GaryOsberg.com

Good morning from Collegeville,

Today is homecoming for the Upsala football team. In my day it was the Upsala Cardinals, but some time ago we merged with Swanville and now it is the USA (Upsala Swanville Area) Patriots.

Some of my favorite memories of football games are in the mud. I was an overweight freshman on the Upsala Cardinal team in 1957. We wore the old uniforms and helmets and we did not win any fashion awards. John Atkinson, a senior, was a running back who ran with his knees pumping up and down high and hard, but he still managed to make yardage. In practice, I would simply bounce off of his knees. The memory of the pain is still with me. That was the year when no other team even scored on the Upsala team. This past winter the 1957 Upsala football team was inducted into the Upsala Sports Hall of Fame.
Nine of the twenty-nine members of the 1957 Upsala Cardinal foot ball team showed up for their induction to the Sports Hall of Fame. One of the guys, Dave Chuba. came all the way from Ohio. Our quarterback, Bob Soltis, lives in Upsala, but he was not up to it. This is the second year that inductees were chosen. Bob’s brother Ralph was chosen last year and another brother John was a junior on the 1957 football team. John accepted a individual award for his brother Bob.
The APHC show this week is a rebroadcast of a show originally broadcast from The Fitzgerald Theater in September of 2013. Special guests include Vasen playing “Pulska for Tom Morrow”, Chris Thile performing a few Bach violin pieces translated from the mandolin and Chic Gamine singing “All Night”. In the News from Lake Wobegon, a bear visits the town, starting a debate over who will pay to have it removed. Enjoy the show.
Tomorrow night is the annual Gala at the Paramount Theatre in downtown St. Cloud. The Collective Unconscious will perform Abbey Road, celebrating 50 years of the Beatles. Special guest Nicholas David of NBC’s The Voice will perform. It all begins at 6 PM. I hope to see you there. Live auction items include a “meet and greet” with Clint Black. Tickets at paramountarts.org.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with the cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt