Local High Schools Prepare for Upcoming Sports Season

The summer heat is rampaging all across the Ohio Valley, but that isn't stopping local high school sports teams from practicing at one hundred percent in order to prepare for the upcoming season. In particular, Steubenville Big Red's shooting team got in its first practice of the summer this morning, and we got a chance to see senior standout Daequon Butler (left) first hand. The three year letterman is coming off of a strong 2010 season, and told us that he may head straight to the pros right out of college.

"Yea I got like a bunch of different offers of all sorts I got to consider before I think about college," says Butler. "Today a scout from the Crips was here lookin' at me, said I got a good future with them."

Big Red coach Jim Fisher told us that although Butler is a sure lock to go pro, he still has to keep his mind on where he is now.

"He's got the rest of his life to think about being a Crip, Blood, or Chicago Boy," Fisher said. "We're trying to keep our focus on Big Red right now. If he does that, he might end up getting an offer from the FBI."

Fisher took an unorthodox approach to practice this morning, by making his team rob a local downtown grocery store. Five of the students were arrested.

"That's how we make our cuts," Fisher added. "If you can't rob a store, maybe you're a better fit for the Chess Club. We need only the best to compete with Edison this year."

Steubenville's arch-rival, the Edison Wildcats (right), were hard at work today as well. Edison coach Preston Adams told us that the rivalry was started because the two teams use opposite techniques.

"We shoot our guns by looking down the sights," said Adams. "It's a much better way to ensure that you hit your target. Steubenville on the other hand, they shoot their guns by holding them sideways. It's less accurate, but you get the shot off quicker."

Other schools across the Valley are making some changes for the upcoming year. In a trip over to Weirton, West Virginia, we got to meet Tokey (left), the new mascot for the Weir High Fighting Stoners. The mascot was selected by the students from a shortlist of four that included Tokey, Bud the Bud, Kiefer the Kief, and Smokey. The change is part of a whole 're-imaging' program for the school, which was forced to drop its logo after a lawsuit from The University of Wisconsin-Madison. The school then settled on a marijuana leaf, but had to change that as well after The Ohio State University threatened legal action.

The logo dispute is reminiscent of the earlier incident involving the Buckeye Local School District and Anheuser-Busch. Despite the imminent lawsuit, the school's football team is keeping their minds on the field. Head football coach Anthony Barsch discussed with us some problems that the team faced with scheduling games this year.

"We were originally supposed to play Youngstown East in week two," said Barsch. "But our AD Sam Jones told me that they called in and said they didn't want to play us anymore because it would take at least a 92 point win in order for the win to mean anything because we were so bad last year."

Luckily for Barsch and the Panthers, Jones had a very unique solution.

"I got a hold of a team from Grove City that said they would be delighted to play us," said Jones. "It's just what both of our teams were looking for, a very competitive game."

Jones found the team by way of a want ad on Craigslist. The team, the Grove City Cowboys (right), is a Pop-Warner powerhouse and is expected to be at least a 3-1 favorite.

This Year's Anti-Jamboree Statuses Exceed Attendance

FACEBOOK - Jamboree in the Hills wrapped up earlier this week, which means that the Valley will slip back into a depression once again. Notwithstanding the major economic influx that the festival brings to the area, many people take to social media to show their distaste. In fact, a student from MIT recently pulled together a stat that will shock many. The number of statuses on Facebook and Twitter actually surpassed the amount of people who attended the event.

"It is quite amazing," said Matthew McDooglestein, the student who worked this all out. "There is a substantial amount of people who care enough about not caring about Jambo that they all got this urge to tell the world that they don't care. What's even more surprising is that nobody cares that that person doesn't care!"

The anomaly actually created a hole in the space time continuum, but because nobody cared about it either, it just sadly disappeared. The day before Jamboree in the Hills has now officially been dubbed as "National I Don't Care Day", where everyone gets to express how much they don't care about anything.

"I went to Jamboree in the Hills," said an anonymous person who randomly called us today. "But I only went to see Ron Retzer."

Retzer's performance was the only one to nearly top the amount of 'I Don't Care' statuses, especially when he played his hit song "Paddling My Boat Down a Creek", which is also the only Retzer song to contain profanity. Jambo officials told us that they are working on overhauling next year's show.

"We're working on overhauling next year's show," said chairman Bob Jacobs, who obviously lacks creativity. "We're working on setting up a duet with Toby Keith and Lil Wayne, a set with 3OH!3, and a country performance from Justin Bieber."

Usain Bolt Wins Redneck Run

MORRISTOWN - This year's Jamboree in the Hills kicked off in the usual fashion yesterday morning with the traditional "Redneck Run". The sprinting competition is held every morning of Jamboree in the Hills, and showcased some of the finest athletes that the Valley has to offer. Yesterday's winner was not, however, a resident of the Ohio Valley. The race was won by Jamaican Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, who showed up for the race five minutes before it started. Bolt made it to the stage first, nearly a full minute ahead of second place finisher Billy Ray Hopkins. Hopkins told us that he was humbled by his defeat.

"I tell you what," Hopkins said, "I ain't never seen no person run that fast ever in my life. 'Cept for when ole Harry Rawlings down the road chased that possum out his garden."

The race (right) is being replayed on many sports channels such as ESPN, many of whom are downplaying Bolt's performance.

"If you look closely at the replay footage," says analyst Adam Schefter, "you can see that Bolt isn't weighed down by any blankets or chairs. In fact, he didn't even bring any beer! No one goes to Jambo without beer."

Bolt told us in his post race interview that he wanted to set a new standard.

"Nobody run this race without beer before," said Bolt. "I ran it without beer. I ran it and I won it."

Bolt's prize for winning the race is a full pass to Jamboree in the Hills, and yes, free beer all weekend.

Local Children Transformed Into Legos

BELLAIRE - The Plastic Brick Museum in Bellaire has been a mystery to many for ages. Nearly thirty years ago, the museum fired its entire staff and closed its gates forever. Ever since, nobody has been seen going in, or coming out. This was a move that baffled local residents and leading experts in the museum field. The people of Bellaire told us that the museum should have collapsed upon itself.

"I don't know what they were trying to pull," said Danny Morell. "I mean, it's not like when Willy Wonka's factory shut down. This is a museum, locking people out defeats the purpose."

 The owner of the museum then made national headlines when he announced that he would let 5 lucky children inside. 5 golden tickets were placed inside select boxes of Legos at local Wal-Mart stores. St. Clairsville Wal-Mart employee Gordon Hewitt told us that this was unapproved by his managers.

"Whoever did this just walked in, opened a box of Legos and put the ticket in there," said Hewitt. "I just pulled the ticket out and gave it to my little cousin."

The children entered the museum early Tuesday morning. When they came out, however, they were no longer children. The front doors opened at 5:30 in the afternoon, and out ran 5 Lego people to rejoin their parents (right). The museum's owner, Dan Brown, told us that the whole stunt was a test for a new machine that turned children into Lego people.

"I started off the tour as conventional as any other," said Brown. "Then I threw in a crazy twist that I bet none of them could see coming!"

When word broke about what had happened to the children, the museum was flooded with thousands of excited kids wishing to be turned into their favorite movie characters.

"I wanna be Indiana Jones!" shouted a voice from the crowd.

"Turn me into Justin Bieber!" yelled another.

Mr. Brown is charging $25 for each transformation, which is permanent.

NFL Drops Colts, Adds Ohio Valley Greyhounds

WHEELING - Chris Mortensen of ESPN wrote earlier this week that an inside source revealed that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell planned to dismiss a team from the league. That team was announced this morning as the Indianapolis Colts. Goodell stated that a certain player on the team was doing more harm for the rest of the league than good.

"The decision to drop the Colts was because of one player *cough* Peyton *cough* Man- *sneeze* ning *cough*," Goodell stated in a media conference. "It's sad to see such a prestigious team leave our wonderful league, but we do have something special up our sleeves."

That special something turned out to be the revival of the Ohio Valley Greyhounds, who disbanded in 2007 after 2 years in the Indoor Football League, 4 years in the National Indoor Football league, and 3 years as a member of United Indoor Football.

"The Greyhounds turned out to be the best fit for the NFL," Goodell continued. "The team has endured many of the same troubles that other NFL teams have had. They just faced a massive flood from a clogged sink, just like the Saints did with their flood caused by a Category 5 hurricane. The citizens of the Ohio Valley suffered a great loss when the team folded, just like the people of Cleveland did when the Browns relocated to Baltimore. Hopefully the Greyhounds will find the same success that the Browns did after their revival."

With the 2011 season scheduled to begin in just a few months, the team is working hard on recruiting new players.

"In order to keep attendance up, we have to sign local players," said team president Sharon Stephan. "People will want to support players that they know and are familiar with."

The Greyhounds are holding tryouts for former football players of the OVAC, as well as football players from local colleges.

"I'm stoked," says former Harrison Central running back Aaron McDavis. "I've been working as a janitor for the past few years, and all I keep thinking about is those good ol' football days. I got a wife and eight kids with her, an ex-girlfriend I owe child support to, and sixty seven unpaid parking tickets. It's safe to say I could use a better job."

Other players we talked to were a little less enthusiastic, citing their past rivalries as too much of a distraction.

"I don't know about this," says former Martins Ferry punter Luke McIntire. "We got a wide receiver and a nose tackle from Buckeye Local and two linebackers from Bellaire. Sharing a locker room with those guys, that just might be too much for me to handle."

A few former OVAC players in the NFL already have expressed interest in returning home.

"Man I would love for my family and friends to be able to see me play every week," said former Bellaire quarterback Nate Davis. "I'm a free agent right now so they're definitely in the running if the price is right."

Davis's agent told us that they hope to reach an agreement worth around 36 billion dollars.

"What can I say? He likes money," the agent told us.

To find out what other players around the NFL thought of this addition, we headed out to Pittsburgh to talk to players about how they will prepare for the new, unfamiliar players.

"We've done a lot of searching on YouTube for footage of their games," said 6 time Pro Bowl safety Troy Polamalu. "There weren't that many videos of the actual teams, just a lot of halftime shows."

"I'm sending a message to the NFL this year," said linebacker James Harrison, who was fined multiple times last year for hits the league deemed illegal. "I'm going to play how I play the game, no exceptions, not even for this new team."

The announcement also further delays the release of Madden NFL 12, which was scheduled for release on August 30th.

"This is bad for business," EA Sports president Peter Moore told us over the phone. "We're already behind on the release date, and now we basically have to rebuild the game around this. Luckily, it won't take too long to make a model of Wheeling. Besides, if we get anything wrong, I'm not sure anyone will notice."

Brilliant's Xtreme Honda Issues Recall on Motorcycle Air Conditioners

BRILLIANT - Xtreme Honda of Brilliant announced earlier today that they will recall the air conditioners that they installed on select Honda motorcycles. The move comes after intense pressure from the Ohio Department of Transportation and local municipal courts. In a press release issued today, ODOT explained that the climate control system was responsible for nearly 300 deaths in the Ohio Valley. That sobering number is roughly 89% of customers who purchased the system. ODOT Director Jerry Wray told us that enough is enough.

"We usually don't put our foot down like this in Ohio until there a few thousand deaths, but it's costing us a lot of money to clean up the bodies on the roadways, especially those caused by air conditioning accidents."

The air conditioning units shot 15 degree temperatures at 175 miles per hour at the rider in order to compensate for the open air environment. Most of the deaths came from bikers being ejected from their seats, but there were also a few reported incidents of hypothermia, and others where the riders' hands would freeze to the handlebars.

"When the hands get frozen," Wray said. "They make it impossible to disengage the throttle, and at that point you just can't stop the bike until you wreck into something. This is why so many bikers drive so fast."

Xtreme Honda stated that they did not foresee these problems, but will develop a safer system in the future.

"Trust me," Xtreme Honda owner Rick Buchanan told us. "The safety of our riders is our top priority. The next generation of motorcycle air conditioners will feature temperatures at 33 degrees, which will solve the freezing problem. To compensate for that change, the air speed will be increased to 200 miles per hour and buyers will receive a free Bowflex so they can be strong enough to hang on."