RTPblog

Celeste

2012-01-24T23:36:00.002-05:00

Celeste Moncure, a back up goalkeeper, holds the distinction of being one of only a handful of players that I saw from beginning to end at UCONN. As a matter of fact I may have been the first person she saw at UCONN and one of the last she saw at UCONN.

For that reason, I really liked Celeste. I also really loved that she was from California. I think it's cool to have players from that far away attend UCONN.

Celeste loved Kemba Walker. When she visited UCONN she mentioned that. I remember her coming to our game at Oakwood against St. John's. I tried to fool her during an interview with her by telling her that one of our players had Kemba visit their room during the beginning of the year. Hopefully Celeste knows that's not true, even though the person who told me the story claimed that Celeste believed and that another gullible goalkeeper did.

Celeste wanted to be interviewed and I am glad I was able too in the brief time she was in Storrs. My favorite part of her interview was when she started to impersonate someone and then Coach walked in on us during the interview. Celeste went from impersonating a teammate to going "and now coach is here." That made me laugh.

I was also thrilled she got to travel to St. Johns and experience life on the road. One thing I remember most about Celeste is that she really wanted me to wear a watch at practice so I could tell her what time it was. I don't wear watches, and she would get on me for not doing that.

Celeste was a really nice person and was also entertaining. Everyone seemed to really like her. She also did a good job in the talent show. I wish her the best and hope she meets Kemba Walker one day.

Patriots Sign Ditka as Defensive Back to Shutdown Victor Cruz

2012-01-23T17:10:00.003-05:00

The New England Patriots will sign Mike Ditka of Da Bears of the city that begins with a C and ends with an O and has hicag in the middle.

Ditka will play defensive back for the Patriots and will shut down Victor Cruz.

With Ditka the Patriots win the Super Bowl.

I have the Patriots winning.

DA BEARS...because that SNL skit is just really funny.

Please lord, please forgive me for using your name in vain, and don't let anyone who reads this actually believe that the Patriots sign Ditka.

Quick Picks

2012-01-15T23:33:00.004-05:00

I don't like to waste time.

Giants
Patriots

I'll go with a Super Bowl rematch from a few years ago.

P.S. to all the experts who picked the Packers...you should have just used HISTORY as a guide. History predicts the future. If you look to the past you will notice that every year there is this unbeatable team, that looks amazing in the regular season. I'd say 66% of the time the best regular season team doesn't make it to the Super Bowl. Usually a team at the end of the season gets hot and starts winning.

Look who faced one another, the top regular season team in the league, vs. a team that is really coming together and is red hot in the New York Giants. History tells me that most of the time the hot team has won. That's why I picked the Giants...I picked the Giants to win this game if it happened on January 1st. STATS are not the best predictors for games, history is.

Tebow can't let us down

2012-01-14T21:00:00.002-05:00

The most important thing for Tim Tebow as a person is to remain as perfect to the outside world as he portrays himself to be.

In other words he can't be like Tiger Woods or many other famous athletes and people who are portrayed as perfect people, but in reality aren't.

Tim Tebow needs to act as he preaches and be as close to perfect in his actions as possible to give confidence to people that there are really good people out there.

This is a simple post, but with an important message. If Tim Tebow isn't who he claims to be then I don't think it will be possible for anyone to believe in anyone in the world of entertainment and politics to be as good of a person as they try to portray themselves as.

Cynicism will completely take over if Tim Tebow isn't really who we think he is. Many are already cynical, but I think everyone will be if Tebow fails us.

Tim Tebow also has an enormous amount of pressure on him now to be perfect. He has the spotlight on him all the time and he has to always be perfect. That's difficult. Just think about all the times you lose it and curse. Tim Tebow can't do that anywhere outside of his house. The pressure of being Tim Tebow is not a pressure I would ever want or wish on anyone else. Imagine having to always act perfectly every time you are outside of your house.

Next Up - Clark

2012-01-13T22:09:00.006-05:00

I did say I would write about former players and that is going to continue with Erin Clark.

Clark was a person and player I always liked. She's a really nice person who you could always have a conversation with, and also, I would also say is unique, and by unique I mean that in a good way.

Clark was probably the third person I met on the team once I started working with them. Cory was the first one I met. Next was Ally.

I remember feeling very out of place at first. I would hide behind the fence gate that would be the entrance to the field. I felt safe there as a newbie. I had a fence behind me, and a fence gate to the left of me, so I felt like I had my own comfortable plot on the field where I could be without disturbing anyone. (This is actually where I have ALWAYS sat and put my stuff. I think Dorn put stuff there too...but I always walk through the gate on the field and go right, away from the bench, and place my things.)

I remember sitting at my spot and before practice one day Clark introduced herself to me. She asked if I was that guy who was writing about the team. Something like that. I said yes and that's how we began to get to know one another.

Clark was one of my first few interviews because I felt comfortable around her. I believe her interview was the week before the South Florida trip because I remember telling her I was jealous I couldn't go. Her interview was awesome. She was one of the best interviews I had.

(I've ranked them, or started to rank them...the best interview actually occurred this year, and I doubt it could be topped...ever, especially in terms of length, or fun)

I spoke to Clark about an array of things, and I'd have to read the transcribing in order to remember what exactly we spoke about. The thing I remember the most though was actually transcribing the interview. Clark gave great answers, they were just long answers, which I loved, but also increased the amount of time I spent in transcription. I remember spending over an hour listening and typing and editing, and I remember being worried about finishing the interview and then doing homework.

And then doing homework...So my priorities were um, well uh. I had a 3.7 that semester so it must have worked out!

Now Clark's goal in 2009 against Wake Forest was off the top of my head, my second favorite goal of the season, only second to Taylor's NCAA winner. Clark looked like she shot right out of a cannon and headed right for a Wake player and just stole the ball from her. She was possessed when she entered that game and stole that ball. There wasn't a doubt in anyone's mind that once she took the ball that she was going to the net and scoring. Clark did a slight juke at the end to get past one final defender and easily scored what would be the match winning goal. Her goal was so memorable because of how she took the ball away from Wake. It was the equivalent of LeBron stealing the ball and going untouched to dunk it. I loved that goal, and it was one of my favorite goals that I saw in all my years watching the team.

Clark was someone I always thought was great at taking players on. I also remember her running all over the field to score several of her goals. Her 2010 goals against St. John's and Yale had her running with the ball forever. Her St. John's goal was somewhat similar to St. John's in a way because if I remember correctly she stole the ball around midfield again and just ran and ran. Clark's 2010 goal against Syracuse was also memorable because it was so quick into the game. I blinked and we were winning, which was a nice feeling.

Clark also liked to slide. One of my favorite clips of any player that I captured on film is her doing three straight slide tackles against Penn State. It always represented working hard and never giving up to me and I threw that into as many highlight videos as I could without being obnoxious about it.

I remember Clark best for the things off the field though, which I might say for most players I knew pretty well to be honest.

I think of Clark has someone who is artistic. Clark took a floral arrangement class and she would always bring in flowers to the office. Needless to say I was always impressed with the work she did, even though I had no idea how she did it, nor what flowers were used. Mary really loved them too, and every time she brought in new flowers they were the talk of the office when I was there.

Clark also makes me think of Golf. She plays and I believe worked at a course. I remember sitting and talking about golf and my new golf driver during preseason. I was going to the driving range and working on my swing a lot then, so it was nice to have someone to talk to about it. I also constantly compared my driving ability to Clark's too. She told me she won a driving contest with a drive of 210 yards. I was so impressed because when I first started playing I couldn't hit it 150 yards. Now I believe I can hit it 275 when I really swing...(although sometimes I doubt the markers) but for a while when I was learning to swing correctly I was going...ok, 10 more yards until you can reach Clark's drives.

Clark also is unique, and in a good way. Last year on Valentine's Day she made Valentine's for everyone at work. (She was working in marketing) Clark gave me a Valentine card and I still have it in the office, pinned up. I'll certainly take it with me to my next office. It was her own unique way of showing appreciation to those around her.

Clark also impressed me because I remember her talking to me about wanting to work in athletic marketing on campus as a junior. It was awesome to see her go from talking about it, to actually doing it. I was so happy for her when she told me she would be helping out Athletic Marketing as a senior. I also remember teaching her a few things I knew about photoshop. She was a natural though. After a few minutes I said she should just start using it, and that she didn't need my help. I had her teach me a few things in the spring when she was working for athletic marketing because she knew things I didn't know. She actually helped out a good deal with lacrosse's marketing last year.

Clark was a wonderful player and person, and someone I really enjoyed helping out as a part of the program. I wish her well and know she is well on her way to doing great things.

I also bet I'll think of more things about Clark later, but for now these stories are what come to mind.

I take that back

2012-01-12T23:20:00.003-05:00

Other members of the Odd Fellows, like my ancestors, (I don't plan on joining if you are wondering) would include William Jennings Bryan, a politician that ran for President as often as he could, Charles Lindbergh and five Presidents. (Grant, Hayes, McKinley, Harding and FDR)

You learn new things everyday.

Will get back to sports soon.

Bocce

2012-01-12T20:38:00.001-05:00

My favorite Playstation Move game is probably Bocce. It's really quite sad.

I'm also not even Italian, but I really enjoy Bocce the video game. So I'd probably like it in real life.

Also this is funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoQcB6-UNWQ

Found Em

2012-01-11T22:47:00.004-05:00

The entire goal of my ancestry research for me was to find the burial spot for our relatives.

I succeeded mostly by myself, but got some help. I'll explain why I needed help later.

I found the cemetery easily. My mom helped me with directions and how to get there. It was easy for me because you can get to the cemetery easily from my grandma's old house (grandma with no relation to family I am looking for) in North Greenwich.

I took the Merritt Parkway and got off on the exit right on the border of Greenwich and New York on King Street. I went North and went past my favorite airport, Westchester County Airport (HPN) and then turned onto Bedford Road in North Greenwich. I drove past my grandmas old house and then proceeded to get to Rte 433 and then Rte 22 in Armonk. I took Rte 22 down about 6 or 7 miles to the cemetery in White Plains.

I parked in the cemetery and began searching, as I was completely unaware as to where in this medium sized cemetery my family was buried. I searched and searched and searched by foot. I finally found my surname after 10 minutes and got excited, but I read the names on the graves and saw they weren't the ones I was looking for. I kept scouring and scouring. I read tons of names and couldn't find the family. I found my surname several other places, and still they were all the wrong people. Finally after about an hour I was beginning to get frustrated and walked towards the cemetery office with about 10 minutes left before it closed.

Finally, a short walk from the cemetery office, I found my relatives. I found all of them except my great great grandfather who committed suicide. I knew he had to be buried somewhere in this cemetery, but didn't know where. I asked since the office was about to close. I got in just in time and I found out that my great great grandfather, who committed suicide is indeed buried with my relatives, but is in an unmarked grave. That's not all that surprising since families are not proud of individuals who kill themselves, especially back then.

The reason I feel comfortable talking about it is that it's so far removed from our family. We knew little about him (and we know why). To us it was interesting and almost funny to read and talk about. We have a picture of him and to us we now have a great story to tell ADULTS. However, back then, to his family, you probably didn't say a word about my great great grandfather.

I might name a dog after my great great grandfather. If the dog is a good dog, maybe I'll name a son after him to make his name good again.

OR maybe not.

"Honey"...wait "Sugar" (just kidding) I think we should name our son after my great great grandfather.

Really, what was he like?

"Uhh, um, well, uh he shot himself four times and poisoned himself to death."

"Hell No" followed by slapping for not taking child naming seriously enough.

But I really would like to honor my relatives that for so long I knew nothing about. I mean they are part of my life since I did discover them. It just is hard to tell your child that you named them after someone who committed suicide. I wouldn't feel good if I was named after someone who committed suicide.

My great great grandfather was actually not the only one who was buried in unmarked graves according to the cemetery records. Apparently one of my great great grandfathers sisters and all of his children (apparently five children) who died young or in infancy are also buried there.

One thing I learned from the grave stone is that my great great great grandfather was a member of the International Order of Odd Fellows. There is some symbol on his grave that according to something I found on google apparently means he is a member of this fraternity I guess.

I will say Odd Fellow doesn't shock me when talking about these relatives. Everything about them has been odd.

Apparently this group of people are all about F, L, T. Those initials were found on some iron plaque/stake next to my great great great grandpa's grave. The F, L, and T stand for Friendship, Love and Truth.

My first thought when reading this is that my great great great grandpa was a member of a Cult of Hippies. Reading those three things made it seem as if they were founders of the 19th century version of Haight Ashbury, or about to start their own version of Jonestown. I believe that my great great great grandfather and two of his sons were big into this group. After reading their about us it seems like the I.O.O.F. is innocent and good enough organization. It says they are about selflessness and about giving more than receiving. That's all I know about that. That's probably all I want to know about that.

I also realize, with the help of wikipedia (I trust this entry) that the name of the place where my great, great grandfather was born no longer exists. It's either at the bottom of a reservoir or near it.

I also hope that weird things don't start happening to me since I visited the graves of these long estranged family members. I'll start to believe their ghosts are following me.

Anyway I think I far exceeded my expectations through all of this research I did and I am content to take a break for now. I'd love to go past my great great great grandfather and find out about other relatives, but I will probably have to conduct my research from now on in White Plains and Westchester County.

Finally there is a small connection between Rte 22 and our soccer team (and a bigger connection between my mom and dad's side of the family that I didn't realize). I'm not making this up, but I realized as I was driving on Rte 22 that I lead the team to an A&P grocery store in Armonk on the way to the BIG EAST tournament in 2010 that is off of Rte 22. We needed a place to eat and the internet (Thank goodness for Peter Pan that trip) told me that there was one in Armonk off exit 3 of 684. Armonk sounded like a good place to me.

My parents were married there in Armonk (at the time I didn't know why they were married there) so that's probably why Armonk sounded good.

It also turns out that I discovered today that Armonk and that grocery store is about a five to ten minute drive from my grandmas old house in North Greenwich. I know I could have gone on a run from my grandmas old house to the store. Chances are good that I had actually already been to that grocery store in Armonk before. It's one of the places my grandma would shop for food. I would spend time with her when she would babysit me when my parents would go out.

So as it turns out there is good reason I got off of exit three and chose the A&P in Armonk. There was some intuition because as it turns out that A&P store was probably a place I had been to at least once before and was just five minutes from my grandmas house.

I knew 684 was close to my house, but I didn't know it was so close to my grandmas..(grandma on other side of family from research I did)

On top of that, Rte 22. where the A&P is off of, is also the same road, although another six or seven miles down the road, that my relatives that I didn't know about are buried on. On top of that the entire area on the border of New York and Connecticut is where my fathers side of the family comes from. My great great grandfather was even born very close to that A&P. It's funny how things like that just all come together by accident.

Don't always make fun of kickers

2012-01-11T08:20:00.003-05:00

Here is a cool story about 49ers place kicker David Akers, former kicker for the Eagles. He has had to overcome a lot in this past year.

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7446366/rick-reilly-david-akers-amazing-year

Interesting Place I Visited

2012-01-10T22:32:00.006-05:00

Question - What do you call a bus full of lawyers with two empty seats that falls off a cliff?

The answer:

A perfectly good waste of two seats.

Question - How do you stop a lawyer from drowning?

The answer:

You take your foot off his ass.

Not my jokes, just passing them on. My legally blonde cousin is going to law school in Portland, Oregon so we heard lots of lawyer jokes at Christmas from my Uncle and cousins. (I'm sure they are working on blonde lawyer jokes as we speak)

My cousin is really smart, but some in the family give her a hard time.

I got her lawyer joke "Where is the only place in the world where there can't be negligence?"

Answer "A duty free shop"

An element of negligence is a duty to do something. If a teacher had "no duty" to keep their students safe than their could be no negligence if a teacher didn't keep their students safe.

Anyway today I went to a special place. The records room in my town hall. It's in the basement. There are no lights. It's the place where ALL of the land grants in the history of the city are kept. There are also books of deaths, births, marriages, military service etc. It's a researcher and historians paradise, and with land records, also the dream place for lawyers. As we all know lawyers are a large part of the purchasing and selling of land.

The reason I went was to see if I could find any evidence of our family selling land after my great grandfather married an Irish Catholic. My hope was to see estates transferred after the death of a relative. In this sense, I failed. I really didn't find anything, although I also don't think I did the most exhaustive search either. I could stay researching for hours in that office, but I can't spend my life doing that. I needed to workout, so that got me out of their by 1pm.

Anyway it was really fascinating to look through everything. What I found out about my relatives is that the entire family in the late 1890s was involved in a lawsuit about a mortgage (and I believe them not paying). One of my relatives, (don't remember who and didn't think it was important enough to record when and who) was involved with a lawyer by the name of Homer Cummings in a property transaction. Homer Cummings was the 55th Attorney General of the United States, serving under Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Cool little fact there.

My Great Great Great Grandmother apparently died and her estate was part of the lawsuit. What I read was a little fuzzy because it was all written in script and also used legal jargon from before 1900. I could use my father's help in understanding it.

Apparently the family held property (don't know if it was a house, business etc.) by Hoyt and Summer Streets downtown. What is fascinating to me from my research is just how land was assigned back in 1900. They did measurements. My family had something like 170 feet by 50 something feet. It was fairly exact in measurements. However, the actual location was quite interesting. It was to the west of Jebediah's property (making up names of people so you get the idea) south of Sebastian Hoyt and to the west of the estate of the late Eliza. It's extremely difficult to know EXACTLY where the property borders were, and it's funny how general the information is. My parents house would be for example to the South of the Parkers, North of Paolo, and West of the DeFilips, Pyschiatrist and Neffs. East of the people in the red house.

It was funny to me that I was in there researching. I was CLEARLY the youngest person in the room. At one point I am fairly sure I was the only non-lawyer in the room. One lawyer was frantically searching for information.

Also don't forget, whatever the property lines are on record at the town clerks office is the property you have. The record there is all that counts. My dad taught me that today.

I hope my dad picks up where I left off in a way, or that we work together, because I really have such a bad idea of what the property claims we found are talking about.

I looked through Grantor and Grantee Books too. They are in series. They basically list all property transactions in the City (I am from one of the largest cities in New England apparently...and the 4th largest in Connecticut). There are series of books that detail names with property transactions as either the grantor (seller) or grantee (buyer) of property.

Once I found my family members names in the Grantor Book I would find another book number and subject such as Mortgage, Tax Lien, Warranty or Miscellaneous with a book number and page number with the actual contract or information on the land and property.

Then I went and found the book with the information and went to the page number and found whatever information I could. It was amazing to me how thorough and well organized the information was kept. Also amazing how someone wrote in script the information in the 1890s about family property claims.

Also found out that some of my family members didn't pay their taxes (I think they are Ron Paul fanatics) as they were cited in a Tax Lien book. I couldn't find the Tax Lien book though that talked about what property there was a lien against.

I didn't find out everything that I was looking for, but I found some interesting information. This information however wasn't as exciting to me because it's so hard to keep track of land from the 1890s of relatives and to figure out what property they had. It would have to be a long research project. Maybe when I am 70 I will visit Stamford again to go over everything.

I also did look through death certificates. This was a little bit harder to do than property because I needed to get a key to get access to these locked books. I did see my great great grandfathers death certificate and he did indeed kill himself like the newspaper said he did. I also confirmed his parents names, and their date of birth and location of birth.

There is some more I could research, but I think it would make more sense to come back to it at a later date. The amount of time required to look through everything will be immense. I'm hoping another relative who is retired or almost retired can pick up where I left off.

The last thing I did today was go to the firehouse downtown for the first time. My great grandpas picture used to be hanging up there, but unfortunately my dad and I couldn't find it. My dad thought it was up as of ten years ago when he last visited the fire house.

Poison and Bullets Fatal - Family Stories

2012-01-09T21:08:00.006-05:00

I bet you never expected this to be a title for a blog entry.

I never did.

I'm sure a lot of people will read this based on the title. It's about my family, and it's actually interesting enough that you might read it.

I've been doing research on my family and the descendants of my last name. We didn't know much about our relatives much beyond the 1900's (well until now) and this always made me curious. I think my dad was curious too but he jokingly warned me that you never know what you might find. I really wanted to find things out though. My families last name is in the name of a street in my city and there is supposed to be a relation. Yet we didn't know the story behind the street.

The story went that our great great grandfather disinherited my great grandfather for who he married and thus was not going to get the land by that street. That story is a little more foggy now.

Anyway, in trying to search for more information on my relatives and names, dates of birth, burial grounds etc. I decided to go to our town library and look for obituaries in the town newspaper. They have all of the newspaper articles on microfilm going back to the 1800s.

I found a place on the libraries website that listed the names of people with my last name and the date of their obituary. I was able to find my relative. I got the microfilm and started looking.

According to records my great great grandpas obituary was on the front page on January 6, 1902. I read a headline that said "Poison and Bullets Fatal", and read other headlines and couldn't find the obituaries. It was driving me crazy.

Then I re-read "Poison and Bullets Fatal" and saw my relatives name.

Things just got a little more interesting.

The second headline said my relatives name followed by "Died in Hospital Late Saturday Night."

I thought to myself, 'wow, what did my relative do to get shot and poisoned?'. I figured someone killed him.

I was wrong.

No one killed my relative. The third headline read "Suicide Due To Despondency"

OHHHHHHHHH

Jeez

This is even more interesting than I could ever imagine, and it might help explain why we know so little about him other than his name. Then again that might not be the reason or only reason we know nothing about him.

As I read further I was surprised at my reaction. Here I am reading about my great great grandfather who died 86 years before I was born and I found myself having tears come to my eyes. I never knew the guy, yet he is a direct relative of mine. He shares my name, I couldn't help but feel bad for him. I found reading the article sad, and funny because my dad said "you never know what you might find." Boy was my dad correct so I called him right away with the news and he found it interesting.

It turns out that my great great grandfather was a really bad shot. The understatement of the century as he apparently fired four shots into his head, yet none of those shots proved to be fatal. They were apparently all scalp wounds. Since the guns didn't kill him he apparently poisoned himself with laudanum. He apparently did this in a hotel room in the Stamford House.

The Stamford House happens to be right near by, possibly even right next to where my father works. Who knew before today?

Four shots and poison. He was desperate to kill himself. He apparently wrote a note but it was not revealed who he wrote the letter too. He apparently mumbled something about "Lawrence" before he died. As far as I know there is no one named Lawrence in our family that he could have been talking about. (Maybe it will reveal itself)

My relative apparently had been suffering from rheumatism and other complaints. He apparently had to give up his business and at that time he became melancholy and brooded a great deal. To complicate things we believe that he had five kids, and his first four all died. We know his youngest son went on to be my great grandfather. Apparently two of my relatives sons died within a week of Scarlet Fever in 1888. One died at age three, the other, the oldest boy, at age six. At the time of his suicide he was separated from his wife Minnie (my great great grandmother). Minnie was applying to get a divorce.

What complicates our family story somewhat is the fact that when my relative committed suicide in 1902, his youngest son was only 14, and not married. Therefore it stands to reason that he wouldn't have disowned his son for marrying an Irish Catholic since he wasn't around to see his youngest son get married.

Who disowned my great grandfather. Well, we still don't know.

Maybe it was my great great grandfather's brother Chauncey, who was quite successful and actually lived to age 89, who disowned my great grandfather. (We hadn't ever known of a male relative of our last name to have lived past 58 until we heard about Chauncey)

That had made sense to me, until my father pointed out in the obituary that I had printed out that Chauncey's funeral was to be held at his nephews house. The obituary said that his only nephew was my great grandfather. Would my great grandfather have had a funeral for his uncle who disinherited him? I don't know if that makes sense. We may never know exactly why or who disinherited who, when and why.

It's a mystery, but atleast today we were able to clear a few things up.

I admit, I feel like a detective on Law and Order, or that I am writing the script for a show. This research has been quite interesting. I think this article might actually be interesting enough for people not in my family to read.

Half and Half

2012-01-09T00:04:00.001-05:00

.500...ugh

Lets just get this out of the way

Saints
Patriots (Not Tebowing to him just yet...if he wins this one I'll stop picking against him, and claim that I was named after him)
Ravens
Giants

Challenging history

2012-01-08T23:16:00.003-05:00

So I did some more research today.

Like I said I have a one track mind. I work weird hours, at all hours on things if they really interest me.

My dad has a Billy Club/Police Night Stick that he was told came from a relative that was a New York City Police Officer. He had thought it came from his father's mother, who was the oldest child in her family. How exactly she would get a night stick from a relative I don't know. The way my dad had thought he had understood it doesn't make all that much sense. I just don't see how his grandmother would have ended up with a night stick.

It makes much more sense that the night stick actually came from my father's great, great grandfather who was a police officer in New York that we recently found out about. I think it makes more sense for the night stick to have traveled from a father to a son, to a son, to a son, than for it to have gone some convoluted route involving mothers. I know this is sexist, but these times were sexist...I don't think women normally get billy clubs passed down to them.

Another one of my crazy theories is that my great grandpa got the night stick from his father or relative as a gift when he became a fireman, or became a "man"...before he got himself disinherited. I would think that this Billy Club would have had to have been given to my great grandfather before he was disinherited if the club came from that side of the family, and not another.

We also heard that this New York City police officer or another relative police officer we don't know about, threw three people into a well.

I wonder if there is any attachment between this and the Orange Riots that broke out in New York City in the 1870's that took place between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. It's plausible, but I had also heard the three thrown into the well may have been Italian. (Hopefully I don't have a tragic accident because of this now..Sopranos joke there) Either way it wound be interesting to read about the riots since it would appear that a relative could have been involved as a police officer in trying to restore order to the riots.

I also found out that my relatives lived around what is now the Upper East Side. They were certainly not rich, as in 1870 my great great great grandfather wasn't listed as owning property and had an estate property worth $600. His son apparently had estate property worth $1,000. They lived in the 19th Ward in Manhattan. The financial figures seem to be in the middle of those on the census document I saw.

One premise that I will challenge, and be interested to learn about is who disinherited my great grandfather for marrying an Irish Catholic. He was apparently disinherited upon his marriage, although we are unsure if it was because he married an Irish person, or a Catholic or both. We will probably never know. There was a five year difference between the birth of my great grandpa's first child and the death of his father (great, great grandfather Orrin). In other words, it would appear to me based on the records that I have seen and logic, that chances are fair that his father didn't live to see his son marry an Irish Catholic.

What confuses things even more is that it would appear as if there was a divorce that took place between my great grandpa's parents before my great grandpa went and married an Irish Catholic.

If there was a divorce or death before the wedding it would have probably left my great grandpa's ties to his father's family with his Uncle Chauncey. Chauncey seemed to be a well to do person in society. He was a treasurer in a club. Today I found out he owned a market, the "People's Market" on Main Street in Stamford. My family knew that a relative had owned a Market in town, but we didn't know it's name or where. Solved that mystery today.

Chauncey might have had a good business mind and realized that he might have wanted to distance himself from my great grandfather for at the time embarrassing the family. It's just a theory, but if the records confirm my assumptions it would seem to be a plausible alternative to his father disinheriting him.

I want to find Orrin's grave! That would help with dates. Somewhere I saw his death date as 1902, when my great grandpa was 14. Somehow I don't think my great grandpa was married at 14.

I read about Chauncey and Orrin and found out that they were also interested in their genealogy because they apparently traveled to a huge reunion in Stonington, CT in 1881. It's seriously amazing what you can find on google...including a picture of Chauncey and the store that he owned. Google also helped me find a book written about Stamford that mentions Chauncey as someone who was the descendants of one of the oldest families to be from the Greenwich/Stamford Connecticut/New York Border.

So guess what...so am I! We were lucky enough to be some of the descendants of the oldest settlers of some of the most valuable property in the entire country. We were not lucky enough to benefit financially from that fact. Hence why not having a job lined up yet is quite troublesome.

Chauncey was apparently born in Connecticut, but moved to New York to be educated. (Imagine leaving Greenwich today to be educated in New York City...times change)

Forgetting about Chauncey now...who was also apparently a jeweler later in life according to my grandpa's story (Coming second hand from my father...who apparently said his dad remembered being a young boy and seeing Uncle Chauncey at the train station to go into New York to work as a jeweler)

I've been told that my Grandpa knew everyone in town, and I believe it, seeing that his mother had six other live siblings (four died at childbirth/youth too) who also had large families. My grandpa probably had at least 20-30 cousins if not more. I'm probably related to half the Irish people in Stamford somehow. Maybe all the Germans, which is what I am mostly.

Read This

2012-01-08T00:54:00.005-05:00

First of all, it means something when I hear Barry Sanders, a player I grew up watching, has a son who is about to play in college now. It means I'm getting older.

However, just read this, it sort of angers me. Sanders commits to Stanford, a great school, that I hope he gets in to. A Stanford degree should do wonders for him.

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/football/story/_/id/7436402/espu-150-barry-j-sanders-commits-stanford-cardinal

What angers me is that he is committing to this school without knowing if he has been accepted. It's a two part process. You have to get in to the school and be offered to be on the team. He's got half of that done. You shouldn't announce anything until both things are accomplished because the getting into Stanford should be the most important thing he is celebrating, not just being on their football team. The education matters. I assume that Mr. Sanders is well educated. I am not here saying that he should be punished. My point is that society seems to overlook the fact that athletes need to get into a school academically as well as athletically. Some student athletes are actually turned away for academics.

Horrendous Day

2012-01-07T23:19:00.003-05:00

Horrendous day for UCONN Basketball.

I haven't been impressed yet by the Men. I've been easier on them because they won the National Championship last year. Last year's team was different and you knew it early on in the season by watching them play. This year's team seems to lack energy and that worries me in a big way. I've been propping them up based on talent, and said they would be an Elite Eight team. What I have seen in the last two games, losing to New Jersey teams, indicates that they aren't that, at least right now. The team has the talent to turn it around, but they worry me because they don't seem to have some ingredient that they had last year. They have to turn it around. These two losses are inexcusable and embarrassing.

The Women also were disappointing today. I'm not as worried about them as the men, but still they also were missing something today, and haven't impressed me their last few games. I still expect them to make the Final Four though. I'll give them a pass for today's game. They will learn and grow from it. I just haven't seen this team give away a game like this...ever.

Both of these teams are good and have a lot of potential. I hope this is just a bump in the road.

Twitter has taught me

2012-01-07T23:06:00.009-05:00

One thing Twitter has taught me is thought I don't follow sports nearly as much as other people. Or atleast I don't seem too. Some of my friends are commenting about every college football and basketball, NBA and NFL game. Even NHL games come up.

I don't know enough about the NHL. With NBC's move to Stamford I think of job potential if I knew more about the NHL. Might have to work on that. I can't watch college basketball if UCONN doesn't play because I just don't care about other games. NBA is just over kill for me. I have to be so bored to watch that.

It's too much for me to be honest. I love watching sports, and probably watch more than the average person. I watch less than I used too though. I just don't get the same joy watching athletes I don't know, than I do working for and with athletes I do know.

I feel like I can only casually follow most games, like I am doing now. I have a hard time focusing on games without my favorite teams in it. If the Cowboys are on I can watch non-stop. If the Mets are on, I can be glued to the TV. Same for UCONN. NASCAR I can actually focus on, and Golf too. Soccer is hit or miss for me. I was glued to the Women's Soccer college cup. I also enjoy watching Arsenal and premier league soccer from time to time. But sporting events in NBA or NHL or even the NFL with teams I don't care about are really hard for me too watch.

I actually enjoy watching old games from when I was growing up more than some current games. I like watching the Cowboys play the Giants at the Meadowlands in 1995. I found some tapes of the 2003 Cowboys with Bill Parcells I've put on while working out. Even put on some of the 2002 Mets, who were AWFUL.

Family Stories Part II

2012-01-07T22:29:00.006-05:00

The most interesting story I heard was that my grandma's brother knocked up someone in high school (In 1921/1922) and then married the girl he knocked up. Their wedding gift was actually a house. Not bad. They only had the one child that brought them together, and it actually turned out well. He was apparently an almost perfect son who would end up being a chemical engineer. The funny part about the knocked up part is that apparently my grandmas brother and wife were very conservative, well behaved, quiet, perfect "pitch fork picture" people who you could never imagine conceiving a child before marriage.

It's stories like these that you don't want to lose. (Although some in my family might be embarrassed to talk about it..but I think most of them are LONG LONG dead...and if they are alive, they certainly don't know google) They help bring the people in the family trees alive. Plus it's a great story. I learned this while traveling through Ridgefield today. We also stopped at a few cemeteries in Ridgefield and I took notes of who is buried where and why they are important.

