The Cleveland Browns and their fans were jubilant Saturday when the team beat the San Diego Chargers, thus avoiding the ignominy of a winless season. That, in turn, led to a victory for a Cleveland food bank and the local residents who need its help.
In November, a Browns fan named Chris McNeil found a way to cope with the looming specter of an 0-16 campaign, which would have been just the second in NFL history (Detroit Lions, 2008). He began organizing a parade to commemorate the "perfect season," an idea that caught on with other members of the team's beleaguered fan base.
To raise funds for the parade, McNeil set up a GoFundMe page, one looking to reach a target of $1,999, corresponding to the year the Browns returned to the NFL, following a three-year hiatus caused by the original franchise moving to Baltimore and becoming the very successful Ravens. Any funds above that amount were to go to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, and if the team managed to win a game and thus negate the planned parade, all the funds would go to that charity.
As it turned out, the GoFundMe page got much more than $1,999 -- as of Tuesday evening, it was over $10,500 -- and one 20-17 victory later, the food bank got quite a windfall from Browns fans. Then the team stepped in to show its own support, by matching that donation with a contribution of $10,000.
"I was shocked when I heard the Browns were matching our donation," McNeil said in an email exchange with The Cleveland Post. "The Browns had been relatively silent about the whole parade thing with only a short press release stressing their desire to have a positive parade with fans in the future, so this action really did come as a shock. I really think it is a classy move by the Cleveland Browns organization and I applaud and thank them for their generosity."
All business
Tiger Woods turns 41 on Friday, and while he didn't play much golf this year, he kept busy reorganizing his business interests under one brand he called "TGR." Woods referred to it as setting up "phase two" of his life.
Mixing business and golf is nothing new with prominent players. In fact, Jack Nicklaus believes it helped his golf more than it was a distraction. Nicklaus left IMG and Mark McCormack in 1970 to set up his own business, and it never got in the way of competing or preparing for majors.
"I always did what I had to do," Nicklaus said. "If my day was filled up with golf, it would be a boring day for me. I needed more stimulation. I think business and my family and some things I did on the outside created my away time, so that when I came back to play golf, then I really focused on it. If golf was all I had, I would have gotten lazy with it. I tried to be very efficient."
The end result
Jaromir Jagr, 44, of the Florida Panthers moved into second place behind Wayne Gretzky on the NHL's all-time scoring list when a puck bounced off his butt right to a teammate for an unlikely assist.
"The first congratulatory text, we assume, came from Mark Sanchez," wrote Dwight Perry of The Seattle Times.
Sports quiz
What team did Jaromir Jagr begin his NHL career?
Sports answer
The Pittsburgh Penguins
Sports on 12/29/2016