I'm sorry, but that's the way I feel...

2001-12-10T11:42:00.000-05:00

What a mess…

The BCS is all of its infamous wisdom has decided that the University of Nebraska will play the University of Miami for the National Championship. Super. Just what I wanted, and I am not even being that sarcastic.

One problem: If Nebraska beats Miami, and Colorado beats Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl, then Nebraska will be co-national champion with Colorado. Nebraska will be first in the BCS poll and Colorado in the AP/USA Today Poll.

Let me break it down for you. Colorado is ranked third in the AP and USA/Today poll. Nebraska is fourth in both. Colorado won the Big XII title, beating Texas. Nebraska didn’t even play for the conference crown because Colorado beat the corn out of them 62-36 (boxscore) on November 23. That was the last time that Nebraska took the field.

None of this will change the BCS computer that ranked Nebraska five-hundredths of a point higher than Colorado, thus giving Nebraska a birth in the Rose Bowl.

As I perch on my soapbox, I beg and plead to all of those individuals who have any clout in college football. PLEASE HAVE A PLAYOFF SYSTEM.

Then we wouldn’t have to worry about hundredths of a point of strength of schedule or margin of victory. Victory could be determined on the field, not by a computer.

Look at he excitement that all other NCAA sports generate. Basketball (March Madness) to field hockey to water polo, a national champion is decided on the court, field or in the pool.

Take the top eight teams in the BCS, so we won’t hurt it’s feelings, and have a playoff system. Drop the earlier non-conference games in September. All teams can play eight or nine games. This would push the conference championships back two weeks, and then the season would only be extended by one week. If a team made it to the college football national championship game then it would have to play 12 games.

Including bowl games, the top eight teams in the BCS (Miami, Colorado, Oregon, Florida, Tennessee, and Illinois) will have all played at least 12 games, with Nebraska and Texas playing 13. So don’t tell me that the season is too long.

I would just like to be able to walk into a sports bar and hear people discussing why their al-mater is the best. Not how the BCS done screwed their team.

2001-11-19T09:25:00.000-05:00

Closed for the season, but open to tradition
I will devote this blog to the end of a season, but the beginning of a tradition.
The Central Connecticut volleyball team lost in the finals of the Northeast Conference championship on Sunday afternoon to Robert Morris. The score of the match was 3-1 (30-21, 31-33, 30-11, 30-22).
CCSU had an awesome year. They finished with a record of 17-14, 8-1 in the conference. They garnered the #1 seed in the tournament and had four players make the All-Conference team. Jen Cote made first team, while Sara Winchell, Sarah Haase and Shannon Verity made second team. Head coach Linda Sagnelli was named NEC Coach-of-the-Year.
I have worked at the volleyball matches for five years at CCSU keeping statistics and this is the best team that I have seen. Coach Sagnelli has done a great job with recruiting and getting the girls to enjoy the game. They have come a long way in only her second year at the helm and the future looks bright for the Blue Devils. Coach Sagnelli has laid a good base for the volleyball program. I expect it to continue to grow and for the CCSU volleyball program to be a perennial contender in the NEC.
The Blue Devils beat Fairleigh Dickinson in the semifianls 3-1 (30-15, 17-30, 30-23, 30-23) to advance tot he finals.
Thank you Coach Sagnelli and your players for a good run and a fantastic year and the beginning of something special.

Complete Roster | Game-by-Game Results | Season Statistics

2001-11-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

Start Spreading the News…

I have tried all season not to be “one of those Yankee” fans’ that is so obnoxious and so intolerable that I hate to be associated with them. Those fans that curse after every pitch and one day hate Roger Clemens and the next day they love him. The fans are bi-polar. They love the Yankees when they do good and brag and yell about how great they are, and if they are doing bad they curse and spit and talk ugly of the Bronx Bombers.

I will know be an obnoxious fan. I love my team. They are so god dam great. They make me so happy. Happy, happy, joy, joy. The last two games (a 4-3 victory in Game Four, and a 3-2 victory in Game Five) had me on the edge of my seat all night. Both games the Yanks where down by two runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. In back-to-back games Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius hit two-run homers to tie the game. The Yanks one in extra innings, Derek Jeter hit a solo homer in Game 4, and Alfonsio Soriano drove in Chuck Knoblauch in Game 5. Even if they don’t end up winning Game 6 or 7, they have given me a great year and for the last two nights memories that I can tell my children about.

The Yankees are a team of destiny. They refuse to loose and keep all of us fan’s happy. The one reason for the success of the Yankees is because of their manager Joe Torre. He was a fine baseball player himself, before accepting the job as the Yankees manager in 1996. He has taken them to the playoffs all five years he has been the skipper, winning four-out-of-the- last five World Series. He was voted American Manager-of-the-Year in 1996 and 1998 and his record as the Yankees manager is 582-387. He is calm, cool and collective and you never hear about him rattling his players. As the saying goes, “The fish stinks from the head”, but in Joe Torre’s case, he always ends up smelling like roses.

Other Yankee News:

O'Neil set to retire | "Spence"
is on fire

Yanks
continue to amaze

2001-11-03T13:31:00.000-05:00

This is a good Link: www.espn.com

2001-10-29T09:41:00.000-05:00

NBA Season is Right Around the Corner
With the start of the NBA season right around the corner two things are for sure. Michael Jordan is back and the Los Angeles Lakers will win their third straight championship.
Yes, Shaq had to have surgery on his little bitty toe, but he and Kobe are the most dominating one-two punch in the NBA. Along with newly acquired Mitch Richmond, and returnees Brian Shaw, Rick Fox and Ron Harper the Lakers have over 51 years of veteran leadership. As long as Phil Jackson can keep Shaq and the boys happy the Lakers should cost to the championship. If injuries of team turmoil derail the Lakers, you can look for these teams to make some noise.
The Sacramento Kings with Chris Webber deciding to stay put, and the off-season acquisition of Mike Bibby, the Kings will give the Lakers a test.
The San Antonio Spurs with Tim Duncan and David Robinson and and and…and nobody. The organization allowed Derek Anderson and Avery Johnson to leave. So will Tim Duncan in two years when his contract is up. The Spurs will only do as well as long as Duncan can carry them on his back.
Will the Portland Trail Blazers show up to play this season? Under first year coach Maurice Cheeks the Blazers are ready to win now. Will a team filled with stars Scottie Pippen, Damon Stoudmaire, Dale Davis, Anderson and Rasheed Wallace finally live up to its potential.
Other players to watch in the Western Conference are Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Elton Brand of the Los Angels Clippers and Dirk Nowitizki of the Dallas Mavericks.
In the Eastern Conference, look for the Philadelphia 76ers and Allen Iverson to be the Beast of the East. Iverson is one of the top players in the league and will overshadow the return of MJ. Yes, Jordan will still compete at a high level and it will be exciting to watch him play, but if Jordan can take the Wizards to the new heights with players like Popeye Jones and Jahidi White around him then he truly is a God.
The Orlando Magic will be tough with a healthy Grant Hill. The tandem of he and Tracey McGrady make the Magic a team to watch in the East. The Milwaukee Bucks strengthened their backcourt with the acquisition of Anthony Mason. He will help out the trio of Glenn Robinson, Sam Cassell and Ray Allen.
Will the Celtics have a break out year and make it to the playoffs? Will the Toronto Raptors, who signed Hakeem Olajuwon, make more noise this year?
This is going to be an amusing NBA season. Let’s sit back and enjoy it.

Games to Watch | East Preview | West Preview
NBA.com | ESPN.com Basketball Preview

2001-10-17T09:58:00.000-04:00

The Stadium was rock’in.
Yankee stadium was out-of-control on Monday night as the Yankees won the best of five series (3-2) over the Oakland Athletics. As a Yankee fan I have been to dozens of games at the Stadium, but never have I heard the place this loud. Voices chanted U-S-A after the anthem and the bellows of Let’s Go Yankee’s didn’t stop the entire night. The chants of De-rek Je-ter, echoed through the upper deck as he made a diving play on the 3rd-base line. The floor shook as Metallic’s “sandman” came on and Mariano Rivera raced from the bullpen.
Most of the so-called “baseball experts” had written the Yankees off. The Yanks fell down 0-2 before weekend play as they dropped the first two games at home. They won the next three to shut all of the experts up and became the first team to come back from a 0-2 deficit in a best of five series. This is why the Yankees have won three World Series in a row. Why they were the team of the 90’s and possible the team of the century. The Yankees, who have won 26 World Series in their history, will now take in the Seattle Mariners. Game 1 is tonight in Seattle. Keep up the good work.

Adding to the dynasty | Yanks: Just get it done
Postseason photo gallery | Official Yankee Site

2001-10-08T16:10:00.000-04:00

ONE OF THE BEST YEAR'S EVER

The 2000 Major League Baseball season was the best in the history of the game and I am going to tell you why.
Barry Bonds set the major league record with 73 home runs and for walks with 177. He also set or tied five other records. Bob Carter of ESPN Classic thinks that Bonds earned himself a spot in the Hall of Fame after this season. Allan Barra from Salon.com offers his take on Bond’s season.

The Seattle Mariners tied the 1906 Chicago Cubs for most wins in a season with 116. They eclipsed the American League record of 114 set by the 1998 New York Yankees. Those Yankees went on to win the World Series. The Mariners have a good opportunity to do the same.

Sammy Sosa was the first player to hit 60 home runs in three straight seasons. Ricky Henderson broke Ty Cobb's major-league record of 2,245 runs and Babe Ruth's major-league record for walks in a career.

Baseball saw two of the greatest players of all-time retire last night. Baseball’s Iron man Cal Ripken and .300 man Tony Gywnn. (MLB.com paid tribute to both of these athletes)

The 1996 season was a great one when mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa battled for the home run title and the Yankees set the American League wins mark. Both those records were broken this year.

Broken Records in 2001 | ESPN.com's Jayson Stark on the Year that was...

2001-10-01T11:33:00.000-04:00

BARRY, GO GET THAT RECORD
To all you of you baseball fans who don’t want Barry Bonds to get the home run record, I say records are made to be broken so sit back and enjoy it.
When Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’s record of 61, he had to hit 62 to break it and ended up hitting 70. Bonds will have to hit 71 to break his record, which will be a feat.
The 38-year old Bonds had 69 homers as of Sunday night and have six games to play to break the record. He is close to becoming the first player with 500 home runs and 500 stolen bases and nobody really cares. I do.
Bonds is one of the greatest left fielders to ever play the game. He will never live up to the aura of Ted Williams (one of the best players to ever play the game), but should be recognized for all of his accolades.
We should not look down upon Bonds because he is less that cordial to the media, or because he is not the rah-rah type of guy in the clubhouse with his teammates. Jim Caple of ESPN.com takes a look at Bond’s unpopularity.
We should look up to Bonds because he can flat out play baseball. He can hit and run and play the field. He has won eight gold gloves over his 16-year career. He is tied with Reggie Jackson for seventh in the all-time home run list with 563. Look at the company above him: Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays (his godfather), Frank Robinson and, Harmon Killebrew.
Bonds will break the record; it is just a matter of time. Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine agrees with me.
I hope that the guys who are on the mound against him are man enough to throw him strikes. This will be good for baseball; it will be good for Bonds.
We will never forget the record setters or breakers. We will not forget Ruth, Roger Maris, or Mark McGwire and we will surely not forget Bonds if someone breaks his record in the next five years. The home run record was one thought to be unattainable, might now be broken twice in three seasons.
Barry, I wish you good luck and swing for the fences.

2001-09-23T16:11:00.000-04:00

Bill Simmons (Espn.com Page 2) feels that Michael Jordan should make a comeback. I disagree.
I disagree with him because Jordan went out on top. He hit the game winning in the NBA finals to give the Bulls their third straight title. That is the final image I have of him and the final image that most basketball fans have of the tongue-wagging superstar.
Their our other stars now in the NBA, like Allen Iverson, Shaq O’Neal, Tracey McGrady and Paul Pierce to name a few. These new young studs have taken the torch from Jordan and now he wants it back. We’ll Mike those guys aren’t going to give it up that easy and you are not the young buck that you use to be.
So many athletes have left the game on top, and then have chosen to come back and they can’t play on the same level. Or these athletes like Larry Bird or Willie Mays try to play and extra year or two past their prime. I have two images of Larry Bird. The first is of him winning the three-point contest as a rookie. He walked into the locker room before the competition and said, “Who’s finishing second.” What a great memory.
The second was of him trying to play with a bad back in the playoffs against the Knicks. He tried to go up and dunk the ball and he missed. The Celtics ended up losing that series. That was the last season that he played, he should have retired two years early. I don’t want to have those same memories of MJ.

