A couple of weeks ago, I introduced The Weekly Weblogger Challenge. Each Thursday (or, this week, due to technical difficulties, early on Friday; mea culpa), I post a list of five names, which my fellow members of the intercollegiate athletics blogosphere are challenged to work into their postings in a coherent manner over the course of the ensuing week.
Last week's challenge received responses from Burnt Orange Nation, The Highland Road Blog, and I'm a Realist.
I have noted already that both Peter Bean and The Realist used the changing of the guard under center for the Texas Longhorns as the starting point for their entries. Ryan, on the other hand, concentrated on Louisiana culture and George Washington Cable's The Grandissimes.
The Realist wins the award for being the first to complete the challenge and his manner of working the names on the list into his posting was, in many ways, the most clever of the three.
For instance, his inclusion of the Council of Trent was suggested rather than stated, as The Realist urged Vince Young to heed the counsel of Trent Green, coupling that allusion with references to a quarterback reformation, tight ends like Leonard Pope, and Young being an N.F.L. team's salvation.
Peter carefully inserted the Council of Trent, Kerwin Bell, P.G. Wodehouse, Judah P. Benjamin, and Phillip Freemason Esterhaus into a posting he might have written anyway, debating the relative merits of U.T. signal-callers Colt McCoy and Jevan Snead. Naturally, the obligatory "Hill Street Blues" reference was accompanied by Sergeant Esterhaus's weekly exhortation, "Be careful out there!"
Peter did his job so convincingly that several visitors to Burnt Orange Nation accused him of trying to sound like Dennis Miller. That entitles Peter to recognition as the weblogger who was most successful at leading his readership on the on-line equivalent of a snipe hunt.
Finally, Ryan went on a legitimate literary excursion, addressing cultural matters and calling to mind the colorful history of Pelican State politics, as immortalized in novels like Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men and in films like "Blaze."
Ryan gained points for being the first person to post a comment here at Dawg Sports yet he lost points for misspelling the name of former Bulldog standout Kendrell Bell. What separated Ryan from the pack, though, was his depiction of his home state and his reference to Covington, where Ryan went to high school.
The Covington with which I am familiar is in Newton County, Georgia, not in Louisiana, but the name rang a bell (neither of the Kerwin nor Kendrell variety, however) . . . and I was moved to go over to the bookcase, pull Walker Percy's Signposts in a Strange Land off of the shelf, and re-read the essay "Why I Live Where I Live."
For inadvertently reminding me how much I enjoy Dr. Percy's non-fiction, Ryan takes home the gold medal in the latest Weekly Weblogger Challenge.
I thank all three respondents for taking the time to reply. Now I turn to this week's challenge, which I hope will be taken up not only by my fellow webloggers, but also by readers who can use this as an excuse to register for one of the diaries available on the sidebar to your right. Without further ado, here is . . .
The Weekly Weblogger Challenge
Jay Berwanger
Harlan Ellison
John Nance Garner
Mandy Pepperidge
The Defenestration of Prague of 1618
Go 'Dawgs!