an hour line dance that they do. Each year a new unique line dance is created. It’s set to a pop music track but the lyrics all summarize worldwide, national, and local events that have taken place over the previous year. I know people who danced in the marathon 10-15 years ago but they can repeat their dance and lyrics at the drop of a hat. Here’s a video that captures the line dance from 2006.

Here’s another promotional video set to the music from Gladiator. Two things stand out in this one. One you get to see lots of the young kids who have been helped by the charity. The event and the dance floor are open to all former and current patients at the children’s center at Hershey. For some of them, THON has become a yearly event that they look forward to like a vacation. Another thing that you get fleeting glimpses of in this video are various Penn State athletic teams. Each team traditionally puts together a short skit/dance of their own and team members get on stage to dance for the dancers. The idea is to break up the monotony that the dancers are going through with hourly activities. Something different happens at the top of every hour and the dancers are always looking forward to the next hour.

One of the more moving THON moments happens during mail call which is at 3:30 AM Sunday morning. The dancers are all identified months in advance. It’s an incredible honor to be able to actually dance in the event and it’s not something that you can just walk in and sign up for. Each dancer is comes from a sponsoring organization either on campus or around town and the competition for the honor of dancing is enormous. Because the dancers are all well identified there’s plenty of time for the dance marathon committee to contact friends and family of the dancers to solicit cards and letter in support of the dancers efforts. In the middle of their second night on their feet the kids are really dragging. At that point, “Mike the Mailman”, a local on campus legendary figure, brings in literally thousands of letters for the dancers (each dancer will get 100+ letters. For the last few years, Mike has been accompanied by “Mr McFeeley” the postman on Mr Rogers Neighborhood. Interspersed with the letters from each dancer’s friends and families are letters from many of the kids who have survived their cancer bouts with help from the Four Diamonds Fund. Most of the kids letters are specifically addressed to a dancer but some are pulled out and read on stage to all of participants. Many of them are incredibly touching and when they are read there isn’t a dry eye in the house.

For more info, check out THON’s Wikipedia entry.

Probably the best way to wrap up this post is to link to this year’s promotional video. And I’ll end it by signing off the way that all THON correspondance is typically concluded as a reminder that this is all being done “For The Kids”.

FTK

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Every Day is Valentine’s Day

It’s now official. I definitely must have too much time on my hands.

I will spare everyone the long story about how it came about but I’ve created a Google Map Mashup called “Every Day is Valentine’s Day”.

The mashup tracks NCAA basketball referee Ted Valentine presenting a map link to every game that I can find that Ted refereed this year. The short story is that someone on the PennStateHoop.com forum that I hang out on made a post about how tired the refs looked in one of our games. I responded talking about how many games some of these guys work and one thing led to another. Eventually I created a map called “Where’s Teddy?” that I later renamed to “Every Day is Valentine’s Day”.

As of 6PM on Monday Feb 11th, the map has climbed to the #4 spot on the Blooming Maps list of “The Most Popular Maps Created in the Last Week”. It is also the #5 hit you get when you search Google for “Ted Valentine basketball” (for a while last week it was #1 on the list). I’m counting on the Valentine’s Day hook that I’ve given it to give me a boost or two the next couple of days.