College Sports Facilities

 

Look at these spectacular facilities in Division 1 College Football. Schools today are now making so much money in their football programs that they will gladly spend money in bettering their facilities in order to attract the best players to attend their schools. This alone shows how big of a busienss college sports really are. It is a big business where big dollars are spent to keep up. These nice, clean areanas of competition are where champions are made and the dollars follow too.

Outside Oregons Facility Doors

Nebraska Cornhusker Weight Room

Florida Gator Weight Room



Why Isn't Hockey at least A Little More Popular

Although I am no fan whatsoever, I still ponder why Hockey is not more popular in the States. I understand it is an "icy" game played with large padding but the game itself seems to be interesting. It of course will never rival the big three in football, basketball and baseball but will it ever gain popularity in the U.S? I don't know if it will.. what do you think?

 

NFL Draft

The annual NFL draft in April finished up this weekend after three long days of watching men talk and old football replays. Within the space of the blogworld we get to vent and talk about our troubles, and I act in the same way when discussing the off season of my beloved football. To show a real life event of what I mean when telling of the "blue" feeling I have within during the offseason one must only watch on draft weekend. People all over tune in to see where their favorite college kids go to play or who their favorite NFL team has newly acquired. Football season ends around December mostly, but we have the Superbowl in early February, meaning it has only been two months and we have to talk about the draft and team transactions because there is no games to watch. What a weekend it was and what a new NFL we will be watching in the year to come.

ESPN First Take Review

Having started watching the show a few years ago I started telling friends to give it a watch and they often started regular viewership themselves. The show includes Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith and a host of other sports writers, sports show hosts, and athletes. The discussion put on throughout the show has the depth and "realness" that many other shows don't even approach. It is an entertaining watch, and if one can handle anymore hectic screaming they should try it out. 

Alabama Vs. Auburn

The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers, the two big schools in the state of Alabama have been meeting on the gridiron for many years now. The game has been fought in different locations, Birmingham for a period of time, but it always brings the attention of the entire state to see what takes place any given year. It is "the rivalry" and those who know it well say it is the best rivalry in sports, period. As a fan I have no dog in this fight being a fan of other teams growing up but I find it comical and exhilarating because of the depth and energy put into supporting ones side. It is awesome how much support a university can have for them especially in ones home state. Other rivalries garner as much attention in other areas of the country but little has meant as much during the past four years with Bama taking home three Championships and Auburn one National Championship. College football has run through this state every year since my class entered college in 2009. It has been a fun ride so as far as I can see it we are living and a part of the best rivalry in college sports. 

The State Experience

Playing High School football in Alabama is a way of life in many small towns and bigger cities alike. On a Friday night there is nothing like sitting under the lights and watching the boys you have seen grow up together take the field and perform as one unit. Maybe it is because we do not have as much to do with our spare time as other parts of the country, I don't know, but it is instilled in many of us to have a deep appreciation for the Fall, the grass, and the clashing of those helmets.

Having been a part of a state champion runner up team in 2007 I have been able to taste the sweetness of the playoffs and the extra half a season that is the five games in order to reach the promise land. My teammates and I were defeated by Prattville 14-0 in December and it all came to a crashing halt. The ride that was the playoffs only deepened the closeness of the team and the memories we will have with us forever. The journey allowed us to extend life, at least to our football team, for one more week at a time. We saw what it is like to come so close but to come up short, which may have taught us all different things at the time. All of the events in life can teach us something, it just depends on how we are viewing the world and what we are ready to see. That team is forever in my heart and mind and will always remain tight the bonds and friendships built along the way.

Off Season Blues

Clemson, South Carolina on a random night in the off season of college football. Its so strange to ponder the idea that these places that hold such great beauty only home at most seven home games in a year. The off season can be so lonely for these works of wonder, singing my off season blues.

Sports Bucket List

Sports can consume much of our time in the world we live in now, especially with television sports increasing entertainment and the economy we now live in. Although watching a football game on t.v is about like being a middle linebacker on the field today there is still nothing better than spending a day at the ballpark. In my twenty something years I have seen the Friday night lights in Alabama for my entire life, growing up in Birmingham, AL attending Spain Park High School. I have attended a number of Alabama, Auburn, and Clemson games and also seen a NFL games and other professional sporting events. In my life time there are certain places I want to visit and spend time at in order to take in the area so that it will forever be a part of me. Places like Wrigley Field in Chicago or Soldier Field where the Bears tear it up on Sundays. The tradition and love for the colors and men that play these games in cities all over the country and world are what makes sports magical for people everywhere. My bucket list would consist of spending days of my life with people I love having great times at new places all the while.

College Football in the South

Although we are still in April we in the south can feel the college football season coming on strong, with only three months away... about. Growing up in the south a kid gets to learn quickly about the traditions and loyalty built around ones team and they may cherish that idea til death. I have jumped around in my fan-ship from Tennessee through a national championship in 1998, to Clemson when my older brother accepted a scholarship on their football team for four years. That breaking of my love for the Tennessee Volunteers has allowed myself to find an appreciation in all of it now and just be a fan of the game. I of course root on certain teams but I do not find myself getting carried away in it like I might once have done. Now that spring ball is finishing up and summer workouts are to begin it seems like I should already be making plans for the next home game. Time always moves speedily and so it will be here before we know it, til then its basketball and baseball highlights like a rainy day in summer.

The NBA Playoffs are Near

With about a week remaining in the NBA regular season the playoffs are amongst us. The NBA playoffs are tremendously different than the playoffs in other sports.

When it comes to the sport of football, the south and its love for college football celebrate a "National Championship" every year because they play a "Leprechaun" that can't compete. In the NFL parity is throughout but that "any given Sunday" idea always comes into play. We see teams on both levels playing in the big game that are not expected and often times are shown why we did not ever expect them there.

Baseball too has a seven game series and it creates excitement extended for weeks at a time.
We see that big money can be paid and that team still do mediocre for seasons in a row. Baseball has its own "past time" way off being enjoyed, especially when we get a meaningful game seven, maybe Boston, New york.

Basketball, in the NBA is Lakers, Celtics, as well as Jordan and his Bulls. The Lakers and Celtics have 33 combined NBA titles. Of recent we have seen those two organizations fall back in the race, and witnessing Jordan put out the worst team on the court while in is front office position with his Bobcats.

Basketball shows us year after year the NBA and basketball in general is about the best! One player can dominate in ways that cannot be done in any other team sport. We will get to see the Heat make a run at another championship and we will most certainly see some game seven magic. Basketball, the game is proven immediately and to see the best at their top level this time of year is a treat.

NCAA Basketball Tourney before Final Four Weekend

Its April but March's madness is not yet over. This weekend we will see the last four teams fight it out to come away with the championship trophy. The past few weeks have been exciting just like they always are this time of year in the college basketball world. Millions of fans have had their brackets destroyed and marked all the way through by the time the weekends festivities tip off. Out of the nearly 9,000,000 brackets filled out in the ESPN tournament challenge not a single person has all of the games chosen correctly and not many more have all four of the final four teams correct.



 Instead of listening to all of the "experts" I chose to go a different path and use my gut feeling for every choice made in the completing of my personal bracket. I actually chose for Harvard, a fourteen seed, to beat three seed New Mexico, which I have flaunted around. Once the tourney began the losses started to add up and hope goes out the window until next year. As the days have passed I have seen my ranking move back and fourth from 100,000 to 700,000. The anguish that comes with investing time and brain into something you have absolutely no control over takes over some of us bracketeers out there. Currently I stand at 131,997 with 780 points and a 98.4 percentile before we head into the final four games to be played. My unpopular national champion choice of Michigan is still alive and also Louisville for now. Half of the final four seems to be a solid bracket in comparison to some of those around me who now scoff and change the subject when brackets are brought up. So before are brackets are beaten and bruised up just a little more lets all take not that its as random as the weather and that anything can happen in the madness of march.

The Heat Went Streaking

Any Person interested in sports more so than just the casual viewer is aware that the Miami heat have just recently finished a run off of 27 games in a row without a single loss. Besides the fact that they have the polarizing  "Big Three," with Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, the Heat are also the defending NBA Champs taking every teams best shot night in and night out. ESPN and the media took note, as with everything else Miami Heat, of the run early on admiring the teams play when the streak reached into the teens. The beginning brought a series of games when Lebron James seemed like he couldn't miss and shot nearly sixty percent from the field for nearly six consecutive games. Wade and Bosh and a number of others have been overlooked because of the all time great play we have seen from James. The steals, ball handling, and the dunks have become custom from the guys in Heat uniforms the past few years, but we have not seen the level of play and consistency in a single sport in a good number of years. The NBA season is a long and tiresome ride of 82 games where teams often play every other night. They say that they days are long but they years are shot, which is no different in the streaks case. Although media coverage day after day made the steak seem like it lasted a year we now can look back on the two months of win after win in great appreciation while realizing they actually failed triumphantly in their effort to do what was thought impossible.

The 1972 Lakers have the streak of 33 straight wins that the Miami Heat were in desperate search of. We can look back to see that the NBA has seventeen teams compared to thirty now. One could see they has Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain on their roster, albeit near the end of their careers. Many of the top basketball players in the world were in the American Basketball Association (Julius Dr. J Irving) creating somewhat of a watered down or diluted NBA at the time. The Lakers streak and The Heats streak are two of the greatest in basketball history and to compare them would only downplay the significance of them both. All fans will have their own opinion but today were talking Heat.

The Miami Heat have the best basketball player on earth as well as a few more that are not too far off the list. Lebron James can do amazing things on the court that we have never seen. He is tops in the league in more categories than one player should humanly be. He has used the gifts he has been given and added hard work to strengthen his game over the years and is at the pinnacle of the basketball world. The Championship ring has opened his game up and allowed him to play more free and thoughtless while performing his art of choice in basketball. The 27 game win streak gave us the platform to celebrate the greatness of a player in the now, while he is in front of us. Hate it or love it the Heat are the face of the NBA and have people interested because it is exciting to see what they can do with potential greatness. One of the brightest men in the NBA, Shane Battier, gave a speech to the team that not much has yet been heard of. Apparently he gave a Hollywood like performance talking to his team after win number 1 and told them to "touch the fans" saying that the fans "wanted to be touched emotionally and inspirational and that they as a team had that capability." Teammates have commented and said that they fed off of the message he channeled to them and they had run with it.





The level of play in athletics today is at a high and is only going to continue to grow. Although the Miami Heat needed no more coverage of their recent streak it is nice, and only reasonable to reflect on what we have seen and appreciate the effort and determination we saw from mega rich athlete men who chose to band together and take on the whole league piece by piece every night during the streak. To understand how hard they worked we can look at the week and a half since the streak ended to a deflated Chicago Bulls team to see that they are beginning to rest James, Wade and others because of the tests they put their bodies through during "the streak." So in regard to the effort and entertainment throughout the season from the Heat team I add one more 'salute'. Now to hammer down their legacy they will prepare for the playoffs and a possible third straight finals appearance.