Judah claims narrow victory over Mattysse

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Originally posted on Eastsideboxing.com

If there’s one thing that Zab Judah (40-6, 27 KO’s) proved on Saturday night, it’s that he’s still got the heart and the skill to hang in during the toughest of fights.

The former undisputed welterweight champion defeated Argentinean Lucas Matthysse (27-1, 25 KO’s) in a controversial split decision on Saturday night at the Prudential Center in Newark, earning him the NABO belt  and a #2 ranking by the IBF.

It was Judah’s first fight at 140 lbs. since 2003.

The night started slowly, with Matthysse reluctant to come inside and Judah willing to sit back and counterpunch as the two felt each other out.

In the early rounds, Judah exhibited good movement and a consistent jab, although hard shots were few and far between. Judah clearly respected Matthysse’s power— even after landing solid punches, he refused to jump on his foe.



Judah landed a solid uppercut in the second, but Matthysse simply tapped his chin as if to say that he could take Judah’s best.

The lack of action had the crowd booing early, and it wasn’t until the sixth that Matthysse began to close the distance and open up with his hands.

It was later revealed in the post-fight press conference that this was part of his team’s strategy— stay away from Judah early on when he tends to be more dangerous, and then come hard when Judah starts to fade as the fight progresses.

“My team told me to be careful in the first three, four, five rounds, and that’s what I did,” he told the media after the fight.

But Matthysse was careful for too long, and by the time he decided it was time to fight, he had dug himself a hole on the scorecards that would prove difficult to overcome.

The Argentinean came on strong in the tenth, however, and began landing hard left hooks to the body and straight rights to the head, one of which floored the former champ.

A badly hurt Judah appeared to go into survival mode, clinching often and attempting to dodge Matthysse’s onslaught. Judah did manage to come back with a few of his own hard shots that backed Matthysse off, but it was clear that Zab was in trouble.

“When I went down, I had a deep conversation with the Lord,” Judah said with a laugh after the fight. “It was fast to y’all, but it was long to me.”

Matthysse continued to bring the fight to Judah in the eleventh, outworking and outpunching the older fighter throughout the round.

Judah was looking to land a big left to even the round but could not connect, and Matthysse, looking as fresh as he had in the first round, continued to walk him down and pound away.

With blood streaming down the side of his face as a result of a cut sustained earlier on, Judah attempted to use his footwork and angles to avoid Matthysse’s heavy punches.

Several times Matthysse, looking to end the fight, would catch Judah on the ropes, only to have the southpaw escape and slip away.

In the eyes of the judges, the performance was enough to give Judah a narrow victory.

Judge Waleska Poldan scored the fight 114-113 for Matthysse, while judges Hilton Whitaker and Joseph Pasquale scored the fight 114-113 for Judah.

This observer also scored the fight 114-113 for Judah.

During the post-fight press conference, Matthysse was convinced that he was robbed.

“In Argentina, definitely I would have won the fight,” he said through an interpreter. “I’d love to have a rematch and be sure that he beats me and not the judges…I was in his hometown and he got the home decision.”

Judah later appeared in a suit and sunglasses to address reporters, and commended Matthysse on his performance.



“In the future, you’ll see a lot of Lucas…but tonight was my night,” he said. “You can’t win four or five rounds of a fight and then say you won the whole fight.”

Judah later admitted that if the fight had been in Argentina, the scorecards might have read the other way.

“We probably would have got a different outcome,” he said.

He expressed little interest in a rematch with the hard-punching Matthysse, whom he called “the strongest fighter I’ve ever fought.”

“Nah…they got a couple gorillas at the Brooklyn Zoo he can go tangle with,” he quipped. “We’re going to move on, and see what’s out there next for us.”

Undoubtedly, at 33 years of age, Judah will be looking for fights with bigger names and bigger paydays, and might consider a rematch with the relatively unknown Matthysse a waste of time.

