It's all relative:  We were going over the Hall of Fame list and we suddenly thought:

Hey – are some of these guys related?  Sure enough, they are (as in, they’re brothers, fathers and sons and even cousins).  Kicking it all off, here’s a list of brothers who played for Neshaminy’s “grid eleven” over the years and then made it into the football Hall of Fame (listed alphabetically by last name): 

Pretty neat, huh?  Fourteen sets of brothers (and nice job by the Cordelli and Meier boys too as they each managed to put three each on the “Wall”). 

Thinking about this section again, maybe we should have called this one Brothers In Arms.  What do you think?

It’s All Relative – Part II:  Well if you liked the “brothers” connection – how about fathers and sons!  Yup – we have a few of them too (not many – but here they are):

Wow.  Those Cordellis sure piled it on.  And speaking of piling it on – as far as we know not only can they claim a tie with the Meier clan for most “boys” in the football Hall of Fame (three each) but the Cordellis can take the “family” title with four in total when “Pops” is thrown in the mix.  One other point we should make as to this father/son thing, both the Cordelli bunch and the Swartz connection feature a Dad who was a coach (both were assistant coaches under John Petercuskie before enjoying their time as a head coach after Petercuskie’s departure).  As to the Covington and Sauerbry clans, both the patriarchs and offspring were players (the Covingtons were offensive ends while Papa Bruce Sauerbry was an offensive lineman as was son, Terry).

Pretty cool.

Oh jeez!  We almost forgot.  There’s one more category – cousins.  That’s right – cousins.  There are two sets.  Anyway, the drum roll please – and here’s the last two guys: 

 “But they’re cousins, identical cousins all the way – one pair of matching bookends, different as night and day!”  (Anybody recall that song at the beginning of The Patty Duke Show?)

Okay, back to business (and finally), so we don’t appear callous and uncaring, we’d like to give a special tip o’ the hat to the Moms who provided the sons – and put up with the husbands – because without them, well, we wouldn’t have much to talk about.  Thank you ladies!  Oh – one other thing.  We heard that there might be and uncle/nephew link.  We’re looking into that possibility (we’ll get back to you if it pans out).

What’s in a name anyway? (Part I): Neshaminy, Neshaminy, Neshaminy, Neshaminy, Neshaminy. Were obviously talking about Neshaminy as in Neshaminy High School. And for the record, we just love that name. Neshaminy – that is.

Anyway, where did that name come from anyway? Well, we know that it is an “old” Native American word and/or name; however, is it a Native American name for the creek (as in the Neshaminy Creek) or a Native American name for a tribe (the Neshaminy Tribe)? That’s one we haven’t been able to completely discern but we did find a reference to the word or name Neshaminy in a document from 1683. And very interestingly it was a William Penn document at that! Bet you’d like to hear more – so read on!

First let’s travel back to 1682 when Willy was first nailing down the land that would become part of his vast holdings (at that time what you might consider as Eastern Lower Bucks County – where Pennsbury High is located). Without going into great detail (and boring detail, at that) that was the squared away (the purchase) through a little of this and a little of that - and for a short while things were good for Willy and company.

(Continued from "What's in a Name Part 1 ...)

A year later, though, it looked like a little more elbow room was needed so a second purchase was arranged (which was,. more or less, all of the rest of Lower Bucks). In describing the boundaries of the land – from the western edge to the eastern side - it went like this: “[The] purchase shall include [all that land] betwixt Pemmapecka (Pennypack) and Nessaminehs (Neshaminy) Creeks.”

Yup, that’s what it said – Nessaminehs Creek. And Nessaminehs later became – you guessed it - Neshaminy. Of course, what’s interesting is that William Penn served as the namesake of Pennsbury High School (of course) while he also may have been one of the first folks to cause the name of Pennsbury’s cross-town rival, Neshaminy, to be written down (even if it was only phonetically).

We wonder: Was Mr. Penn thinking of football way back then? Nah!

But then again …

What’s in a name anyway? (Part II): Well, since the latest season ended we’ve had some time to do a little more research on this topic and we’ve come up with a bit more about that name of our school – Neshaminy, that is. It turns out that the word Neshaminy – or Nessaminehs – is actually a Lenni Lenape First Nation word meaning “[the] place we drink twice”.

What’s that you say? Neshaminy has something to do with drinking twice? (Maybe the reference is to how thirsty the players are after two-a-day practices.) Nahh. What those Lenni Lenape fellows were talking about is a section of the creek known as the Neshaminy Palisades (the Palisades are in Dark Hollow Park which is wedged in between Buckingham Township and Warwick Township). That Neshaminy Palisades area features a location where the water slows and takes a new direction rather dramatically. In fact, the directional change is at almost a perfect right angle which just about forces the water back upon itself at that spot. What that has to do with drinking twice we don’t know except maybe it was so interesting to watch it made the observer thirsty – twice.

What’s in a name anyway? (Part III): Where did that nickname come from anyway?  What’s the origin and background?  Who came up with it?  When was it first used and why?  And I’m talking about the mascot (the Redskins – duh).  So after digging through all the archival material I could find (and talking to anybody who’d listen) the answer is – nobody knows for sure!  But there are some theories about why the students, administration and Langhornians (?) thought it was a good idea to “be” the Redskins, to wit: