Smörgåsbord of Sports

Hey look I am posting something! And not to disappoint it is about sports.  As an avid sports fan I must say that this is my favorite week for sports. Some will say that it is the opening rounds of the NCAA tourney, some say the first weekend of the NFL. While those are great I like this week because of the variety of sports we get.

Our week starts with the crowing of the NCAA basketball champion. For those readers that remember I am not a huge fan of Carolina so tonight I will end my streak at 20 years of watching the title game (yes I was able to watch Kansas/Syracuse when I was in Iraq in 2003).  Of course I would have loved to see Duke in it this year but youtube has made it easy to watch old highlights from games. Just like this one:

My favorite part besides the dunk is Grant Hill’s ridiculous box cut fade.

Today we also get the start of Major League baseball. Even with all of the bad press because of steroids opening day is an event, it marks the start of spring (although not in Nashville) and will take us through the summer and end right before the cold winter months. I have one opening day memory. As a kid we lived close to Cincinnati and one year my Mom, brother and I went down to catch the Reds and the Padres. My Dad could not make it so we had to sell the ticket. We were enjoying ourselves when we got to our seats and then it happened.  Our other seat had been sold to a rather husky fellow who of course sat next to me. For 9 innings I was forced to fold my skinny 16 year old body in unusual positions to try and be comfortable. The Reds lost of course and it took the ride home for me to recover from my pretzel imitation that afternoon.

And finally our week ends with the Masters. With Tiger’s win at Bay Hill a couple of weeks ago, the entire sports world will be watching to see if he can win golf’s first major. I am hoping to see some shots from him similar to this one back in 2005.

As an aside, I think Verne Lundquist is the announcer I would want to be calling some of the dramatic moments of my life. He got this shot by Tiger and of course the most famous shot in NCAA tournament history.

Favorite Movie Scenes-Cool Hand Luke

Paul Newman passed away recently, he is one of my favorite actors. Just about any movie he did he is great in, Butch and Sundance, The Sting, The Verdict, Color of Money, The Hustler, The Young Philadelphians, Hud, Nobody’s Fool and Cool Hand Luke.

Cool Hand Luke features one of the great on-screen bets in movie history. Newman’s character bets his fellow prisoners that he can eat 50 hard boiled eggs in an hour. It really is quite a scene and movie fans will see a lot of familiar faces in this movie, Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, Wayne Rogers of MASH fame and George Kennedy who was in the Naked Gun movies and won an Academy Award for Supporting Actor in this film.

I hope you did not eat anything before watching this scene.

So Whatcha Want?

Just thought I would share one of my favorite music videos from a time when MTV still showed videos. It is the Beastie Boys video for So Whatcha What? The Beastie Boys always had some of the best videos but this might be their best, it is certainly their best song.

My election thoughts

It took longer than I expected but I have my thoughts ready for the election. I had a manifesto written but I decided to keep it simple. After racking my brain to find a way to compare this election to a movie I finally figured it out! It comes from the great comedy classic Ghostbusters and it does not take a genius to figure out who each person on screen represents. The scene I am talking about starts at the 2:50 mark. Take a look and see if you can figure out who each person is.

Now I will go back and watch the first debate and see if I can figure out how Obama “won”.

What were you doing?

I have been extremely busy at work and have not had time to post my thoughts on the election this year but it is coming I promise. Today I just want to ask a question of what you were doing on this day 7 years ago?

I remember vividly that whole day. I was at Ft. Campbell and had just gotten done with PT and was heading to the Dining Facility (DFAC) with my friends. The TV was on ABC showing the smoke coming from the first tower and the report of an airplane crashing into the tower. Watching it we thought a plane went off course. After breakfast I went back to the barracks to finish a game of college football on PlayStation 2 and was flipping back and forth. Then it happened. You saw the plane turning and turning and then hit the tower and all you heard in the barracks was “HOLY S***!” When I got to my office it was a madhouse. Our first priority was securing the base and my section of DIVARTY was in charge. It was chaotic and I was up for 48 hours.

It is a day that all of us will never forget and I pray for the families that lost loved ones on this day.

Gathering My Thoughts

I am going to have a post on Monday about the upcoming election. I am going to take the weekend to gather my thoughts about this past week starting with McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate last Friday. Just running the thoughts through my head it is probably going to end up being a long post and will probably have to be split into parts which will help my less learned readers.

Enjoy the weekend and be prepared to read my musings on politics this next week.

Be True to Your School

College football is back! Last night I was more interested in the college games on TV and being played on my XBox 360 than the vacuous speech given by St. Barack at his convention. I am a huge college football fan as most of you know and my team/school is the Nebraska Cornhuskers. I attended the University of Nebraska from 1995-1999 and by attended I mean, I went to more football games than I did classes.

During my four years Nebraska lost 6 games and won two national titles. Tom Osborne, who retired after the 1997 season, went a mind boggling 60-3 his last 5 seasons. It was a dominating run that has not been repeated since, no matter what the USC honks like Herbstreit and Mark May say. A couple of the defining moments of that 5 year run was this run by Tommie Frazier in the Fiesta Bowl against Florida.

And this ridiculous catch by Matt Davidson against Missouri.

In 1998, Frank Solich took over the program from Osborne and although the Huskers won 9 games they lost 4. Solich coached 6 years and won 59 games and had four seasons with 10 or more wins. Looking back at his tenure with Nebraska it was not that bad, he was just unfortunate that he followed Osborne. Solich was fired by athletic director and all around jerk Steve Pedersen following the conclusion of the 2003 regular season. Bo Pelini coached Nebraska in their bowl game and there was speculation that he would become the new coach but Stevie had other ideas. His big coaching hire was fired Oakland Raider coach Bill Callahan. It was one of those “Huh?” hires. Callahan came in and made Nebraska a passing team, scrapping the beloved triple option. He also came in and had a losing season his first year. Nebraska’s first in close to 40 years. The next three years continued to see Nebraska languish in mediocrity something that is unacceptable to the Husker faithful. After one of the worst seasons in Nebraska history, Pedersen and Callahan were finally fired after taking a program that had won 10 games the year before Callahan was fired and turned them into a bye week for opponents.

Husker fans knew the order was about to be restored when Tom Osborne was brought back as the Athletic Director. After firing Callahan, Osborne’s first order of business was finding the coach who would put Nebraska back on top in college football. Bo Pelini was a name that Husker fans were familiar with and brought a lot of excitement, he had done wonders in his one year as defensive coordinator and was the d-coordinator at LSU. Pelini’s hire brought back something that Husker fans had not had for four years and that was excitement. The annual Spring Game which usually draws between 40,000-50,000 was a sell-out. Former players who had been shunned by the micromanaging team of Pedersen and Callahan were now welcomed back and Nebraska football was back to being a big family.

What will the Pelini era bring? I have no idea, but I believe that this is the first year of a climb back to the top for Nebraska and Bo will Restore the Order.

You are better than that Jimmy!

Last night while watching a bit of the closing ceremonies a white haired Jimmy Page who looked like a founding father with his hair in a pony tail was on a stage with British pop sensation Leona Lewis. I could not believe my ears when he started rocking the Whole Lotta Love intro and Lewis started singing. It was horrible, Page is a guitar legend and a rock icon and here he is playing one of Led Zeppelin’s celebrated songs with a singer who will have zero staying power. It reminded me of Page’s inexplicable decision to allow PDiddy to sample the hook from Kashmir in a song for the Godzilla soundtrack.

Why are you doing this Jimmy? By appearing with artists beneath your legendary status you are diminishing Led Zeppelin’s legacy and you are looking like a fool doing it.

Looks like they are having fun

One of the things I have enjoyed about watching the Olympics is the numerous sightings of members of the US Basketball team (Redeem Team is a stupid, stupid name) at various events. When Michael Phelps was dominating the first week of the Olympiad you were going to see shots of his family and then shots of LeBron James, Kobe, D-Wade or some other NBA superstar who were taking in one of the great athletic achievements in recent memory. J-Kidd, LeBron, D-Wade, Kobe have been sighted watching the American beach volleyball team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh dominate the competition on the way to the finals.

I think it is great that these guys have decided to take in some of the events. I never recall seeing any players at events in the 2004 Games, they may have been there but a camera never showed them. I think a primary reason for them being seen around is Coach Mike Krzyzewski encouraging them or telling them to get out and enjoy themselves. I can almost guarantee that 2004 Olympic coach Larry Brown would never allow his players to enjoy the Games and this fundamental difference in philosophy can be boiled done to one thing. As everyone knows Coach K is Duke’s coach and stands for all that is good with sports and Larry Brown went to North Carolina and played under Dean Smith…enough said.

Hey everyone pay attention to me

Just read this interesting article about Jennifer Lopez’s appearance on Good Morning America. I will paraphrase but you should read this, she is training for a triathalon in Malibu 6 months after giving birth and thinks what she is doing is more newsworthy than what Michael Phelps did at the Olympics. Hate to break it to you Jenny from the block but no one really cares that you are training for a triathlon and even if the Olympics were not going on most people could find a number of more newsworthy items to follow than yours. I guess she needs the attention because she has not been relevant since…since…since, wait when was she ever relevant?