Although it was a good test for Judah, who did not tire in the late rounds as he has customarily done,  it was far from the exciting, explosive battle that would leave the boxing world clamoring to watch him fight any of the top junior welterweights.

The division, undoubtedly one of the deepest and most talent-rich in boxing, features such names as Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley, Amir Khan, Marcos Maidana, and Victor Ortiz; any one of these competitors would probably be too much for him at this stage of his career.

Judah, of course, sees it otherwise.

“(Matthysse) is probably the toughest, hardest hitter in the weight division…I think I got past the toughest guy already and the rest of the weight division will be piece of cake,” he said.

Those are big words indeed. Whether they can be backed up remains to be seen.

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=25682&more=1

Washed up meatheads are cringing

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

BY STEVE JANOSKI

We see you through the glass windows of the gym, and we are cringing. We're the people that are in the gym early on New Year's Eve, after work on Christmas Eve, and all the days in between. As washed-up meatheads, we've put a lot into lifting over the years, having started because our football or wrestling coaches made us.

But we caught the bug, got addicted to the iron, and became enamored with the simple act of lifting something heavy off the ground. For some of us, it's the utter simplicity of it — as Henry Rollins once said, "200 pounds is always 200 pounds."

Life's problems fade away, for there are no dead-end jobs, whining girlfriends, or problems of any sort while in the gym. It's just a simple 200 pounds that needs to be lifted, and we're there to do it. It is our release, and our haven from the outside world.

But every year, in the first weeks of January, we get inundated with "The Resolutioners," those of you who have decided to get in shape for the new year, and pack the bench presses and Nautilus machines in your pursuit. Our workout takes an hour longer because the gym is so crowded; one can hardly take a step without tripping over dumbbell left out by someone who doesn't know gym mores.

For a month, we are driven crazy, and our schedules and programs are destroyed until you all retreat back to your couches sometime in early February, shaking your head and saying, "Well, I tried."

Does it sound elitist? It sort of is. And there's lifters out there, some of the biggest guys you'll meet, who are far more vulgar than I when talking about the Resolutioner phenomenon. But one thing that you might not believe is that there are plenty of us who don't want you to fail. We don't want you to go home, and we don't want you to be a sloth any more than you do.

See, we are always looking for people to join us in our pursuit of being stronger — we just don't want pretenders. We don't want people who talk on their cell phones in between sets on the bench press, all the while telling us they're "almost done" with the machine.

We don't want those that dress up to go to the gym, and treat it as if it's an underground club in New York City. We don't want the people that are there to get in the way.

We want people that are deadly serious, and willing to put in the work and sweat and blood in order to better themselves. We want people that will find the simple joy of lifting and working out, as we have, and to enjoy the feeling of looking at a bar that has three 45-pound plates on each side and thinking, "I just lifted that, even though four months ago I never thought I'd be able to."

And we certainly love to talk about theories and programs and nutrition, and to support those that are entering into athletic competitions or powerlifting meets.

Remember that, when you're walking around the gym this week, confused about what to do and where to start. Remember that if you're serious about learning, you can walk up to any big guy or in-shape woman who looks like they know what they're doing and say, "Hey, can you help me out for a second?"

The odds are that they will be more than happy to help you out. Once they see you in the gym consistently, don't be surprised if they end up dropping little hints and tips that took them years to learn.

The Resolutioners should not be intimidated — realize that everyone started out where you were once, and everyone simply put in the work to change.

It can be done, and it has been done by countless Americans who were just fed up with how they felt. And also remember that we are pulling for you, even if we won't tell you.

Good luck.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/health/fitness/81418282_Washed-up_meatheads_are_cringing.html

Lightning crashes, memories burn

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Five years ago, on Jan. 19, my best friend Ryer died two short months after his 22nd birthday.

The human mind, amazing machine that it is, can make a traumatic event seem like it happened decades ago and just yesterday at the same time.

When I look back at what happened those years ago, the memory is still so clear; every detail, every moment is outlined so sharply that I feel as though it happened last week.

In the same vein, it seems that he never lived at all, that my mind just conjured the ordeal up from something I read in a novel.

I remember every detail of that frigid day, from the phone call I received on my lunch break to the start of the heavy drinking that followed in the evening. I remember the horrific song that was playing when I got the news (“Lightening Crashes” by Live), individual words of the calls I had to make after, and the remarkably difficult days that followed.

He had been a fearless young fighting buck, a scarily strong bodybuilder with a goatee as red as his Scandinavian skin. His strength was useless, however, against the freak medical condition that took him. He had been like an older brother to me over the years, had even saved my life once, and his stunningly sudden death shook me to my core.

It snowed hard that day, as it did the day they lowered him into the ground, as if God himself was sobbing frozen tears, guilty of the old cliché of taking a man who was too young.

It was years before I considered myself “normal” again, before I could talk or think about him without choking back tears. Certain songs would launch me into a rage, while too much drink could have me cursing God in a sloppy, slurring fashion.

I wanted to learn Latin so I could yell at Him in his own language, because I knew He wasn't paying attention to my whiskey-soaked rants.

But time has a way of leveling things off, softening the body shots that life gives you as the years progress. It made me realize that “grieving” was not, in fact, synonymous with “raging,” and that memories of the dead do not always beget tears. I even visited his grave a couple times, even though both trips were treacherously difficult.

And so I sat at a dark Irish bar on the five year anniversary of his death with a couple of our closest friends, as well as his own younger brother, a carbon copy of the dead man in so many ways.

There was no more crying into the bottom of a pint-glass, as those days have since passed - lighthearted stories and jokes took its place. But we still knew that his specter sat in the corner, silently reminding us of why we were at a bar on a Tuesday night.

 As the hours passed and the stream of Jameson continued to flow, however, our smiling eyes softened, and the night inevitably turned to those memories that we don't talk about much. For a while, we allowed the sadness to envelop us once more and felt the pain that we'd buried for so long.

On the way home, though, it struck me how warm this night had been, in stark contrast to how bitter it was in 2005. For a moment, there was even that smell in the air that comes only when spring is emerging after the long dying time is over, announcing to the world that life is resurrected.

Maybe those shadows do rise to walk again, I thought.

Sometimes it takes a true tragedy to make brooding people like me realize that we truly must live life only for the living, because the sun is rising tomorrow, and to do otherwise would be to dishonor the fallen who never had that chance for success… or redemption.

So for the first time in a long time, I can simply say, “Rest in peace amigo.” I will see you at the crossroads.

Grappling champ trains for competitions out of Pompton Lakes

Sunday, October 17, 2010

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Sixty years ago, thousands flocked to the borough to gawk at legendary heavyweight champion Joe Louis as he laced up the gloves and stepped into the square circle to spar at Doc Bier's training camp on Perrin Avenue in Pompton Lakes as he prepared for such famed opponents as Max Schmeling and the "Cinderella Man" Jim Braddock.

Now, in 2010, a heavyweight champion of another sort trains in Pompton Lakes, for competitions no less fierce – some against opponents no less determined.

His name is Anthony Argyros. Instead of boxing, he competes in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu; instead of Perrin Avenue, he trains at the Cannonball Gym on Cannonball Road.

Argyros, 42, is not your run-of-the-mill MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) wannabe, however. He's been in the game for about 12 years and has over 250 fights under his belt, and has finished in first place in over 90 tournaments.


He has finished first in North American Grappling Association (NAGA) tournaments for his weight class and division every year since 2000, and has the distinction of being named the organization's first-ever recipient of the "Fighter of the Decade" award for the years 2000-2009.

He also was honored to receive Gladiator Magazine's "2010 Golden Gladiator Award" on Aug. 7 at NAGA's annual "Battle at the Beach" tournament in Wildwood for his continuing support of submission grappling.

"I'm still ingesting it, trying to understand it," Argyros said of the award. "To get that, considering who has competed in NAGA over the decade… to be the one guy who got recognized, that was big."

Argyros isn't kidding— the list of those who have competed in NAGA tournaments over the years reads like a "Who's who of Mixed Martial Arts"— huge Pay-Per-View names like Forrest Griffin, Frank Mir, Kenny Florian, and Dante Rivera have all gotten on the mats to roll at one time or another.

He's even written a book about his long journey, named "Inside the Combat Club," which documents his experiences in grappling tournaments over the past 10 years.

Now, he splits his time between his home in Hawthorne and the gym in Pompton Lakes, training himself, as well as athletes of all types, in both weightlifting and grappling.

Cannonball Gym owner Austin Wall said that having Argyros train and teach at the gym is "invaluable" because of his experience.

"A lot of guys train in a dojo, and their belt is mostly because of the time they've spent there," Wall said. "But he's been traveling around the country, competing against the best guys, and you can't get that kind of experience just training on the mat."

"To be able to translate that to the students…we can't put a price on that," he said.

An innocuous start for future champ

Argyros, who is 5 feet 8 inches on his best day but, at around 215 pounds, is nearly as broad as he is tall, was a high school and semi-pro football player back in his early days.

He didn't get involved in combat sports until the 90s, when the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) began to gain traction and attract attention.

Those brutal early competitions had few rules and no time limits, and were dominated by Brazil's Gracie family, which brought a grappling style to American soil that had been previously unknown: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (commonly called "BJJ").

BJJ is a martial art based on getting opponents on the ground, and then manipulating them into what are called "submission holds."

Once caught in a hold, competitors must either "tap out" or risk suffering a shattered limb.

"Thousands of people saw Royce Gracie beat all these big guys, and I said, 'I gotta learn that," Argyros said.

Still though, Argyros was nearly 30 years old, and wondered if he was too old to learn and compete in an art where the best of the best have trained since youth. He went forward anyway, and his first match was in December of 1998.

"I completely ran out of gas," he said. "I lost a decision after six minutes, and I couldn't breathe…it was then I realized that this is a really tough sport."

Just four months later, he would suffer an injury that very nearly ended his career before it began — during a match in South Plainfield, he was caught in a hold called an armbar that ended up ripping the ligaments in his arm.

To this day, he can't completely straighten his right arm because of the scar tissue that's in his elbow joint.

"I had a hard beginning because I was jumping right into the advanced divisions because I thought that's what you were supposed to do," he said.

"I don't recommend that people do that," he said with a laugh.

He kept training, and in 2000, he began to win his matches. In June of that year, he won his first NAGA Championship; every calendar year since, he has taken the title in the heavyweight class.

Argyros has also come in first place in the "Battle at the Beach" tournament each year except 2005, when he lost to Rhadi Ferguson, a US Olympian in Judo. He's still the only grappler that's competed at every BATB; five years later, that's where he would receive his "Grappler of the Decade" award.

"They announced my name, put the belts on me…that was really sentimental for me because that was the first NAGA tournament I did," he said.

Argyros' hardest fight, he said, was against current MMA fighter Jeff Monson.

"He's the best…he was 240 pounds of muscle and skill and experience and knowledge," he said.

Argyros entertained thoughts of pursuing MMA as a career, but was convinced otherwise after two matches early in 2002.

In his second match, he fought professional MMA fighter Tom Murphy, and it didn't go so well.

"He beat me up bad," he said. "I survived, I went the distance, but I thought my eardrum was broken… I remember I threw a kick at him, and he kicked me back and my leg hurt for probably three weeks."

Argyros said that he learned that day that MMA is "a dangerous game,"— and a game that, at 33 years old, he didn't want to be a part of.

He sticks with grappling tournaments now, and, as a black belt in BJJ, most of his time is spent training himself or others at Cannonball.

"Literally, in my case, fights are won in the gym," he said. "If two guys have equal skill, but one guy has a tremendous work ethic, that's when (strength and conditioning) becomes important."

After 250 fights, one might believe that he knows what he's talking about.

Currently he trains five days a week, alternating body parts in a maniacal workout that will sometimes feature him doing 20 sets of chin-ups worked in with 20 sets of some other weightlifting exercise involving either dumbbells or kettlebells, with just 30 seconds of rest between sets.

"I try to develop a real Spartan environment, an old school one, at Cannonball," he said.

The workouts have paid off—in his last tournament on Oct. 2, Argyros took a bronze and silver medal, losing first place to a famed BJJ player named Fabio Clemente when, while up on points, he was disqualified on a questionable call by the Brazilian referee.

Regardless, Argyros said that he's proud of all that he's accomplished, especially earning his black belt from teacher Carlos Catania.

Now, he only competes when he wants to, and said that he's got nothing to prove anymore.

"I only do this because I enjoy it now," he said.

A family affair

Argyros has been married for 16 years, and has both a son and a daughter who are involved in the sport; his son, he said, might one day follow in his footsteps and compete.

He has no desire to train his son though, and said that he'd "rather just be his dad."

Argyros has said that he would enjoy coaching others in combat sports, however, and has already been to tournaments with adult students.

He also has advice for any kids who watch shows like "The Ultimate Fighter" and entertain dreams of being a cage fighter: Be careful what you wish for.

"I hope my guys stick with grappling tournaments, because cage fighting is a whole different thing…and to be in a guy's corner and watch those four- ounce gloves make contact with the head...," he said, trailing off and shaking his head.

"You've got to have a legit reason for me to coach you in cage fighting, because whatever you're wishing for, you just might get," he said.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

Catching one of nature's finest predators

BY STEVE JANOSKI

As the boat headed toward deeper waters, I lay back on the bench, vainly trying to catch up on some of the hours of slumber I'd lost the previous night.


I would wake only briefly, lazily opening one eye when the mate, a large, tanned man with a moustache and waders, was pulling one of the fishing rods off of the ceiling in his never-ending chore of keeping the lines in the water.

We'd woken up at 2 a.m. to start this trip, and six of us drove from North Jersey to the town of Montauk, on the edge of Long Island, to take a charter boat out in the wee hours of a Monday morning.

Half a day later, we had caught our fair share of bluefish and striped bass when the captain, an older man whose white beard gave him a passing resemblance to Hemingway, asked us if we'd like to go out a little further in search of shark.

"They're biting," he told us.

As far as I know, there's only three types of sharks that swim in the waters around New Jersey that taste good when eaten: the thresher, the mako, and the legendary great white.

Some years ago I caught a massive blue shark, and fought him for 20 minutes before we figured out that once we landed him, he couldn't be taken home-and it's always better when you can eat what you've caught.

We agreed, and hoped that we'd be luckier this time around-an hour's ride later, we could barely see the outline of the land on the horizon.

Even at 15 miles off shore, the waters were calm; typically at that distance, boisterous waves smash the stern with enough force to make even the hardiest of souls seasick.

But this tranquil Atlantic made sleeping easier, and because shark fishing can sometimes be interminably tedious, most of us on the boat began nodding off in some fashion or another.

An hour went by before a cry from the boat's captain broke my slumber.

"It's a shark! He's got a mako on the far line!"


Instantly I was up, stumbling around the cabin bleary-eyed searching for my camera, and the back deck of the charter became a maelstrom of activity with the captain coming down from the bridge as the mate scrambled, preparing the harpoon and the "bang stick" (a special underwater firearm that employs a long tube and a shotgun shell) for their deadly work.

About 50 yards out, the mako somersaulted out of the water, a beautiful flash of blue and silver against the sky, before plummeting back down, drawing out the line on reel once again.

