Ask a head coach what his football team must do to win on any given Sunday, and he'll spit out an answer that could have been uttered at any time since the first pigskin was snapped:
"We need to focus on the fundamentals - blocking, tackling and moving the chains. We have to take advantage of our opportunities. When we're in the red zone, we need to score. When our opponents are in the red zone, we need to stop them. If we do that, we should be OK."
A successful baseball manager can spend decades running several teams, but ask him what his club must do to win this afternoon, and he'll be similarly opaque:
"We need to focus on the fundamentals - pitching, hitting, fielding and base-running. If we don't strand men in scoring position and we shut down the other team's batters, we should be OK."
Did you catch that? The team that puts more points, runs or goals on the scoreboard will win. This is why we keep score, and how Nike sells $300 sneakers. You already knew that, of course, but it's no reason to stop reading The Times-Tribune's award-winning sports section.
Or the local news pages, which lately have featured the quotes of Lackawanna County political candidates who make their contemporaries in the sports world seem like the great confessional orators of the age. Coaches and managers are careful to say nothing substantive because they actually have complex plans of attack they can't afford to compromise.
It's possible the candidates in the looming primary election have plans, too, but cruel history, healthy skepticism and their own words suggest otherwise. These coaches apparently hope to get hired first and develop plans of attack later, if ever.
I culled quotes from up and down Da Line, but for brevity's sake, I've chosen to focus on Scranton races. I don't attribute the quotes, because they are so empty, anyone could have uttered them.
In the Scranton mayoral race, there is no ignoring the decade-long scorched-earth war between outgoing Mayor Chris Doherty and city council President Janet Evans.
"Absolutely, I think it developed into bad blood. Doesn't everybody?"
Well, everybody with eyes, ears and a mind to cipher the data they collect. But how, specifically, do you plan to bring about a new age of harmony between the executive and legislative tribes?
"If you don't have this bad blood, then you can concentrate on the issues at hand, not the fighting. I think it was a distraction over the years."
That's obviously true, but not really an answer to the question. Let's try your opponent:
"You can't not talk to each other and then hit a crisis and expect that there's going to be a sense of where the vision is, what the priorities are on both sides."
Amen, but how do you plan to get everyone to church? Maybe the council candidates have a plan?
"Egos got involved, and for a while there they forgot there are 70,000 (actually 74,000) people in the city. When you are on council, it's not about yourself. That relationship has to be wide open. I think maybe there was a communication breakdown and we can't have that, especially with the financial state we're in."
"It was a power struggle. The breakdown was to show who was in charge, and I believe we saw the administration and council come together when the rubber hit the road, when the city was in dire straits. But I think it was too late."
"Check the egos at the door and come up with a plan that is acceptable by all and able to be implemented."
Yes, but what's the plan? Maybe the school district candidates have one.
"... I'm a fighter. I've fought for education and for our kids. I'll never give up that fight."
"Voting for me would give the citizens of the city a voice on the board."
"Our infrastructure of our neighborhoods depends a lot on our school district. If you're going to move here, you're going to want a good school system for your kids."
"Politics has no business being part of school district governments."
"They (students) are our future. They are the next generation."
You heard it here first: Today's kids are tomorrow's adults. The children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.
If they stick to the fundamentals, they should be OK.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, is focused on moving the chains. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter