Yatesville 
Pittston Area Board 
Votes Milazzo President 
Coreen Milazzo Was Elected President Of The Pittston Area School Board At A 
Reorganization Meeting Tuesday Night.

Big Names 
Will Boost 
Auction 
****************** 
File Photo

Tuesday, December 01, 1992 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 1C/6C QUICK WORDS: DEER HUNTING 





Bobby, P.J. and the Beast hortly after Bob Bessoir's University of Scranton
basketball team beat College &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Misericordia in the first round of the new Laurel Line Tournament Friday
night, he made a comment or two about the crowd that took in the action at the &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; John Long CenterA few hundred, maybe a thousand, fans watched the games
involving Scranton, Wilkes, Baptist Bible and College Misericordia. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 However, Bessoir was quick to point out, the tournament did have some
competition. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "We were going against P.J. and The General," he said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 For a second, I thought he was referring to some new TV sitcom. But then
the realization hit that Bessoir was talking about that night's ESPN telecast
of the finals of the Pre-Season NIT Tournament. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 P.J. Carlesimo's Seton Hall team was playing Indiana, and Bobby Knight, in
New York. Among the many nicknames for Knight, and definitely among the most
printable, is "The General" or "General Patton." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The fact was, however, that the real competition for the Laurel Line
Tournament came not from New York, but from Moosic, Berwick, Peckville and
places such as that. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Quite frankly, the Laurel Line Tournament -- an idea whose time has
definitely come -- was swallowed up this past weekend the same way the
Florida-Florida State game was. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 It was devoured by "The Beast That Ate Everything," also known as the high
school football playoffs. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 This particular beast so dominated the local media from about Wednesday
night until Sunday morning that anything else was immediately relegated to
second-class status. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 It was virtually impossible to change channels on a television set or to
scan your radio dial on Saturday without coming across some broadcast of high
school football. With eight playoff games being contested in the Eastern
Conference and District 2 tournaments, some of them nearly 100 miles apart,
there was enough high school football to keep every aspiring play-by-play
announcer in practice on Saturday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 And, for those few coaches who weren't actually coaching games this
weekend, there were more than enough opportunities to, as they say in the
business, "do color" from 11 a.m. until about 7 p.m. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Local television turned the high school playoffs into a scaled-down version
of New Year's Day. The rough count at a local Sears store had about 66 percent
of the sets tuned into Channel 22's Berwick-North Pocono telecast at about 2
p.m., with just under 33 percent watching Dallas-Valley View on Channel 16. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 One set -- albeit, the big screen model -- inexplicably had the
Grambling-Southern "Bayou Classic" game from New Orleans, which was Channel
28's counter-programming for the afternoon. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 With local TV stations clawing at each other to televise the high school
football games, with nearly every radio station with a working transmitter
doing the same thing, with newspapers devoting virtually their entire staffs
to covering the games, there was little chance for anything else to break
through. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 And that is too bad, because the Laurel Line Tournament looks to be a
winner. Even without one of the area's marquee college teams, King's, the
tournament had a lot to offer, from the emergence of Wilkes as its champion to
the near shocking upset of the Colonels by lightly-regarded Baptist Bible on
Friday. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Since Wilkes and Scranton were favored to be the tournament's finalists,
one would think the first-ever championship game of the new tournament would
have been a natural for a local telecast. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 But, as it turned out, it was lucky to make it onto the 11 p.m. news. It
got squeezed in, for the most part, between high school and college football
and the NBA and NHL scores. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 On Monday, we were told, there will be more high school football on
television, this Saturday for the state semifinals and, knock wood, the week
after, live from Altoona, for this or that state championship. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 With any luck, there won't be anything important happening in the world on
those days. And if there is, you'd better hope you're watching CNN at the
time. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Because, after all, if the beast can eat up the Laurel Line Tournament, it
won't think twice about devouring a war, a coup d`etat or a devastating
natural disaster. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Bill Savage is a Times Leader sports writer. His column appears Tuesday and
Thursday.

Bobby, P.j. And The Beast 
Hortly After Bob Bessoir's University Of Scranton Basketball Team Beat College 
Misericordia In The First Round Of The New Laurel Line Tournament Friday 
Night, He Made A Comment Or Two About The Crowd That Took In The Action At The 
John Long Center.

Bobby, P.j. And The Beast Hortly After Bob Bessoir's University Of Scranton Basketball Team Beat College Misericordia In The First Round Of The New Laurel Line Tournament Friday Night, He Made A Comment Or Two About The Crowd That Took In The Action At The John Long Center.