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You’d think that anyone could tell the difference between historical figures canonized by the Catholic church and Louisiana football players, but today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss is surprisingly challenging! I scored a dismal 42%. Link
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These two fans spotted at the World Cup game between England and Algeria were compared to Laurel and Hardy. You don’t have to understand the language to enjoy the video clip, which includes more World Cup links at The Litter Box. Link
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In 1966, England was preparing to host the World Cup games when someone stole the championship Jules Rimet Trophy out from under their noses! Police received a ransom note and met with the contact -and arrested him. But it took a little dog named Pickles to actually find the trophy. Read the story of how Pickles became the hero of the World Cup at mental_floss. Link
The short version of last week’s World Cup game between the US and England features only the best parts -both goals, with instant replays. In LEGO! This video was created by the folks at Lego Fussball, who have Lego versions of many games. English translation by The Guardian. -via Laughing Squid
It’s been done before, but the effect is still funny! These shirts were designed for the Dutch Football Federation for the 2010 World Cup tournament beginning next week in South Africa. Do I see a woman wearing one of these in the background? Link -via Nag on the Lake
It is well known that stadium noise can influence play on a football field, typically by interfering with the opposing team’s ability to communicate with one another while setting up plays. Penn State personnel placed 11 sound meters in Beaver Stadium and found that the noise level could rise to 110 decibels (50X baseline) when the opposing team had the ball. Then, in an empty stadium, they used a loudspeaker to generate noise and measured the sound intensity on the field. This allowed them to map the locations at which the (loud) student body could be most effective.
To take advantage of this acoustic effect, Penn State plans to move the 20,000 seats in its student section squarely into the southern end zone when the entire stadium is reseated for the 2011 season. Barnard’s computer model predicts that this relocation will quiet the east side of field slightly but increase the sound on the west side by almost 50 percent — cutting the range of a quarterback’s voice by another six inches and potentially causing more false starts and penalty opportunities.
Link, via Physics Buzz.
Super Bowl Sunday is nearing fast. Who’s it gonna be, Colts or Saints? Either way, you have to love what Slate V cooked up here; a great imagining of what the game might look like if it were directed by Quinten Tarantino, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard, or Werner Herzog. Happy game day, everyone!
via Cinematical
I am a little under the weather today, and maybe the paper airplane thing was fake. But if this is fake, at least it also fooled The Huffington Post. The obvious question is, What is he thinking?
“Own goals” (kicking a ball into one’s own net) are uncommon in soccer (“football”) and ice hockey. Because this one occurs in a youth sporting event, it is just indescribably cute.
Via BuzzFeed.
For the past ten years The Helmet Project has been assembling images of football helmets. The current array includes professional teams (American, Canadian, Arena, and others) and NCAA divisions I, II, and III, and even NAIA and some junior colleges. The time period covered goes back to 1960.
Please note that my interest lies only in the “helmet design”, by which I basically mean the shell and faceguard colors, the logo decals (if any), and the stripes running over the top of the helmet (if any). No attempt is being made here to illustrate the physical variations of helmets produced by different manufacturers, or the many different styles of faceguards, nor do I intend to show changes in the physical structure of helmets over the decades (at least not in the near future); partially for these reasons, 1960 has been somewhat arbitrarily chosen as the cut-off date for all the historic helmets for now. I am also not attempting to display fine details like “award decals” that would not show up well in the image size I am using here, or those details that would not be visible from this perspective (such as numerals on the back of the helmet). It is not my intention to illustrate every variation worn by every individual football player on any of these teams, just whatever was “the” design for each team at a particular time.
Link, via Archaeoblog (!)
Alcoa High was leading Fulton High in last night’s football game in Knoxville, Tennessee when the game had to called due to the ground opening up and trying to swallow the players.
With Alcoa leading 20-7, a sinkhole opened up near the stands-side sideline at the 41-yard line on the west side of the still-drenched field with 6:33 left to play in the fourth quarter. The field was declared unplayable and play was suspended for the night. The remaining minutes of the game will be played at Alcoa High School’s Goddard Field at 5 p.m. today. Admission is free.
(image credit: Mark A. Large/The Daily Times)
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From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by 
So, it snowed during the New England Patriots-Arizona Cardinals game today (I’ll let you guess where they were playing). Of course, that means that touchdown celebrations have to be taken to a whole new level, like this one from Patriot Wes Welker:
What do you think? Rude, or funny? Personally, I enjoyed it.
When most people think about the macho and violent sports of football, they don’t think about love. But that’s exactly what coach and former NFL defensive lineman Joe Ehrmann has taught his high school football team.
And if you think that made one weak team, think again: Link [embedded YouTube clip]
(In 2004, Jeffrey Marx wrote a book about the football team, titled Season of Life, that won the Pulitzer Prize)
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