"The Birthplace of College Football" Removed?

According to this article on NJ.com this afternoon, the letters spelling out "The Birthplace of College Football" have been removed from the field-level wall on the south end of Rutgers Stadium.
According to the statement in the article from Jason Baum, Rutgers' senior associate athletic director for communications, a new spot for the letters hasn't been decided yet, but I have a suggestion. Put them back on top of the scoreboard (photo below from the December 5, 2009 West Virginia game) where they were before the sponsorship deal that removed them and replaced them with the commercial name we have never used (and will never use) when referring to Rutgers Stadium or R House or The Birthplace of College Football.

And put the letters back on the south wall too.

Two Days To Go Until the 2013 Season Begins in Fresno

Here's an immortal play to get Rutgers fans psyched from Number 2, Tim Brown, receiving a pass from (Pitt's new starting quarterback) Tom Savage in 2009 to come from behind against UConn with seconds remaining:

What to watch when your Scarlet Knights aren't playing football.

As a fan of Rutgers Scarlet Knights football, you might think that there's no reason at all for you to pay the slightest attention to any of this weekend's college gridiron battles while our Knights are enjoying a bye week, mais au contraire mon frère!
There are at least 10 games in which you, as a loyal son or daughter of Rutgers, should have at least a mild rooting interest over the next three days. Here they are, in order of appearance (not in order of importance):

Tonight @ 7:30pm: Virginia Tech at East Carolina. You should root for the Pirates to beat the Hokies. While not vital, it's necessary for some teams currently ranked in the twenties to lose to make room for the Scarlet Knights.
Friday @ 8pm: Boise State at Louisiana Tech. The Smurfs must lose, as must every other undefeated team except Cincinnati. The best chance for the Scarlet Knights to make it into a BCS bowl begins with the Bearcats making it to the National Championship game. To do that they need to do more than go undefeated; they need for all the other undefeated teams (or all but one) to lose.
Saturday @ 12 noon: UCF at Texas. See above. Death to Longhorns.
Saturday @ 12 noon: Northwestern at Iowa. The Hawkeyes are undefeated? The Hawkeyes must lose.
Saturday @ 12 noon: Syracuse at Pittsburgh. We Rutgers fans want to see Otto the Orange giggling with glee and rolling on the sidelines of Ketchup Stadium as Syracuse breaks out of their week of extreme bad luck with a laughingly easy victory over the Panthers. Why? Not only does Cincinnati need to win convincingly every week, but the Panthers need to lose three games in order for the Scarlet Knights to jump over them in the Big East standings.
Saturday @ 12 noon: Louisville at West Virginia. The Mountaineers need to have the best possible record and ranking when they enter Rutgers Stadium on December 5th, so say bye bye Cardinals (& move one step closer to the end of the Kragthorpe era at PapaJohnsStadium).
Saturday @ 2:30pm: Navy at Notre Dame. Notre Dame is another of those schools ranked in the twenties that needs to make room for the Scarlet Knights. Plus we'd just love to see the Midshipmen beat the Leprechauns after losing to the Temple Owls last week. Plus we just love to see Notre Dame lose. Don't you?
Saturday @ 3:30pm: LSU at Alabama. The losses need to be evenly distributed around the SEC in November, so this Saturday it's the Crimson Tide's turn to be mauled decisively by the Tigers of Baton Rouge.
Saturday @ 4pm: TCU at San Diego State. The Aztecs need to rip the heart out of any Horned Frog dreams for an undefeated 2009 season.
Saturday @ 7:15pm: Vanderbilt at Florida. Florida is undefeated. You know for whom to root. Commodores. Commodores. Toot. Toot. Toot. (If that isn't their cheer, it should be.) OK, so Vanderbilt lost to Army. All that means is that if the Gators don't beat them by twenty points, then the Gators don't deserve their top national ranking.
Saturday @ 8pm: Connecticut at Cincinnati. You almost feel sorry for the fluffy white doggies from Storrs this year. With a couple of bounces in their favor in the fourth quarter, they could be 8-0 rather than 4-4, but as Rutgers fans we have to root for them to go 4-5 on Saturday night, and for them to lose convincingly to the Big East leaders, for all the reasons already given above.

What Constitutes "Success" for the 2009 Scarlet Knights?

At this point in 2008 the Rutgers Scarlet Knights with current NFL'ers Mike Teel, Tiquan Underwood, Jamaal Westerman, and Kenny Britt were 2-5 and looking like they could end up well below .500. As Mike Teel's interceptions magically became touchdowns, the team showed its ability to end the season with offensive records shattering in almost every game; seven straight wins erased most of the bad taste left by the five early season losses for most the the Scarlet faithful.
This year's Scarlet Knights, after losing their all-time leading passer and all-time leading receiver to the pros, and with true freshmen Tom Savage and Mohamed Sanu leading the charge, are 5-2 with five conference games to go and with both losses being to teams that are now in the top 15 of the BCS rankings. Yet some "fans" are acting as if the Knights' golden years are behind them and that this season is somehow over.

• How do you feel the young Knights are going to come together in this second half of the 2009 season?
• Vote in the new sidebar poll. Will the Knights have five conference wins after December 5th's game? Three? None??
• How many victories constitutes "success" for these young Knights?
• If the season ends with only one more victory, but that victory is against the Mountaineers, will that be enough comfort to take into the off season?

Speaking of the Mountaineers, even they have problems with their "fans."

Which Big East teams to root for in Week Seven

There are four games this week that will involve Big East teams. If you're a fan of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights who is unsure of how to root in any of these contests, we'll be glad to give you guidance.

~~Thursday, October 15, 7:30pm
The 5-0 (1-0) Cincinnati Bearcats will be visiting the 5-0 (1-0) South Florida Bulls for the marquee Big East matchup of the weekend. One of them will leave Raymond James Stadium with their first loss and the other will be the favorite to win the Big East's BCS Bowl bid. So, for whom should we Friends of Rutgers root? It's easy. As annoying as they are, we need to root hard for USF (aka, South Florida, Ponce de Leon University, Flamerica University, Sunshine State University, Citrus State University, etc.). There are two reasons for this. 1) Cincinnati will need to lose twice if Rutgers is to have any chance of winning the Big East, and 2) the higher USF is ranked when they visit Rutgers Stadium in November, the more of a bump it will give to the Scarlet Knights' national ranking and recognition when the Knights win that game on November 12th.

~~Friday, October 16, 8pm
The ferocious 5-1 (2-0) Pittsburgh Panthers (see illustration to the left for identification purposes) head to Piscataway, New Jersey to take on the 4-1 (0-1) Scarlet Knights of Rutgers. If you have any doubt as to which way you're rooting in this one, then you are reading the wrong blog. One of these two teams will be ranked by many poll voters at the end of the night. If you are lucky enough to have tickets for the game and you feel that you are not willing to stand and yell loudly enough to damage to your vocal cords whenever the Knights are on defense, then you should stay at home, watch on ESPN, and give your tickets to someone louder and more rambunctious. The only words that should not be allowed on Friday night? That's easy: "Down in Front!"

~~Saturday, October 17, 12pm
The 2-3 (0-1) Louisville Cardinals will be visiting the 3-2 (0-1) University of Connecticut Huskies. This is a pick'em in which Beat Visitor dot com is taking no formal position. As long as the Scarlet Knights beat both teams later this year, you can root based on which of your personal hatreds is greater.

~~Saturday, October 17, 3:30pm
The 4-2 Marshall Thundering Herd will be thundering into Morgantown to meet the 4-1 (1-0) West Virginia Mountaineers. This one is easy not only for Rutgers fans, but for all fans of Big East teams. Let's Go Mountaineers! The Big East should not be dropping any games to non-conference foes as long as sportswriters and fans of other conferences are questioning our conference's legitimacy and ownership of an automatic BCS Bowl bid.

Syracuse is the only Big East team to have the coming week off. There will be no Crying Child next weekend.

The End of the Beginning

I wondered out loud somewhere in this blog over the last couple of years whether or not we would ever see an interesting sunset over Rutgers Stadium after the enclosure of the South Endzone. The picture up above taken during the fourth quarter yesterday should answer that worry. At least we're still watching football outside. At least we're not in a fucking dome, or watching the game on an idiot box from our couches. Though I have to say that many of the people around me were acting as if they might have been sitting on naugahyde recliners in their rumpus rooms rather than on hard aluminum in R House. Though the section was pretty full considering the quality of the opposition, the fans around me could not have been quieter when the Scarlet Knights were on defense. I think I even yelled, "Come on Section 123, if this team scores, it's OUR fault!" I hope (and expect) this will all change on Friday night when our defense is trying to stop the Panthers.
It's hard to believe that there are only three games left at Rutgers Stadium in the 2009 season, starting this Friday with a big one against Pittsburgh (followed by USF visiting in mid-November and West Virginia in early December).

Ryan D'Imperio & the Scarlet Knights singing at the end of yesterday's game.

I hope to stick around to see a happy team singing On the Banks of the Old Raritan after each of the remaining home games. Now it's for real again (for the first time after the opener against Cincinnati). The biggest triumph yesterday against Texas Southern, other than the ability of the defense to earn a shutout and keep the TSU Tigers to 126 total yards (and negative 25 yards of rushing), was to see Tom Savage up and throwing and rushing and acting with the composure of a veteran for three full quarters. That and, of course, the fact that no one seems to have gotten banged up in the run up to our second Big East game.

Tom Savage in the pocket against Texas Southern on 10 October 2009.

That's the last word on TSU.
Now it's officially Pittsburgh Panther week.

The 4th 2009 BlogPoll Ballot of Beat Visitor dot com

The tradition is to post a preliminary ballot and solicit your comments and suggested changes so that I can finalize the list before the final compilation on CBSSports.com on Wednesday morning. You can still add whatever comments or changes you want by clicking below, but I won't be able to read them until September 30th, and I won't be revising this list. As soon as I post this, I'm going offline and leaving the country for over nine days.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida
2	Texas	1
3	Alabama	1
4	Penn State	1
5	California	2
6	Mississippi
7	Miami (Florida)	11
8	Cincinnati	4
9	LSU
10	Boise State	1
11	Southern Cal	9
12	Ohio State	1
13	Virginia Tech	3
14	TCU	3
15	Oklahoma
16	Houston	5
17	Florida State
18	Oklahoma State	4
19	Brigham Young	11
20	Pittsburgh	3
21	Michigan	4
22	Georgia	2
23	North Carolina
24	Georgia Tech	14
25	Kansas
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Nebraska (#14), Texas Tech (#19), Utah (#20).

You can click on the scribbles reproduced to your right to see my brilliant reckoning of the new top 25. For those of you who don't want to try to decipher code, my biggest movers in a downward direction this week are USC, BYU, Georgia Tech, Nebraska, Utah, and Georgia Tech, the biggest mover in an upward direction is "Da U", and my newcomers to the list are Kansas, North Carolina, and Florida State (with the last two actually being returnees who were prematurely ejected from my poll in earlier weeks).
Sorry if this seems rushed, but I've got to finish packing and get to Newark aiport.
Na shledanou.

Or you can simply call them The (other) Panthers

Get your game preview from an FIU perspective by clicking here.

Get your 17 pages of FIU Game Notes by clicking here. Learn about the players, FIU's short football history, and get tidbits like the one illustrated to your right. Who knew that you can call them FIU, but not Florida International, or Florida International University, or FI, or Fla Int'l, or Flintl, or Floridint, or any other variation? I guess it's like KFC running away from their former identification with Kentucky chickens or ESPN standing for nothing but ESPN.

And, of course, you know that you can get your official Scarlet Knights information for Saturday's game by clicking on these Preview and Game Notes links.

Beat Visitor's 3rd BlogPoll of 2009 is up for your comments and/or accolades

Here's my third BlogPoll ballot of 2009. There are no changes in my rankings until you get to #7 and #9, where the top-ten spots that had been held by the "O" States (Oklahoma and Ohio respectively) have been vacated. Oklahoma State dropped the most precipitously, from #7 to #22 because of their 45-35 loss to previously unranked Houston. Ohio State dropped only 4 spots from #9 to #13 because of their close loss to #2 USC. Ohio State is now the highest-ranked 1-loss team on my ballot. Georgia, which narrowly beat the other USC yesterday is the lowest-ranked 1-loss team here because their loss in week one to Oklahoma State now looks even worse because of OK State's precipitous drop.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida
2	Southern Cal
3	Texas
4	Alabama
5	Penn State
6	Mississippi
7	California	1
8	Brigham Young	5
9	LSU	1
10	Georgia Tech	2
11	Boise State
12	Cincinnati	5
13	Ohio State	4
14	Nebraska	4
15	Oklahoma
16	Virginia Tech
17	TCU	3
18	Miami (Florida)	5
19	Texas Tech	2
20	Utah	2
21	Houston
22	Oklahoma State	15
23	Pittsburgh
24	Georgia	10
25	Michigan
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: North Carolina (#19), Iowa (#24), Notre Dame (#25).

