and for about the next a half hour we're going to spend some time answering questions from the third grade students about where he'll elementary they've they've taken some time to write some questions down and they're going to try to play i guess stump the sportswriter or something along those lines so let's go ahead and get our first question are up there and yes who is the best player on the steelers at the question well tell you what that's a tough question it's very subjective i would have to say that the best player on the steelers it probably troy polamalu i think he's he's a guy that you know when when he's not in the lineup they have a lot of trouble winning without and i would say he's probably the best player on the team is next question pittsburgh steelers so i spend a lot of time covering football i also like baseball and basketball but if i have to watch a hockey game it would be a penguins game so i guess that would be my favorite team but again i'm not a i'm not a huge hockey fan especially defensively you know he gave them somebody that could block some shots and i think that definitely had an effect on syracuse they were very good team all season long and without fab melo in the lineup they were a different team their first loss this year came with went when he was suspended the first time hundred there's also some schools of thought that actually he kind of took a game that other people were playing in kind of morphed it a little bit so you know there is some of it was in the early eighty's hundreds at some point in at like i said abner doubleday is is credited with creating the game but that may not exactly be the case they were playing a game similar to baseball before that so you know it's the exact creation date is probably something that that we really don't know we just kind of know the era when it was created and it was that was in the early eighty's hundreds invented golf one was golf event golf golf is a game that started off in scotland you know and i don't think i could tell you the exact date i believe they've been playing golf since the seventeen hundreds and they play they played instead of having a regular golf ball they played with a it was kind of a stuffed leather shell that they played with so you know it's a much different game now than what it was when it was created unlike a lot of other sports where they're still similar in  the game is played the equipment in golf has changed dramatically over the years from what they originally started playing with sport well you know when i was growing up and i probably started playing sports organized sports when i was about your age i played baseball and basketball i played soccer i ran track and field and did all those different things and you know my dad was was an athlete and that was just kind of the thing the that you know that we did back then and you know i think it's good that everybody at least tries to play some kind of sport it's good you know i know you spend all day long in school when you're learning and you're exercising your brain but it's also very important to exercise your body as well to keep yourself healthy and i think you guys should try and play as many different sports as you can until you find something you like  but in the football world that's that's getting pretty old to play wide receiver in the n f l and you know it just comes a time when when you reach the those mid to late thirty's as an n f l player that you just can't you can't run as fast as you used to you can't jump as fast as  when your body starts to break down and that's really what was happening to hines ward his body just wasn't able to take the pounding that that you know he was taking playing in the n f l on a on a daily basis or a weekly basis any longer and it was time it was time for for  tampa bay in football they hired greg xiang know from from rutgers he was a college football coach at rutgers university and you know he had never coached before in the n f l as a head coach so it's kind of a big jump for him but  you know he's been a guy that has been as been talked about for a lot of big coaching openings in the in college football and they went to the tampa bay buccaneers hired him as their as their head coach it's going to be interesting to see what kind of job he does it's a much different game going from from the college game to the pro game fastest was to swim the english channel or how long it took them i know that's something that a lot of people have done over the years that used to be big news when somebody did that you know it's happened so much now that it's  hi my name is and why didn't team kiba go to the well you know the jets needed a backup quarterback and they like to run the wildcat system a little bit with which we means they had their quarterback do some different things other than just throw the football you know when denver signed peyton manning to a contract they really didn't have a need for tim thibeault any longer in terms of being their starting quarterback and they wanted to give him an opportunity to go somewhere where he could play a little more with with peyton manning in denver that wasn't going to happen so you know they gave they gave him an opportunity to go and play somewhere else and the jets were the team that won it in the most stay with that pick i think it's going to be kentucky and ohio state i thought those are the two best teams coming into the tournament and they really haven't done anything to change my opinion on that so i think that that will be the matchup and i think they'll be a great a great great match up in the  as the hardest work well you know that's a very good question because there are a lot of very difficult words i know we talked about hockey earlier that takes a lot of different skills in terms of the terms of skating i don't i don't i skate at all you know skating and the stickhandling s and that sort of thing baseball is a very difficult game it's very difficult you know for a major league baseball player to hit a ninety mile an hour fastball when it's moving around that's that's a very difficult thing you're going to fail you know seventy five to know seventy percent of the time if you're the batter having a good batter in baseball hits three hundred that means he fails seven out of ten times he doesn't he doesn't get a hit so i think that's a very difficult thing and i think that's something that's overlooking people talk almost on a year round basis because you're training even when you're not playing games or training and keeping your body in shape and i think that he'll take some time off and possibly come back as an announcer or working in television is in some way shape or fashion i think that he is he really helped himself by being on dancing with the stars and broadening his audience you know to more people knew who hines ward was after the dancing on the with the stars episodes the knew of who he was beforehand and i think that really helped him with his future you know we talked about that a little bit you know when when the denver broncos signed peyton manning who's who's a hall of fame quarterback we've got a peyton manning boy in a paint managers or it behind you with his indianapolis colts they had a denver broncos had an opportunity to sign a hall of fame quarterback who had some years left to play and they did so and you know tim tebow needed a you know he he wanted to go to a team where he could at least play a little bit and the new york jets offered him that opportunity basketball player i was fortunate enough to play a little bit of college basketball but obviously wasn't good enough to it to make it to the pros but you know i think that's that's a dream that every kid has when they're growing up and and you know i think that that's kind of one of the things you know when you when people look at sports it's sports people as heroes i think it's one of the things that why you do that because you know you do you want to be them some day you know and there are lots of plenty of other heroes out there you know when you look at your teachers when you look at the firemen in your in your community or the police officers those people are heroes as well your parents you know there's are all people that you should look at in and try to emulate when they do the right things and you know your sports the sports heroes oftentimes don't do the right things and but you know there are still people who who people look up to and you know you want to be those people so i think i think that's why you know a lot of kids you know want to be professional athletes that will be our last question for this segment and when we come  own i'm someone who cares about smiles and i live in where in your community i'm the one who puts a smile on your child's face i'm an orthodontist a dental specialist who cracks c ali the observer reporter in washington i'm here today as a special guest the third grade elementary students at power hill and they're asking me some questions here about the sporting world doing a great job with us we've had a couple kids stop me already and i don't like that so much but we'll get to get t go ahead by embracing how many records have the patriots how many records of the patriots said well you know there's a lot of different records in sports obviously there's there are you know all kinds of you know any any difference to to stick that they keep  games as it is a combination head coaching quarterback than any other duo in n h and all history so that would be one big record as to have set together winning more games than anybody else as a coach and a quarterback in  you know i like i said i'm not a huge hockey fan but but i guess if i had to pick a favorite team it would be the penguins hi i'm jacob was your favorite time reading about sports my favorite time writing about sports that's a very good question jacobs you know i've covered four super bowls in about ten and a f c championship games and i've had a lot of good times i've seen a lot of very good football games i would have to say i really enjoy going to training camp every year because there's so many new players there the steelers do their training camp in st vincent college in which probe and so you know you're kind of you're kind of turning the page on a new season you're meeting a lot of new different players and finding out their stories and  their backgrounds and to me that's really the fun part of the job is learning about those guys and learning about those new players so i would have to say you know my favorite time to cover the steelers is not is not covering the games themselves is covering those those those training camps know what i really think that it takes some time for a team to settle him especially with a new quarterback so i think that may be a bit of a struggle for them in the draft is going to play a big part of that as well so you know i think if i had to pick a super bowl champion this year i would probably say my favorite team to win the championship would probably be the green bay packers i would think they would be the favorite in my book yeah well the steelers are mike wallace not yes i do think that the steelers will sign mike wallace back i don't think anybody else is going to make him an offer that the steelers would be able to match the steelers want mike wallace back and i think that they'll figure out a way to get that done mike will accept the contract offer to stay in pittsburgh i think that's in his best interest as well and i think that those two see the two sides come together and get something done long term  about six grade and i just kind of followed him on up through the to the pro eval and i always liked isaiah thomas and i was fortunate enough that that the pitts the pistons actually got good and want to couple of championships before i you know i was still a big big fan of the n and that was that was a lot of fun so the detroit pistons are still even though they're not very good now they're still my favorite n b a team and then like your favorite sport to lots my favorite sport to watch that's a good question you know i like to watch a lot of different sports i would have to say that my favorite sport to watch is probably college basketball i really enjoy watching you know if i'm watching it on t v if i'm watching if i'm watching a game in person i do like to watch baseball because i like the  intricacies of the game but i think if you know if i'm going to sit down and watch a game just any game with any teams involved i'll sit and watch a college basketball game doesn't matter who the teams are i just just for fun i'll sit and watch that he's you know he's in his fourteenth season in the league and it comes a time when you sometime you have to cut ties with some of those older players it's a tough decision to make especially when you know a guy like peyton manning who's been the face of your franchise for so long you've had so much success with that player but they have an opportunity now to draft a guy who they think will be the next face of their franchise for another fifteen years so you know it was a diff defray difficult decision to make for the you know the indianapolis colts but it's one that they probably had