The Lawn Chair Boys

Tampa Bay, Obama, and Doritos: An Interview with Josh Spilker

2012-01-31T21:51:00.000-05:00

Since Thanksgiving I feel like all I've read are high school research papers, in class writing prompts, exam essays, and high school research papers, and the only conclusion I've come to about the grading process is that teenagers write in dog years: every page read about lowering the drinking age is the equivalent of seven pages by anyone else. However, this post is not about high school papers; sometime in between grading shifts I interviewed writer Josh Spilker about his book Ambient Florida Position, which can be found here. The following are excerpts from the conversation:

Me: What sparked the idea for the book?

Josh: I actually set out to write a story about Detroit [the book takes place in Tampa].

Me: A short story?

Josh: I don't think I had a certain length in mind--just write it to see how long it went, but it started shaping into something shorter than a novel but longer than a story.

I had never been to Detroit before, but I knew I wanted to set it kind of around the beginning of the financial crisis and knew Detroit was of course always having a hard time. I had read an article about all these of these advertising copywriters getting laid off in 2008 from some huge ad firm in the city and thought that was interesting.

The other part is that I'm interested in music and how fads/trends get started and thought that someone trying to start a band would be an unemployed person's pursuit.

Me: The allusions to pop culture and fads I thought were pretty funny. I found myself laughing out loud at how your protagonist basically existed in an 80s [2000s?] time warp, especially with what he or his family were watching on television.

Josh: Yes, that was obviously intentional. Just how the same ideas are always being recycled, then fetishized, then rebranded back to us as advertising or art. I wanted the "band" to represent Wallace--moving forward and backward at the same time. Kind of stuck in a middle place too, I guess.

Me: I thought that came through. I also thought the kind of music he was producing/writing was what a copywriter would do because it wasn't entirely original, considering he's using soundbites etc from his childhood.

Josh: Huh, never thought of it that way. To me, it seems completely plausible that a semi-creative guy could pick up a synth and put out some notes, especially with the technology, etc. If they took the time, the effort, because no one knows what is going to stick, no matter what people say. That's why you have all this "bedroom pop" coming out, or has come out. And repackaging it with the 80s, instead of coming up with your own words makes it more marketable, because of the inherent nostalgia put with it.

Me: Yeah, sorry if I made the guy with the synth not sound creative. He's definitely doing something more than guitar hero or rock band, which is where my musical talent begins and ends.

Josh: I probably should have started him there.

Me: Speaking of nostalgia, do you ever find yourself feeling nostalgic about the '80s?

Josh: Not really. I actually spent the 80s watching a lot of like Nick at Nite with my parents, which is whole other "looking back" thing. We would watch Dick Van Dyke and Mr. Ed and Patty Duke.

Me: Yeah, that's what's weird about syndicated television--we can get nostalgic for time periods we never even lived.

Josh: I liked Pee Wee's Playhouse and the Garfield cartoon and that one show with John Elway, Wayne Gretzky, and Michael Jordan.

Me: Was it with Elway or Bo Jackson?

Josh: Why'd I think Elway?

Me: I don't know. Bo would know.

Josh: Trying to find it on Wikipedia. Yeah, I remember this kid in elementary school wearing all this "Bo Knows" stuff--I was super jealous. Then these other kids wearing Hypercolor, maybe that was like 1990. [searches Wikipedia] Totally was Bo!

Me:

Josh: That's a hilarious clip. They just pulled someone out of a shark.

Me: Speaking of animals [yes, I really do make transitions like this], dogs are featured prominently in your story. Excluding whales and birds, what's the most symbolic literary animal?

Josh: Yeah, that was definitely the real slipping into the unreal. We had just gotten a dog.

I don't know, would that be like Pegasus or something? A unicorn? Horses, that would be it. You know, like Black Velvet or Black Beauty, Seabiscuit, and Warhorse.

Me: All the Pretty Horses, Mick Jagger's wild horses.

Josh: Good call.

Me: And Tolkien has a river turn into white horses, so, yeah, horses it is. Did you vote in the 2008 election?

Josh: Yes.

Me: Because one thing that I found both surprising and well done in your story was the incorporation of McCain and Obama's campaigns.

Josh: I used to be a lot more into politics than I am now. I went to college to go into that, but then stopped after I took a class on the U.S. Presidency.

To me, it fit the book, just because of Florida's recent political history; how they really go back and forth b/w Republicans and Democrats and you have a protagonist trying to make up his mind while the state is also.

Me: Yeah, a whole state in transition, a young candidate vs. an old candidate, and a protagonist in transition.

Josh: Also, part of the choice to set the book in 2008, amid the presidential election was that the Rays themselves were accomplishing quite an improbably journey that fall. In 2008, from out of nowhere, the Rays bounded to the top of the American League, based on their superb defensive effort and the unlikely emergence of James Shields and Matt Garza pitching, Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena (he's back) having all-star caliber breakout years and then a young David Price icing everyone in the playoffs.

The Phillies beat the Rays on the last legs of Jimmy Rollins, and Ryan Howard in his prime, good pitching from Cole Hamels and some lucky raindrops.

Much like Obama, the Rays were full of hope and change and Rays fans dared to dream about the impossible.Alas, due to some slippery rain delays, the impossible remains impossible.

Me: Were you living in Florida while you wrote the book?

Josh: I wrote the whole thing in North Carolina. I only visit Florida now and haven't "lived" there for a while.

Now that you bring it up, it's kind of interesting how the Republicans are now channeling the nostalgia of Reagan.

Me: Which is the 80s.

Josh: When a lot of Reagan's appeal may have been his own nostalgia--here was a semi-famous actor who was in these old movies now running for President, recalling a "simpler" time.

Me: Which is Nick at Nite.

Josh: Yeah exactly.

Me: This conversation is now very literary in how circuitous it's become.

Josh: I think at one time Wallace says something about the "simulacrum of the simulacrum."

Me: When did you know you had the first few lines of the book right? Because "There were no more Doritos. There were no more bottles of iced mocha coffee. There were no more almonds. I got in the car. . ." is a great start for a book about not going anywhere.

Josh: Thanks. I'm not sure if I got it right, so thanks for real.

NFL Playoffs: Championship Sunday Preview

2012-01-22T10:54:00.000-05:00

The Championship Game previews below were put together by Russ Morris and Bryan Harvey (Teach):

Giants at 49ers

Russ' Take: “I think it probably surprised a lot of people that the Giants and the 49ers are in the NFC championship game,” Jim Harbaugh said this week. He is absolutely right. Before the season, most experts didn't believe the 49ers had any chance of making the playoffs. After another losing season, another change at head coach without a full offseason, and another year with Alex Smith as the starter, nobody believed the turn around would happen this season. And that is what has been so sweet about this season as a 49er fan. After ten forgettable years of incompetence on the field, the success of this season just blindsided all of us. But still, once the 49ers were firmly in the playoffs, there was still doubt that the 49ers were a legitimate threat to win the NFC. As a fan, I was telling myself and friends that one win in the playoffs would legitimize the Niners great season, that they weren't just a fluke regular season champion like Atlanta last year. Then last weekend happened. Niners fans celebrated Catch III and the resurrection of Alex Smith's career to beat the explosive Saints and the Giants soundly beat the top seeded Packers in Lambeau the next day. Now that the 49ers host the Giants on Sunday for a legit chance at a birth in Super Bowl XLVI, once again the public doesn't believe the 49ers can do it again against the streaking Giants. I believe they have the most complete team left in the playoffs and they will slow down the surge of Eli Manning and the Giants offense. They will prove the doubters again like they have all season.

49ers 24 - Giants 21

Harvey's Two Cents: The craziness that was the 49ers-Saints game last week has left me to believe they will find themselves in the Super Bowl by the end of today. I really felt going into last week that both NFC games were a toss up; in fact, I thought every game except for New England's matchup with the Denver Broncos was a toss up. What impressed me about the 49ers game is that the manner in which the game unfolded it felt like San Francisco actually beat the Saints twice. First, they created turnovers and stymied the Saints offense and special teams. Then the Saints stormed back only to lose in an eventual shootout to Alex Smith. To me, the 49er victory over the Saints was much more impressive than the victory the Giants had over the Packers because the scarlet and gold faced an opponent that actually showed up to play and went blow to blow with them, revealing to everyone that there might be more to this team than their defense and running game. The Giants on the other hand played a game in which everything went their way (except for the call on the Greg Jennings fumble), including Mike McCarthy's desperate and panicked play calling.

What I have yet to hear many people discuss is how the Giants were unable to run the ball against a weak Green Bay defense. Ahmad Bradshaw broke loose for twenty-four yards to set up the Hail Mary that ended the first half, but without that run, the Giants' rushing numbers are seventy-one yards on twenty-six carries; and their yards per carry would have been 2.7. And even with the Bradshaw run, the Giants' only averaged 3.5 yards per carry. Personally, I don't think their numbers will be much better against the 49ers, and I don't see their secondary getting beat on a Hail Mary where Hakeem Nicks barely leaves the ground to make the catch.

Baltimore at New England.

Russ' Take: New England is the better team even with their terrible secondary, which I don't think Joe Flacco will be able to take advantage of. The Ravens beat the Texans last week by a touchdown, but anybody watching that game saw the Texans win that game except for in the turnover battle and on the scoreboard. Their lines were superior on both offense and defense. TJ Yates was able to throw the ball downfield to Andre Johnson a number of times and Arian Foster rushed for 132 yards. Joe Flacco was sacked five times and Ray Rice was able to only muster sixty yards on the ground. But with four turnovers to the Ravens' none, that proved to be the difference. I believe this is the only way the Ravens can beat the Patriots this weekend. When the Patriots and Ravens played in the 2009 wildcard round, the Patriots imploded with three turnovers in their first four possessions, within their own territory, to give the Ravens a 24-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. Flacco only had to complete four passes to win the game. The Ravens will need good things to happen early to give them a chance. Ultimately, I think Tom Brady and the Patriots offense will score thirty points or more on the Ravens and Flacco will be able to keep up.

Patriots 34 - Ravens 20

Harvey's Two Cents: I'm not sure if it's fair or not, but because the Patriots secondary is historically bad, this game will be viewed as some sort of indictment on Joe Flacco's abilities as a Playoff caliber quarterback, which seems somewhat strange considering that he's always won at least one game in four consecutive Playoffs. How many current NFL quarterbacks can say that? Aaron Rodgers can't. Drew Brees can't. Peyton Manning can't. Eli Manning can't. And neither can Tom Brady. The Flacco haters will tell you that his wins come in spite of him, but his supporters--if they exist--could argue that his two touchdowns, no turnovers, and the fact that he completed the majority of his passes was a significant part of last week's win, especially considering that Ray Rice did not have a spectacular day. In other words, Joe Flacco isn't terrible, but is he good enough to make the Patriots defense stumble, setting into motion all the gears and chains and pulleys that could cause Tom Brady to sweat a little bit, maybe force a few passes, and give an aging Ravens defense one last chance at clenching Super Bowl glory? I don't know, but in a postseason that's already seen the high flying Packers and Saints crash and burn, I'm not so sure that the Patriots are going to cruise through this round.

A Pile of Light Blue Burning: FSU DISMANTLES UNC

2012-01-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

Tyler Zeller tried, I think.

John Henson pouted, swatted, and got himself a thumb sucking technical.

Harrison Barnes played like he had somewhere else to be, checking his pocket watch in between jump shots.

Kendall Marshall was lost and in need of a GPS.

Dexter Strickland was there.

The bench had seats.

Train wrecks are quieter than whatever was happening on the court.

Threes fell like arrows.

These atrocities light fires.

These atrocities either make teams want to play harder or they wind up incinerating the whole goddamn squad into gray smoke.

Eight and twenty felt like this.

Eight and twenty felt like ninety to fifty-seven.

The team ran off the court before time expired, like they were trying to get on some last second helicopter, to escape the trials and tribulations of a third world that is beyond peaceful comprehension.

They left men behind.

There's nothing else to say.

NFL Playoffs: Divisional Round Preview

2012-01-14T10:24:00.001-05:00

The Divisional previews below were put together by Russ Morris, with Bryan Harvey (Teach) adding in his two cents after Russ did most of the work.

Saints at 49ers

Russ' Take: It feels good to be back. After eight years of nothing better than an 8-8 record and four different head coaches, the Niners are relevant again in the NFC and playing in what was been billed the most even matchup of the weekend. A classic matchup pitting the irresistible force against the immovable object, with the Niners ranked best in the league against the run and in total takeaways against the Saints who have one of the most prolific offenses in the league's history. That being said, these three stats will be the reason the Niners win this game.

1) SF offensive turnovers on the season: 10. Best in the NFL
NO defensive takeaways on the season: 16. 31st in the NFL

Observation: The Niners won't beat themselves with mistakes that will help the Saints already potent attack. Saints only caused five turnovers in their eight games on the road. The Niners will either score or punt, pinning the Saints back with the best punter in the game, Andy Lee.

2) Out of the Top 10 offenses in the NFL this season, the Saints lost more production on the road than any other team. Saints scored 42 points per game at home but only 27 points on the road, more than a third of a decrease.

Observation: Obviously, the Saints aren't as dominant an offense on the road, on the grass, out in the sun. Combine that with the best defense they've played this season, and I don't see them reaching 27 points.

3) Drew Brees' road QB Rating: 100.3
Alex Smith's home QB Rating: 99.8

Observation: This stat is more about Alex Smith's underrated performance at home, where he threw seven more touchdowns than on the road. He is a better QB at home and against a mediocre defense he will be able to make some plays with his arm.

Conclusion: Niners will make the Saints play their way. Gore will rush for over 100 yards and a TD. Alex Smith will make enough plays with his arm and legs. Niners defense slows down Saints enough to win a close one.

49ers 25 - Saints 24

Two opposing philosophies vying for supremacy

Harvey's Two Cents: One of the real crimes of time zones and the scheduling of the NFL's TV schedule is that the resurgence of the 49ers went largely unnoticed, or unseen, by most of America, which means all that America really knows about the Pacific coast team is that their coach ruins handshakes and that they got beat soundly by the Ravens on Thanksgiving. Other than that, we know that Alex Smith vs. Aaron Rodgers would make for a good story, like a football version of Twain' The Prince and the Pauper, if both teams were to make it out of this weekend.

Then you have the Saints, who have become a cerebral extension of Drew Brees' mind, who is probably one of the most underrated, and underappreciated, quarterbacks in the game. He has the statistics and rings to be mentioned in the same breath as Brady and Manning, for what he's done over the last decade. But Rodgers, Brady, and Manning have nothing to do with this game and, for the record, Alex Smith doesn't really either. This game is between the science of defense and the faith of Drew Brees, which means it could be as gripping to watch as the early seasons of Lost, when it was unclear whether we were supposed to be focused on Jack Shephard or John Locke.

Broncos at Patriots

Russ' Take: Rematch of a Week 15 matchup where the Patriots handled the Broncos 41-23 where the Broncos committed 3 second quarter turnovers which completely swung the momentum to the Patriots after they were down in the first quarter. Couldn't be a more perfect matchup for the Patriots terrible pass defense as they play the most anemic passing offense left in the playoffs in the Broncos. Any factors that helped the Broncos win last week (home field advantage, injuries) are gone against the Patriots. Unless the Broncos can bring relentless pressure with Von Miller and Elvis Dumervil, Tom Brady will pick them apart consistently with an array of weapons at his disposal. Patriots pound the Broncos.

Patriots 48 - Broncos 21

Harvey's Two Cents: I already said earlier this week that I no longer know where I stand on the issue of Tim Tebow. When he was in college, I thought he'd be an NFL fullback--I was wrong. Still, I'm skeptical of his miracles. I keep looking for hidden props, bits of string, and hidden mirrors. I also think that it's harder to hide those things on the road, especially when all the good hiding places are already being used by Bill Belichick. I don't think it will impact the game much, but doesn't it just feel dirty that the guy went and hired Josh McDaniels solely for his knowledge on Tim Tebow? In keeping with the Biblical overtones that surround Tebow, isn't this move by Belichick a bit like Joseph being thrown down a well by his own brothers? Won't Tebow eventually be some other team's prophet? How long can this thing last? For this year, I don't see it going past Saturday night.

Texans at Ravens

Russ' Take: Rematch of a Week 6 game where the Ravens won 29-14 with Matt Schaub under center for the Texans. Most people think it's a foregone conclusion that the Ravens will win this week handily. Rookie 5th round pick TJ Yates going on the road where the Ravens are undefeated this season against the tough and vaunted Ravens D. I agree with those people. The Texans will have Andre Johnson back as he did not play in the week 6 game and looks to be near 100 percent based on his performance against the Bengals. But I just don't think Yates will make the plays that a QB needs to make in the playoffs as a road underdog to win. Unless Flacco self destructs, Ravens win this by two scores or more.

Ravens 27 - Texans 14.

Not quite Tebowing

Harvey's Two Cents: Matt Schaub's injury is one of the least spoken about tragedies of this year's football season. With a healthy Schaub, not only would a lot more people be picking the Texans against the Ravens this weekend but a lot of people, myself included, would be picking this team to take the AFC, because a healthy Schaub would arguable make this the most well-rounded team in the AFC. But Matt Schaub isn't healthy, which means that the Ravens, at home, should be the obvious choice. Still, the Playoffs need a surprise team, an upset, something other than Tebow to make us all believe, and maybe TJ Yates can be that. He's already the first UNC quarterback to ever start an NFL game and the first Houston Texan quarterback to start a Playoff Game, so why can't TJ Yates add to his trivia contest resume? Also, it would be smart for him to post dramatically after touchdowns, maybe he could do tai chi after everyone. He should also consider taking political stances on Tibet and world poverty, maybe even Occupy Wall Street. TJ Yates, if he plays this right, could be the liberal answer to Tim Tebow--there's a market for it.

Giants at Packers

Russ' Take: There are three things to consider when predicting the outcome of the Giants/Packers game.

1. Taking into account the league's quarterbacks, Tom Brady may be the hot one who dates supermodels. Matthew Stafford may have the cute baby face advantage, and Alex Smith may have the allure of the quiet guy in the corner who you thought would always make a a good bf, but Aaron Rodgers is the dreamiest guy in the NFL. Period. Eli Manning does pose the adorable little brother threat. But dreamy wins over adorable every time. For example, 1998's dreamy movie, What Dreams May Come is much better than the Parent Trap remake of the same year despite the adorable young Lindsay Lohan.

2. Lambeau Field is covered in snow. Fans are shoveling it out as I speak. Advantage Packers. Their fans are badasses.

3. So the Packers' defense makes us fans a little nervous. But I believe in miracles and I have seen Angels in the Outfield about 100 times, and there is a part when Roger, the kid who sees angels can't go to the game and his friend PJ tries to see one, but instead just sees one of the players shaking his locks of hairs on the sidelines. Clay Matthews lives in that moment. Here it is, 5:42 into this clip.

Now, in the movie PJ doesn't really see an angel, but I'm pretty sure the Claymaker has some divine powers cause he looks like that baseball player every time he's on the sidelines. And like PJ, I don't know what a real angel looks like, but that doesn't mean they're not there. And I imagine they have necks as big as my waist, like Matthews.

So in conclusion, the Packers have dreamy, awesome fans, and almost an angel. So they will win.

Packers 45 - Giants 38

Harvey's Two Cents: Russ is right: Clay Matthews is an angel.

However, as a Packer fan, the weird mix of confidence and nervousness is not sitting well in my stomach. I believe that Aaron Rodgers is the best quarterback in the NFL right now, if only by a distance so small it can not even be measured. I also believe that the Packers have the best receiving corp, when healthy, in all of football, and I think the running game, with a healthy combo of James Starks and Ryan Grant, has the potential to put away games, if McCarthy chooses to call running plays. In other words, the offense is good, which it proved consistently at home and on the road all season with the exception of the Kansas City game. But then I start thinking about the defense and I start thinking about the Giants.

"At least Peyton's your brother--Favre was just some stranger. . . ."

The defense misses Nick Collins and it misses a consistent pass rush from anyone other than Clay Matthews, but this Packer defense is nontraditional and they make plays when it counts. I still believe that this defense, despite what the numbers say, is full of difference makers, who will not allow the team's chances at a repeat to end so abruptly.

These principles are what I base my confidence on, but they are undermined by the fact that this Giant team must be like looking in a mirror for this Packer team, for this Giant team is last year's Packers. They've been swamped with injuries and they've overcome. They have a stable of young, unheralded receivers who have emerged to create a prolific passing attack. They have a quarterback, who like Rodgers, has always existed in the shadow of great quarterbacks. They have a coach who trusts his system, and a man running the front office who finds talent anywhere in the draft. I look at the Giants and I fear them not because they are the Giants but because they are the Packers wearing blue. Plus, January 20, 2008 doesn't seem that long ago.

Number of the Day: Tebow's 316

2012-01-08T22:47:00.001-05:00

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

--John 3:16

Three hundred sixteen yards and an overtime Playoff win. A charisma and style that clearly draws in other players, coaches, and fans. Tim Tebow is many things. Make of him what you will, but know that whether you believe he's an angel from God, a Twitter buzzword, an NFL miracle worker, or simply a lucky son of a gun somebody, somewhere, will label your judgement as blasphemy.

He is not the first to kneel after a touchdown. He is not the first to put fist to forehead after a win. He is not the first to bless God, point to the sky, or inspire children in hospital beds to keep on fighting, and I'm not saying any of these things do not make him, for lack of a better word, good, but the momentum of coincidence is a powerful train once it gets rolling; and I can think of no better word to describe Tim Tebow than coincidental.

So many other teams would not have taken him in the first round, and on so many other teams he would still be riding the bench, or, perhaps, if his team were in any other division, his team wouldn't have even made the Playoffs. And, what if a reporter had never asked him about his sex life while he was at Florida, or what if his opinions on abortion were left unstated? Would he be just another football player thanking God after touchdowns then? Because we've seen all that before, from quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, almost any player who's ever crossed over from here to there at the goal line, so what is it that makes Tebow a symbol to be eternalized?

After a day like today, even the greatest of cynics has to wonder when coincidence crosses the line into becoming an act of will--human or otherwise--and that's why so many of us looked at each other as Demaryius Thomas crossed into the endzone on an eighty yard bomb and said: what was that, or what is this?And the infinite answers available to that question appear to say as much about us as they do about Tim Tebow--whatever he is to each and everyone of us is exactly what we want the world to be.

A Look Inside the Mind of Gregg Popovich and Ginobili's Broken Hand

2012-01-08T22:08:00.000-05:00

Gregg Popovich's face, pockmarked and scowling, looks like it has seen things that would keep most men up at night, stirring in their bed sheets, pacing over their floorboards, wondering about what it would be like to be inside of a refrigerator, when the door shuts, and the light goes out, and everything is cold.

The coach has always frowned upon men who get up for midnight snacks, who are afraid of the sounds their stomachs make. He has always been a realist, never a dreamer, so when he hears the tic toc crocodile tic of Tim Duncan's knees going up and down the court, he's dead serious as he ponders the impact on his basketball team of replacing Manu Ginobili's broken hand with a metal hook: would such a procedure place his swashbuckling closer back on the court faster than waiting for the bone to heal or are such imaginings simply a wasted exercise in childhood escapism? And what would happen when Manu dribbles the ball? Would it deflate? Would other players simply get out of his way as he literally slashed his way to the basket? Is it fair to ask a man to give up pieces of his body when the championship is already out of reach?

Tic. Toc. Tic. Toc. Tic. Toc. The heart beats faster in a shortened season.

Number of the Day: The Packers and Lions' 971

2012-01-02T11:52:00.000-05:00

It would have been easy to give the number of the day to Drew Brees, considering what he did to the Carolina Panthers yesterday, but he already had Dan Marino's passing yards record going into the game; and at some point someone here at LCB must write something more substantial about him than just a number of the day post. That said, the stat we're addressing today is the 971 combined net passing yards by the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions yesterday.

The game was supposed to mean everything to the Lions and nothing to the Packers. The Lions were playing to avoid Drew Brees and the Superdome in the first round of the Playoffs, and the Packers were sitting almost every big name on their roster. But Matt Flynn either doesn't care what fantasy prognosticators have to say or is incredibly angered by their predictions.

Aaron Rodgers' backup threw for 480 yards, six touchdowns, and one interception. The 480 could have been the number we're discussing in its own right; after all, it eclipsed anything that Packer greats Bart Starr, Brett Favre, and Aaron Rodgers have ever done in a single game. But the 480 doesn't quite capture all that Flynn did yesterday.

Yesterday, Matt Flynn went throw for throw, touchdown for touchdown, with a quarterback in Matthew Stafford who just this year put together one of the top five seasons yardage wise for an NFL quarterback, and in doing so, Flynn reminded his team and the rest of the League just how deep and talented this Packers' roster is.

There's a reason they were able to sustain the injuries of last season and still win the Super Bowl, and it's the same reason that the benching of several All-Pro players yesterday did not deter this team from not only defeating an NFC Playoff team but also setting records in the process. While not loaded with first round picks, the Packers are still loaded with talent.

Some of These Books Weren't Even Published in 2011

2012-01-01T13:57:00.001-05:00

Without counting the books I read every year for my high school English classes, I read approximately thirty books in 2011(most published in some other time). Here are the ten that I found the most memorable (for me at least and in the order that I read them):

Palo Alto by James Franco

Was it a great book? No. But I would recommend it to anyone who grew up in a college town during the seventies or eighties. Personally, I found it easy to swap Palo Alto with Athens, Georgia. Plus, while some people will look at some of Franco's metaphors as graphic, juvenile, or obscene--the stuff of writing workshops--I found the fact that he created a motif of candy bar nougat, semen inside of children's books, and busted rainbows to be creative and daring.

Look At the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut

Just a great collection of short stories, quite a few of which worked extremely well in my Creative Writing classes. The experience of reading it now is like listening to all the rough recordings of a band that's already made it prior to them making it.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I first read this book in fourth grade, and when I read it then, it was about what boys do when they're left to just being boys. I even dressed like Huck for Halloween one year, and to get the costume just right, I went outside and played in it all day before trick or treating. Reading it again was especially cool paired with the Ken Burns documentary on Twain's life and considering that this happened last year.

When Pride Still Mattered by David Maraniss

Reading this book is like stepping into Mad Men, if only the show were about an obsessively driven football coach. Anyone interested in America and sports in the first half of the twentieth century needs to read this book. First, it will inform you, and then it will bring you to tears.

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

A book that I appreciated more after the reading of it had passed. In a year when Time Magazine named "The Protester" Person of the Year, this book became eerily prophetic.

City of Thieves by David Benioff

The book is about the German siege of Stalingrad during WWII, and while many war books are either cumbersome or intimidating, Benioff's was warm and inviting without being too sentimental.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

With some books there's nothing to say other than go and read it. Chabon is amazing.

The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neal's America by Joe Posnanaski

Sentimental in all the right ways: After borrowing it from a friend, I gave it to my father for Christmas. Also, now that I think about it, this is an interesting piece to pair with Huck Finn.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Most of what I have to say about this novel can be found at Pitchers & Poets.

Summerland by Michael Chabon

I read this with a group of my Creative Writing students after it was described to me as Harry Potter playing baseball, and with that mindset, I read it, which left me wondering if J.K. Rowling were a better craftsman as a writer and more willing to acknowledge her sources of inspiration in her own writing would her books have been less successful. Chabon's weaving of baseball, Norse mythology, and classic Americana eloquently closes the two centuries that brought America into adulthood.

Books that I would love to hear a second opinion on because I was left disappointed:

--The Tiger's Wife by Tea O'Breht (well-written sentences but still wondering why this book received the praise that it did)

--A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (okay, unlike O'Breht's book, I really want to like this book more than I do. I think part of the problem is that I read it after having read Freedom, The Ask, and Super Sad True Love Story and was burned out on literary books about middle-aged people in Brooklyn who became less than what they dreamed of being.)

The NBA At High Noon On Christmas Day

2011-12-24T10:10:00.002-05:00

This season was a slow train coming, especially after an offseason that saw owners and players and owners trying to paint each opposing side as a band of ruthless outlaws, while portraying themselves as men who just wanted to do the right thing, for justice and basketball, like Gary Cooper, like the sworn in sheriff, like David Stern's ego.

So here we are, finally, after much inner turmoil and anguish and a quick burst of prognosticating, there will be a season, and the only thing to discuss will be what's on the court: the quick and the dead. At noon on Christmas Day, teams will meet and some will win and some will lose. It will be like a Journey song in some ways, or it will be like watching an old Western, but whatever it is, superficial or violent, or violently superficial, we will have basketball at long last after many hours spent waiting.

For me, the Heat and Mavs matchup at 2:30 is actually the most like the classic Western High Noon. Dirk Nowitzki has been abandoned by Tyson Chandler and now stands alone against the outlaws he rounded up and locked away last June. Maybe he should leave town too, but Dirk being Dirk, he's sure to go down guns a blazing:

Do not forsake me O my darlin’
On this our wedding day.
Do not forsake me O my darlin’
Wait, wait along.

The noonday train will bring Frank Miller.
If I’m a man I must be brave
And I must face that deadly killer
Or lie a coward, a craven coward,
Or lie a coward in my grave.

O to be torn ‘twixt love and duty!
S’posin’ I lose my fair-haired beauty!
Look at that big hand move along
Nearin’ high noon.

He made a vow while in State’s Prison,
Vow’d it would be my life or his and
I’m not afraid of death, but O,
What will I do if you leave me?

Do not forsake me O my darlin’
You made that promise when we wed.
Do not forsake me O my darlin’
Although you’re grievin’, I can’t be leavin’
Until I shoot Frank Miller dead.

Wait along, wait along
Wait along
Wait along

– “Do Not Forsake Me [The Ballad of High Noon]”, words by Ned Washington, music by Dmitri Tiomkin

Ryan Braun Eyes Bathsheba

2011-12-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

Bill Simmons once described Milwaukee (or maybe all of Wisconsin) as a time warp, that the city's buildings and parking lots were pretty much the set of That '70s Show, and having visited the city a handful of times since reading that article, I can see his point. Despite a few urban retail centers, nestled against the shores of Lake Michigan, the city is, for the most part, still full of the warehouses with their steel beamed ribcages that supplied two coasts, the sweaty hearts that loaded the trucks and the boats, and the fat-bellied beer breath that conquered the cold center of the continent and made America great.

I bring this up because last night's revelation that Milwaukee Brewer, Ryan Braun, tested positive for a PED also feels like a time warp, only not the kind that brings about nostalgia for the working class and classic rock, but rather it is the kind of news that returns the baseball dialogue back to shadowy accusations and calloused calculations about whether dollar bills can drip from a syringe into the bloodstream. With nostalgia, we want to go back and relive the glory, but with what we have here, we will wind up wanting none of it; and because we will want nothing to do with it, this story will most likely fall on deaf ears, disobey Dylan Thomas, and go gently into that good night. Case closed. Another ballplayer gave into temptation and pricked his unblemished legacy.

The quest for perfection breeds out the ugly insecurities that make all of us so desperately human and intricately connected. A perfect baseball player would not need steroids, nor teammates to help him score runs for his team. A perfect baseball player would launch monster home run after monster home run, because a well hit home run doesn't even flirt with the outfield wall, eliminating all doubt that the hitter will round the bases safely, leaving nothing up to chance.

But no player has ever hit a home run in every at bat, and no pitcher has ever gotten every batter out; so there is no perfect ball player, which leaves a lot of ball players to be tempted by steroids, especially when one considers how much perfection means to the game of baseball. After all, as Michael Chabon observes in Summerland, baseball is the only sport that calls attention to an individual's imperfections by tracking errors on the scoreboard, visually weighing a team or individual's lack of perfection on par with the score of the game. And because baseball players are measured against an impossible rubric, it is no wonder that Ryan Braun joins a whole school of salmon swimming upstream in search of the unattainable, only there is (besides gills, scales, and fins) a small difference between extremely driven baseball players and incredibly pink salmon: most salmon who conquer the current die shortly after spawning, having sacrificed themselves for the next generation, while a baseball player on steroids is, in fact, trying to eliminate the need for sacrifice and is therefore severing the bonds between teammates. No longer needing or having to be advanced by his peers along the base paths, the perfect ball player is a run unto himself.

Make no mistake about it, the act of taking steroids is a selfish one, but in a sports world that has seen whole generations of baseball players wash up on shore with syringes in their biceps, Ryan Braun is just another casualty in a war that America isn't interested in fighting. Plus, while the Hebrew Hammer was part of a supposedly incorruptible wave of young players, born and bred on a standardized testing method that preached with nationalistic fervor against the immorality of steroids, greater evils were encroaching upon the sports world by way of locker room showers and hotel rooms.

When allegations of molestation and rape are being made against college coaches, how are sports fans to consider PEDs and a few extra home runs truly evil? Or, to a lesser extent of evil than pedophilia, how big of a fall is Ryan Braun's reputation going to take in a sports universe that has already seen Tiger Woods crash and burn and Brett Favre's penis wearing Crocs? I guess what I'm asking is: if the truth about Ryan Braun turns out to be that he really did use PEDs, then who cares beyond a dwindling number of baseball purists? The sports landscape is not what it was when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa pretended to be Atlas; sports fans have an understanding of gravity now, that every hero is destined to fall.

The first Brewers game I ever went to was in Braun's rookie year. My friend Dan and I rode a bus from his apartment near Marquette's campus to Miller Park. On the bus were two older ladies with purple hair and too much cheese in their veins. They may have been knitting, and they reminded me of what Laverne and Shirley must be up to. They wore matching Brewers t-shirts, had on big blue and gold beaded necklaces, thick glasses, and hats emblazoned with the old blue and yellow Milwaukee mitt logo. The whole way to the stadium they yapped back and forth with each other, the bus driver, everyone about the improved stakes of the team, Prince Fielder, and especially about the new kid, Ryan Braun. They liked him, thought he was going to be special. They also liked that he was Jewish, because they wanted their sports stars to have a sense of right and wrong, but mostly because they, too, were Jewish. He was going to be their Hank Greenberg--they said it themselves. They were looking forward to the future, and until yesterday, their hopes had mostly been fulfilled. Ryan Braun's career got off to a Hall of Fame worthy start, the Brewers became a regular threat for the postseason, and by introducing the world to Beast Mode this past fall, they made it all the way to the NLCS.

And like those two ladies on the bus, there was something warm and inviting about the Milwaukee Brewers. Even if you were a fan of another team, it was okay to root for the Brewers; they were the innocent underdog that introduced mascot races; the little engine that could; the little midwestern city chesting up to the big boys; a team full of promising homegrown talent. But now, what are the Milwaukee Brewers other than tainted in the same way as every other somewhat successful team of the late '90s and early' 00s?

My heart goes out to those two old ladies. Beast Mode isn't so cuddly anymore. Prince Fielder is Chicago-bound. And Ryan Braun, having wooed Bathsheba, is facing a possible fifty-game suspension that has to have all of Milwaukee wondering what did trying to catch up with the present wind up costing them (other than the $145.5 million that the team owes Braun through 2020). Most of us probably won't even think about it, because all our teams did steroids when steroids were sheik and we're still trying to forget about it, avoiding the nasty reminders that we don't see everything off the field, numbing ourselves to the fact that the folklore we use to define ourselves is just that: a story we hope is more real than the person telling it.

The Amazingly Awful: A Response to the Vanderbilt Basketball Team Thus Far

2011-12-08T22:18:00.001-05:00

Editor's Note: The Vanderbilt men’s basketball team began the season ranked as the #7 team
in the country and were mentioned in the same breath for the first time ever with contending teams like North Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio State. The Vanderbilt Commodores are now 6-3, and have lost two games in a row to ranked opponents (Xavier and Lousville), not to mention one game to an unranked opponent (Cleveland State).

Josh Spilker, the author of the piece below, is somewhat concerned about Vanderbilt basketball considering more “tough” nonconference games still must be played (Marquette) as well as “tough” conference games (2x Kentucky/ Florida, 1x Alabama). Due to these circumstances, he is left to wonder about the value of his Vanderbilt season tickets.

There’s you and there’s the store and there’s this new AMAZING THING valued at a HIGH price and you’re kind of okay with it because you did all the research and all the best blogs/sites/Uncle Milton says “it’s totally worth it” and you realize you’ve never bought something of QUALITY in your life, so you go on believing that the investment is SOLID and you feel good until you actually watch the THING, until the back end of it falls off, until the THING makes a weird WHIR_WHIR_WHIRRING noise and begins spitting out parts and pieces all across your floor, it is wheezing and you are gasping and you wonder what does Uncle Milton REALLY KNOW and you realize that NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING AT ALL not even the THING itself can fix itself, which you realize is a very hopeless state for all of us to be in, to put such EXPECTATIONS on someTHING so fleeting.

You were so convinced. The THING was able to do THIS and THAT and all of this/that AMAZINGLY WELL in the commercials, as it well should have, you thought considering the HIGH value that every one put on it. But then there were a few things that it did AMAZINGLY AWFUL and the solid block of
CONFIDENCE that you once had in the THING have become fragile and have broken off and now float around in your head and these pieces have transformed themselves from CONFIDENCE and even have adopted a new name (they call themselves “DOUBT”) and frankly you hate this name, you’ve always hated this name, and there’s absolutely no way to change that name. You knew you should’ve stuck to your gut and never bought into this THING with such a high value, you are stupid for believing and you knew that you should have believed and bought into the one thing that you knew worked: ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY.

Because with ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY you don’t mind the WHIR_WHIR_WHIRRING in fact, that is supposed to happen. You don’t mind when the THING OF ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY falls apart a little bit, because your expectations were low and totally appropriate and if the THING happens to do better than its allotted portion in life (ENHANCED MEDIOCRITY) and actually performed AMAZINGLY WELL then you would consider it your good fortune and be okay with those outcomes and say thanks for exceeding expectations.

Because it’s the HIGH initial value that kills. Blasted expectations. Everything has become “DOUBT” so quickly. "DOUBT" and all its fragments CUT AND CUT AND CUT. And then "DOUBT" RIPS YOU OFF.

Josh Spilker runs Deckfight Press and the accompanying blog. He is also a frequent guest of LCB.

LCB Picks: SEC/VA Games of the Week

2011-12-03T00:56:00.001-05:00

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

On Friday night, Oregon crushed UCLA 49-31 to win the first ever PAC-12 Championship game, earning a spot in "The Granddaddy of Them All," the Rose Bowl. LaMichael James rushed for 219 yards, helping his team roll and giving himself a leg-up in the Heisman race. But this was all news to me. Tonight, I took my fiancee out to eat, came home, took the dogs on a jog, and then started preparation for my upcoming finals. It was a fruitful night. However, when I logged on to write this preview I noticed update after update of the UCLA-Oregon game. To my surprise, it was tonight. Like most my age, I have a fairly busy schedule. However, I still feel like I'm just as likely to hear about a game of this magnitude through word of mouth as I am to see a commercial (which I didn't, at least until the game was finished). I had no clue this was happening and even though I could care less that I missed it. (The fact that UCLA got in a conference championship with a 6-6 record, just 1 win more than the "sky is falling" Tennessee Vols, and a fired coach is laughable at best.) I do have a lot of questions; What went wrong with their advertising campaign? Was this on TV? ABC, ESPN, VS, Animal Planet? Am I the only one that had no clue this game was happening? I can't be, right? Am I developing an east coast bias? Whatever the answers are, we all know that the PAC-12 Championship Game is another reminder of why we should all be thankful for the SEC.

SEC Championship Game
(12) UGA v (1) LSU @ 4:00 on CBS:
Many are saying if LSU loses they are still a lock for the BCS Title game, which is impressive. Not quite as impressive as who they've beaten and how they've done it, but impressive nonetheless. However, if Georgia wins and locks-up the automatic bid, the SEC could get four teams into BCS games. LSU, Bama, and UGA would be locks; with Arkansas having a pretty good argument towards their inclusion. This has to scare the other conferences, right? If you add USC to the equation, five teams in the SEC are eligible for a BCS game (though, they have no shot at a BCS game). No matter how you feel about the absurdity of not having playoffs is, it's still an impressive accomplishment for a conference.

Did you know Glamour Shots slogan is:
"We Bring Out Your Best ... Then We Take Your Picture"
Aaron Murray does!

To make matters worse for the non-SEC, it's clear the SEC East is suffering through a down year and yet they have two teams (that's more than most conferences) in the top 14 of the BCS rankings. This domination by the SEC is only going to get worse in the next couple of seasons. Florida will get better, Vandy is building something, UT will return, and the new guys (aTm and Missou) should be in a decent spot to contend. The SEC will continue to get better, until the rest of the conferences defect from the BCS and force a playoff; which has to be the only way to slow down this train. I like the Dawgs in the upset. Apart from them playing a seudo-home game and knowing Aaron Murray is the best QB LSU will face this season, I don't have much of a reason to believe this will happen. Just call it an inkling. UGA 28, LSU 24.

VA Games of the Week
ODU v (3) Georgia Southern @ 1:00 & JMU v (2) North Dakota State University @ 4:00 on ESPN3/Game Plan:
While trolling the message boards this week, I saw one question that stood out to me: "Would you rather your school make it to the Final Four or win a FCS Championship?" As you would guess, most of the answers revealed what sport that poster preferred. However, it's a fairly good question. If your team makes it to the Final Four, they gain national notoriety for the school, boost admissions, boost athletic donations (simultaneously helping the non-revenue sports), and you get a month of lifelong memories. But, you don't even win a Championship and your teams' coach is probably going to leave in the near future (See; Larranaga, Jim). However, if you win an FCS national championship, your school wins the most legitimate National Title in college football, gains a possible catalyst towards a jump to the BCS, a boost (albeit smaller) to athletic donations, and you get a month of lifelong memories. But noone that didn't/doesn't attend an FCS school cares/knows and while it may be more legitimate than the BCS Title game, it still doesn't include all of Division 1.

For me, I'd take the championship. Only because ODU is on the verge of announcing a major expansion to Foreman Field and they're "this close" to making the jump. I believe a FCS Title would be all they need to speed up the process.

Once again, no picks, but I am interested in what other "mid-major" fans would rather have; Fourth Place or First? CBS, Sports Illustrated, & ESPN or ESPNU?

2011-2012 ACC Basketball Preview Part 2

2011-12-02T02:14:00.000-05:00

NC State:
The Wolfpack finally made a coaching change after dropping the red coat jester Sidney Lowe after five disappointing seasons where he never finished better than 6-10 in the ACC. This was after firing Herb Sendek, who took State to five straight NCAA tournament appearances in his last five years as head coach. Hired was Mark Gottfried, who was not the home run hire that delusional Wolfpack fans thought they could get, but nonetheless he has a strong resume and is an immediate upgrade over Lowe. State is returning some talent with backcourt players Lorenzo Brown and Scott Wood who can fill up the basket on any given night. The best frontcourt player is sophomore C.J. Leslie, who showed flashes as a highly recruited freshman of his ability to score but was inconsistent with effort and was suspended for violating team rules at the end of the season. They don’t have a lack of size with Leslie and three juniors in Deshawn Painter, Richard Howell, and Jordan Vandenburg, but none of them have proven consistent production and they will need someone to make a jump to replace the loss of Tracy Smith. They will be formidable on days that Wood is hot and against teams with weaker inside play, but the lack of a true point guard with Ryan Harrow transferring and the lack of any consistent three point threats beyond Wood will hold this team back.
Record: 8-8

Miami:
It looked to have the potential of being a promising season during the summer where a Top 3 finish in the ACC was in the cards, but injuries and off-the-court trouble have lowered expectations for the Hurricanes this season. Miami had four starters returning from a team that underachieved last season under Frank Haith. This includes talented and experienced guards Malcolm Grant and Durand Scott along with an All-ACC center in Reggie Johnson. Add in the addition of new head coach Jim Larranaga, which was an immediate upgrade over Haith, and this season could have been the most successful in the history of Miami basketball. But Johnson suffered a knee injury in a pickup game that required surgery and will keep him out of action until at least December. Shortly thereafter, another key post player Julian Gamble tore his ACL and was lost for the season. Adding to the frustration of the injuries is senior forward DeQuan Jones is sitting out the season as an alleged participant in the Nevin Shapiro scandal. The Canes will still have their excellent backcourt, but they will have to overcome losing their entire frontcourt in order to challenge for a winning ACC record. If Johnson can return to form by March, though will be a dangerous team come ACC tournament time. But will they do enough prior to warrant a tourney bid?
ACC record: 9-7

Florida State:
Quick trivia; Who is the second-longest tenured coach in the ACC? That’s right. It’s Leonard Hamilton. Since taking over in 2002, Hamilton has done a great job taking over a program that was perennial doormat of the ACC, never finishing higher than 7th in the ACC from the Sam Cassell years, through the Steve Robinson tenure, to when Hamilton took over. It took a few years to get things turned around, but Hamilton has lead FSU to three straight NCAA tourney appearances and has more wins in the ACC behind Duke and UNC in the past 5 years than any other school. His focus has been defense, which won’t be any different this season. He recruits tall, athletic players who can defend the rim and rebound in the paint and stay in front of perimeter players outside, and he has an army of those this season. I counted 7 players on the roster who are 6’7’ and taller, and their three best guards are 6’5’. Defensively Florida State is a top 5 team, but the offense is far away from it. They go into the season without an established go-to guy as there isn’t a single player returning who averaged double figures last season. The key to FSU's season and to the next stop up the ACC ladder is to be more efficient and effective on offense.

Virginia:
Surprise pick of the year. I decided to move them above Florida State after their win over Michigan, the only change I have made since the season started. Tony Bennett posted a winning record and a seventh place finish last season in the ACC with most experts picking them to finish in the basement, even without star forward Mike Scott for most of the season because of a broken ankle. Scott brings production on offense and defense and he played very well against Michigan, which proved he is back fully from injury and will a force all season. Assane Sene will be a force in the paint and shot 52 percent from the field. Joe Harris was a surprise at guard last season and if he continues his growth will be 14 point a game player. Two other veteran guards in Sammy Zeglinski and Jontel Evans will split time at the point. Zeglinski is the better shooter, Evans the better penetrator and passer. Freshman guard Malcolm Brogdon has played well in the first few weeks. If they can picked up where they left off with the addition of Scott, they will be a great team, but a step below the top 2.
ACC record: 10-6

Duke:
The Ohio State game withstanding, I have liked what I have seen so far. Replacing 3 star players in Singler, Smith, and Irving is a tough chore for anybody, but Duke has come out of the gates stronger than I expected. I’ve liked the maturity and improvement I’ve seen from Mason Plumlee. He will be a legit low post threat this season and will only get better as the season goes as gets more accustomed to being a primary scoring option. He went toe-to-toe with probably the best low post player in the NCAA in Thomas Robinson in the Maui final against Kansas and put up 17 and 12 with the offense funneling through him down the stretch. I thought he played well against Jared Sullinger on Tuesday, just the rest of team besides Austin Rivers didn’t show up to compete. Rivers will be maddening at times this season as his tries to create offense on the dribble drive, but if the Ohio State game is a indication of what’s to come, Rivers could become the best guard in the ACC this year. His crossover is the quickest in the country and he can finish with both hands at the rim. Seth Curry has stepped up his scoring and is an assassin from behind the arc, but ultimately I think he will need to be moved off the ball as he just isn’t a point guard and he’s not Jon Scheyer who made the transition. Ryan Kelly looks much improved and will need to be a consistent scorer on offense and grab rebounds and defend effectively in the paint for this team to do things. Andrew Dawkins looks to be purely a 3 point specialist, which is somewhat disappointing in his junior year, but I can live with him in that role if he steps up his defense and keeps his head in the game on a night he’s struggling to score.

As I see it, Duke will need one of their two freshman wingmen in Michael Gbinije or Alex Murphy to mature during the season and get some minutes at the 3 to help guard on the outside as the defense on the perimeter is mediocre at best through the first 8 games. Ultimately I believe K will need to employ his slow, containment, half court style for this team to be successful in March as I don’t know if the perimeter defense will be good enough to win in his more traditional, in your face, pressure the ball defense he prefers. With the ACC being so down this year, I expect K to spend time during the year changing styles and mixing up lineups until he can put together the jigsaw puzzle that is this team. I’m optimistic of the final result.
ACC record: 12-4

UNC:
Based on the covers of all the major sports publications, the college basketball National Championship is once again Carolina’s to lose. UNC welcomes back all five starters from an Elite Eight team that finished last year inside the Top 10. Their primary strength is in the frontcourt with Harrison Barnes, John Henson, and Tyler Zeller all future NBA players. John Henson was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and he is as good defensively as any player in the country. Barnes played much better in the second half of the season after struggling through unreasonably high expectations in the beginning half and led UNC further than any team in the conference. Watching Barnes he is so much more efficient when he catches and shoots within a couple of dribbles. When he is pounding the ball into the ground and forcing his way into the paint is when he gets in trouble. Kendall Marshall took over the point guard slot midway through the season and became the catalyst for the turnaround in last year’s team. Because of his court vision and his ability to penetrate and find the open man with a pass, he makes everyone around him better. But his defense and perimeter shooting will need to show improvement to take the team to the next step. If UNC can improve their three point shooting with Reggie Bullock and PJ Hairston, and Kendall Marshall can improve his game and more importantly stay healthy, they will be tough to beat. The Heels aren’t a lock for anything, and I think Ohio State and Kentucky are more talented, but anything less than a ACC regular-season championship and a Final Four appearance would be a major disappointment.
ACC record: 13-3

The NBA Lockout Ends: Kobe & MJ Talk In Prison

2011-11-29T21:51:00.001-05:00

The Lockout is over, but sports fans aren't exactly parading in the streets, at least not in the way they did for the NFL, which should tell everyone something about the NBA: even when it's doing well, it's not like it used to be. Something has been severed between fans over the age of say 30 and the League, and that severance goes back to Michael Jordan's retirement and the contemporary players chasing after his legacy. And with Jordan, as an owner, sitting opposite a younger generation during the Lockout, his competitive nature took on a new edge, that of a reluctantly bitter father. Some will say his recent behavior tarnished his legacy; personally, I think he is what he always was. You be the judge:

“Someone here to you, Mr. Jordan,” said the pink blushing security guard with a bit more fear and respect than he should have.

Mr. Jordan bit down on the end of his cigar, bits of brown leaf and spit slipping out his teeth and onto his lips, before fluttering to the floor. “When I’m done here.” He then peeked at his cards and raised the bet.

“Yes, sir. . .” the guard trembled, the rush of blood invading all the white that was left in his face. “. . . but this man is awfully anxious to see you.”

“Then he can wait ‘til I finish this hand.”“Yes, sir.” The guard scurried out of the doorway like a mouse from a broom handle.“Dumb cracker,” hissed Jordan through his cigar, causing the tip to glow orange.

The gruff looking man, in need of a haircut, beside Jordan just laughed; an empty, fake sort of laugh that would make one wonder whether the man even knew what funny was. “Yeah, boss.”

“Awww, shit,” said Jordan standing up from the table, “I ain’t got shit anyway. Oak, pay me out this hand, and if you take extra, I’ll cut even you.”

The man in need of a haircut nodded and then turned to the other two men at the table, one with a long Roman nose and the other one bald, “You heard that, Ronnie and Scott, Mr. Jordan’s out,” which they knew meant that they were supposed to lose on purpose to Mr. Oakley, who would later split his earning with Mr. Jordan.

Jordan tossed the still lit butt of his cigar into a waste basket, causing a flame to smolder in the paper remnants before going as still as it was before. Mr. Jordan had always lived this way, giving fire where there was none and leaving what had been nothing with nothing once again. It was his way of doing business; his way of existing; his way of living; his way of reckoning that he was better than all these cons, inside of a prison, reminiscing about how things used to be.

On the way down the hall to the visiting room, Mr. Jordan stopped and checked in his reflection in the metal of a water fountain. He rubbed his head, shaven that morning, and pulled on his nose. Then he bent down for a drink, baptizing his own reflection in the cool water, as he lapped it with his long, pink tongue. Then he prowled down the rest of the hallway. This was his domain; his savannah.

When he came to the visiting room, it was empty. A gray counter split the room, and the counter was split by a pane of plexiglass that ran the length of the room. The counter was then divided up by three pieces of plexiglass that cut across the width of the counter, making four places for prisoners to meet their loved ones. Each spot had a stool and a phone receiver on each side. Mr. Jordan took at seat at one of the middle stools and waited. He could see the glint of his earring in the plexiglass like some star that refused to die.

A green light went on by the door, and as it opened, a buzzer sounded. In walked a slim looking fellow whose gait reminded Jordan of his younger self. The younger man’s hairline set back on his forehead like it was receding, but it wasn’t; and his lips stuck out like he was pouting over the hand history had dealt him, like he was upset that he would never receive credit for being the first man to ever live, despite the fact that billions came before him and billions would come after him. The younger man sat down at the table and took in the moment, staring at the man he’d been studying from a far his whole life--now just a few feet away. If not for the plexiglass, he could reach out and touch the man.

Mr. Jordan looked impatient; he had known this visit would come; and he already wanted it over and done with; and he grimaced like a man eating leftovers that don't taste good.

The two men reached for the telephone receivers simultaneously, in a manner that made it impossible to tell which was the shadow and which was the body.

“I can’t believe I’m here. . . . I’ve got so much to ask you. . . so much to say,” started Kobe.

Mr. Jordan just stared through the glass, his dark eyes still and frozen--he was a viper on display at the zoo--and he spoke in a fanged whisper.

“Kobe,” he waited for the younger version of himself to look him in the eye, “you know I’m not your father.”

Kobe let a out a hollow yeah and dropped the receiver.

2011-2012 ACC Basketball Preview; Part 1

2011-11-28T04:02:00.000-05:00

The college basketball season is about 3 weeks underway and I know previews happen before the season, but ACC games don’t start until January, so I feel fine posting this while the season has already started. No secret to anyone, the ACC will be down this year, as Duke and North Carolina are head and shoulders above anyone in the conference. There are four new coaches entering the league this year along with three other coaches starting their second year, so 7 of 12 teams have coaches on the job for just l8 months. Only half of the combined starters return from 11 ACC teams excluding UNC. The ACC only received four bids to the NCAA tournament last year, and will be hard pressed to increase that number this year. But I still love ACC basketball and the fight for 3-12 in the conference will be an interesting fight. Below are my ACC predictions starting from worst to first. Part 2 coming tomorrow. Enjoy.

Boston College: Eagles team will look completely different this year as they lose their entire starting lineup as junior guard Reggie Jackson jumped to the NBA early and four seniors (Joe Trapani, Corey Raji, Biko Paris and Josh Southern) graduated. That leaves BC with….nobody. This is the first time I’ve looked at an ACC roster before the season and not recognized one player on the team. Turns out Al Skinner just stopped recruiting, which is why he was fired before last season. With nine freshmen on the roster, this has to be the least experienced team in ACC history. And quite possibly could be the worst. If Steve Donahue manages to win more than 2 games in the ACC, he'll have done a magnificent coaching job this year.

ACC record: 1-15

Wake Forest: Last year’s team lost more ACC games and more games overall than any team in ACC history. With heavy losses from graduation, NBA, and off the court problems prior to last year, Wake and coach Jeff Bzedilk were forced to throw unproven freshman and sophomores into the fire and they just weren’t competitive. There was more turmoil after last season with three more players leaving, notably their best freshman last year JT Terrell’s dismissal for a DUI arrest. Wake will be better with less distractions and a more mature and experienced team. They have ACC caliber players in Travis McKie at forward and C.J. Harris at shooting guard. I don’t know if they will climb much higher on the ACC ladder, but based on the handful of games so far, they will be more competitive and successful than last season.

ACC record: 4-12

Georgia Tech: Big changes abound for the Yellow Jackets from the head coach to the basketball arena to the players. Gone is Paul Hewitt, who only went to the tournament once in the past four seasons. He was an effective recruiter, as he brought in highly touted players like Chris Bosh, Derrick Favors, Thaddeus Young, and Javaris Crittendon, but was unable to keep them, causing constant roster turnover and no cohesion and continuity from year to year. In is Brian Gregory, who was an assistant for Tom Izzo before coaching Dayton for 8 seasons, but only managed 2 NCAA appearances in his time there. Gone is Alexander Memorial Coliseum, Georgia Tech’s home since 1956. It will undergo a $45 million renovation and will be renamed Hank McCamish Pavilion. During the renovation, Tech’s home games this season will split between Philips Arena and Gwinnett Arena. Gone is their best player last year Iman Shumpert, who left early for the NBA. Forward Glen Rice Jr. (13ppg last year) will be asked to step up in scoring and leadership. Their biggest weakness will be down in the paint as PF Kammeon Holsey is a respectable returning player but they have no depth or ability behind him. In a year of transition with a new head coach, new system, and expanding roles for returning players, plus the added wrinkle of no real home court, and Tech will struggle to finish better than the bottom four of the ACC.

ACC record: 5-11

Maryland: In continuing the theme of transition and change, nothing will be more different than looking towards the Maryland bench this year and not seeing Gary Williams, sweating profusely through his suit and yelling obscenities at his bench at what seemed any time he pleased. Gary retired as the third winningest coach in the ACC behind only behind Coach K and Dean Smith, and that in itself speaks for the quality program Gary led at Maryland. Maryland hired Mark Turgeon, who was Big 12 Coach of the Year the last two seasons at Texas A&M, and I believe will bring Maryland back to ACC prominence in the coming years. But it won’t be this year. Maryland has only eight scholarship players and only three are taller than 6-6, thanks to Jordan Williams inexplicably announcing for the NBA draft and Haukur Palsson leaving to play professionally in Europe. Sophomore Terrell Stoglin is a great scoring point guard and he along with senior forward Sean Mosley and highly recruited freshman shooting guard Nick Faust will have to shoulder the scoring load as sophomore guard Pe’Shon Howard is out for half the season with a foot injury. Mark Turgeon would be ecstatic to coach this team to win more than 6 games in the ACC, which could possibly win him another Coach of the Year award, but the future looks bright for Maryland basketball.

ACC record: 6-10

Clemson: Brad Brownell took advantage of an experienced squad last year led by Demontez Stitt and Jerai Grant and was able to secure an NCAA bid in his first season as head coach and a win in the tournament, something Oliver Purnell could not do with teams more talented than last year’s version. With those two seniors gone, Brownell will have his work cut off to get back to the tournament. He returns two reliable guards in Tanner Smith and Andre Young and pair of workers in the post in Milton Jennings and Devin Booker. But they don’t have enough behind these four to repeat last year’s success unless Jennings or Booker takes a huge step up in production inside and become All-ACC caliber.

ACC record: 6-10

Virginia Tech: Tough year last year as injuries diffused what should have been the best team VT has had since joining the ACC, but again they found themselves on the wrong side of the bubble. This will be another year where Tech and Seth Greenberg struggle to make the NCAA tournament. VT lost as much talent as anybody in the league, as gone are All-ACC guard Malcolm Delaney, ACC second team forward Jeff Allen, and once again forward JT Thompson after tearing his ACL again in preseason practice. Respectable talent returns at guard with Dorenzo Hudson and Erick Green and forward with Victor Davila and Jarell Eddie. Tech's ultimate success or failure this season does ride a lot on three impact freshmen. Robert Brown, Marquis Rankin and Dorian Finney-Smith are the best recruiting class Greenberg has brought in during his tenure. How fast they can acclimate to the rigors of ACC basketball will determine if VT can escape bubble purgatory.

ACC record: 7-9

Gonzo Receiving: The Fear and Loathing of Tony Gonzalez

2011-11-25T09:30:00.001-05:00

We were somewhere around Fredericksburg, not on the edge of the desert but of suburbia. Our cars had been loaded down with Miller Lite and Yuengling six-packs, football magazines, and notebooks. We sat around the kitchen table in quiet. Then one of us would speak. . . there would be a roar. . . And then it would get quiet again, and that ebb and flow of noise that was fantasy football at the beginning of the 2000s for a group of callow college kids has now become a microcosm of one fantasy League’s journey to the abyss of a decade come and gone: a volcano erupted with message board taunts, hateful voice mails, and back room deals now lies dormant, and drafts are carried out electronically and with less profanity.

My team’s general manager, yes, there were two of us in charge of personnel operations ten years ago, had taken his jacket off, but he wasnot pouring beer down his chest. His fingertips were covered in synthetic Nacho cheese--Damn Doritos!--and everything he touched turned orange as the sun, fading, dying, going belly up as a fish might. Stevo had never won anything, and I don’t know why I agreed to being his partner; desperation never makes for sound decision making. We had been at this for hours. The salt shakers, on the table, were filledwith actual salt, but we were still snorting heavy stat lines, seeing “Visions of Johanna,” and straining to picture the perfect fantasy lineup. . . neither of us able to agree on anything, which made us ripe to settle on tradition.

And there is no better place for the drug of tradition than a fantasy draft: establish the ground game by picking a running back, snatch up a quarterback, and find a wide receiver who is the picture of precision, perhaps even one that plays on the same team as your quarterback. Fantasies--it turns out--can be rather predictable,that is until you or your partner slides an index card across the tablewith the words is it too early to take Gonzo? scrawled across it in a smear of orange cheese Nacho blood, and dry as any desert’s heart.

And that’s when it happened--the feeding frenzy that is a fantasy draft. Dr. Stevo tapped his finger on the question. . . Is it too early to take Gonzo? I looked around the table at our scaly adversaries, fangs chomping at the bit--they wanted their teeth in our necks, wanted us dead--and I nodded. A half hour later tight ends were an extinct species on the crust of the fantasy earth, and the crap shoot that was and is fantasy football had begun--we were now sorting through the riffraff, the vagabonds, the spot players, the sleepers and zombies, the men without homes, the players without teams, and we couldn’t feel a thing as the carousel of the draft order spun round and round because we had the testicular fortitude to pick Tony Gonzalez first, which meant we had found a way to make the sure highs of the early rounds’ picks last even longer, like mescaline coming on slow after the ether fumes have dissipated.

In a world of football fandom, where players ingratiate themselves to the fans as much with their fantasy stats as they do with their performances on the field, a player like Tony Gonzalez is the spinal column that links mind to body, and because he is that bridge between two worlds, the position of tight end is the only position for a player like Tony. No one dreams of being a tight end. A tight end is a wide receiver that has out grown himself; something funny. . . like a centaur, but not in the traditional sense. . . a tight end is more like a centaur whose top half is the body of a horse riding on the scrawny legs of a human. In other words, the tight end is an offensive lineman that was left in the dryer, has shrunk, and now fits his old position like a sweater that is too small and makes pectoral muscles sag like a woman’s breasts. Tight ends are cast offs of another position, part one thing, part another, a linebacker with more hands and less meanness, and they are always referred to as safety blankets, as if only a quarterback whose maturity is stunted would ever throw to them.

But Tony Gonzalez changed all that, sort of, making the act of being stunted a liberating experience, that is if results in a digital world can do more than some guru’s mystic ohms in the way of transmuting a sphere of sweat and blood into some sort of lotus blossom, because that’s what Gonzo was humming all those Sundays in Arrowhead Stadium: digital ohms.Prior to Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense the tight end position wasn’t much of anything, but Walsh made it into something; and in the 1990s teams like the Dallas Cowboys, the Green Bay Packers, and the Denver Broncos all made use of the position by borrowing strands of San Francisco’s flower power fetishes, but Jay Novacek, Mark Chmura, and even the great Shannon Sharpe were still just system outlets of a quarterback’s fear, riding a wave that could only carry their individual names as far as the system, the team, or the quarterback’s arm could go: In the ‘90s, if a tight end’s team lost, then that tight end was forgotten, like some cyclone torn apart by the very wind that birthed it.

Mass movements, once they pass, almost always strand (in Vegas) the individuals who truly believed in them with vitriolic emotions such as loathing, and my general manager and I. . . we always latched our fantasy hopes to the very real anger that we believed was burning in the gut of a player like Tony Gonzalez, who as a tight end on so many mediocre to bad teams, shouldn’t have even registered in our hippocampus. Thank God for fantasy football and Dick Vermeil’s sanskrit tears.

Damn the swine! Novacek, Chmura, and Sharpe all won Super Bowls. Hell, Sharpe won three, but Mr. Gonzo, Tony himself, has eclipsed all of them without ever having played in even his conference’s championship game. He’s a legend without the legendary moment, brand, or vehicle. He made his own way, which in a strange bit of forced coincidence aligns the clean cut kid from Southern Cal with the rebel rousing, drug-induced journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, who without being a part of the traditional school of journalism was still able to see things.

Thompson welded the identity of the writer to the story, torpedoing the idea of objective journalism and lacing it with wild profanity, while Tony Gonzalez took a position that was anchored to the idea of being an objective cog in an offense, mainly blocking and preventing quarterbacksfrom pissing on themselves, and made it a springboard for becoming the equivalent of an NFL cult hero. And just as Thompson’s efforts at blazing new paths in journalism may have come up short if his personality had not been that of a cocaine-induced machine gun, one can also assume that without the rise of fantasy football, over the last decade, Tony Gonzalez would have remained just another tight end, marginalized by playing most of his career in the corn deserts of middle America.

Who would have guessed it? At age thirty-four and after fourteen and a halfseasons, the name after Jerry Rice on the all-time receptions list would be that of a tight end’s. The next tight end on the list is Shannon Sharpe at number twenty-two, followed by Jason Witten at number fourty-three. The list is littered with several second and third tier receivers who are blessed to have played in a pass-happy era of the League, but there is something telling about the fact that Gonzalez is one of only two players in the top thirteen who has not played in a Super Bowl (the other is Chris Carter), which says something not only about how much of a receiver’s success is tied to a quarterback’s and, therefore, to a team’s success, but also causes one to wonder just what Gonzo’s numbers even mean in the grand scheme of things. . . . After all, Gonzalez has nothing real to polish other than the hallucinated trophies of fantasy football junkies.

And as for the receptions list, it will continue to evolve, and the new rules, that limit what a defender can and can't do, will split it open like a grapefruit, to rot; and even other tight ends, as they are already doing around the League, will rise up out of the coasts and heartlands, writing and catching themselves into the story, but remember that the first “Man on the Move” was Tony Gonzalez, just as the first true blogger was Hunter S. Thompson . . . and everyone else is swine riding awave that may have already peaked, marking not the walls of the GeorgiaDome but some forgotten place along the I-35 corridor that splits America like a concrete knife. . . the harsh reality versus the blithe fantasy, and a man who is little bit of both.

LCB Picks: SEC/VA Games of the Week

2011-11-24T01:23:00.001-05:00

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

Last weekend, around 22:00 EST, for the first time in my life I was joyous due to a UT win over Vandy. Over the years, the game was a mortal lock. The hiring of James Franklin appeared to have ended all of that. Vandy started turning teams over, hitting harder and playing four quarters; they finally started making teams earn a W over them. They thumped Ole Miss, Kentucky and all of their OOC opponents. But more importantly, they took Arkansas, Georgia and Florida down to the wire; inspiring many to claim that Vandy had surpassed the Volunteers. It even led Clay Travis to gather his followers, pitchfork in hand, to come for Derek Dooley's head (a man he claimed just last year would lead the Big Orange back to the promise land), so he could be replaced by Franklin.

This reasoning is clearly idiotic and the reason Tennessee got itself where it is today. The "time is now" attitude is what led UT to fire Phil Fulmer and hire Lane Kiffin. Which, of course, led UT to brash statements, back-alley dealings and even more resentment throughout the SEC. Even worse, that hire jeopardized the very future of the program. It's also why they hired Derek Dooley. Saddled with an uncertain future and a recent history of voluminous player arrests, the program needed cleansing. Derek Dooley has succeeded in that aspect in just under two seasons. They've dropped off the radar of the AP rankers, but, they too, have dropped from the Fulmer Cup standings. Now, that the tarnish is finally starting to dissolve, Clay Travis wants to fire Derek Dooley, who hasn't even finished his second season. To jump the gun and fire him now would be a bigger mistake than hiring Lane Kiffin ever was. It would set a precedent in Knoxville, one Raider and Redskins fans have become accustomed too; win today or you're out. We all know how well that mentality has treated both teams over the past decade.

Mark my words; the Vols will be back. It might not be under Dooley, but he will have a hand in their resurgence. Four years is what he deserves and what he must get. If he doesn't, the gap will continue to shrink between Nashville and Knoxville. And, for someone who is finally glad UT beat Vandy, I can't think of a worse thing. Now that I got that off of my chest, lets get to the picks.

SEC
(3) Arkansas v (1) LSU @ 2:30, Friday on CBS:
As a fan, there are two ways to look at this game. You can root for Arkansas to win, in order to create a three-way tie in the SEC West. This would, I believe, send Alabama to the SEC Championship, thanks to the weird tiebreaker rules in the SEC. This would end with the SEC ~~possibly~~ definitely sending three schools to BCS games, causing the ADs of non-SEC schools into a mode of jealousy driven panic and hopefully it would be the final straw to bring the playoff system we all desire. Or you can root for LSU to win, go to Atlanta, beat the Dawgs, and play Bama in the BCS title game. It all depends on how much chaos you'd like the BCS to deal with. For me, chaos reigns supreme and I'll be pulling for the upset. Arkansas 20, LSU 17.

VA
(6) Virginia Tech v (24) UVA @ 3:30 on ABC/ESPN2:
I spent Thanksgiving with my fiancee's family in Charlottesville. The main topic was, of course, this game. I asked them what they thought were the keys to the game. The answers I got were well thought out, concise and thoroughly pessimistic. The keys according to her family, who have been to every home UVA game this season, are as follows: UVA needs to shorten the field/win the field position battle, protect the ball, score on the few opportunities they will get from Tech, keep it a low scoring affair and find a way to make Logan Thomas uncomfortable. These are of course important to every team (outside of Arkansas and the low scoring aspect), every game. But these keys are even more important when it comes to this game, as UVA is clearly outmatched talent-wise (Directly attributed to the Al Groh era). If they can keep VT on the right side of the 50 and maybe even turn them over, UVA stands a shot. I hope. I'll be pulling for the upset. I'm just not sure how much faith I can put in a team that needed OT to beat Idaho and lost to Southern Miss at home. VT 24, UVA 17.

Elsewhere in the Commonwealth:
The 17th ranked Norfolk State Spartans travel the six miles to play the 9th Old Dominion Monarchs at the Spartans old stomping grounds and ODU's home field (Foreman Field). They'll bring the Legion and 1600 of their fans. The Monarchs will be hosting with 17,500 of their fans and the best mascot in all the land. It's going to be loud. It's going to be fun. It's even being referred to as the "Battle of Norfolk" and is clearly a rivalry in the making. This will be the first FCS playoff game for both teams, though it's taken NSU much longer to make it than it has the 3 y/o Monarchs. The game is sold out and should be a dandy. I'll be there, clad in blue and silver. I won't pick a winner. But I will say this, a MEAC team hasn't won a playoff game since 1999 (knock on wood).

Also, JMU (for some reason) travels to Richmond, Kentucky, to play EKU. The Dukes should roll, but they should also be hosting this game. So, who knows what'll happen? You can watch this one on ESPNU (the rest of the FCS games will be on ESPN3). Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend, everyone.

The Voice of Larry Munson

2011-11-21T18:33:00.001-05:00

I hadn't heard the voice of Larry Munson in a long time before last night when I found myself listening to a lot of his old calls on YouTube, and I'd forgotten how much that voice means to me. Hearing it again, now, I feel three feet tall and like my hand is something small reaching for the big, thick palm of my father's, to guide me through a sea of red and black ebbing out of Sanford Stadium, past the old rail tracks and back toward the First Presbyterian Church. And that's what Munson's voice was: a constellation crackling through the radio, guiding an entire state through the course of an SEC season, unafraid to make football out to be more than it is. It sparkled. It flared. It cracked. And it bled. Rest in peace, Larry. We will surely miss you.

LCB Picks: SEC/VA Games of the Week

2011-11-19T10:32:00.001-05:00

I'd love to talk to about this past week; the Cyclones upset, National Unfriend Day, Gary Pinkel's arrest, the rumors of Urban Meyer and Herbstreit to Ohio State, etc. But we're running out of time. So, lets just get to the picks.

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

SEC Game of the Week
Vanderbilt v Tennessee @ 7:00 on ESPNU:
This week is the annual SEC/SoCon challenge. Four games where teams pay an FCS team to come play so they can pad their bowl resume. This leaves us with slim-pickings when it comes to SEC football. Georgia hosts Kentucky, in what is likely to be a beatdown of the Cats. LSU visits Oxford, essentially an extra bye week for the Tigers. Mississippi State goes to Arkansas, where they will get rolled. That leaves us with the biggest game in Tennessee, Vandy versus the Vols.

It has been 6 years since the 'Dores left this match-up with a W. But for the first time in the rivalry's long history, Vandy is favored to win at Neyland. Although they're favored by just one point, that they're favored at all, says a lot about how far the Volunteers have fallen and how much Vanderbilt has improved under James Franklin. If Vandy wins, they clinch a bowl birth, knock UT out of the bowl picture and likely force UT to hire a new coach. If UT wins, they can keep their bowl hopes alive for at least one more week, while returning the football balance in the Volunteer State back to Knoxville.

This game will come down to the QBs, Tyler Bray and Jordan Rodgers. One is a future great, the other's brother is an NFL great. One is healthy, the other is returning from a hand injury. One is 7-2 as a starter, the other is 2-2 (with wins coming against UK and Army). One has a big arm, the other struggles to complete passes past 20 yards. That's enough for me to take the Vols with the upset. They may not be as deep as Vandy, but as long as Bray is healthy, they're better. Also, if the Mannings and McCoys are any indication, there can only be one great QB per generation when it comes to brothers. Sorry, Jordan, but it appears as if Aaron soaked up all the talent in this gene pool. UT 24, Vandy 22.

Virginia Game of the Week
Virginia v (25) Florida State @ 7:30 on ESPN2:
Mike London is a miracle worker. He has UVA, in his second year, just a game back from the mighty Hokies. If they can win the next two games, they will supplant the team from Blacksburg as the Coastal representatives in Charlotte. Which could end up being the first domino to fall in UVA taking back the Commonwealth. Which would make perfect sense; they have the better school, town, campus, facilities and it's not in the middle of nowhere. But for all that to happen, they need to beat FSU in Tuscaloosa. Which won't happen. Since FSU blew a 4Q lead against Wake Forest, they've won five straight and outscored the opposition 177 to 58. The Noles are rolling and UVA just isn't quite ready to take back the Commonwealth, yet. FSU 31, UVA 24.

Number of the Day: Coach K's Record 903

2011-11-15T22:27:00.001-05:00

My mom taught me that if you can't say anything nice at all, then don't say anything, so I'll probably stop saying anything now other than the facts. Coach K is the winningest coach in NCAA history and a leader of men. Ugghh! Even I've been brainwashed. My real reaction is posted here at The Faster Times (I also wrote this piece on the NBA Lockout there a couple days ago), and I'm sure Russ will offer us his Duke-biased insight at some point, while I remain the sole objective voice here at LCB.

Staring into the Eyes of Giants: Georgia vs. Auburn

2011-11-12T09:34:00.001-05:00

Goliath, being a giant and all, casts a shadow that goes well beyond the walls of a Sunday School room or even the farthest church pew from the pulpit, and like any figure from ancient times, he goes by many names and comes in many forms. The first Goliath I ever met was William Lattimore: he was the fastest kid in the third grade, and despite shooting a basketball like a Mujahideen with a rocket launcher, he never missed. Then there was Quentin Moses who in middle school stood like a Philistine above a bunch of musty-smelling adolescent Hebrews, and the list could go on to include Michael Hudson of Battlefield Middle or Reed Fairchild of Spotsylvania Middle. Different names. Same effect. When coach asked you to guard one of them one on one or you found yourself eye to eye with them across an imaginary yard marker, you knew they were better, that your legs weren't fast enough, that your arms weren't long enough--that you needed the miracle of a slingshot to slay the giant standing before you.

But slingshots are not allowed on basketball courts or football fields, so your own nose winds up a bloody mess on your jersey, or you sit quietly on the bench with four fouls, or Cam Newton, a quarterback, runs for 151 yards--more than the top two Bulldawg rushers combined--against the Georgia defense as Nick Fairley illegally punishes the quarterback, and a fourteen point first quarter lead disappears into the branches of Toomer's Trees just as quickly as tailgate smoke.

Georgia's season started off full of doubt and with talk of hot seats, but a seven-game win streak, with wins against Tennessee and Florida, has drained a sea of apprehension just as quickly as pulling the stopper out of the kitchen sink (and some South Carolina injuries and the dismissal of a quarterback helped a bit too), so going into this year's Auburn game, Georgia fans are feeling more optimistic than they have in years. The team is playing for its first berth in the SEC title game since 2005, and across the field of battle, the opposing players are human-sized in both physical stature and ability; and that, in and of itself, is empowering.

Growth spurts often happen in this manner. An individual goes to sleep one night as a pining runt and wakes up the next morning inches taller on the doorframe measuring stick. At first, the added height is awkward: sleeves that don't make it all the way to the wrist, pants that hang above the ankle, clumsy scrambling, stupid decisions, and a voice that cracks under pressure. Then, one day, even the awkwardness is outgrown, and you find yourself both humbled and inspired by the fact that you are eye to eye with giants and the question becomes not how badly will they beat you up but whether or not you will blink. And that is where redshirt sophomore, Aaron Murray, and freshman running back, Isaiah Crowell, now find themselves, for the first time in their brief careers, having as much to gain as there is to lose, and hopefully, that's all they need for a slingshot--a bit of confidence and a whole lot of motivation.

Number One North Carolina Takes Off Tonight

2011-11-11T14:28:00.001-05:00

Lanes like runways and the sky is blue:

It's been said that John Henson's bones are hollow as crack pipes

and fallopian tubes,

so that he spears the O-zone like a Zulu--

orange spheres cresting the nets

burn like the sun and rehab stints.

F-16--They call it a falcon,

but its veins creep back into scales of pterodactyl wings:

pluck off the feathers to find polished bone:

eyes burn like ashtrays

of Jordan's cologne.

Take offs and landings--

denial versus submission--

How do Spartan shields protect from the future?

When into the sea sinks heavy armor,

you're gonna need wings

to see the colors of heaven,

because extinction comes in baby boy blue,
the blowing of a horn,
and vertigo.

#1 NORTH CAROLINA VS. MICHIGAN STATE

TIPS OFF TONIGHT AT 7 PM,

FROM AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER.

Dark Clouds in Happy Valley

2011-11-08T22:20:00.001-05:00

Capitalism, the middle class, social security, Joe Paterno, it seems that everything good about the American century is being shoved off some giant cliff into a sea of nothing, and while everyone's first concerns and prayers should go out to the victims, is there anything more disorienting than finding out that the center of everything, to steal a line from Yeats, cannot hold?

And that's exactly what Joe Paterno was: the center of everything in college football. He is the all-time wins leader, having bested the wide-brimmed corruption of Bobby Bowden. He coached for a state in the middle of America, and his very nickname, Joe Pa, places him at the head of everyone's table come Thanksgiving; so to be pointing fingers at him, now, appears to sever the very tired and true aphorism that a father knows best.

I wanted to write something about the speculative revelations of the last few days, but then I read this piece by Michael Weinreb, at Grantland, that tries to answer the question above, and I realized why bother when it's already been done. And while Weinreb moves from shock to callous understanding, from a search for answers that will surely feel like tugging at a scar in a magician's sleeve, that's the next emotion to arise: why bother believing in heroes.

This story is disgustingly sad in so many ways: The crimes here violate much more than the NCAA bylaws that fret over such things as preserving amateur status and the reputations of academic institutions but the very fabric of what makes a person good and decent. Read the Attorney General's report, and, if true, it becomes hard to consider Paterno much of either right now.

Number of the Day: The Pack's 14 Straight

2011-11-08T21:11:00.001-05:00

Who has the longest win streak as a head coach of the Packers?

Lombardi? No.

Holmgren? No.

Mike McCarthy? Yes.

Notice the difference between those three guys--we still have to use the full name for one of them.

Aaron Rodgers is causing the stat book to combust, and just this past week, on the cover of Sports Illustrated, he and his receivers mugged for the camera. Clay Matthews blows up plays, flexes, and does Rapunzel's stunts. Charles Woodson is disgruntled. Ted Thompson scouted and selected all the talent. And Mike McCarthy is just a dude calling plays; plays that have given birth to 14 straight victories.

So, how good of a coach is Mike McCarthy, considering that his stature as a coach is part of some chicken or the egg conundrum?

LCB Picks: SEC Game of the CENTURY

2011-11-05T03:03:00.002-04:00

The hiatus is over. School and work have been breaking me down. 15 hours of classes and 40+ work hours has a way of draining you of any drive to do anything productive with your free-time and push you towards sloth-dom. Well, after surviving simultaneous midterms and deadline week at the magazine, I feel like I can breathe again, momentarily. Anyways, lets get back to why we're all here, picks.

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

SEC Games of the ~~Week~~ Century
(1) LSU v (2) Bama @ 8:00 on CBS:
I have been avoiding ESPN all week. Not because I want to avoid any negative talk about UT or the Raiders (I do typically avoid any sports news/talk when my teams are suffering), but because I don't want ESPN to overhype this game. It doesn't need it. It's as clear as day, one versus two, the corndoggers versus the bammers. An SEC championship on the line, and a birth in the BCS title game (most likely) on the line.¹ Anyways, this is a tough game to nail down. The Tide and the Tigers have the best defenses in college football, and there is a steep drop-off after these two. They both, also, run the ball extremely well. Trent Richardson is better than the man he replaced, a Heisman winner, which is just ridiculous.² LSU's stable has them ranked as the 30th best rushing team in the country. Which is impressive considering the competition they've faced and the changes at QB throughout the season. The two most important categories, has these two at a draw.

So, where is the edge? And who has it? Does it lie in Bama's home-field advantage? Maybe, but Vegas is only giving them four points. Considering Alabama plays in one of the loudest stadiums in the country, Vegas sees this a draw. As we all know, there is a reason they make so many men weep into their whiskeys on Saturdays in the fall, they're often right. Then how about the QBs, will they tilt the advantage in one way or the other? McCarron has been efficient and relatively mistake-free all season long, and has Marquis Maze to bail him out when he does make mistakes. LSU has a two-headed monster that they can go either way with, Lee as the game manager and Jefferson as the playmaker. If the run is being stuffed, Lee can make the pass downfield. If the passing game isn't working, throw in Jefferson to make the defense keep their eyes in the backfield and simultaneously freeing up receivers to make plays.

How about the coaches? Grass or Debbie cakes? It all depends on what you think is the more efficient management style, dictatorship or democratic. Saban plans every step, play and word spoken. Micromanager or detailed tactician? Miles shows up to the game as if he's playing a round of golf on his day off. Apathetic and lucky or a composed shepherd? Either way you see it, both these men find a way to inspire and lead their teams to wins.

The difference in this game could be any of the factors discussed, but the team that welds these moving parts more effectively will be the victor.³ I'll take the micromanaging dictator and the Crimson Tide. While this style of leadership doesn't bode well on most offices, it works in most college locker rooms and certainly helps keep players focused when most would be distracted by a trip to New Orleans.^4*

Notes:
1. It's clearly not a definite since the winner could always lose in Atlanta, forfeiting their spot in the title game. And as Clay Travis points out, if all the pieces fall into place, this could be a preview of the National Title game.
2. Even more ridiculous, Mark Ingram is the lone Heisman winner from Alabama. With all of the great athletes and teams that have played for the Tide over the years, it's shocking they have only had one.
3. Sorry for getting so "pregame show" obvious ("The team who scores more, will win") here. This really was a lazy way to close this post, but it's now 2:49 a.m. and my bed is calling out to me.
4. There is no VA game of the week this time out. But its not due to a lack of great and/or important games. We left the following games off the picks because I felt the LSU/Bama game deserved more depth than I typically provide. JMU visits New Hampshire. They'll need a win here to strengthen their playoff hopes. ODU plays Richmond at home with a chance to clinch their first trip to the playoffs. If they clinch, they'll be the first team to make the FCS playoffs in just their first year of eligibility. And UVA travels to College Park with a chance to clinch their first bowl birth since 2008 and their first under Mike London.
*If you haven't read Harvey's piece on the Cocktail Party yet, you should. It gives you a glimpse of just how much the win over the Gators means to the program and their fans.

Georgia, Florida, and Cigars: Cliffnotes for My OKTC Piece

2011-10-29T09:12:00.000-04:00

My thoughts going into today's Georgia-Florida game are up at Clay Travis' site Outkick the Coverage.
The above picture is a view my dad and I used to share every fall Saturday, only it was obscured by cigar smoke back in the day.

The Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party always makes me prepare for the worst. I think that's because of this man above, who despite his excellent sweaters, transformed this game into the equivalent of putting down the family dog every year

Mark Richt is now the coach of Georgia, and it's hard to tell if the program is falling, rising, or just levitating. This picture doesn't help.

A warning to the kids: have you ever noticed how the rows of tobacco leaves foreshadow the rows of tombstones that smoking them leads to? Me neither.

I'll watch today's game, but I'm worried I already know what's coming:

From the SI.Vault

His Name is Pujols. . .

2011-10-23T13:36:00.001-04:00

and although the exact definition has been lost in translation, the meaning has been written on our faces.

The World Series commenced just as my reading of Michael Chabon's Summerland saw its protagonist and crew cross into a fictional realm where the fate of the universe will be decided by fireball tossing giants and nods to Norse mythology, and as I read more of this young adult novel, it becomes clear that what Chabon's book attempts to do is restore magic to the game of baseball, to characterize baseball fields and stadiums as places on earth where worlds meet, collide, and identities are shapen; and as we pointed at our TV sets last night--saying did you just see that?--Albert was pointing to the man upstairs and it was clear that there are base paths beyond base paths and worlds on top of worlds: what else explains number five's three home runs on five hits, six RBI's, and infinite number of total bases?

Chabon begins his book with a kid saying, "I hate baseball," and while the next couple hundred pages have been impressively fun, night's like last night are why anyone and everyone has ever dreamed about baseball.

Well done, Mr. Pujols, well done, indeed.

Molotov Cocktail: Links and News

2011-10-18T21:57:00.000-04:00

Pic from The Velvet Rocket

-First, here's a story I wrote on the NBA labor talks over at TFT: "Occupy Wall Street: NBA Lockout Edition." It features a distressed David Stern, NBA players as protestors, and a molotov cocktail. Let me know if I'm crazy or not, and remember it's only fiction--sort of.

-If you're a Carolina fan like I am, you'll wanna check out this column by Jay Caspian King: "Why the North Carolina Tar Heels Will Win the National Championship."

-And so as not to discriminate, if you're a Duke fan, here's a column by Shane Ryan: "Why Duke Will Win the National Championship."

-Also, tomorrow (Wednesday) marks the start of the last set of discussions on Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding over at P&P.

I apologize for a lack of adventure with the links today, going with my own column, Grantland, and our friends at P&P, but sometimes life just gets too busy. We'll have some more original content up soon; after all, UVA resurfaced as a football program this weekend, the World Series is starting, UGA continues to be dramatic, and the NFL, as Russ can attest to, gets more interesting every week.

Hope everyone is well.

Fries and Ketchup: Things to Peruse This Weekend

2011-10-15T10:00:00.002-04:00

Links
-Over at The Faster Times, Jason Diamond did a nice write up on the current state of the hockey goon. Reading it made my head hurt (just joking): "Who Will Protect the Hockey Goons?"

-Also, at TFT, here's an article on Denis Johnson's new book: "Life Overflows With Life: The TFT Review of Train Dreams by Denis Johnson." I haven't read the book yet, but I am a fan of Denis Johnson, especially his Vietnam War epic Tree of Smoke, and will be adding Train Dreams to my queue so to speak.

-Over at Pitchers&Poets, there's lots to read right now. Ted, who runs the site with Eric Nusbaum, carefully analyzes the performance art of Detroit closer Jose Valverde: "Theater in the Round: Jose Valverde, Ritual, and Performance." I also officially contributed to their discussion on Chad Harbach's novel The Art of Fielding this week: "P&P Reading Club: Bryan Harvey on The Art of Fielding Chapters 34-52."

-And speaking of The Art of Fielding, here's a gchat discussion of the book between Josh Spilker and myself over at ImposeMagazine. Warning: It contains plenty of spoilers.

Now Reading
-I go in and out of love with baseball, but the playoffs and The Art of Fielding have left me in the mood for reading some more literature on America's pastime, so this week I started Michael Chabon's Summerland. And if you're not currently reading anything, feel free to join me.

Worth Watching
-Finally got around to watching Everything Must Go starring Will Ferrell. It's not groundbreaking, and it's not a movie anyone is going to watch over and over again, but if you are someone who's never really appreciated the scope and range of Ferrell's talents, like my fiancee was before she saw this film, then it is an eye opening film in terms of how one views him as an actor: He's not a funny man trying to be serious, but a serious man who's spent a lot of time being funny, or something like that, which makes watching him take on a serious role much different than several comedians who have tried the same thing.

Politics
-I almost forgot to include the most important protest of our times. You've probably already seen this, but it's worth another look. I literally laughed out loud for five to ten minutes the first time Russ showed it to me. In fact, I might still be laughing.

Surprise Game of the Week

2011-10-14T12:13:00.000-04:00

Reading previews for this Sunday's San Francisco 49ers-Detroit Lions game, you will be hard pressed to find an article that doesn't have some variation of this line in the opening sentences, "Prior to week 1, who would have thought that this game would be a scintillating matchup between two potential playoff teams that have combined for only one loss in the first five weeks?"

I did. Sort of.

Looking back at my 10 NFL predictions prior to the season here, two of my predictions were related to the Lions and the 49ers.

Prediction 2: Lions make the playoffs
Prediction 10: 49ers will finish at least 7-9

So based on my forward thinking, I believed this game had some importance prior to the season starting. Maybe ESPN will hire me so I can become the 124th writer/blogger for the NFL?

Ok, I didn't think the Lions would be 5-0 and the 49ers would be 4-1 and this would be the game of the week (sorry Dallas/New England). If you don't have Directv this week, I'm sorry you have to watch the Redskins/Eagles slopfest. This game will be entertaining and for a 49ers fan like myself, won't be the end of the world if we lose as we are playing with house money. Couple of keys going into the game:

49ers: Will they be able to run and pass block well enough against a formidable front line? The offensive line struggled to begin the season but has turned it around the past couple of weeks. A big test against Suh and company.

Lions: 49ers will be the toughest defense they have played yet, especially the front 7. They get off blocks, tackle, hit with authority and can rush the passer. If the Lions can't run the ball, which nobody has consistently done against the Niners this season, Matthew Stafford might have to throw 45-50 times again this week. That plays in the hands of the Niners defense as they have forced the most turnovers in the NFC and have the #1 red zone defense.

Predictions: Anthony Davis with at least 2 false start penalties.
Alex Smith throws two interceptions.
Ted Ginn scores a touchdown on a return
Calvin Johnson has one big play for a touchdown but otherwise kept in check
Lions win in OT 20-17.

Number of the Day: Mark Richt's 100th Comes Against Tennessee

2011-10-09T11:24:00.000-04:00

With a twenty to twelve victory over the Tennessee Vols, Mark Richt notched his one hundredth victory as the head coach of the Georgia Bulldawgs. The first half was a grudge match, a fist fight, one of those moments in the kitchen when you and a loved one can't get the lid off the jar: the score was six to six, both teams having notched just a couple of field goals. It was one of those games that you talk through, sip beer through, find anyway to hide that you're nervous through.

But then the second half happened, and as David Ching of ESPN's DawgNation observes, it all happened on one play. The momentum shifted; Marlin Lane was down, upon review; and the Bulldawgs followed up by hitting a post route and seizing full control of a game--thanks to instant replay.

And with that sequence, you pretty much had the epitome of the Mark Richt era.

He's notched one hundred wins, that like last night's Tennessee game have been solid, if not always spectacular, and like his offensive coordinator Mike Bobo said last night, about the post play that led to fourteen point margin, "From that play right there, we were deciding what we wanted to do, and we wanted to take a shot. . . The post was there all night, and we hadn't hit one yet."

And Mark Richt's whole tenure has been just that: a taking of shots. Last night, until one of Murray's deep balls finally found the hands of a Georgia receiver, a win against Tennessee on the road felt just out of reach, a target that couldn't be found, or a lid that wouldn't budge, which is exactly what the Mark Richt era has been--always on the cusp of something. Every win--and every completed post pattern--renewing hope, and every loss heavily analyzed, as Martin Lane's knee and buttocks were, through instant replay, looking for some sign that we've all put our hope behind the right guy.

And, on night's like last night and the ninety-nine preceding it, we trust that we have. Go Dawgs!

LCB Picks: SEC & VA Games of the Week

2011-10-08T07:00:00.000-04:00

Who else is happy that Hank Williams Jr. lost his job? I am. Not because of what he said (which was just plain stupid and a very weak analogy) but because of how much that song could grate on the ears? I couldn't be happier to know that I will never have to hear that song again or have to relate it to football. I feel the same way about his MNF theme as I do about Faith Hill's Sunday Night Football intro and John Mellencamp's "This is our COOUUUNTRRY." All terrible, all horrendous. If I never heard any of these three songs ever again, I think I would stop going gray and live an extra five years.

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

SEC Game of the Week
UGA v Tennessee @ 7:00 on ESPN 2:
I imagine many of you are asking why this would be the "game of the week" when their are two top-25 SEC match-ups this week (LSU-Florida and Auburn-Arkansas). But after the beating Florida took last week from Alabama, can anyone see Florida beating LSU a week later? Didn't think so. Also, the Auburn-Arkansas is a game for third place behind Bama and LSU in the SEC West. As for UT/UGA, the winner will take a share of the lead in the East with South Carolina (who just benched their QB) and have a chance at their first SEC Championship birth since UT played in 2007, which is ages in this new era of college football.

David Pollack said that Georgia has rebounded nicely and are creeping up on teams since the loss to Boise State. But with a loss to USC (included two TDs by DE Melvin Ingram), a bye week against Coastal Carolina, and sputtering wins over Ole Miss and Mississippi State; I wouldn't start planning a trip to Atlanta in December just yet. Georgia's last two trips to Knoxville ended badly, with losses of 21 and 26. Another loss like that for Richt could spell "pink slip." Aaron Murray will need to rebound after a terrible game against Miss. State where he threw 3 picks, completed just 52% of his 25 passes and failed to reach 200 yards.

As I mentioned earlier, the Vols have dominated the Dawgs in K-town in the last two games. However, both were before Kiffin tore the team apart and Derek Dooley came to town. Now, his pants are magical but he'll need to get his teams' running game going to win this game. Tauren Poole leads the team in yards, but is averaging just 76.2 yards per game. If they can't find room for their backs to run, they'll be leaning heavily on the arm on Tyler Bray. Which is nothing new, but without Justin Hunter, he'll need to find another threat to fill the void. Last week it was De'Anthony Arnett grabbing two touchdowns against powderpuff Buffalo.

Expect big games out of Isaiah Crowell, Tyler Bray, and D'aRick Rogers. Expect Bacarri Rambo and Austin Johnson to be everywhere. Expect a close game. Expect a loss for Georgia. Both teams are evenly matched-up, but Georgia lacks the receiving threats that Tennessee has in Da'Rick Rogers and De'Anthony Arnett. UT 38, UGA 35.

VA Games of the Week
(12) Maine v (6) James Madison @ 3:30:
What a shocker? Another week, another top-25 game for James Madison. Now, FCS is a new thing to me, but I can't imagine a tougher stretch for a team than the one JMU is currently playing. Four straight weeks against ranked opponents and that's leaving out their opening game against UNC. If this is a normal thing for an FCS team, I apologize, but it seems like an incredibly difficult run for any team. What makes this game even harder, they'll be without WR Kerby Long (concussed), S Jakarie Jackson (hammy) and QB Justin Thorpe (sticky-icky), while RB Dae'Quan Scott (shoulder) is expected to see little to no action.

Freshman QB Jace Edwards gets his second start but as long he doesn't turn it over, he will be successful. What JMU needs is a repeat performance from Jauan Latney and Jordan Anderson who combined for 261 yards last week against a talented, but down, Richmond squad. Without that, JMU could be in trouble.

This game will come down to the match-up of the CAAs best run defense and running back. JMU has shut down the run all season long, but face their toughest test of the season with Pushaun Brown coming to town. Whoever wins this battle, wins this game.

I'll take JMU for the win, as JMU's defense has been an immovable force. I, also, think the new backfield could end up being the start of something beautiful in Harrisonburg. JMU 20, Maine 10.

A Bit of R.E.M. To Get Us Through the Middle of the Week

2011-10-04T22:09:00.001-04:00

The following video is to carry on the notion of R.E.M. Week here at LCB:

I've always thought this was one of the band's more underrated songs. Love the horns. Love the vocals.

Also, wanted to title this something about hump day, but Stipe's pelvic thrusts made me hesitate; but I guess the cat's out of the bag anyway now.

-Brittany Harvey's thoughts on R.E.M (posted Monday).

-Here's a link to what I've done recently at TFT.

-Here's the conversation on The Art of Fielding at Pitchers and Poets.

-Here's link to where I got the video.

All Things Begin and End With R.E.M.

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

Photo by Kevan Williams

Over the next week or so we will be posting various thoughts, articles, etc about the band R.E.M., who recently called it quits after thirty-one years. Kicking things off is my sister Brittany Harvey. She has a blog of her own, attends Austin Theological Seminary, and is a graduate of James Madison University. She, like myself, also spent a lot of her childhood in Athens, GA. Here are her thoughts:

It is a common belief in Christian theology that all things begin and end in God. God created all things, and in the end, all things will return to be reunited with God. This is the eschatological view not as popularized in the media as predicting the exact day of the Day of Judgment--win sinners will be condemned and all that mess. I believe the first thought--all things begin and end in God. But I also believe all things begin and end with R.E.M.

My earliest memories of routine are of my dad driving me to preschool in the church we attended, and where my dad worked in Athens, Georgia. On our way we would pass a little red church. At some point the church was taken down--though I always imagined it being transported and set down somewhere else perfectly unchanged--and all that was left was the steeple, rising out of the ground. I had a deep love of this church/steeple as a kid. It was my favorite place in Athens, though I never saw it outside of my dad’s car on the way to preschool at our church.

It turns out that the church we passed everyday was St. Mary’s Episcopal, where Michael Stipe, and drummer, Peter Buck lived, and where the band played its first live show. Though I was in preschool well after the transition to Warner Bros. records, I had no idea who R.E.M. was, and no idea that that steeple on the ground had anything to do with them.

I became familiar with them in elementary school, listening to them as the high school kids in the church youth group who were on the trips my dad led played Automatic for the People and Monster. I kind of stumbled onto a concert they were giving on the National Mall in middle school while on a church trip. I got into them myself in high school. For about ten years, they have been one of my favorite bands. That list always fluctuates, but they are consistently in the top five.

My experience of R.E.M. throughout my life has been one of familiarity--whether it was familiarity with an Athens landmark or my own record collection. It has been one tied to the church. It is through my connection with the church that I know who R.E.M. is, what they sound like, why they matter. If Christian doctrine says that the end is like the beginning, then I guess the end of the world will be familiar in that it will find itself wherever R.E.M is relocated--perfectly reassembled like my childhood understanding of St. Mary’s--and left standing, rising out of the ground like a steeple, directing our gaze beyond themselves. And if Michael Stipe’s voice is at all prophetic--and I believe that it is--then the end of the world will sound pretty good. He will DJ, and I’ll feel fine.

Aaron Rodgers is the Great Pumpkin

2011-10-02T21:34:00.000-04:00

408 yards. Six touchdowns. Four by air. Two by land. One interception. Twenty-nine for thirty-eight. And an offense that put up forty-nine points, in a route of Denver. But none of that told the story.

Aaron Rodgers isn't just putting up numbers. He isn't just hitting the open man. He isn't just marching up and down the field. And he isn't just winning football games.

He's putting the ball into impossible spaces, making things appear where logic says they shouldn't, and it's been done before--he's not the first magician in a football helmet--but it's getting hard to say that it's been done any better.

When it comes to judging greatness, there comes a time when it's about personal preferences and splitting hairs, as if all great quarterbacks are possessed by the same gunslinging, flame throwing entity, and while breathing in the firs, crisp October weekend and sipping on pumpkin flavored beer, I couldn't help but think that Aaron Rodgers was something that cartoon characters wait inside of comic strips to see this time of year, that Linus, with his blue blanket and eternal search for the truth, would have found the world a glow in that ball that number twelve willed through the flesh of a Denver Broncos' cornerback, like a poltergeist through dry wall, or a flame burning within a great pumpkin, finding James Jones in the back of the endzone, apparently open when he looked to be anything but.

You can tell people what you saw Aaron Rodgers do, and they won't believe you. Statistics were invented for these kinds of testimonials, when reasonable doubt renders miracles impossible. Aaron Rodgers shouldn't be physically possible to do the things our eyes have seen, yet, he has.

LCB Picks: SEC & VA Games of the Week

2011-10-01T03:39:00.002-04:00

There is only one game of the week for this weekend. It has everything every 80's movies purported to us as rivalries; north v south, rich v middle/upper-middle class, white v tanned skin, and mountain men v city boys. It is of course, ~~Florida v Bama~~ JMU v Richmond. JMU, the capital of New Jersey, resting in the Shenandoah Valley. Richmond, sitting on the banks of the James River. JMU, full of Jersey Shore misfits waiting for the ending of "The Sopranos" and the next Arturo Gatti fight, both which will never come. Richmond, a campus full of aristocratic southern gentlemen from the banks of the Baltimore Harbor. It's gametime fellas, and these two, wholly Southern institutions are ready to brawl. It may be over a spilled Sam Adams or a Cape Cod, but it's still a rivalry damn naggit.

This makes the third week in a row that JMU partakes in the picks of the week, which is just by chance but also shows just how tough their schedule has been. First Liberty, then W&M, and now Richmond. All three ranked at kick-off, all three with talented offenses. JMU has overtaken the first two, but now it has to overcome the loss of QB Justin Thorpe (5-game suspension for substance abuse) and overcome the Spiders. The wacky-tobaccky gets em everytime.

I visited both teams message boards to get a feel for the game that Teach and his fiancee will be taking in. What I found was a lot of hate. What I learned is that Richmond fans typically wear sweater vests. Unbeknownst to me, this is the staple for the average Spider alumnus. What I learned for JMU is that they are all backward hicks who like to fornicate with their sisters. JMU also has a big stadium, which is easy to fill up since all of their alumni is young and lives in DC. Whereas UR has trouble filling an 8.5k field with their ~~tiny~~ "select" population of undergrads and sweatervest wearing alumni.

The game goes down at JMU, the crowd should be pumped, the stadium should be full, and the jerseys will be a color most commonly referred to as "a mix of last nights dinner from Tacos El Primo and jungle juice" also known as "Barney Juice." Da'Quan Scott is still running the ball, JMU wins by a hair, but makes it look easy. JMU 21, UR 18.

Elsewhere in the South:
Florida takes on Bama, and if they have any chance of winning, they'll need a big game out of QB John Brantley. Or in other words, Bama wins big, 34-17.

ODU hosts future D-1 opponent UMass, in a "blackout" game. I'll be there to take pictures and recap the first CAA home game of my favorite FCS squad. I hope they win. But I also hope they can win by a minimum of 14 points, all in the name of John Calipari.

When Belief Becomes Bankable: The Rays Uprising

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

Carlos Pulido

Josh Spilker is a Tampa Bay Rays fan, and he's written here before about that and other things. He also has a novella out now (digital), which you should definitely check out (hard copy...scroll to bottom), but he's here today to talk about baseball, money, and miracles. Enjoy:

At this dinner meeting with people from church, with a small smoky fire, bratwursts and italian sausage, pumpkin bread, it was fall, near the end of September and the whispers of October hum on the horizon. Things turn inside and then wrap up, and the St. Louis Cardinal fan/homeowner turns on the television. St. Louis taking care of business, Braves stumbling, Boston in a rain delay and the Rays left for dead. A Red Sox fan looks at the TV-- “Call the game,” he says and “Yankees killing the Rays.” There may/

may not have been a high-five and I fell back into a recliner. The recliner sunk and sighed; relieving itself.

It’s been weird for sure, how many collapses can there be? How many comebacks are allowable? How could everyone complain about no races 3 weeks ago to be overwhelmed by races? This system only makes sense in baseball, a return charge in basketball doesn’t seem right, there always seems to be a master killer who slaps on the silencer--Jordan or Magic or Bird or Kobe, who usually restores order. Or seems to restore order.

Baseball is the only sport infused with “gods” and “forces” and “superstitions,”something supernatural infuses and pumps into it, when the facts and figures gave 90+ percentage points of playoff odds for the Red Sox and Braves to make it in and then they don’t, something doesn’t work, isn’t correct, baseball the only sport where the prayers actually seem to matter --

"There is no human explanation for what happened here," Ben Zobrist said. "That just doesn't happen in baseball. This is what you would dream about happening."

--The quote in the St. Petersburg Times, the Rays’ hometown newspaper, a place where the fictionalized Moneyball plays on multiple screens across the area and where the real edition occurs again -- maybe the A’s weren’t as successful as they could have been -- maybe they trusted the numbers too much, flaunted their science over reason to the ultimate end -- maybe this team’s pajama pantsuits and checkered suits and dress-up days imbues the unquantifiable element of “loose,” no good acronym for that one -- just what it is, a feeling and chemistry and an enduring hope from the top down.

It’s the numbers plus magic. Amazing.

To what end as a Rays fan does it come up odd that Carl Crawford bobbles a catch, one millisecond mistake and the Orioles score, a step too slow, a weak link between the ears, the pressure is real, the pressure has been real, this cursed city, these overbearing fanatics, nothing loose about, just the expected heartbreak; someone pull out the pajamas for Carl Crawford, because he desperately needs some sweet dreams, and he’s not getting it in Boston. His mind has been haunted in September, a month early as his old team catches his current team, him once the impetus for the Rays greatness now a big reason for his current team’s fall, it is too...amazing.

I’ll use the word “curse,” I’m not afraid. Curses start somewhere and I’ll claim it here, and it may never happen again but perhaps this anvil of Boston could not/would not overcome this Tampa Bay jocularity, and the main link (no, not Joey Gathright) could not overcome his $100 million

burden.

The Rays were riding dreams, the Red Sox were failing expectations. All perspective, confidence, whatever it is, the psychological nature of this sport is still important. Yes, it has the most advanced stats and somehow the most splendor and wonder.

The conversation would of course be different if Atlanta and the Red Sox maintained their lead, and some years they will. But it’s these years of wonder that keeps us in it every time.

Elysian Fields

I won’t say I left that dinner thinking the Rays would win, in fact I didn’t turn on the television until the Dan Johnson home run--the guy who hit a game winner in early April, the figured 1st base starter, making his way back somehow for an improbable at-bat, and this could have been a calculated pick from Maddon’s Binder of Statistics, but we all prefer to think of it being the magic that killed the Red Sox in 2008, the magic and power of the moment. When the magic meets the moneyball, everything feels justified, all the craziness then becomes bankable, in some unexplainable way.

We like Longoria even through a difficult season, hitting these home runs, on the redemption, now perfecting the Rays’ resurrection with a homer that wouldn’t be in any other place, but this wasn’t any other place, it was the place, the place to be, the right place, the only place, the perfect place.

The perfect place for a comeback. The perfect place for a collapse.

What a relief.

The Braves Collapse: The Epitome of Southern Anxiety

2011-09-29T19:10:00.000-04:00

It grew out of it, so it must be a part of it, right?

Summer baseball, fall football, and church are pretty much the cliches that felt apart of my southern boyhood, and all those things taught me that most heroes are destined for tragedy: Moses couldn't reach the Promised Land. Jesus was crucified. Robert E. Lee surrendered. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Eric Zeier couldn't overcome Spurrier. Bill Clinton was impeached. And the Braves, well, the Braves pretty much lose (except for in '95) once autumn comes.

It's as predictable as the seasons, yet as stationary as a dot on a roadmap, which is why when the Braves lost last night in twelve innings, it all felt vaguely familiar, like driving down a highway you once knew, without directions, letting some old memory take the wheel. And that old memory steered everyone doing a tomahawk chop--with their right hand--right off a severe cliff, magically landing us as softly as a cracked bat blooper into the familiar geography of loserdom. We'd been here before. In fact, we were born here, but this time the thorns weren't funny. They seriously, seriously hurt.

David Schoenfield wrote an excellent piece detailing how the Braves didn't lose last night's game on any particular play, that their failing to make the Playoffs after holding an eight and a half game lead at the start of September was not the result of a single ball, strike, hit, error, play, inning, or game, that it took multiple injuries and several weeks for this kind of depression to consume a team and its fanbase like a scar carved into a tree trunk: this mark is going to last for a while.

And I agree with him.

I agree with him, because both the positive and negative aspects of change are long trains a coming. Rails are laid and time chugs down them, devouring coal dust and huffing out smoke, and while it can take centuries of oppression and slavery to bring about a war and years of bloodshed to bring about a surrender, it's always the image of a depressed General Lee riding by his weary yet still enthusiastic men that sticks with me, especially considering that the man is sad over losing a war that he never wanted to fight in the first place. That gets to me. And it gets to me because all the paintings and photographs at Appomattox are of a man with the weight of the Condfederacy's lost hopes, history's sins, and the world's consequences riding on his shoulders, and he looks as helpless in that moment of defeat as he sounded before the war in a letter to his son, and I always wonder if the man ever believed the South could win in the first place.

Last night, I thought the Braves would lose even before the first pitch was thrown out, and I know I'm not the only one--Twitter was alive with doubt. Braves fans expected to lose. Hell, we always expect to lose; it's why we don't show up for games all summer. Most people think that the '90s spoiled us, and, therefore, we don't show up until the postseason; but truly, we don't show up until the postseason because we figure why show up for Gettysburg when you know Appomattox is just months away. Last night, we showed up at Turner Field because we wanted to pay our respects to a cause we already knew was lost.

But then, hope springs eternal. Idiots always think the South will rise again, saying it, but not knowing what the hell it even means. I was saying it last night when Craig Kimbrel's arm betrayed his own team and couldn't find the strike zone, but there were still more innings to be played; and while I wanted to fall asleep, forget about baseball, and dream about next April, the bottom of the tenth happened, like a flash of lightning promising a rain that would never come.

I stayed up and watched.

All the ball had to do was land on something, anything, other than the webbing of the centerfielder, and it's not like there weren't any options--possibility was everywhere: the grass, the warning track, the outfield wall, maybe even over the wall, anywhere other than where the ball wound up landing. And it sounded good, too. At the crack of Chipper's bat you could hear the crackling sparks of a distant campfire, somewhere in the future, where you would gather people younger than you and tell them about how the ancient third baseman unleashed one more magic spell from the maple of his bat. Michael Bourn heard it too, and he was racing for that future that was sure to exist in the gap between center and left field, if only the ball had landed there.

But it didn't.

Michael Martinez ran it down, stretched out his arm, and snuffed out the campfire, story killed, stunned silence. The Phillies all went back to the dugout smiling. The Braves looked like something had escaped them; something that couldn't be named. You could say it was their playoff hopes, but it felt like something more, like something that a Hemingway story can only hint at with imprecise metaphors and symbolism, because there are no definitive words for defeat, just the end of something indescribable and unclear.

This team wasn't the one that held onto the division with a steel grip, and it wasn't the team that mounted a worst to first rebellion. This team was building something, slowly, incrementally, rail by rail, through its farm system, and then it all just fell apart, but not like the decadence that topples empires, but like a team that woke up one September morning and couldn't help but reveal itself as one mundane yawn, full of everyday mediocrity and no postseason--a footnote in some other champion's history.

Hang In There: Watching the Braves Struggle

2011-09-26T20:46:00.002-04:00

I threw a remote yesterday. I didn't want to do it, but my fiancee was on the phone with her mom, making plans for my future, while the Atlanta Braves were simultaneously letting go of theirs, and throwing the remote was all I could do to quit from screaming. They say love hurts, and I hope it doesn't; but if it's anything like baseball than it's got to be absolutely devastating.

You watch all summer, trying to stay grounded, trying not to put the cart before the horse, and then, on a golden Sunday afternoon, the shit hits the fan--runners in scoring position lead to pop ups and strikeouts and everything the once lowly Washington Nationals do is a reminder that your team might not even be classified as up and coming anymore, that the time is now, and the time is peeling back under your claws like bark, because one day very soon they might be much better than you.

And this feeling of everything slipping away was most evident when backup catcher David Ross waved a white flag, trying to bunt, with two strikes, against Nats reliever Henry Rodriguez, whose every pitch was in triple digits, making the young Jason Heyward's bat speed appear slow and arthritic. It was disgraceful. It was terrible. It was a Braves collapse a month earlier than we're used to witnessing.

But, hey, at least I'm not a Red Sox fan, you know, like the woman sitting on the couch next to me, planning a wedding.

LCB Picks: SEC and VA Games of the Week

2011-09-24T02:03:00.001-04:00

There are a lot of interesting and possibly great match-ups this weekend. I wish I could cover them all, but I'm running a little late on time. So, for this week, my picks are going to be slightly abbreviated. And yes, I do know I have all week to write this piece. Time management has always been an issue of mine. Just know that I'm working on it.

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

SEC Games of the Week
(14) Arkansas v (3) Alabama @ 3:30 on CBS:
After a quick perusal on the google machine, it appears that Arkansas has turned into a fashionable upset pick for this game. I would guess it's due to the youth of Alabama's defensive front and the awesomeness of QB Tyler Wilson, which to me is always a funny reason (the youth, not the awesome QB) for a team to be favored. Aren't all of these guys young and inexperienced? Sure, the freshman need to adapt to the speed of play in the SEC and realize they can't just touch a guy to insure a tackle (Fun-da-men-tals kids, WRAP HIM UP!). But that's why each FBS team has so many roster spots, to provide the depth needed to avoid starting a bunch of underclassmen. To be honest, the only teams that can use "youth" and "inexperience" as an excuse are the ones dealing with coaching turnover or a high amount of attrition. Alabama doesn't fit that bill. But it doesn't even matter, I could never pick Arkansas over Bama. Not, at least, with Trent Richardson playing for the Tide. Alabama 31, Arkansas 27.

(2) LSU v (16) WVU @ 8:00 on ABC:
This game, to me at least, holds more intrigue in the stands than it does on the field. Two of the more notoriously rowdy fanbases coming together for a night game in Morgantown. Couldn't these AD's just think of those poor couches for once? LSU 24, WVU 17.

VA Game of the Week
(8) James Madison v (16) William & Mary @ 7:00 on PPV:
If you read last week, you would know that I thought Liberty was the better team. I was clearly wrong as the Dukes overcame the challenge of playing in Lynchburg. What do they get for it? A trip to Williamsburg to play a ranked opponent that plays much better at home than anywhere else.

With lots of rain in the forecast, the weather is likely to be less than ideal. Add that to the fact that both teams have fantastic defenses and questions surrounding the quarterback position, and you get the most important ingredients to an ugly football game. Speaking of quarterbacks, JMU doesn't know which Justin Thorpe they're going to get, the one who almost blew the game against woeful CCSU or the one who helped lead them to victory over a ranked Liberty squad on the road. As for the Tribe, they just handed the reins from Michael Paulus to Michael Graham. This was a non-decision, as Paulus just couldn't seem to return to his pre-inury form and was hurting more than he was helping. However, if Graham's not the answer they're looking for and they can't find a way to move the ball with any consistency, it will be a long year in Williamsburg. Anyways, I like JMU to win, because they have Dae'Quan Scott and W&M doesn't. JMU 17, W&M 14.

Dissecting a Would Be Cyborg: My Thoughts on Peyton Manning

2011-09-22T21:25:00.000-04:00

Same face. Different quarterback. It's strange what memories a single uniform can conjure.

I don't have strong ties to the University of Tennessee.

My memaw who grew up in Belbuckle claimed I had a great uncle who played there, his nickname having to do with the alligator wiggle of his hips going through the line. Personally, I never met the man, and if there's a grainy team photo out there with him in it, I wouldn't be able to pinpoint his pale cheekbones anymore than I might be able to pick out President Rutherford B. Hayes in a line up of nineteenth century Presidents who used the White House for a Gilded Age beard off and nothing more. But I did recognize Tyler Bray's face on Saturday, dazed in the sun, and twisted in defeat, as if the Florida Gators had poured him a shot of bad whiskey. I recognized that face, slumped jaw and saddened eyes; I'd seen it at least four times before, the viewing of it as familiar to me as my memaw's stories about uncles I never knew.

Peyton Manning used to make that face. The Gators used to chew him up, spit him out, and steal his Heisman. Even as a Georgia fan, it was always a sad state to watch the early weeks of the college football season unfold. The Vols would come in highly ranked; Peyton's All-American status a sure thing, like a well-loved incumbent; and then certainty would go soft as a paper cup with the spit of a Steve Spurrier punchline, leaving Peyton to stare helplessly from the sideline as the Fun 'N Gun offense shredded the Tennessee defense into scraps of orange confetti.

Because Peyton Manning played his last college game almost fourteen years ago, it's easy to forget that he went into the NFL, even as the number one draft pick, with the burdens of disappointment, the weight of unfulfilled promise, and the strain of futility. But he did. And sometimes, I wonder if the lust over Ryan Leaf's potential was born not out of his own arm strength but out of the weakness we feared existed in the hidden circuitry of Manning's, that the consensus number one pick somehow wasn't the safest bet, that roguish mystique was somehow superior to mechanical precision, that we sided with the man at the desk rather than the computer. And, who could blame us? Tall tales, folk stories, and legends all teach us that machines and progress are plotting our demise--we were never trained to root for Peyton Manning, but we also couldn't help but acknowledge that his style was a result of meticulous perfection.

Ignore the ESPY skits, the SNL spots, and the chants of "Cut that meat!" and it's easy to imagine Peyton Manning views the world in shades of contrasting greens, like Neo in the Matrix. Defensive backs and linebackers reduced to numbers on a vertical line, Peyton Manning audibles because he's plugged into the system and knows the future, and the future for Peyton Manning was almost never in doubt, until it was.

His failures against the Florida Gators were so far in his rearview mirror that they must have felt like acne scars, having dismissed the one question--can he win the big one?--that gave the slightest hint of fallibility to his career with a win against the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl, and while his Colts failed to beat the Chargers the next couple of years, it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things because Philip Rivers couldn't beat the Steelers or the Patriots. Manning won two more MVPs, surpassing Brett Favre's record of three, and it seemed that with Favre's retirement it was only a matter of time before all of his other records started to fall at the act of Peyton Manning flapping his arms behind center like a wind-up bird in flight.

When I was growing up, I never expected that Favre, one of my boyhood heroes, would wind up with the gold standard of statistical resumes in the NFL, owning pretty much every passing record of note, but as soon as he did, I believed that Peyton Manning would catch him in just about every single category. I was as sure of it as I was in Tiger Woods catching Jack Nicklaus in Major wins, but, now, I'm not so sure. It's also painful, at least in Manning's case, to think why that uncertainty exists, and it also requires fans to reexamine what one of the greatest quarterbacks ever has meant to each of us symbolically, because the neck injury that has robbed Manning the start of his football season is also reshaping his legacy, and, therefore, his life.

It would be easy to pigeonhole Peyton Manning, to believe that all his greatness is the result of having programmed his brain to react formulaically to pressure, through hours of watching game tape, and while his sense of humor humanizes him, there is a mechanism to telling jokes: The delivery of a punchline does come down to timing, just like hitting a receiver on a crossing route or a buttonhook does.

My classrooms are full of students mimicking the humor of real comedians, and the internet is full of writers, like myself, who have studied where to place a pop culture reference, a metaphor, and a sarcastic barb; so even if you feel humor can't be learned, you have to at least acknowledge that it can be mimicked. And what also bears acknowledging is the admission that as fans we only see a very limited side of the athletes we cheer: And throwing a ball and delivering a one-liner do not a human make.

No, the human side of Peyton Manning has almost always read like the stuff of royal lineage: He is the son of an SEC and NFL quarterback, born not just to play football but to play great football. He was born to be a king, and guys like Favre were born to be placeholders. The exactitude of Manning's game demands that we cheer Peyton Manning on with our brains, to pull for him is to root on logic, and allows one to feel wholly objective, unlike with Brett Favre, whose style of play makes John Madden turn into a gushing grandpa. And grandparents are never objective when it comes to their grandchildren. But the main difference between the two quarterbacks is that Peytong Manning carries himself like a man who should be king; there is a distance to him that is not felt with Favre; and because of that distance, Peyton Manning never makes us as uncomfortable as the embarrassingly human, and fatally flawed, number four, which is why the sight of Manning's desperation to regain his health is so unlike anything, while in the public eye, that we've ever seen from him.

Every comic book hero has a point of origin in their tale that explains how their identity was shaped, how they received their powers, and what their ultimate weakness might be. In short, every hero has a moment in their life that sets forth a chain of events, but the thing about chains is that every link can be viewed as either a cause or an effect. Superman's story does not end with him being jettisoned through space, never encountering another being. No, eventually, he lands on earth in a bright flare of meteoric light, causing a farmer and his wife to rush out into the cornfields to take him in, and in their love, he finds a reason to cherish the planet earth. And it's in thinking about how one is wired and how that's different than how one is molded that leads to the conundrum that is Peyton Manning: Is he a king or an underdog? Artificial intelligence or flesh and blood? Superman or one of us?

We don't ask these questions of Brett Favre or Tom Brady. We know Favre is more like us than we're comfortable admitting, and Brady is anything other than the everyman, no matter how late he was drafted. But Peyton Manning is different.

He is one of the few athletes who has hands down been recognized as one of the best ever and has also managed to come off as the ultimate underdog against his rivals: Florida and New England. His throwing motion is as precise as a guillotine, but it's his running motion that is indelibly atrocious. He's funnier than most of his teammates, but he's also the most serious. He's won a Super Bowl and four MVPs, but, somehow, if he never plays again, it won't feel like a finished career--it'll feel like college did, all full of unfinished business, with an aftertaste of disappointment. So, while Tyler Bray looked dreary and downcast on the UT sidelines this past Saturday, there's no question who the saddest Tennessee quarterback was--it was the relentless cyborg, Peyton Manning, haunting the globe for a cure to the wires that keep him human.

Coming Soon: RISK – NCAA Edition

2011-09-17T23:56:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a connection at Parker Brothers, I can now report that the NCAA has teamed up with the family board game maker to release a sponsored edition of "RISK," as evidenced by the leaked game cover above. If you can recall your childhood, you'll remember "RISK" as the game where the main goal is global domination over your opponents. Now, it hasn't been confirmed why this partnership has occurred, but we can only assume that the monetary benefits were too big to ignore.

I'm not sure how well this will go over with fans of both sides, but I can assume it will end like many of the games of "RISK" I was involved in as a youth, with no one winning and everyone involved on the verge of throwing punches. Actually, I'm pretty sure every game of "RISK" ever played has ended that way. No one wins, ever.

The release date has not yet been announced, but many board game insiders are guessing anywhere between 11 to 27 months. At the moment, no price has been set, but many of those same insiders are saying that it will be much higher than it's actual value.

LCB Picks: SEC and VA Games of the Week

2011-09-17T02:11:00.003-04:00

It's week three of the college football season and I finally feel like I'm getting a good feel for the teams in the SEC. But I once defended the hiring of Lane Kiffin as the UT coach, so, take it with a grain of salt. As a way of deflecting that reminder of my lacking of judgment, lets get to the games.

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

SEC Game of the Week
Tennessee v (16) Florida @ 3:30 on CBS:
Those pants are filled with magic (insert Michael Scott here), almost enough to pull off the upset. Just not enough. But that's why UT has Tyler Bray, who as Clay Travis points out is the best QB in the SEC and the reason why many NFL teams will try to lose games next year in order to draft him, he's just that good or he has been against some mediocre to average (at-best) opponents. Da'Rick Rogers and Justin Hunter force Dan Quinn to make a tough decision; go zone and get torched through the air, blitz and get burned across the middle, or go man and get ran all over. Either way he goes, it spells doom for a team that has had trouble getting to the QB (2 sacks total against shitdeous squads, FAU and UAB). Florida has the homefield advantage and the edge in the talent department, but the trio is just too good to keep pace. The Swamp is made silent and UT wins 38 to 32.

VA Games of the Week
Virginia v UNC @ 3:30 on ABC:
Virginia goes to Chapel Hill for the next chapter in the "South's Oldest Rivalry." After confidence builders against W&M/JMU and Indiana/Rutgers, both teams come in at 2-0 . UNC is just weeks removed from the firing of Butch Davis, but their defensive front seven might be the best in the ACC. They're big, fast, and relentless. UVA's offensive line will have to step up big for the Cavs to win this one. However, if they can somehow hold the Heels d-line back, the Hoos have a chance to move to 3-0 for the first time since 2005 (which is also the last time they went 2-0). It won't happen. That defense of the Heels is fierce. The pick: UNC 35, UVA 14

James Madison v (19) Liberty @ 7:00 on ESPN3:
Not knowing much about either team, apart from Jerry Falwell's affiliation with Liberty and that Mickey Matthews career is reminiscent of a roller coaster, I decided to check out JMU's message board to see their thoughts on how this game will play out. What I found was a largely dejected fanbase. But who can blame them after the woeful performance against Central Connecticut State. QB Justin Thorpe went 5-11 for a net of 47 yards (his long was 28 yards), with two of those incompletions going to the other team (If I replaced Justin Thorpe's name in this sentence with Jamarcus Russell, would you even call me out?). The feeling on the message board is that with how bad the Duke offense is playing, it won't matter much how good their defense is playing.

I'm with the Dukes' posters on this one; Liberty QB Mike Brown goes HAM (he's a lock for 250 yards through the air and 70 on the ground), leads his squad to a 35 to 21 victory, Mickey Matthews' seat gets hotter, and Liberty gives a moment of release for one of the most depressing cities in Virginia. Seriously, Lynchburg could make Richard Simmons sad.

Elsewhere in the South:
Auburn tries to continue their magical run with a trip to the other "Death Valley." Should be a good game, but Auburn still hasn't been able to rebound from the loss of Nick Fairley and Cam Newton. But how can you replace two of the most dominant SEC players of the last decade? You can't, at least, not cheaply. Even with losing those two, I still like Auburn as teams that get this lucky seem to put it together more often than not.

Old Dominion and Hampton play in Norfolk. Both teams are 2-0. Last years meeting resulted in a 28-14 win for the Monarchs. ODU should have no trouble in their last tune-up before starting conference play in their inaugural season as a member of the CAA. W&M, Virginia Tech and Richmond get to play patty cake with New Haven (Division II), Arkansas State and VMI. All three teams are a lock to move to 3-0.

The Art of Fielding: No, That's Not a Reference to Sarah Palin and Glenn Rice

2011-09-15T19:05:00.000-04:00

-Why do we care? How is this news? Could this be any stranger? It's not just that Sarah Palin had a one night stand, but that she had it with a guy who was good but not great in the NBA, which is most likely how we will all remember Palin's political career. She can fill a room, she can create a soundbite, but she's not carrying a Presidential ticket to victory. And one more time, why do we care?

Answer: Because it allows us to string together a list of other power couples.

-Okay, something that actually does interest me: Pitchers and Poets is doing an online reading club for Chad Harbach's debut novel The Art of Fielding, which has me rethinking my whole fall reading schedule, which was already packed with an array of baseball books, including Michael Chabon's Summerland.

-My take on the Minnesota Timberwolves' hiring of Rick Adelman is up over at The Faster Times. It features Kevin Love as a bartender.

-If you're a Duke or UNC fan, then you need to check out the website Tobacco Road Blues. The articles are quality, and despite the Duke bias, so are the message boards. (Admittedly, I may be late to this party, but I've been frequenting the site quite a bit the last couple weeks.)

-Brendan Brody, a friend and former(?) contributor of this site, has started his own blog. It's called Lucky Kid Sports. And, no, the title is not to suggest that kids take up smoking, but if Notre Dame continues to play the way it has, then I would be surprised if Brendan does. Seriously, headlines about Notre Dame have become as meaningless as one of Sarah Palin's one night stands.

-Josh Spilker has a book out. Here's a link to it. I write more about it now, but I plan on reading it this fall and posting a review.

-Lastly, a former student of mine gave me a print out of all the complaints my AP kids last year spread across the internet, apparently I'm tyrannical for wanting a literate future. That being said, the gift made my morning, and I wish all those students the best.

In the Year of the Djokovic

2011-09-12T21:51:00.000-04:00

Tennis is such a weird sport, not because of what takes place during a match, but because of what takes place at center court after the match. No other sport makes the loser share the stage with the new champion. I mean, there's golf, but in golf, your opponent is as much the course as it is the other players, and it's not like the Olympics where everyone stands on pedestals and can hide, inactively, behind the notes of a national anthem. No, in tennis, not only do you stand close enough to hear your oppressor kissing the metal trophy that you wish you'd won, but you have to give a speech, like some sort of puppet President explaining to the local populace that the foreign tanks in their front yards are nothing to fear, that absolutely nothing about the new regime is any different than the old regime. It's awkward. It's strange. And, perhaps, it's why tennis players are some of the most fascinating athletes in sports--they have to actually accept defeat, to an extent, or risk alienating millions.

A year after defeating Novak Djokovic in the 2011 U.S. Open Final, Raphael Nadal had to, for the second time in a Grand Slam this year, stand next to tennis' new golden sun and behave graciously in defeat. The Bad Boys didn't have to attend the Chicago Bulls' trophy presentations, and in the nineties, the Cowboys and 49ers didn't take turns making speeches for one another when they failed to clinch a Super Bowl birth. In other sports, you may have to shake hands, hug it out, or send an innocuous text message, but you don't have to sit on the first row, fighting back tears, maintaining a calm exterior, and refraining from profanities. No, you go to your locker room and beat the shit out of a trash can and drop bows on the paper towel dispenser, and not only do you do that--but there are probably others there doing all of that at the same time also. You commiserate in the shared agony of the group, but a tennis player has no companions that aren't also his/her opponents. And for that, I feel sorry for them.

As much as I admire their innate ability to surround themselves with hot wives, sisters, and girlfriends, I feel sorry for them when they have to face not only the awkwardness of a trophy presentation but the media after every single loss, alone. A lot of people pity Chris Webber because after calling a timeout when his team had none (and traveling) he had to face the media, but hasn't that been Andy Roddick's entire tennis career--a constant nonstop explanation as why he's just not good enough to be great. Yes, Webber may have let a team down, but he also has a team's collective identity to hide behind. Where does an Andy Roddick go to hide?

And then maybe there's something to those awkward center court meetings that makes victory that impossible act of stepping through a mirror into an alternate reality; after all, it was on the same court a year ago that Djokovic gave the runner-up's congratulatory remarks and thank you's, while Nadal took a bite out of the trophy. Perhaps in the switching of places there is a simple understanding to be found in the idea that one's ranking within the pack is determined by hustle, miles per hour, and one's birthdate in relation to their fellow competitors. In other words, what tennis player ever won a tournament because his/her ascent did not intersect perfectly with another's descent?

All of Raphael Nadal's efforts tonight were in vain, but the weird thing about it was: he didn't even look old in defeat. He just looked like a guy who came in second. Djokovic was so good that he did all of gravity's work on his own.

Here and All Around: Where Else Teach Is Writing

2011-09-10T21:45:00.000-04:00

Clay Travis is a busy man, running a radio show, launching a website, being a husband, raising two kids, but he managed to find enough time back in the summer for reading over a portfolio that I sent him at Langston's suggestion. He liked some of what he saw, mainly that I love writing about the teams that I root for, and offered me an opportunity to write at his SEC-centered website Outkick the Coverage. I've sent him ideas for articles and columns over the last couple months, and the first one finally made it's way onto the site last night. Don't judge it too harshly, just wonder how bad the others must have been that they didn't make the cut.

Here's the link: "Georgia Isn't Robin Hood Anymore"

Also, I mention roosters in it a lot, because I've always had an affinity for this character in the animated Disney version:

Also, the Disney version of Robin Hood, which I think holds its own with any other version, because it masters the simplicity of telling a complex tale may be one of the most political Disney ventures there's been. You can't talk about Robin Hood without talking about an uneven distribution of wealth, being overtaxed, and, in the Disney version, protest music. The film came out in 1973, but is it just me, or is the minstrel rooster also echoing the previous decade's favorite folk singer, Bob Dylan? And one more thing, watch this film again, and wonder about how and why it manages to represent both the late '60s counterculture and today's Tea Party all at the same time? Strange rumblings are afoot.

Go Dawgs!

LCB Picks: SEC & VA Games of the Week

2011-09-10T02:12:00.000-04:00

I had plans. Plans that consisted of previews for the SEC, NFL, and all of the D-1 college football teams that call Virginia home. These plans weren't that lofty. To be honest, with one dedicated afternoon, these could have become a reality. But life continued to get in the way and now all of these squads are foreign to me. Meaning all of the season previews would have been my crib notes of another writers' work and essentially useless. But now that we're one week deep, I am finally confident enough to tell you that Oregon can't match the speed and size of a top tier SEC team and that Virginia Tech could be in position to go the BCS National Championship the same season their most well known dog fighting alumnus will fall just short of the Super Bowl (just as long as they can get past those pesky Pirates of East Carolina).

Editors Note: This season, on top of the usual SEC picks, we will be picking the best games on the Virginia D-1 slate. We, as in the LCB, all spent our formative years in Virginia. So, we probably should have been doing this all along.

SEC Game of the Week
(3) Alabama v (23) Penn State @ 3:30 on ABC:
This game was picked for obvious reasons; it's Bama versus Penn State. It also happens to be the only SEC game with two ranked teams this week. I had the chance to watch a decent amount of both teams' games last week, enough to tell me Alabama will make it back-to-back seasons with wins over the Nittany Lions. Both teams played lesser opponents, Kent State for Alabama and Indiana State for Penn State. Both teams showed some weaknesses, most notably, behind center. Alabama's QBs combined for four interceptions, which would be a huge concern if they didn't have Trent Richardson and a top three defense. However, State's QBs struggled to recognize the defensive fronts and blitzes of Indiana State, a huge concern considering there not even considered an FCS power. Bama 33, PSU 20.

VA Game of the Week
Old Dominion v Georgia State @ Noon:
This really isn't that great of a match-up. Both teams are still in their infancy and building on their successes slowly but surely. However, I had to make this the pick game for a couple of reasons. First, Georgia State is coached by none other than Bill Curry. Yes, that Bill Curry. Secondly, Georgia State was forced to use a punter to fill their starting QB vacancy last week and their keeping with him. Thirdly, Georgia State plays in the Georgia Dome. Lastly, I go to Old Dominion. Now, let's expand on everything but my choice of college.

Bill Curry, seriously? The man has won a National Championship, coached in Super Bowls, and has whatever cache being an ESPN announcer brings. It boggles the mind that he isn't coaching somewhere on the FBS level, especially when this guy is still employed.

The punter/QB situation brings up even more questions. Does he still get to punt? Does he still wear a soccer cleat on his kicking foot? What are the chances in a third-and-long/shotgun formation situation that he accidentally punts the ball? I hope the answer to all these are yes, yes and 100%. As for the Georgia Dome. I'm not amazed they play there, after-all, they need somewhere to play. But I can't help but think how depressing this stadium must look with under 20,000 fans in the stands. It has to resemble a Marlins home game, right? Anyways, Old Dominion wins 28-17.

LCB Exclusive: Charles Woodson's Uppercut Training Video

2011-09-09T13:44:00.002-04:00

During the offseason and the coinciding lockout, NFL players tried a variety of activities to stay in shape, to maintain focus, to simply pass the time, and Charles Woodson was no different. No, he didn't go on Dancing with the Stars, return to his college alma mater, or take on a job as a day laborer. No, Charles Woodson spent every day quickening his reflexes with the likes of Sub-Zero, Scorpion, and Liu Kang, and with our immense investigational resources, we accessed the following bit of exclusive training footage:

Last night, many people were shocked, awed, and disgusted by Charles Woodson's actions against the Saints, when he punched David Thomas twice in the gut, but considering what Woodson did with his offseason, we're actually quite lucky that he didn't crawl inside Thomas' shoulder pads and come bursting out in a tempest of blood.

10 Predictions for 2011 NFL Season

2011-09-08T00:39:00.000-04:00

The 2011 NFL season starts in less than 24 hours. The Thursday night opener with the New Orleans Saints traveling to Green Bay is probably the best opening night matchup since its inception in 2002. To have a little fun and to get acquainted with the post-lockout NFL after an offseason of disregarding the lockout shenanigans, I have 10 predictions for the 2011 season:

1) The Rams will not win the NFC West:
First 8 weeks of season. Philly, at NYG, Baltimore, Washington, BYE, at Green Bay, at Dallas, New Orleans. Also play at a better Cleveland and at Pittsburgh. Strong possibility that don't win more than 2 of those games. Sam Bradford still doesn't have any signature weapons to throw the ball to and is working with a new offensive coordinator in Josh McDaniels. I sense a sophomore slump.

2) Lions make the playoffs:
Most people are picking the Lions to be better, but I will go a step further and put them in the playoffs, which will be no tall task in the NFC. In my opinion the first 5 positions are accounted for with the Eagles, Packers, Saints, and whoever comes out of the NFC West. Falcons are heavily picked to win a wild card spot, so that leaves strong competition for the last spot. If Suh and Fairley can wreak havoc like a young Bryant Young/Dana Stubblefield and Matthew Stafford can stay healthy all year, I believe they can take the step they haven't taken since 1999, which actually isn't as long a playoff drought as I imagined.

3) Packers reach the Super Bowl again.
The lockout was most beneficial to teams that stayed mostly intact through the offseason, whether it be personnel and/or scheme. Therefore if there was a year for a team to repeat, it would be this year and the Packers. Roster stayed largely intact and the offense will have Ryan Grant and Jermichael Finley back after season ending injuries last year. With the caveat of an injury to Aaron Rodgers, I see the Packers winning at least 12 games and being the class of the NFC again, which means...

4) Aaron Rodgers will win NFL MVP.
Only twice in the past 10 years has a non-QB won the MVP. Just makes sense that the most valuable player would come from the position widely regarded as the most important position in professional sports. With a Super Bowl championship and MVP under his belt and a full repertoire of weapons at his disposal, he is poised for his best year yet.

5) Giants finish last in the NFC East
The season hasn't started and the Giants defense has been decimated with injuries.
Jonathan Goff - starting MLB, out for year with ACL
Terrell Thomas - starting corner, out for year with ACL
Clint Sintim - backup linebacker, out for year with ACL
Marvin Austin - D-tackle depth (2nd round pick), out for year with torn pec
Prince Amukamara - cornerback (1st round pick), out for a month with broken foot
Osi Umenyiora - starting D-end, recovering from knee surgery and will miss at least the first week...hasn't practiced due to holdout and surgery.

Plus Justin Tuck and Mathias Kiwanuka are coming off injuries from last season. This Giants offense excels when Eli Manning can rely on a ball control offense with Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs in the backfield. I don't believe Eli Manning can win shootouts with a bad defense. I smell trouble for the G-Men this season.

6) Texans will win AFC South
After the recent cloud of doubt over Peyton Manning's availability for this season, this isn't really going out on a limb. The starting QBs for the rest of the division 5 weeks into the season have the potential to be Luke McCown, Kerry Collins, and Jake Locker. Oof.

7) Eagles will not make it out of the divisional round
I just think the expectations are too high for this team, especially for Michael Vick. Last year he came under the radar and surprised when very few believed he still had the ability to be the explosive player he was in Atlanta. One year and $100 million dollars later, the Eagles have placed all their eggs in the Mike Vick basket and expectations are high. Vick will have some great games running and throwing and the Eagles will beat down bad opponents this year, but Vick will need to be an elite passer in the playoffs to win and I don't think he is capable.

8) Bengals will finish with the worst record
Rookie QB starting on a team that went 4-12 last season. Both Andy Dalton and Cam Newton will struggle mightily in their first seasons as starters, but Cam will have the ability to win some games with his legs. This could be Dalton's only chance as starter if they finish with the worst record, as the Bengals would draft Andrew Luck next year.

9) Terrell Owens and/or Randy Moss will be on a NFL roster this season.
I am looking at your Bill Belichick.

10) 49ers will finish at least 7-9
Saving your homer pick for last. Braylon Edwards and Michael Crabtree on the outside. Vernon Davis working the middle. Frank Gore in the backfield. Better offensive line. Top 5 defensive player in the game at LB in Patrick Willis. By all reports better pass rush with Aldon Smith. Jim Harbaugh bringing back the west coast offense. There are things to be excited about this year.

But for the past three years its been Groundhog Day for 49er fans at the QB position. We wake up the first Sunday morning of the regular season and somehow Alex Smith is still the QB even though he hasn't had a winning record yet in his career. But somehow Jim Harbaugh has convinced me one last time that this is the year Smith puts all together. We has fans can only hope that our patience will finally pay off.

Yes, McCann!!!

2011-09-06T18:40:00.000-04:00

Over at Pitchers & Poets, a guest post I wrote is up. It's about Brian McCann who at age 26 is neither in the past or the future of the franchise--he is, at this point in time, the hand on the till. The article makes it sound like I think McCann doesn't get any credit, but that's not exactly it: It's that this season is the first one in which I've seen him featured consistently in promos for Braves games on ESPN and heard his name come up in casual conversations as one of the best catchers in baseball, not just as the model of consistency in Atlanta. It's also one of the few times in his career when we've started to discuss him as a player and not eyewear, and it doesn't seem like it should have taken this long to appreciate a really good ballplayer. Anyway, that's how I feel, that's what I wrote about, and here's the link.

Also, this is the intended effect of the piece:

#4 LSU Defeats #3 Oregon 40 to 27

2011-09-04T10:48:00.002-04:00

We could write a lot of words explaining what happened last night in Dallas, but it would be wasting your time. We could write four thousand words, add footnotes, and invent some frivolous scale of measurement that proclaims how LSU's overcoming the suspension of its starting quarterback is adversely affected by the number of times A Few Good Men is played on cable television. But, in short, a picture from out childhoods sums up Oregon's four turnover performance and LSU's surprising dominance:

Also, our inside sources are claiming that the SEC is no longer looking at the Oregon Ducks as an expansion possibility, stating, "There's no need for us to add the Vandy of the Northwest."

Aaron Rodgers' Mustache: What America Needs in a Time of Crisis

2011-08-27T14:38:00.004-04:00

Aaron Rodgers, in my household and family tree, is one of those rare athletes revered for his feats of strength by the males and deemed as dreamy by the women, which is why his horseshoe mustache last night sparked quite the conversation and, for once, pitted men against women, as each gender differed in their opinions on his facial hair.

When I see this finely groomed man, with a humorous smirk, I think, man, I want to hang out with this dude, even if he looks like a retired Oakland A's pitcher who spends his days throwing empty beer cans at a sign that says "Welcome to Hinkley, Home of the Nastiest Fastball Cutter You Ever Did See." In fact, the more I think about it, that's the dream: empty beer cans banging against a green highway sign in the middle of the night, cicadas chirping.

But the women felt differently. They agreed that the mustache aged number twelve, but all they saw was this:

But even the fact that the mustache may have been inspired by a washed up wrestler is no surprise to a true Aaron Rodgers fan; after all, his title belt celebration is straight from the tv screens of a night spent watching the WWE, and part of me wishes Rodgers would take his passion for pro wrestling one step further, so that when he's asked stupid questions on the sideline, he would growl out spandex-cloaked trash talk that told everyone in the stadium that his testosterone level is second to none, except for maybe Clay Matthews'.

Phil Simms believed the mustache was a nod to other classic NFL quarterbacks, conjuring up memories of Joe Namath, and wasn't Joe Namath dreamy once upon a time (before he started kissing sideline reporters)?

Aaron Rodgers' whole career has been about replacing legends, and he's done that successfully; but now he needs to become legendary--and to do that he may need a mustache--even if it risks coming off like this:

Or maybe it's a nod to a much older culture than our Western roots and manifest destiny. Maybe it's a salute to the zen-like calm that Rodgers brings to every huddle and every play:

If anything, the mustache makes Aaron Rodgers simultaneously more American and more worldly, like how we wish our politicians could somehow be. And, with that said, I, for one, believe the mustache should be cherished. Women's opinions be damned. After all, Aaron Rodgers abides, and that's enough for me.

