Bierman's Six Pack: Issue #54

Welcome to this week’s Six Pack! Each week, I’ll share a mix of thoughts (some sports-related, some not) and I’d love for you to jump in with your reactions, ideas, or recommendations in the comments. Here’s what’s on my mind this week. 

1. Happy 90th Birthday Mom!

June Barbara Bierman was born on January 31, 1936, in Dearborn, Michigan. She was the youngest of three children, although her older brother tragically passed away at the age of four, a loss that understandably stayed with the family forever. Her parents were hardworking, middle-class people who ran a gas station and later operated a farm in retirement.

She met the love of her life, Robert, in high school. They married in 1958 and had four children over the next 14 years. Robert worked for Ford Motor Company and was transferred several times, with Bob and June living in Detroit, Cleveland, Dallas, and Los Angeles before eventually retiring to Tellico Village, Tennessee, just south of Knoxville. They lived there for nearly 30 years before moving back to Cleveland to be closer to their children. Bob sadly passed away in 2023.

As you can probably tell, these are my parents.

My mom, June, just celebrated her 90th birthday on Saturday in Cleveland, and we had a big blowout party for her that was very fun. Seeing so many people make the trip to celebrate this incredible woman, and hearing stories, many of them new to me, about her life was both heartwarming and soul-filling.

Few people make it to this age, and even fewer do so with their health mostly intact. And while her hearing and eyesight are not quite what they used to be, and she stopped driving a couple years ago, she still lives on her own and is managing just fine after nine decades on this earth.

Like most sons, I love my mom dearly and feel like I truly hit the mother jackpot. It was wonderful seeing her enjoy herself so much, smile all night, and blow out all those candles (just kidding, that might have been a fire hazard).

So happy 90th, Mom. We love you so much and are grateful for the positive impact you have had on so many people over your lifetime so far. And yes, I am already looking forward to celebrating your 100th.

2. Oldies But (Very) Goodies

With my mom reaching 90, it got me thinking about others who have reached that age, namely celebrities. So in honor of growing old with grace, here is my ranking of the top five current celebrities who are 90 or older, with a few honorable mentions at the end.

5) Carol Burnett (92)

One of the funniest women to ever walk this planet. If you ever want to enjoy a few minutes of pure comedy, just search for old clips from The Carol Burnett Show, where the actors quite often can’t even stay in character because everyone is laughing so hard. Classic and hilarious.

4) Willie Nelson (92)

Willie has been putting out hits since 1962 and is still performing. Yes, he just announced a 2026 tour, which is crazy impressive. No matter your age, you’ve heard of Willie Nelson, which says a lot about this guy and his place in our country’s culture. A true American icon.

3) Mel Brooks (99)

If Burnett is the funniest woman in this age bracket, Brooks is the male equivalent. He’s responsible for some of the most memorable comedies of all time, including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Producers, and History of the World. And I have to just say, Spaceballs might not be his most famous, but it is still one of the best movie spoofs ever made. 

2) Dick Van Dyke (100)

The gold standard. He just turned 100 in December and still seems like one of the kindest people in the entertainment world. Between Mary Poppins and The Dick Van Dyke Show alone, his impact on television and film is hard to overstate. Since Betty White passed, he might be the last truly universally liked celebrity we have.

1) Clint Eastwood (95)

This was an easy choice for me. One of my all-time favorite actors and Dirty Harry is one of the most iconic characters in film history. But so many other classics too, whether he was an actor, director, or producer. Unforgiven might be the best Western ever made and guilty pleasure alert: I love In The Line of Fire.  

Honorable Mentions: Shirley MacLaine (91), Judi Dench (91), Sophia Loren (91), William Shatner (94), Robert Wagner (95)

3. From Snoozers to Nail-Biters

I actually touched on this last year in Six Pack, and while I’ve never really repeated a topic in this column, I thought this one was worth dusting off, especially with the Super Bowl coming up fast.

I grew up in the ’80s and unfortunately for me as a young football fan, you never really knew if the Super Bowl was going to be a close one or a blowout. More often than not, it was the latter. But in recent years, the big game has felt much more competitive.

So I decided to revisit the numbers and share them again, just to show how much more competitive this game has become over time.

So what does this tell us?

First, the ’80s and ’90s were absolutely brutal for good Super Bowls, with only four of twenty games decided by one score. 

Second, parity is clearly working. The first 33 Super Bowls had an average margin of victory of 15.7 points, with only eight one-score games. Over the last 25, that number has dropped to 9.44, with 15 games going down to the wire.

Yes, we still get the occasional dud, such as the Seahawks’ 43-8 demolition of Denver in 2014,  but we’ve also seen the only two overtime Super Bowls happen in the past nine years. And three of the last four have been decided by exactly three points. Overall, the trend has been obvious: the games are closer and more competitive than they’ve ever been.

Now the real question is, how will this year’s version shape up? Are we in for an instant classic or will it be decided by halftime? Unfortunately, I have a feeling we might be in for a second straight double-digit whooping, coming off last year’s 18-point convincing win by the Eagles over the Chiefs. The Seahawks just look so good, and I’m still not fully sold on this Patriots team. 

Want the full breakdown? Be sure to check out this week’s Sandman Sports podcast, where we break down the game, make our picks, and throw in our favorite prop bets too.

4. Belichick Can Wait 

I’ve been reading and hearing plenty of people upset about Bill Belichick not getting into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Please take a deep breath and let’s not overreact. This simply isn’t the conspiracy some might think it is, even when we’re talking about the greatest coach of the modern NFL trying to get to Canton. Belichick has six rings, 333 wins, and more playoff victories than anyone in history. So on paper, I understand why this feels like it should be automatic.

But for coaches, it almost never is.

Only five head coaches have ever been first-ballot Hall of Famers: George Halas, Curly Lambeau, Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, and Don Shula. Even Vince Lombardi and Bill Walsh didn’t get in their first year. So this certainly isn’t unprecedented.

For context, this year’s process certainly didn’t help. The new rules throw recently retired coaches into a mixed pool with senior players and contributors, which invites strategic voting and a lot of “Belichick can wait, I’ll use my vote elsewhere.” Add in lingering Patriots fatigue, a few questionable scandals in his wake, and the Hall just being the Hall, and you get a delay that’s annoying, but not shocking.

It’s not a matter of if with Belichick, simply when. His résumé isn’t up for debate, and he’s obviously one of the best head coaches ever. First-ballot status may have felt inevitable, but historically, for coaches, that’s just not how this typically works.

This isn’t a travesty. It’s just Canton being slow, political, and occasionally petty, exactly like it’s always been. Don’t worry folks. He’ll be there soon enough, most likely wearing that hoodie and scowling away as he gives his acceptance speech.

5. Breaking Up With Pop

From about age 18 to 52, I’m pretty sure I drank at least one soda per day, and most days it was more like three or four. My go-to was Diet Coke, with the occasional Diet Mountain Dew mixed in. And on days I was feeling really wild, maybe a root beer or Dr. Pepper.

Pop, soda, “coke”, whatever you call it in your neck of the woods, it was just part of my daily routine.

Around age 22 or so, I started getting pretty bad acid reflux. Not every day, but probably once a month, and when it hit, it was brutal. I went to doctors, even had an endoscopy done, and eventually they just put me on Prilosec. That helped for a while, but I would still get bad episodes every couple months.

Then about two years ago, it got way worse. It was happening almost every other day. I couldn’t even sleep some nights the pain was so bad, and I honestly had no idea what was causing it.

Last Christmas I was telling my older brother about it, and he said he had the same thing and once he stopped drinking pop, it went away immediately. I was skeptical because I’d been drinking soda my whole life and this sudden spike felt new. But I was desperate.

So on December 29, 2024, I had my last sip of pop.

And guess what? I haven’t had a single stomach issue since that day. Not one.

So first off, thank you to my brother for a great piece of  advice that has made my life much better the past 13 months. And second, if you deal with anything like this and you drink a decent amount of soda, you might want to try scaling back to see if that helps. 

I still drink coffee, and of course beer, but my three to four pops a day have been replaced by a lot of bottled water. And that’s probably been a pretty good thing for my overall health too.

6. Let The Games Begin

Every four years, the sports world embraces the Winter Olympics, and believe it or not, the 25th Winter Olympiad kicks off in just a few days. And I cannot wait. So here are a few fun facts about this great event from years past, along with a brief sneak peek into this year’s version.

The first Winter Games were held in 1924 in Chamonix, France, with just 250 athletes from 16 countries competing in events like cross-country skiing, ski jumping, speed skating, and ice hockey.

In 1928, one of the events was skijoring, where athletes raced on skis while being pulled by horses. The Olympic flame became a Winter Games tradition during the 1952 Oslo Games, when the torch relay was carried entirely on skis. At Innsbruck in 1964, there wasn’t enough snow, so the Austrian army literally hauled tens of thousands of cubic meters of snow and blocks of ice down from the mountains just to make the Games possible. 

The Winter Games have also given us some of the most iconic moments in sports history. The Miracle on Ice. Sonja Henie winning gold at age 15. Eric Heiden winning five gold medals in speed skating in a single Olympics. Eddie the Eagle. Cool Runnings. And an endless list of events where the margin between gold and no podium is measured in hundredths of a second.

The Winter Olympics have certainly evolved from their early years with just a couple dozen events. Recent Games have featured around 3,000 athletes, more than 100 medal events, and sports that didn’t even exist a generation ago, like snowboarding, freestyle skiing, and short-track speed skating. The Games now alternate every two years with the Summer Olympics, giving us a winter fix right when football season is ending, which I personally am very grateful for.

Which brings us to this edition.

Milano-Cortina 2026 will be hosted across northern Italy from February 6–22. That puts Italy tied for second all-time in Winter Olympic hosts with three, behind the United States with four and tied with France. This year also marks the Olympic debut of ski mountaineering, where athletes climb and then descend mountains under their own power using backcountry skis and lots of endurance.

I’ll be glued to the TV for the next few weeks, and I’m sure I’ll be writing more about the Games as they unfold right here. Good luck to all those athletes who have worked so hard for one moment of glory. Years of incredible dedication will all come to fruition in a matter of minutes, and sometimes seconds. And that’s what makes the Olympics so awesome.

Is it Friday yet?

Thanks for checking out this week’s Six Pack, Sandman Nation! I’d love to hear your thoughts: what resonated with you, what you disagree with, or your own takes on these topics. Drop your comments and let’s keep the conversation going. And don't forget to subscribe to  The Sandman Ticket, our free, weekly newsletter with picks, insights, and a little bit of everything we love about sports.