You can see the sausage being made by clicking on the scribbles to the right that I made on my Week 2 ballot. The most important handwritten note, of course, is the line to the left of #4 Alabama. For those of you who can't read my chicken scratchings, it reads "RU needs to beat FIU by more than 25 pts next week!" If a Tom Savage-led Rutgers team can beat Florida International by a wider margin than that rolled up by the Crimson Tide yesterday, then maybe the Scarlet Knights will start getting more notice again -- beginning their comeback from the first week's collapse under another QB.
The dropping from the poll of #25 Notre Dame (and their replacement by Michigan) needs no explanation after the Wolverines' 38-34 victory over the Leprechauns, but North Carolina's 12-10 victory over the University of Connecticut Huskies on the strength of a safety (awarded because of a holding penalty in the endzone) did not show that the boys in baby blue deserved a place in my poll for now. New #21 Houston and #25 Michigan have moved into the top 25 for obvious reasons already mentioned. #23 Pittsburgh's entry is more of a gut feeling move for me (and if I can be accused of homerism for favoring a second Big East team, then every SEC voter can be accused of the same thing).
As always, please feel free to savage or praise this week's entry in the Comments section (no registration required).

The Quote of the Day about Rutgers Football and the good news from yesterday's game

"Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant." -- Horace

Imagine for a second that yesterday's game between the Scarlet Knights and the Bearcats had still been lost by Rutgers, but in an entirely different way. Imagine that the final score, rather than being 47-15, had been a more respectable 21-17 and that Dom Natale, though not playing a perfect game, had not capped his first half with a third interception. Imagine that he had played just well enough to keep himself in the game and to keep the talents of Tom Savage lying dormant on the sideline with his headphones and clipboard rather than on the field with a helmet and football. Yesterday's adversity (and in the long run a loss is a loss whether it's by four points or forty) then would not have given us a clear solution to our quarterback question. We would still be pondering the Tom Savage / Dom Natale conundrum today rather than knowing that we have our quarterback for the next four years. Next Saturday he'll have his first start, the Scarlet Knights will have their first victory, and 2009's football team will finally start to gel (just one game too late).

Some Questions Settled Earlier Today. One New Question Unanswered.

A beautiful view of the expanded Rutgers Stadium on 7 September 2009
(beautiful except for the halftime score, that is)

I'm not going to write too much tonight, or put together a video before bedtime (or ever?) of today's 47-15 loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats in R House, but there were some questions settled today in Piscataway.

1. Freshman Tom Savage is the starting quarterback for the Scarlet Knights for the rest of 2009 (and he should have been the starting quarterback in the first half as well as the second today).
2. Mohamed Sanu is another true freshman who will be thrilling Rutgers fans with his receptions and runs for the next four years.
3. One Big East team deserves to be placed firmly in all the top 25 lists (hint: it's not the Scarlet Knights)

But some questions remain unanswered, chief among them being:

1. Where was the f***ing defense?

Summer's Gone and the Time is Right for Dancing on our Seats

The best day of the year. Summer officially ends. The New Yorkers with their Benzes and Beemers and Bentleys (none of whom know how to drive) will be gone from my beach town when I get home tonight, with my shredded vocal cords and bleeding ears, after watching my Scarlet Knights at Rutgers Stadium.
If I'm home in time I may post my BlogPoll contribution tonight after today's Rutgers/Cincinnati and Florida State/Miami games. If not tonight, it will go up early tomorrow morning.
I'll definitely post some photos and videos from the game later this week.
I'll also be doing a little tweeting from the game if I can get a connection, but not if it gets in the way of screaming and yelling and banging on the aluminum benches.
Have fun today, whether you're in the Stadium with the noise and the cannon smoke, or just screaming with joy in a bar or living room! It's time for me to get ready to hit Route 18.

With a day to go until football begins . . .

Some of you may not know what to do today, though you may be tempted to head to the parking lots on the north bank of the Raritan River 24 hours early with tents and grills and footballs and coolers full of adult beverages. Sorry, you have to wait a little longer, but you can click these links to more fully immerse yourself in the world of the Scarlet Knights until kickoff tomorrow at four.

• The Official Rutgers Preview and pdf Game Notes for the game
• The Official Cincinnati Bearcats Preview and Game Notes from GoBearcats.com
• Updates from Game Day at the Daily Targum
• Updates from Scarlet Scuttlebutt
• Updates from Bleed Scarlet
• Updates on Rutgers Football at NJ.com (Star-Ledger)
• Current Tweets mentioning Rutgers (if you're on Twitter, tweet it up!)
  
• Remember your cheers, rules, and wave instructions

And while we're all anxiously waiting to see whether Dom Natale, Tom Savage, or Jabu Lovelace will get that first snap tomorrow afternoon, one other Rutgers quarterback did not have to wait until Monday to get his season started, his chance to play, and to pass for 245 yards and score three touchdowns in an opening day victory. Chris Paul-Etienne, who saw a couple of years wearing scarlet, is now the starting quarterback for the University of Rhode Island. Here he is in a very short clip from the 2008 Scarlet-White game throwing a short pass to Shamar Graves:

Congratulations Chris! We'll always remember you as a Scarlet Knight, and may you lead URI to an undefeated season.

If you build it, they will come!

There will be more fans at R House on Monday than there were on 6 Nov 2006.

Again, not to beat dead horses, but it would be great to hear the lamentations and gnashing of teeth among the Stadium expansion naysayers in response to the facts that 1) the Rutgers Stadium expansion is going to be finished in time for the season opener, and now 2) the official announcement has been made that all 52,454 seats in the expanded Stadium are sold out for its christening in two days at the game between our Scarlet Knights and the Cincinnati Bearcats.
And I can't wait to celebrate by our mass cretinism by dancing the Cretin Hop! I have heard a rumor that you may be hearing it before the game starts. So get ready for your new Stadium chant:
". . . 1,2,3,4 cretins wanta hop some more . . . 4,5,6,7 all good cretins to heaven* . . ."
_______
*Heaven, a.k.a, Rutgers Stadium on a game day.

The 2009 Preseason BlogPoll has been compiled and published.

The BlogPoll, of which my vote constitutes .99009% (1 of 101) of the total result, has been published this afternoon. As with the Coaches and AP Polls, there is no Big East football team in the top 25, but the top 5 teams are closely clustered in the thirties: Pittsburgh 32, Rutgers 33, Cincinnati 35, West Virginia 36, and South Florida at 37. As in the other polls, UConn, Louisville, and Syracuse were not among those receiving votes. Click Here for Brian Cook's detailed analysis of the opening poll.
The bunching of the top five Big East teams shows the perceived parity among these teams, but it is just a perception at this point and it could change radically and quickly once the pigskins start flying. I'd also like to point out that I have seen this parity referred to on two websites (non-Rutgers websites) as the "parody within the Big East," which is a perfect example of someone who is getting their language skills verbally through radio and television and hoping that his or her (OK, his) spellchecker will bail him out (in these cases it just made him look silly, or a parody of a sports journalist).

Rule #12, or Training Camp for the Rest of Us

The players have been training hard for a while now but our training camp, as fans, is much easier. Your whole playbook fits into this one short blog post.
We have many fewer rules than the Freshmen of the Class of 1923 had in the Rutgers College Handbook Volume XXVI, 1919-1920 , but rule number 12 from that little book should be considered as true now as it was then (see the full Freshman Regulations with Beat Visitor's 2009 annotations by clicking here):

12. Failure to know the songs and yells before the
first football game will be detrimental to your health.

The first football game of the year against the Cincinnati Bearcats is less than two weeks away, and here are The Four Absolutely Necessary Songs and Yells at Rutgers Stadium:
1) R ... U ... R ... U ... etc. This one is idiot proof. If someone yells R at anytime on game day, you yell U. If you're on the bus from the parking lot at the RAC and someone yells R, you yell U (especially if there are fans with the opposing team's colors on board). If a handful of people on the opposite side of the Stadium yell R and point in your direction, you -- and all your neighbors -- yell U as loudly a possible. Like I said, idiot proof. But there are always some idiots who feel they are above yelling at a football game (they should reminded of Rule #12). If you and some of your leather-lunged friends are feeling ambitious, you can yell R yourself and start a chant in the parking lot or on a refreshment line or while walking into the mens' room. The line of fellow Scarlet Knights at the urinals with their backs to you are under an obligation to reply.
2) First Down! Touchdown! Go RU! After every Rutgers first down, you will hear the familiar voice of Joe Nolan proclaim over the loudspeakers : "And THAT is a Rutgers FIRST DOWN!" Your duty as a fan is to scream that along with him and point emphatically in the direction the Knights are traveling when you get to the words "first down." The band will immediately start to play a fanfare (a tune that will become very familiar with repetition as the Scarlet Knights march up and down the field at will). After the first repetition of the fanfare, you yell HEY. The second repetition will be in a higher key, you yell HEY at the end. The third, still higher, repetition of the theme will be followed by HEY, First Down! Touchdown! Go RU!. Like I said, you'll get a lot of practice in the first game. If you're in one of those sections where your neighbors like to sit quietly, and they give you a look, you can give them a look back, or make copies of Rule #12 to hand out in your section.
3) Here's the reason we come to the games rather than sitting at home listening to the radio: R U rah rah! R U rah rah! / Hoo-rah Hoo-rah Rutgers rah! / Upstream Red Team / Red Team Upstream / Rah Rah Rutgers Rah! Like the first down chant, this will become very familiar with repetition. You get a chance to practice once with the band as they play "The Bells Must Ring" before the National Anthem before the game, and then you will chant it over and over again after every Rutgers touchdown or field goal (you can see it in action at the 2:19 mark in this video -- you will also hear where to add "Fight Fight Fight" in "The Bells Must Ring".)
4) On the Banks of the Old Raritan. You have no excuse not to sing along with your beautiful Alma Mater (the nation's best Alma Mater) at the beginning of the game with the band (and sometimes glee club) and at the end of the game with the team. Not only do you only need to know the first verse, but the words are usually projected on the scoreboard and zippers. If your neighbors don't sing, you know which rule they are violating. Also, note in the illustration up above that there is also a page for the Class of 1923 entitled "A Word to the Wise." Note the second piece of advice: "While 'On the Banks' is being sung all Rutgers men rise and uncover." In other words, don't sit down and put your cap on after the National Anthem, you have another song to sing (we'll assume that you already sang The Star-Spangled Banner with feeling and are in the mood to sing some more).

Tomorrow's Fan Lesson: Something New for the New Stadium, "The Rolling R!"

Rutgers Quarterbacks. Number 7, Tom Savage

It's hard to imagine the presence of a high-school junior making more of an impression on a college football stadium full of people, but on April 17, 2008, the news broke that a highly-recruited quarterback from Pennsylvania had decided to play his college football on the Banks of the Old Raritan (here's a link from the New York Post of 4/17/08). One day later, on Saturday, April 18th, Tom Savage walked into Rutgers Stadium for the Scarlet-White Game.

Click on this and you can even read Tom Savage's nametag.

No announcement was made as he entered R House, but by the time he had made it halfway to his seat, the word had spread and everyone was looking at the kid in the Phillies cap and applauding. Click on the picture to see it full size. Look at the direction into which all of the sunglasses are pointed. Even the cheerleaders are shielding their eyes from the sun to see who has dared to direct the pre-game attention away from them.
Fast forward a year and four months and the talk about Tom Savage being redshirted in 2009 seems to have been replaced by talk about his bid for the starting quarterback job this year Check out these Star-Ledger articles from Tom Luicci yesterday, "Rutgers freshman quarterback Tom Savage draws comparisons to John Elway," and "Rutgers' second scrimmage: Freshman Tom Savage makes his bid to be the starting quarterback," from which the following quote is taken:

"Tom has a good level of composure for a young guy. More than I expected," Schiano said.

And everyone (including Coach Schiano) has expected a lot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Finally, I just have to say that "Tom Savage" still strikes me as an almost mythical name for a college football quarterback. It could be the name of a lead character in a series of inspirational books for boys in the 1930's: Tom Savage and the Stolen Cannon Caper, Tom Savage Tames the Wild Mountaineer, Tom Savage Cages the Bearcat . . . etc. And his number, Seven, they don't get any luckier.