LCB Interview With Writer Josh Rank

2011-08-26T18:36:00.000-04:00

Deckfight Press has a new release out: Josh Rank's I'm Here Right?. Josh originates from Wisconsin, I believe, and wrote these essays/stories while living in Atlanta. They mostly seem to deal with a concoction of where public and private spheres meet, the divisions, the violence, the ramifications, consequences, etc. He also runs/writes/operates the blog These Things I Know. The following is my interview with him:

First, what jumps out most to me about the stories/essays as a whole is their bluntness. Bluntness seems to be a key word in the other reviews I've seen of them. Did you intentionally mean for the voice in your writing to sound like it was coming from a barstool, a cookout with a friend, or did that just happen?

I didn’t have a plan for how it would come across. I learned a while ago that brevity is a key factor in solid writing (which made minimum word counts in college essays a bit troublesome), and I guess that could come across as blunt. The stories were originally written for my blog, and then revamped and elaborated upon when the idea of the e-book came around. The blog started as a collection of stories that happened to me while unemployed, strictly so I wouldn’t forget what I did with my time and so I could read them later. Kind of a public journal of stupidity, I guess. So the fact that they come across as something you might hear at a bar makes sense because that’s essentially how it started.

By the way, here’s the trick I learned to make the minimum word counts in college: Take out all of the contractions. Find every “it’s” and “can’t” and break it into two words. Depending on the length of the paper, you can get an extra couple hundred words.

You make the experience of getting hit by a car seem quite cool, maybe even chic, but what would be the most uncool vehicle to be run over by?

Minivan. And not because of the whole “soccer mom” thing. In fact, I drove a minivan until I was about twenty or so. And the Astro kicked a lot of ass. But minivans are big. They have a lot of momentum. They also don’t have hoods for you to jump onto and diminish the damage. Look at any movie where someone gets hit by a car. They always slide over the hood. But a van is just a straight wall of heavy death. You’d pop like a water balloon.

I went to elementary school in Georgia, where MLK Day was a pretty big deal, and then I wound up at a university where we lobbied the administration to make it a big deal, which kind of puts our experiences with the holiday in some sort of negative correlation with one another. Anyway, what are your thoughts on the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial that's debuting on the Mall at the end of this month? Do you expect Hooters to be part of the ceremonious unveiling?

We can only hope there will be girls in short shorts and tank tops surrounding the memorial at all times. But, I think it’s nice to put up a giant effigy of MLK. We’ve got enough statues and monuments of people that owned slaves, we should probably even it out with a civil rights figure. That being said, venerating people in this way makes me a little uneasy. I’m not talking specifically about MLK, but about the way we treat prominent figures in general. A thirty-foot statue? That’s pretty intimidating. It makes me think of the golden calf of the Old Testament. Once people get to the point where we are willing to carve their faces into stone, they become an idea instead of a person. This can be good for inspiration, but dangerous at the same time if used to validate questionable behavior. An example being people blowing up abortion clinics because of their skewed interpretation of the Bible. I think it would have done more to honor the teachings of MLK if they took the money spent creating the monument and distributed books either about him or based on his work. But I’ve lost my point; I really hope the Hooters girls show up.

Your essay "There Are Kids Around!" handles a gay pride parade with an air of the parade's purpose being that of celebration and not protest. The essay also follows your account of an MLK march, a word that in King's day suggest protest, so I guess what I'm asking is: what discerns between a group of people walking together being labeled a parade versus being labeled a march? And is celebration a form of protest?

I’d say it could be labeled a “march” if there are people with slogans on their signs. People in parades don’t generally have a message to convey besides, “Look at me! I’m doing this with this group at this place!” But I’ve never really thought about them as being mutually exclusive. The terms seem a bit interchangeable to me. Except for when you see those videos of North Vietnamese soldiers walking in perfectly straight lines while doing that high-kick walk that the hyenas did in the elephant graveyard in the Lion King. You wouldn’t call that a “parade.”

Celebration is definitely a form of protest. Have you ever had somebody laugh after you yell at them? It’s infuriating. Also, showing that you are enjoying yourself while living a lifestyle that is either not accepted or not understood is a great way to show people on the opposing side that there might not be a simple “right” and “wrong” to the issue, but more of a “You do what you do and I’ll do what I do,” option.

I loved the Dragon Con piece "Crosswalk!" Mainly, I liked how a crosswalk is designed for people to orderly cross from one side of a street to the other, but most of the account is not orderly--you use the phrase "dance riot," but I also liked how this piece worked alongside "Moral Diarrhea" and "There Are Kids Around!" Did you feel there was a common thread running through all three pieces and could you explain that thread (You know, the juxtaposition)?

Josh Spilker, the guy responsible for Deckfight Press, first approached me with the idea of compiling a few blog entries into the e-book form. We tossed around some ideas of which stories to include, the meat story being the first one he suggested. I then read through what I had previously written and tried to find stories that I thought to be funny and interesting while also including a point of some sort. I felt like I needed stories like “Moral Diarrhea” to balance out the drunken shenanigans of the other two you mentioned. I think they work together, even though at first glance they are simply booze-fueled excursions (excluding “Moral Diarrhea”). But towards the end, the underlying experience that I was able to take away will hopefully come through as well.

A lot came to mind after reading "Call Up the Muscle." A lot. But I kept coming back to how this piece highlighted the cost that comes with not fitting in or being able to find a place of belonging. I also couldn't help wondering if you thought most of the prisons and jail cells in life are the ones we build for ourselves. Thoughts?

Oh yeah. Everyone is trapped within their own heads. Otherwise we’d be floating around like in Ghostbusters 2 when their power goes out and Slimer gets out of his box along with all the other ghosts they trapped. I know there are a lot of prison cells in the world, but there are definitely more people than that. So, going strictly by the definition of “more,” there are more jail cells we impose upon ourselves than there are in places like the Fulton Country Jail.

Another way of looking at it would be the institutions we voluntarily enter. School, jobs, marriage, etc. These are all forms of a jail cell. Once you enter into something that takes away your ultimate free will, you’re essentially in jail. Electric bills are a jail. Sunsets are a jail. Eating is a jail. Once again, the answer is yes.

And, after reading "How Many of You Are Felons?", what's your favorite New Kids On the Block song?

Hangin’ Tough, obviously. It’s easily their most badass song. That chant deal they continually recite throughout is great. I wish a metal band would remake that song because that chant would make a sweet breakdown. Palm mute some guitars, pump out the chords in triplets, and let the crowd punch the living shit out of each other. NKOTB (as the kids call them) were actually in Atlanta not too long ago. Sadly, I didn’t find out until a week after the show. I cried real tears.

The full catalogue of Deckfight books can be found here.
All images are courtesy of Deckfight Press.

Pat Summitt's Openness in Dealing with Alzheimer's

2011-08-25T12:04:00.001-04:00

Above is Pat Summitt's announcement that she has early signs of dementia that down the road could very well lead to Alzheimer's, and here are four articles related or about the announcement:

-Clay Travis' "Pat Summitt Confronts Her Greatest Foe Yet" at Outkick the Coverage

-Christine Brennan's "Fighting Alzheimer's Might Be Pat Summitt's Greatest Legacy" at USA Today

-And my article "Dealing With Alzheimer's: Pat Summitt Battens Down the Hatches" at The Faster Times

-This news also made me think of another great basketball coach who is fighting the same disease on a much more private front: Dean Smith. This article, "Dean," by Joe Posnanski at Sports Illustrated is also worth reading.

Number of the Day: Kimbrel's 40th

2011-08-24T22:25:00.000-04:00

I know, you were probably expecting something on a richter scale, or maybe some hyperbole about how I survived the most devastating disaster to hit the east coast since I-95, Pilgrims, or the British in 1812. But, no, the number we're talking about is Craig Kimbrel's rookie record 40th save. He's carried my fantasy team. He's anchoring the Braves' bullpen. It's August, and I'm not sure what's more depressing the start of school or the fact that the NBA may not have a season; so let's converse over baseball.

(This is also that annual summer tradition where I start to get my hopes too high.)

Pretty Uggla

2011-08-23T14:10:00.001-04:00

It was something my future brother-in-law said that made me pull out my go to reaction when trying to hide my own ignorance, or the fact that I am out of the loop. "You guys got Dan Uggla." That was it: five words. I nodded my head and muttered something to the extent that yeah, hopefully that helps. I knew he was a baseball player, and I was pretty sure he played for the Florida Marlins; and the fact that I kind of recognized the name of a non-Brave player told me that he must be halfway decent or somewhat of an idiot--you know, the kind of guy who drives in reverse on the interstate, drunk, locked, and loaded.

I then feigned going to the bathroom, but actually made a bypass of it, and looked up Dan Uggla's stats and I liked what I saw: a second baseman who consistently hit more than his age in home runs. I then returned to the room my future brother-in-law was in, head held high, dreaming of a postseason filled with tomahawk chops, and said, "yeah, he's gonna definitely boost the offense. . . hitting either before or after McCann in the lineup. . . you know, McCann's the only offense we had in last year's postseason."

Then Dan Uggla lived up to his name, which wasn't a good thing, breathing life and memories into dead lines of poetry: April is the cruelest month. . . .

Dan Uggla began the season in horrific fashion, so horrific--I'm not even sure it needs detailing. But here's the bare bones of it: Through July 4th (86 games), Dan Uggla was hitting .173, and while his 12 home runs were solid power numbers, he'd amassed only 29 RBIs. For any baseball player, terrible. For a cleanup hitter, embarrassing. And the only good that probably came from Uggla's ugly hitting was that it did a decent job of distracting the baseball world from the equally abysmal season that former phenom Jason Heyward was/is having.

Then the meaning of Uggla changed, and with a 33-game hit streak, he resuscitated a lineup, that without the injured Brian McCann, would have failed to fog up a silver spoon that some backwoods doctor might have held in front of its nose, to check for life. And, as the sun grew hotter in the summer sky and flowers bloomed, all Braves fans could feel was the numbness of hope leaving the body, like blood spilling from a cut. The Phillies had a big division lead, and the Wild Card was a dead limb. But then a 33-game hit streak happened.

I'll bring up Jason Heyward for one more reason: he's family. He grew up in Georgia, was drafted by the Braves, came through the Braves' farm system, and has shaped our hearts and minds with busted out parking lot windows and mystical gum chewing. And, for all that, the kid has earned not our wrath, but our pity and encouragement--c'mon, Jason, you can do it. . . bust out of this.

In contrast, Dan Uggla was an outsider, pulled onto the boat by net, like a slimy, slippery fish. And, when the marlin didn't taste good, we were ready to toss him back. But then 33 straight games with a hit happened, and the pronunciation of Uggla no longer left a scowl on our faces or a bitter taste in our mouths--Infante who? And, as the batting average climbed and he rounded the bases, the sliminess of his scales was transformed before us, and we saw a glimmering light reflecting off his silver scales that were as bright and shining as a suit of armor, as bright and shining as the day our future brother-in-law said: You guys got Uggla.

And now I know how to respond.

--------

Since Uggla's hit streak began, he's hit .350 with 17 homers and 36 RBIs, and according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's David O'Brien "Uggla has exactly the same number of hits in his past 41 games (55) as he had in his first 86 games." The article is also worth a read because he details why the Braves' offensive production and Wild Card lead over the Giants has to do with the entire team and not just #26.

John Smith Changes His Name to Metta World Peace

2011-08-22T13:39:00.004-04:00

This link will take you to an excerpt from Ron Artest's journal.

That's right, now you can expect tales of adventure and intrigue, written in a heroically brash third person about how Pocahontas taught John Smith how to coexist with all the creatures of the wild, including the Black Mamba.

And, on a side note, we'll be back to posting actual articles soon. It's been a busy summer: switched apartments, bought a house, started doing yard work, been working on a novel, etc. If this were Jamestown, I would definitely need ~~John Smith~~ Metta World Peace to slap me upside the head with a solid work ethic and list of priorities: Blog first. . . live later.

Things To Read While Stealing, Rioting, Or Just Sitting Around Naked

2011-08-12T12:22:00.000-04:00

-First, this article, "Everyone is He-Man," by LT is probably one of the all-encompassing, better reads I've seen on the internet all week. It's not a piece of writing that's dressed up in obscurities and allusions that most of us won't get; it's simply a very direct and moving read on what place sports hold in our daily lives--covers everything from Rise of the Planet of the Apes to hunger in Somalia to Deion Sanders. It can be found over at Clay Travis' new site Outkick the Coverage.

-Over at Chris Jones' Son of Bold Venture, there's a solid dialogue over the accusations etc of the Toronto Blue Jays stealing signs, called "The Tao of Sign Stealing."

-I'm not sure what to make of this article, this philosophy, or this school of therapy. It may work. It may not. It may be a ploy for attention and free marketing. The article is by naked therapist Sarah White, and it's titled--I mean, what else could it be titled--"Naked Therapist Sarah White Wants You to Take Off Your Clothes." It makes therapy sound like a Nelly song, and, now, I know why always had trouble getting into the HBO show In Treatment.

-Yesterday, I read two articles about Louis C.K.'s show Louie. I haven't seen the show, but I like his standup and I was a fan of his "failed" HBO series--c'mon, it was funny. The first article I read was by Grantland's Chuck Klosterman, and it can be found here. His piece, however, wasn't really about the show and I was sold on committing it until I read this article by The Faster Times founder Sam Apple.

-Lastly, here's a link to my article "Just In Time for the Riots, Ron Artest Prepares for England," over at The Faster Times.

P.S. I'll be in the Outer Banks this week, so if there's not a lot of content up, it's because I'm too busy contracting skin cancer.

Exploring the NBA Lockout: Amar'e De Leon Looks For the Fountain of Youth

2011-08-11T19:00:00.000-04:00

As more NBA players flirt with the idea of basketball overseas, here is an account of Amar'e De Leon's wanderings:

The entire voyage Amar'e De Leon's crew wondered about his background, asking questions about whether he was a commoner or a noble, whether he was a man of faith or just a man of means. Some believed the journey was worth it; some believed it was a waste of time; all of them knew it was result of Amar'e De Leon having nothing else to do, one war done, another not starting. What else does a soldier have to do but to sail in search of something to conquer? That part of Amar'e's story made sense to the men, even if most of the man's life was full of blanks.

Storms came. Storms went. Some men questioned whether or not to sail ahead of Columbus' ship, while others said better to go behind--you know, just in case the earth is flat. When Amar'e De Leon did arrive in the New World, he found it to be very much like the old one--there was nothing to do. He governed, he ruled, he took land, gave it out, but mostly his face just grew old. His skin tightened in some places--the eyes--and loosened in others--his jaw. Wrinkles cracked across his forehead as if it were land in midst of a drought, inspiring him to wander, leaving a note for the Spanish Crown on his governor's stool:

Sittin' around and shit makes me feel old. Knee's fractured. Eyes are blind. Back's busted. Gone out. Be back later. Hope the Calusa Indians got clubs, maybe some bass will get my heart pumpin'.

Amar'e

PS Gonna bottle that Fountain of Youth like Gatorade

He was never heard from again.

Artwork by Langston.

-Dwight Howard as Vasco Da Howard
-Kobe Bryant as Koberigo Vespucci
-Deron Williams as Deronimus Williamus (aka John Cabot)
-Josh Childress as Joshua Childress Colombo

Deion Sanders: Tearing Down and Raising Up

2011-08-07T21:13:00.010-04:00

Dancing. Bandanna flapping. Highstepping electricity. The first time I discovered football was about more than crossing distances in consistent increments was when William Lattimore blew by me on a burnt grass field behind Gaines Elementary School, taunting me with his tongue wagging and the ball extended to me in his right hand like a baited hook. His celebration was quicker than my sprint; his laughter stronger than my arms; his your mama jokes a more decisive reflex than any futile synapses firing between my tired brain and dying limbs. William Lattimore was just better at football, simultaneously tearing down and raising up stereotypes.

And there I was white and reaching, being made to look so slow people probably thought I was sunbathing, while William was proving every black athlete stereotype there has ever been, except, looking back, I don't think his dominance was so much physical as it was emotional: William Lattimore was faster than me because he enjoyed the game more. His bones made hollow with laughter and witty banter, he could fly and I couldn't, and the strange thing was, while I couldn't put word to it in the moment, I'm sure I was fully aware of that difference, that he would always be better at play than I would be at work; and that had less to do with racial stereotypes than it did with elements of personal style.

William Lattimore always had the best clothes; the only person who might have done better in elementary school was Freddie Williams. William Lattimore wore Pumps, Jordans, and slick Pumas, and he pulled off jeans that were every color but blue and sharp pastel polos, like his clothes had been pulled out of a closet for junior Pentacostal preachers, and I remember thinking that one reason William Lattimore ran so fast was to outrace the red clay and grass stains of Georgia. He had to be that fast to look that good because recess is a messy affair. I, on the other hand, wore t-shirts that were mostly hammy downs and much too large for me; a lot of them advertising 5K runs and charitable activities my dad had participated in. In other words, my wardrobe was a testament to sweat not style.

In the fall of 1991 is when I think William Lattimore first gave me the joyful shock of not being good enough, but the manner in which he did it was like having a nightmare that wakes you up in the night but secretly you enjoy the way it makes your heart race, causes you to gasp for air, makes you feel like you're falling, and sends shivers down your spine. Getting beat by William Lattimore was both perplexing and invigorating.

The way our brains work, our world is always growing larger as we grow older. We encounter our families, then our neighborhoods, churches, schools, and so forth. Each one a popping bubble, or an exploding microcosm. And, in this fashion, often times our first encounters with greatness are highly personal. The best preacher is the first one you hear from your home church's pulpit, your dad is the best driver in the world, and your mom is always the universe's best cook. When William Lattimore's speed first put me on a treadmill, I must have been seven years old, and in my seven-year-old universe, William had to be one of the top three or five football players ever, right behind Kiki Wright from Cedar Shoals, the myth of Herschel Walker, and Neon Deion Sanders, who I knew only as the guy my dad wanted to stop dancing all the time and just play football. At age seven, those names, Randall Cunningham, and a few Georgia players were about the extent of my football universe (which would grow rapidly and exponentially--like a DC suburb--over the next few years). And it's strange to me that the seven-year-old William Lattimore and the then twenty-three, or twenty-four year old, Deion Sanders were the most alike: a boy and a man.

Which came first the chicken or the egg? I don't know if what William Lattimore did when he passed the beat-up orange traffic cone that marked our endzone was innate or copied from the corner back who played just an hour away in Atlanta, but by the time he celebrated it on that dried out, late August field, it seemed as natural to me and everyone else that couldn't keep up with it as breathing, honeysuckle, laughing, and lightning bugs; and on the rare occasion when someone other than William was scoring, we high stepped it into the endzone, too.

This photo was taken by Aaron Gray;
visit his blog Living in Paradise.

Deion Sanders gets called a lot of things: dynamic, best ever (at his position), fast, quick, dominating, shut down, flamboyant, champ, soft, loudmouth, preacher, flashy, cocky, and most likely things that are both much worse and much better. But I've never heard him described as childlike. Yet, everything he did on the football field is what children playing the game emulate, and while the components of his celebrations were mimicked, copied, and plagiarized by others, the sum of the celebrations, especially to the William Lattimores of the world, were entirely organic, which leaves an individual wondering how come only Brett Favre's bear hugs and Cal Ripken's get-to-it-ive-ness earn the innocent moniker of being childlike, when no one, except for maybe Deion, knows how to celebrate quite like a child, shamefully and unabashedly so.

And, if I dare say it, there's something ugly and prejudiced in labeling that kind of joy (and showmanship) with the depravity that has so often been linked to descriptions of Deion Sanders--and it's also a reason why seeing him tie a black bandanna around his Hall of Fame bust was such a perfect ending to a career that changed both how the game is played and how we think about it and how he accomplished both amongst a heap of controversey.

While it can definitely be said that the bronze bust doesn't entirely look like Deion, somehow that seems fitting, seeing as how everyone saw him through different lenses, magnified, distorted, always altered, yet somehow the same: Each one failing to see number twenty-one as a seven-year-old kid just trying to please his mama every time he put on a helmet, and instead, we saw either a grown man deconstructing societal norms about what a person can or can't do in the world or we saw a showboat proving a white majority's long held stereotypes of African-American athletes. But, if you keep the Tupac-Tubman bandanna on the formal Canton statue, then somehow you wind up with the enigma of both cut like a razor blade and sharp enough to make anyone walking it want to high step it out of here, because wherever here is--here is work.

-Also, check out Clay Travis' more comical take on Deion's statue in Canton over at Outkick the Coverage.