He’s been in the hunt in the past, but ran out of gas near the finish line.

Not this time.

With a commanding lead over the also rans, Justin Carlucci is the inaugural winner of the Bob Ford Memorial Grid Picks Cup.

Carlucci gets the gold, and a one-year residence upon the king’s throne - and did it in impressive fashion. Carlucci finished five games ahead of second-place Rod Heckman. It was the biggest margin since 2016 when Patrick Matsinko won the title.

The best Carlucci had finished in recent years was third place. The irony is that he left writing sports full time at the Times News and moved to the news department in 2019.

With his busy schedule, Carlucci often sent in his picks right at the deadline.

“I didn’t have the time to overthink my picks, and it all worked out for me that way,” Carlucci said.

Times News Sports Editor Emmett McCall, who along with Yours Truly made the ceremonial presentation of the Cup, said it was Carlucci’s time to shine.

“Justin has been a middle of the pack finisher for most years,” McCall said.

This season, Carlucci held the lead for the past few weeks and out ran everyone to the wire.

“I’m not closely involved with sports as I once was,” he said, “but still hold a pretty good football IQ.”

Carlucci’s win means that the Grid Pick’s race has not had a repeat champion since Heckman claimed the title in both 2014 and 2015.

With a late surge - but with too much distance to overcome Carlucci - Heckman, the reigning titleholder, passed Matsinko in Week 12 to finish in second place.

Behind Matsinko is Yours Truly, who claimed fourth place. Once a leader, TJ Engle’s late season swoon dropped him into fifth, where he finished tied with Brad Hurley, who hung near the leaders, but never made a charge at the end.

Kudos go out to Sam Matta for his end of the season rally. Buried in the Pundit Pit for much of the season, Matta’s 15-0 record in Week 11 helped him jump up to seventh place.

What we can say about McCall is that at least our sports editor didn’t finish last, though holding eighth place is surely nothing to brag about, at least not around his minions in the office.

Then there’s Mike Haines and Chuck Hixson, who brought up the rear. Both were near the front of the pack early on, and Hixson actually was the leader, but then the great collapse for both had happened. At least Haines was safely above the Den of Darkness where Hixson - who finished a full 24 games out of first - won’t get to see the light until next season.

Overall, Week 12 was the worst for picking winners, as some upsets factored into the results. Carlucci and Heckman both had solid 12-3 records, while Matsinko and Yours Truly were the only others to have double digit wins. Meanwhile, three pickers had less than .500 records, the first time that has occurred this season.

A year to cheer

Our local teams gave us much to cheer about this year. Special congratulations go out to Northern Lehigh, the District 11 Class 2A champions and the only fall sports team in the Times News coverage area that is still playing.

In addition to the Bulldogs, Palmerton, Jim Thorpe and Northwestern deserve kudos for making it to district championship games. The Tigers get special mention for having an undefeated regular season.

Two other area teams had notable achievements, as Pleasant Valley had a winning season and qualified for the District 11 Class 6A playoffs, while Marian turned around its season around after an 0-7 start and won its last four games.

Remembering Bob

Now that the dust has settled and the winner has been announced, we at the Times News would like to pay homage to the late Bob Ford. No one was more overwhelmed than Carlucci when presented the inaugural Bob Ford Memorial Cup earlier this week at Molly McGuire’s in Jim Thorpe, a place that our acclaimed photographer had frequented regularly.

“It’s surreal to see his name on the trophy,” Carlucci said. “I still feel he’s alongside us. Bob would be glad I won, but he’d mock me about it, too. That’s what we loved about him. He had a great sense of humor and no filter. At times, he could come across like the class clown, but he took his job seriously, and was a man of integrity.”

Ford won the Cup in 2013 and 2017, and last season he was one game behind Heckman with a week to go. Coincidentally, Ford picked the same winners as Heckman, meaning he had no chance of winning the title unless he changed some of his picks. When Yours Truly told him that and gave him an opportunity to make some changes, Ford let it be, stating, “My picks are my picks, and it would be unfair if I won because I was told I could make changes.”

That’s the type of integrity Carlucci spoke of.

The Super Bowl trophy is named after Vince Lombardi. From this year on, our Grid Picks Cup will be engraved with Bob Ford’s name upon it, which certainly adds an extra incentive to win the title.

Those of us involved in the Grid Picks will now turn our attention to Northern Lehigh as it begins its run in the PIAA State Tournament.

We will also begin to look forward to next year, when we make our pigskin prognostications all over again in the race for the 2022 Bob Ford Memorial Grid Picks Cup.