It took 10 minutes before the shark was able to be reeled in close enough for a gaff (a long pole with a steel hook on the end) to be used to hold the shark in place. A rope was then tied around the tail to better control its thrashes.

My father held the gaff while the mate lined up his shot; seconds later, with a swift movement, he launched the harpoon into the mako's side.

"I got him!" he yelled to the captain, and pulled the body of the harpoon away, leaving the head lodged above the shark's gills.

The captain then moved forward and, with a hard strike, punched the shark's head with the end of the bang stick. A loud crack was heard as the shell went off, and blood quickly began to flow into the water and lap the sides of the boat.

With that, the shark began its death rolls, and the rage leaked out of it with every ounce of blood that spilled into the ocean.

Eventually, it would be strung up by the tail to ensure that it was completely dead before bringing the six-foot, 125 pound mako (along with its jagged, intimidating teeth) on board.

As I leaned over the side of the boat, I stared into its black poker chip eyes.


When the boat would dip to the side, the shark would be submerged again, and its lungs would flex to life and the eyes would momentarily stir, only to flatten out again as the oxygen left its system.

It was, indeed, an unequivocal triumph over one of the sea's consummate killers.

Biker Bars...don't believe the hype

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

BY STEVE JANOSKI

He was a big man with graying hair and a gravelly voice that carried the weight of years in every word.

"This place is nothin' man," he told me. "I bounced in a bar once years back…that place was rough. I been shot, stabbed, beat up…"

He went on to tell me about the time that two rival outlaw gangs got into a rumble at that bar—by the end of the night, a cop was shot and members of both clubs were mangled.

He had the battle scars in the form of a cluster of missing teeth to back up his stories, but I could tell he wasn't the lying type anyway.

He stood next to me at the bar and listened to the blues band for a couple songs before excusing himself outside to have a smoke.

It's hard to find bars around here where things like that happen anymore.



Moreover, it was in what we were doing: standing at the bar, drinking a beer, listening to a blues band, and telling some stories.

That's the reality of biker bars, right there. It's not fancy, and nothing that's anywhere near as brutal as the movies would like you to think.

In researching local biker bars for a recent article, I've found that the idea that there's blood on the floor every night is the stereotype that the bar owners seem to be trying to combat, and I don't blame them.

The amount of comments I get when I wear a "Great Notch Inn" t-shirt is mind-boggling, with most of them being along the lines of "I can't believe you go there!"

"Do you believe it?" I tell them. "And I haven't been shot once!"

Honestly, I've found these places to be safer than the college bars in the area, probably because of the intimidation factor that the clientele brings with them; the odds of a 21-year-old kid starting a problem shrink exponentially when a massive, bald-headed biker with "SS" tattooed on his neck is sitting right next to him.

But biker bars are full of guys who go to the bar for the same reason that the doctor or accountant do: to have a beer and relax. The fact that they ride in on a bike doesn't make any difference once they're in the door.

I have been in the worst places that North Jersey has to offer, from the seediest Paterson strip club to the hardest biker bar in the boonies, and yet the only problems I've ever had came about because I was looking for trouble myself.

When people say they're scared to go into a place like West Milford's Mountain Rest or the Great Notch, I tell them that, as clichéd as it sounds, follow the rule that Patrick Swayze gave his bouncers in the legendary film "Roadhouse" — be nice.

That one piece of advice will let you sit at nearly any bar in the country and have nary a worry, because bikers, like all other people, like to be treated with respect.

Common courtesies like holding the door open for someone, saying "please" or "thank you," and apologizing if you bump into a guy or spill a drink will get you a long way in these places, just like they do anywhere else.

Of course, don't get me wrong. If you walk into one of these places looking for trouble, you could quickly be in a world of hurt, but that rule tends to be the same in any bar.

The cold reality is that for all of the attention they receive in movies, television, and magazines, the "Double Deuces" of the world tend to get shut down because the real world has things like zoning boards, liquor licenses, and laws.

Are there motorcycle gangs that break the law? Sure. Are they going to do it in public, or risk getting locked up because of some dumb kid starting trouble at the bar? Not likely.

So give these places a shot next time you want to get out on Friday night. They've got character that is nowhere to be found in the soulless service bars of the chain restaurants of the world, and you might just meet some interesting folks that you didn't think you'd befriend otherwise.

Although if Sam Elliott walks in…you should probably leave.

Don't gamble with America's history

Wednesday, July 14, 2010
BY STEVE JANOSKI

As a child, my fascination with American history, and the Civil War in particular, could not be sated.

I had watched all of the movies and read all of the books, and did my best to tear the words off the pages and form lucid pictures in my head of what the scenes in America’s epic wars must have looked like.

Nothing, however, was comparable to the extraordinary experience of visiting a battlefield itself.

Though it may seem a dreary and boring chore to some, I loved walking along the ground I had read about so often, and tried hard to imagine the sights and sounds of war, though they were difficult to conjure against the often picturesque landscapes that exist so many years later.

Of all the places I visited, however, none held the same allure as Gettysburg.

The small hamlet has an aura about it that cannot be explained; it’s as if history rises up through the ground and floods the streets, enveloping every crack, every facet of its residents’ lives.

Bullet holes still festoon the buildings’ brick walls, and the hotel in which Lincoln composed his immortal Gettysburg Address still stands.

The gently sloping hills and slender ridges around the town where the battle was fought are quiet now, in stark contrast to the broiling hell that consumed them over three brutally hot days in July of 1863.

From July 1 to July 3, the South’s Army of Northern Virginia and the North’s Army of the Potomac clashed in a battle that was so indescribably horrifying, so sadistically violent, that by the end of the fighting, 51,000 Americans were considered casualties.

8,000 of these were killed outright in the fighting, and left their corpses to bake and rot under Pennsylvania’s summer sun.



These were men—American men—with families, with children, who gave up their inauspicious lives in Maine and Minnesota, in Alabama and Virginia, to fight for what they thought was right, and paid that ultimate sacrifice.

If there is any holy ground in this country, any land that should remain untouched as long as America stands, it’s the acres of dirt that once soaked up the blood of these hardened American warriors.

But, as a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer points out, not everyone holds this view.

In this case, the proposal calls for a $75 million, 600-slot casino to be built just a half-mile from the southern edge of the 6,000-acre Gettysburg National Park on a section of the battlefield that saw action, but isn’t owned by the National Park Service.

It’s being proposed by former Conrail chief executive David LeVan, who had a similar request for an even more massive casino shot down by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board in 2006 due to heavy opposition.

LeVan seems to have a special interest in building this monstrosity next to the battlefield— not surprising considering the weight that the Gettysburg name carries in relation to tourism.

The typical developer claims have been made: the casino won’t be visible from the battlefield, it will bring jobs to the economically depressed area, etc.

But, if there’s one thing we’ve all learned living in North Jersey, it’s that developers will say whatever they have to in order to get approval to build something, but when that something is complete, it rarely works like the developer said it would.

There are many who are far more intelligent than I that feel the same way, as nearly 300 historians, including more than one Pulitzer-prize winner, have signed a letter protesting the development to the Gaming Control Board, saying that its construction would be an "insult to the men who died there."

They are exactly right.

Can you imagine the outcry if LeVan wished to put a casino right on top of Ground Zero in New York?

Or maybe, a strip club inside of Independence Hall?

Should it be approved, the casino would be the prime example of capitalism run amok, destroying that which should be sacred to a people in the name of jobs, money, and profits.

Perhaps LeVan would be otherwise convinced if he read the words Lincoln spoke when commemorating the Gettysburg National Cemetery in November of 1863, for no one could say it better.

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

Do not forget what they did, Mr. LeVan.

Find somewhere else for your casino.

As a child, my fascination with American history, and the Civil War in particular, could not be sated.