2001-09-19T20:16:00.000-04:00

A Sports Man Steps Back

Ever since I have joined the Recorder I have written sports and sports alone, but this week I don't care to write about sports. I wish to turn my attention from sports heroes, to life heroes and how this tragedy will shake our generation.
I will never forget the image of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center tower. I will never forget the images of people running out of the city covered in ash and burning embers. I will never forget the faces of the family members who hold out hope that a loved one might still be alive.
The crushing images of mother standing in front of a television camera holding a picture of her 24 year-old son was the last time I have watched any of this nightmare on television. This image put me over the edge; tears ran down my face as I thought of a family friend who I have not heard from yet. Every person I've talked to on campus has been touched by this horrendous event.
For all the awful memories we will have of this terrible tragedy, we now have more hope for the American people and their spirit. Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania, and we know from the reports there were heroes on that plane. Those brave Americans called family members and told them that they loved them. They new something was wrong because the plane had turned around and they believed that they needed stop the terrorists.
Those Americans sacrificed their lives so that many more could be saved. That flight could have been headed for the Capitol or the White House. Those brave soles saved an American landmark. Those are the kind of people that I look up to and that other Americans should look up to as well. These Americans knew that they were going to die, but not without a fight.
I usually talk of sports heroes who are fine individuals with good
character and they should be looked at as role models. Americans looked fate and the terrorists in the eye and refused to back down; these Americans are role models. The New York City firefighters and police officers that braved all odds to rescue as many individuals as they could before the owers collapsed. They are role models. Those firefighters and police officers who didn't make it out as well as the ones who are still working, those are my role models.
These heroes ran into a dangerous situation and I am positive that not one of these heroes thought twice about the danger of the situation. They dashed into the building because that was what had to be done.
Are you a role model or a hero? What have you done? Have you just sat on your couch and watched all of this madness unfold? Go give blood or donate some food or supplies to the rescue effort. I know that you are college students and cannot give a lot of money, but if you want to make a difference and help out you can. America needs everyone to come together as one strong being. This tragedy is ironic in a way to me.
Last Monday night I sat in the Recorder office for our weekly meeting and everyone was coming up with story ideas. I had watched Band of Brothers (new HBO miniseries about World War II) the night before and it made me think that my generation has no idea of what went on just 60 years ago. We have no idea of what went on in the time of Pearl Harbor or the Second World War. How life could be so different if we had not won that war.
I am not saying that we are going to have World War III, but what happened on September 11, 2001 should make people stop and think about what it means to be free.
Next time you hear the national anthem, put your hand over your heart and sing loud and proud, "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" We are all brave and those who have loved ones missing, you continue to be brave. Those heroes who died were brave. America is brave.
I want to send my thoughts and prayers out to all of the people affected by this tragedy in our CCSU family and to all of the families in the world, "God bless you, we will get through this."

Good Story by Brian Murphy of ESPN.com's Page 2.

2001-09-13T12:54:00.000-04:00

This will be another post that has nothing to do with my topic of sports, but everything to do with the bombing at the World Trade Center.
I found out last night that one of my sister’s best friends has not heard from her dad since the disaster. He was on the 99th floor for a meeting that was scheduled for 9:00 am. This sucks; it makes this horrible thing move from the back burner to the front. It has hit me what these terrorists have done. I have heard stories around the campus of Central Connecticut State University that friends have lost parents, aunts and uncles are missing. It is heart wrenching.
Then I turn the television on in the morning and the anchors are doing interviews with individuals who have lost loved ones. They show pictures, hoping that someone will recognize their loved one. One after another, this will not stop soon. My shoulders shrug as I write this now.
I don’t know what else to stay but I want to tell all of the families of the missing or injured that my prayers go out to you and that the United States is strong and we will get through this.

2001-09-12T11:37:00.000-04:00

The sporting world has been rattled by the bombing as well...
Olympic Games will go on
College football is postponed
Life more important than golf

2001-09-12T10:29:00.000-04:00

My first blog has nothing to really do with anything…it is my thoughts and feelings of an awful day…September 11, 2001.

I was supposed to have an 11:00 class on Tuesday, September 11, but the professor cancelled it because he had relatives in the New York area. I went back to my house to watch the happenings on the television and was listening to Dan Rather. In the stations hast to be the first to disclose the airlines that had been hijacked and gone down, Rather said, “We are not positive, but these are the planes that have been hijacked.” If they were not positive, then don’t say it. In this media crazed world of “first to tell”, this incident was a perfect example of the media’s rush to be the first. Please just wait.

I thought that the United States was so strong that nothing like this could happen. We are supposed to be the super power. When I saw the towers totally gutted and destroyed it reminded me of war in the Middle East. I guess we are not as Teflon tough as I had once believed.

I what could be called “America’s Worst Day”, the media blitz surrounding the terror in New York and Washington was overwhelming. The constant bombardment of 24-hour news gave me a headache. The sad thing was that I could not turn away. It was like a movie, the scene of the Twin Towers crumbling to the ground was unbelievable. I wanted to see what would happen next and just could not turn the television off.

I have to agree with Tom Shales of the Washington Post, I hope I never have to live through a day like this again.
Tom Shales Article in the Washington Post

My thoughts and prayers are with all of the families of the injured and deceased. The United States is strong and we will survive.