Good Questions: Football 'Sacks', Microwaves & WCCO Call Letters
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Every week, we answer your Good Questions. This week, Heather Brown investigates football "sacks", microwaves and WCCO's call letters.
Neil from Lakeville wants to know: Where did the football term "sack" come from?
According to an interview with NFL Films, former defensive end and Hall of Famer Deacon Jones came up with it. He said a sack is "like you devastate a city or cream a multitude of people."
The sack didn't become an official NFL statistic until 1982, which was eight years after Jones retired.
Steve from Prior Lake and his wife have a marital disagreement. He think microwaves heat from the inside out. She thinks it's outside in. Who's right?
"I think they're both actually right," says E.J. Daigle, Dean of Robotics & Manufacturing Technology at Dunwoody College.
According to Daigle, microwaves radiate energy more deeply and evenly into the food than a conventional oven. The energy from a microwave excites the water molecules inside the food and causes friction. The moisture content inside the food helps to determine exactly how the food will heat.
"Foods that have a higher water content tend to cook more evenly inside to out, while foods that have a lower moisture content will not," he says. "This is why your McDonalds Apple Pie has warning labels about the filling being extremely hot."
Melissa from Minneapolis had always heard radio and TV stations west of the Mississippi River start with and the ones to the east start with a W. So, she wants to know: Why doesn't WCCO start with a K?
WCCO's call letters are older than that 1928 FCC rule. WCCO stands for Washburn Crosby Company, the company took over the radio station in 1924 and the predecessor to General Mills.
In 1952, the TV station took the call letters to match its sister radio station.