to make because you know you only get that number one overall pick if you're lucky once and they have an opportunity to draft another franchise quarterback much like they did with peyton manning back in one thousand nine hundred eight taking him as a first overall pick so i think they made the right choice it was a very difficult choice but it was probably the right one i mean if he thinks going to win boy i'll tell you what right now the penguins look pretty good don't you think so you know i think they have a they have probably if you were going to if you were going to take odds on that i think the penguins would be the favorite right now once they get there because they've got sidney crosby back and even playing really really good hockey they're peaking at the right time you know i think that the new york rangers are going to be a very difficult team to knock out of the playoffs and i think that when you look out in the west st louis is pretty good as well but i would think that the penguins would be the odds on favorite mean what football team is your favorite and why what football team is my favorite well you know since i cover the n f l i really i really don't have a favorite team anymore when i was growing up i like the detroit lions i really like i was a big billy simms fan and i like barry sanders when i was in college i thought he was an outstanding player and i was fortunate enough when i when i when i got the job with the observer reporter i actually had the opportunity to interview barry sanders a couple times which is which was which is kind of cool you know but since i started covering the league and i cover so many games you know i really haven't you kind of lose that favorite team i really still like to watch college football so if i had a favorite team to pick in college football probably the pitt panthers because that's where i went to college so i would say that would be my favorite football team at this point  you know when i was when i was your age the pirates are still very good in fact they want to world series when i think when i was in sixth grade in one thousand nine hundred seventy nine a kind of dated myself there but you know that was that was a very exciting time here in western pennsylvania  same thing in the early ninety's when they when they had a good team i'd really like to see them get back to you know maybe not winning championships but at least competing for championships and i think they're in the right direction moving in the right direction i don't know that it will be this year but maybe within the next couple of years i think they're that they're moving in the right direction to to put together a team that they could have a chance to win on the field when i was growing up and he was just he was outstanding his matches with jimmy connors were were great stuff that was really when when you know tennis was male and men's tennis was really the king you know the women's tennis game is kind of this kind of overtaken the men's game a little bit because they have more star power right now you know pete sampras was a very good player as well back in the day you know he was he was very dominant but i would you know if i was in this is very subjective but you know if i had my pick i would say bo scoring records in did a lot of a lot of great things but those two are probably one and two maybe one and one b i don't know that that i would want to want to pick one over the other especially here in western pennsylvania i might get i might get run out of the building so will say let me with this you carson who is your favorite football player my favorite football player you know that's a tough question because i you know i cover so many games if i had to pick a favorite player right now in the league i would probably say larry fitzgerald again that's you know going back to my to my pit roots watched him come up through college you know he's a guy who who does things the right way i think and and know really does a good job he's an outstanding football player i like to watch him play too i mean it's a lot of fun to watch him play because even when he has two or three guys on him he's still able to go up and make catches and do things that other guys can't do what star football players i met well i've met a lot you know i covering the steelers for the last nineteen years i've met every steeler in the last nineteen years in addition you know when you when you go out and cover games around the league you meet a lot of different players as well so you know i've been i've been blessed to have the opportunity to do that you know there's a lot of people who've who've worked in the business for a very long time that didn't get the opportunity that i did and i was very very lucky to get that opportunity  you know when i when i started doing it i was twenty three years old and you know a lot of the players were the same age as me and i deserve guys that i had seen you know playing college football watching them on t v and it was it was very neat i know the  player the first professional player that i interviewed was kevin green with the steelers the first story that i wrote for the observer reporter and that was kind of a you know that was kind of a neat thing you know the time but you know as you as you get older and you do it favorite professional tennis player you know that that's a tough question i think you know there's there's a there's a girl here from peter's township alison risk who who's playing professional tennis right now and you know we do try to keep a very close eye on what she's  doing you know on the on the pro tennis circuit so you know i think i'd like to see her do well i think that would be great not only for for peters township for the area and for women's tennis in general you know here in western pennsylvania if she were able to go out and do well and win some games and win some big matches i think that would be an outstanding thing for for our area basketball my favorite professional basketball player right now i would i would probably have to say i said you know i know he's getting a he's getting a little older but i really like the way that tim duncan has carried himself throughout his career he's very technically sound as a player and i like the way that he plays the game so i would probably say it in this point tim duncan when i was younger it was it was isaiah thomas he was a guy that i that i you know really like to watch play but  and for the third grade students here from our elementary i hope they had a great day here peters township high school i'm d l ali and thanks for watching westwo