Morningside football is off to a hot 2-0 start, but has been faced with past and current challenges.

In August, nobody was even sure there would be any fall athletics at the NAIA level. Lots of rumors were swarming that all events would be cancelled in the fall, but nobody knew for sure.

“It was tough training not knowing if I was going to have a season, but I always try to stay optimistic”, says Sione Tuifua, a Morningside football player I got the privileges to speak with.

Sione Tuifua is a Junior here at Morningside College that plays tight end for the team, while pursuing a degree in biology pre-med. Tuifua is from Alaska, so while a lot of the team was training in Sioux City during the Summer, he was back home. “I came for the last couple of weeks of training here, and social distancing was required when possible and temperatures were taken before every lift and running,” he mentioned

Tuifua notes how he ran through scenarios in his head frequently, just thinking of everything that could happen. “So far, everything is working out well even after our last game got cancelled. I am still super optimistic and we are taking car of ourselves, trying to get through this whole season one game at a time,” he finished.

Morningside did get their last game cancelled, but they are back on track for Homecoming this weekend against Briar Cliff.

“Many people say that Sweden is just a small country and it doesn’t matter what we do. But I’ve learned you are never too small to make a difference”, says 15 year old Greta Thunberg in her speech on behalf of Climate Justice Now.

She talks about how a very small portion of people in the world continue to make large amounts of money, while a large portion of people continue to make small amounts of money. “It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few,” she notes.

Thunberg wants to keep fossil fuels in the ground, while maintaining a focus on equity. Additionally, she warns that if solutions aren’t found within the current system then the people should change the system itself.

She lets the people know that her speech isn’t about getting the world leaders to care. “You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again.”

It was more a warning to those same world leaders to prepare themselves. “We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.”

On Tuesday September, 29th our class got the opportunity to interview Steven Postolka, current lawyer for the city of Siouxland.

Steven Postolka graduated from Morningside College in 2011 with a degree in both political science and mass communication. After that, he pursued law school at the University of Iowa and studied for 3 year there. Once he passed the bar exam he spent under 2 years in Sioux City at a clerkship, before moving to Spencer, Iowa to practice private law.

Growing up in a small town called Sioux Rapids, Postolka had big aspirations to be a lawyer when he was in middle school. When he reached high school he decided that law school wasn’t for him and decided he wanted to be a journalist. However, when he got to Morningside, a professor that Steven Postolka grew close with over the years insisted that he went to some sort of graduate school. Postolka decided that following his old dreams of being a lawyer was his best choice, so decided to do that.

After practicing private law in Spencer for 4 years, Postolka got a great opportunity to be an attorney for Sioux City. He started earlier this year and, simply put, he protects Sioux City from when they get sued from people. Every year, Sioux city gets sued tens of thousands of times with some of the serious cases being an excess of $1 million dollars.

When asked about the stress level from his private law job compared to his new job he said, “The stress level is different from Spencer to Sioux City. It’s less stressful being on salary. There is no incentives. I get paid the same no matter what.”

While Postolka has seen a downshift in his amount of work this year due to the pandemic, he is preparing for a big trial that he speculates will make its way all the way to the courtroom in early December.

After a injury plagued week 2, lots of star NFL players and coaches have started to point fingers.

Week 2 of the NFL presented a lot of new challenges for a handful of teams. The San Francisco 49ers lost quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, Pro Bowl defender Nick Bosa, running back Raheem Mosart, and others in their win over the Jets on Sunday.

New York Giants runningback Saquon Barkley, one of the best running backs in the league, suffered a season ending injury. Courtland Sutton of the Denver Broncos tore his ACL and is also out for the season. Former Fantasy Player of the Year Christian McCaffrey suffered an ankle injury that will sideline him for at least 6 weeks. Those are a few of the many big names that suffered serious injuries from last weekends of play.

Typically, these brutal injuries would be blamed on rigorous offseason training and pointless preseason games that would beat up athletes bodies before the season even started. However this year athletes didn’t experience much of an offseason and the league completely dismissed the preseason games, which is what the coaches and players are blaming the magnitude of injuries on.

This article is newsworthy to all fans of professional football that are looking for answers to the crazy, unpredictable outcomes of week 2 in the NFL.

A little more then a month ago, the Big Ten Conference cancelled their football season until, evidently, the spring. On Wednesday, the Big Ten cancelled their cancellation, vowing to play this fall. Games can be excepted as soon as the weekend of October 23-24.

The decision most likely came from on going pressure that the Big Ten received after being only one of two FBS college programs to cancel their fall events. That pressure, more specifically, came from popular coaches, players, parents, fans, and even President Trump himself.

Following the statement to play, the conference said that players, coaches, trainers, and others who are on the practice fields will go through daily testing for the virus. Anyone that tests positive will be required to quarantine from the team for at least 21 days.

For this project, I chose to site downstairs of the library in the hallway that leads into the mass communications room, security office, and our classroom. More specifically, I sat in one of the semi-comfortable blue chairs right in front of 10 posters about the history of women’s rights. To the right of me was a blue recycling can with only a few items in it. To my other side was a small gray table, holding my coffee, phone, keys and wallet.

The first person I saw walk through the hallway was a guy named James. I know him because of work, so I said hello to him and continued on with my people watching.

The second person that I saw came from our classroom. It was Ross. “Is this where you are doing your project,” he asked. “Yep and your going to be apart of it now.” I replied. He walked into the mass communications room and I faintly heard him ask someone a question about Zoom (he said to pay attention to all conversations right??).

Shortly after, Ross exited from the mass comm room. He was carrying an empty coffee pot. He came back through a moment later with the same coffee pot, this time filled with water. “You know, you probably won’t find that many people out here,” he commented. To which I replied, “I’ve seen a few already and I’ve already seen you twice,” I semi-snarked back. “I have also examined that there are ten posters about the history of woman’s rights across from me,” I commented. Trying to either prove me wrong or check for himself (I couldn’t tell), he checked the wall and ended up agreeing with me.

After my conversation I wanted to focus on the aspects of the room. The ceiling is a textured tile, similar to what I have in my house back home. I noticed that there was four small looking theater lights behind me that were pointed at absolutely nothing. “Are you counting the lights?” said someone. It was Ross, again. I responded yes and then he went and turned them on for me. “There supposed to be pointing to art, but there is none up right now,” he also mentioned. We had another brief conversation and then he went back into the mass comm room.

I shifted my attention to the obsolete, now lit up, wall behind me and noticed that it was the only wall textured and colored differently than the rest. The wall was made of a thin carpet like material and was a shiny gray color. I looked down the way, on the right side of the mass comm room, and noticed that there was seven nails in the walls holding absolutely nothing up.

After a few minutes people finally started to walk through the hallway. I saw a soccer girl come in through the library entrance and walk my way. I could tell she played soccer because of her jacket. Shortly after, two ladies walked by holding coffee, having a quiet conversation about how stupid college was. I can’t say that I didn’t partially agree with them.

At this point, noise from the Spoonholder Cafe started to pick up. I heard two females blabbing, but I couldn’t hear their conversation that much. There was frequent laughing and I heard one mention about her love for tofu. “Would you like whipped cream with that?”, was something I frequently heard from that way.

I continued sitting in my silence when a lady walked by. She had her backpack slung over her left shoulder and had pink hair. She didn’t look up from her cellphone her entire walk down the hallway, I observed as I secretly wished she would run into the wall on her way.

I heard someone headed down the hallway from the Spoonholder. I could tell she was coming due to the obnoxious dangle of her awkward amount of keys.

Shortly later, I saw a guy wearing a green plaid jacket walk into the men’s restroom. I observed that he was cautious of touching the door with his hands, using his elbow to push the door open. At first I understood it because it is COVID season after-all, but I got really confused when the same germ freak exited the bathroom no more than 30 seconds later without washing his hands.

After a short while, someone entered through the clear library doors down my observation hallway. It was a woman and she did NOT look thrilled to be there. She took a right towards the library portion. “She really looked like she needed to take a left, towards the coffee area,” I said in my head.

Quite a long amount of time passed before I got to eavesdrop in on my next victims. This time it was two girls that entered through the library door down my hallway. “Yea, it was actually a lot cheaper for me to get a newer phone than old phone,” she chattered. Her friend did not look thrilled at all to listen to her first world problems.

Those two girls were the last ones I got to see, as I realized my 45 minutes were up and headed on my way.

Carter Kratz is a senior baseball player at Morningside College from Vermillion, South Dakota. When he isn’t in school or at baseball practice, Kratz enjoys hunting and fishing. Kratz plans to graduate this coming spring with a degree in business.

When I asked Kratz how he thinks the college is handling COVID he saw some good and some bad. On the good side, he thinks that the college is doing a good job quarantining kids in the dorms. However, he also thinks that students choosing to go home to quarantine isn’t a good idea because they could spread the virus to their parents or people in the community.

On Monday, President Reynders sent out an email to students and staff about the new college sports spectator guidelines. Morningside will increase gate attendants and off-duty officers patrolling crowds, kick out those that fail to adhere to the mask policy, limit football spectators by only letting in students, ticketed friends, and family members, and a few other rules.

Kratz thinks this is will help overall. “Lots of people were not wearing masks who aren’t with the college. The new guidelines should help if the rules are enforced,” said Kratz about Friday’s season opener against Northwestern College.

Kratz is not a fan of online schooling, so he will be upset if Morningside has to go down that road for an extended period of time. “Classes should go to pass fail if you are online. We pay for a personalized education, not for online classes. We should be compensated for that,” he said.

Broncos outside linebacker Von Miller suffered an ankle injury in a “freak” accident that will more than likely end his season.

Bronco practice was moved inside for the first time all season due to poor weather. Miller was injured in one of the final plays of the day and had an MRI that day.

This is a huge blow to the Denver Broncos, especially only six days before opening up against a tough Tennessee Titans team. After not having a spectacular season last year, Miller had dedicated his off season with an intense training regimen and putting on a few pounds.

Right behind Miller on the depth chart is former 1st round pick Bradley Chubb. Chubb has not been apart of a full practice for the Bronco squad since August 29th, because he is still recovering from a season ending injury in last years season.

While it seems like it can’t get any worse for Denver fans, there is still hope to find a semi-replacement for Miller in free agency. There are a handful of veteran pass rushers they can try and make a run at. Clay Matthews, Cameron Wake, Terrell Suggs, and Brooks Reed are a few to note.

After 20 years with the New England Patriots, Tom Brady decided to take the last few years of his career elsewhere.

As the 2020 NFL season inches closer and closer the shock of the news continues to fade, and it becomes a lot more real. Tom Brady will be playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for more than likely the rest of his career.

43-year-old Tom Brady never wanted to leave Tampa Bay, according to an article on Yahoo Sports written by Dan Wetzel. “If Belichick thought Brady would just return, he was mistaken. Brady did not want to leave, but he clearly wanted to be convinced to stay. There is a difference”, Wetzel notes in his article.

Brady certainly does not owe the Patriots anything. He played 20 seasons in New England, well above the average career span of a professional quarterback, which is a little over four years. He has taken the Patriots to nine super bowls, winning six of them. That is something that had never been done before, but now he is ready for new challenges.

First off, this will be Brady’s first time adjusting to a new team since being drafted 199^th overall by the New England Patriots in the 2000 NFL draft. “Obviously for me, changing teams after a long period of time has given me an opportunity to really look at myself and what I want to continue to achieve in my career and think that I can bring to a team,” Brady said through an interview with Carmen Vltall.

Second, he has to learn an entirely new system and playbook, which he really hasn’t had to do since first joining the Patriots back in 2000. “You’re trying to learn a bunch of different things and you are trying to not only learn an offense but learn your way to work or learn guys’ names. I did not even know where the quarterbacks’ room was or where the full team meetings room was. You get in here and your brain is trying to figure out a lot of different things,” he adds in the same interview.

Unfortunately, the pandemic has stripped the future hall of famer of getting valuable reps with his new teammates. The offseason program was completely wiped out. That time is typically used to learn new systems and plays all together.

Regardless of the circumstances, Brady seems to be settling into Tampa Bay just find. It only took a short amount of time for Brady to start yelling out encouragement and praise to his receivers. He is laughing with his fellow quarterbacks during conditioning. “he’s acting like they’re all old friends already”, notes Vltall.

While lots are optimistic of Brady’s future with the Buccaneers, there are still plenty that think Tampa Bay won’t get its money’s worth from Brady. Tampa Bay offered Tom Brady over $50 million guaranteed for two years. Additionally, he has the opportunity to earn lots more in incentives throughout the year.

Tom Brady is arguably the best quarterback of all time, but even the greats can’t play forever. Not even an obscene amount of TB12 sports supplements (Brady’s sports performance brand that he frequently advertises) can keep him in the NFL forever.

Looking at straight statistics from the past will show you that the odds are not in Brady’s favor. Since 1920, four NFL quarterbacks have played a season at age 43 or over. Of those four, none of them have started more then six games in a single season.

The Buccaneers will kick off their season on September 14, in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome against Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints.

https://www.buccaneers.com/news/tom-brady-on-tampa-bay-i-want-to-come-in-here-do-a-great-job-for-them-bucs

https://sports.yahoo.com/tom-bradys-decision-to-join-the-buccaneers-wasnt-just-the-right-one-it-was-the-only-one-232244478.html

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-1-grades-seahawks-get-an-a-for-letting-russell-wilson-cook-cowboys-earn-a-b-despite-loss/

A Texaco gasoline truck was overturned on 48th Street and Correctionville Road. Gas flooded sewer blocks for two blocks around.

Four families were safely evacuated. The flooding was serious for two hours until the gas flushed away.