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The Norris & Long Show Best Of - Week Of August 27th

This week's edition of the Norris & Long Show Best Of includes interviews with Ralph Russo of the AP on pre-season college football rankings, and former NFLer and Baltimore native Tavon Mason on improving the lives of children in this community and beyond.

RALPH RUSSO

Ralph Russo, writer for the Associated Press, joined Ed and Rob to talk about the upcoming college football season and the AP rankings.

Ralph started off by talking about the pre-season AP polls, how the voting takes place and what pollsters should be looking at saying, "if you try to put people into a box it's subjective anyway, how can you not look ahead when rosters are incomplete...the pre-season poll is basically a best guesstimate and a conversation starter."

Ralph went on to talk about his voting and predictions saying, "I picked Florida State to win the National Championship, I'm pretty confident they'll win the ACC and not as confident they'll win it all...in has a little bit of a sense of 2013 but not that gas good, Jimbo has a history of getting quarterbacks ready."

Ralph finished by picking his most fragile team and a surprise team who can vault their way into the playoff at the end of the year.

TAVON MASON

Tavon Mason is a Woodlawn and University of Virginia graduate who spent time in the NFL and is now a coach at Stevenson University. Mason returns to the Mustangs staff for his second season as an assistant at Stevenson working with the tight ends.

Mason joined the Norris and Long Show to talk about his foundation "Tavon Loves The Kids" and trying to help with children's health.

Mason started by talking about his foundation and his mission saying, "I started my 'Tavon Mason Loves The Kids' foundation in 2011 with the initiation of getting kids healthy and active...our slipper drive has gone up every year and we've collected over a thousand this year and we distribute them to different children's hospitals throughout the DMV."

When asked about what drove him to this calling of trying to help children in his life, Tavon said, "I always wanted to do something for kids, my dream was always to have my own rec center and I'm still pushing for that...I feel like I'm supposed to do this, I was able to go to school, go to college and play football so I want to give this back."

Tavon also went on to talk about his quest to help with childhood obesity and help to make children more active and change philosophies of schooling.

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