Also found out my grandmother was scared and uncomfortable around one of her cousins because he was apparently quiet and sneaky...and maybe a little too touchy feely.

My grandmother also didn't appreciate that one of her cousins would sit on my grandpas lap at family gatherings, sometimes with a drink in hand. Some relatives thought my grandmas cousin had a crush on my grandpa.

My father uncle and I also toured around the old Family Farm that we know nothing about. Absolutely nothing. We still know nothing, other than that there are a lot of HUGE houses currently there. Too bad our family was never really going to inherit it.

I am searching for grave information on several relatives that we don't know about, but recently found out about. I wonder if any were buried by the old family farm. We can't really walk around the old farm to see old buildings or structures and just explore because it's all private driveways and roads. Roads with gates. This is an exclusive place now. It probably wasn't quite as exclusive when family had it.

At the time you could have been cash poor and land rich.

Family (way way back) also had land by Round Hill Rd in Greenwich, CT which is one of the most expensive places in the country. However, no family we ever knew owned it and when they did it was probably not worth anything close to what it is worth now.

The land that family owned, especially the one with the Hill named after us in Stamford/Greenwich border became valuable when New York and the U.S. economy became really powerful. Powerful people would commute in to New York from our part, or have summer homes. That is where the expensive property comes from.

One of our relatives apparently sold a family farm in Pound Ridge (my grandmas cousin) for peanuts. She was no good with money. It is rumored however, that the house that was in the families possession at one time served as a place that took care of wounded Revolutionary War veterans, and I had heard, Red Coats.

Apparently my paternal grandpas side of the family may have had two New York City Police Officers in its history. Definitely one according to a census.

My dad's side of the family, especially the Irish side seemed to have lots of roots in the Catholic Church in various capacities. I learned that at the time, when Irish were immigrating into the country, that Irish people would gravitate to the church and would adore priests because priests were the only educated people that the Irish knew. The church served as a great resource to Irish people.

picks

2012-01-07T06:54:00.001-05:00

Steelers
Saints
Falcons
Texans

Family History

2012-01-06T22:52:00.011-05:00

One great way for me to save information on my past is to type them here, where they can never be lost.

For those, almost all of you, who don't care, stop reading.

Anyway today was a family history day since my Uncle is in town. My father and he talk about old stories and that helps piece together family history.

One of the mysteries in my family comes from a surname that we weren't sure how it arrived.

My great grandfather was completely disinherited as an only surviving child (on what is now..not so much then..VERY valuable land on the Greenwich/Stamford border) because he married an Irish Catholic. With this disinheritance we really had no idea about his own family. The only thing we knew were the names of his parents. We didn't know where his parents were buried (We atleast have a clue for a town as of today) nor really know about my great grandpas aunts, uncles and grandparents.

Google and someone else's research really aided us. I was able to find the marriage in the family that explains a surname that showed up in our family and has now continued to be used in family names for five generations. I was also able to find out the name of my great grandfathers, grandpa or my great, great, great grandpa Floyd. He is the person who married into the surname we were wondering about.

Hopefully I will learn more in further research. I am pretty desperate to find out where my great great grandfather is buried because I believe that finding his burial place might give us a clue about his family that was cut off from the rest of my family when his Methodist son married a Catholic.

I can't imagine how big of a deal this must have been at the time. My great grandpa probably broke his parents hearts. He was the last person born in his family in the 1880s. His three older siblings all died young. His parents must have felt blessed to have had him survive, the only surviving child, and then just absolutely crushed when he married a Catholic. I bet if I find my great great grandpa's grave that he will be turning over in his grave, showing me his rear and giving me the finger at the thought of a Catholic with his last name tracking him down.

Speaking of this religious divide in my family, my dad's cousin married a man who was divorced. Because of this the church said that parishioners should avoid his dance studio in town. Imagine that happening in 2012?

I also found out that my great great grandpa's brother Chauncey worked in New York and was a jeweler...(That story conflicts with a record that showed him as a butcher, but he could have changed professions later in life) Apparently my grandpa or great grandpa (If I had to guess great grandpa) remembered seeing Chauncey at the train station to go into New York for his job.

One thing I did today was to drive with my father and uncle around town and see all of their old stomping grounds. You learn a lot from that and their stories. I saw the house my dad grew up in. My dad was able to tell such a great history of the city. He knew who lived in what house, and as a commercial realtor he also knows the history of all of the businesses in the city. He should write a book about our city. As someone who was born, raised and lived in the city his whole life he has an immense amount of information to pass on.

On this trip I also found out that there was at one time, hopefully there still is, a photo of my great grandpa (who I, nor my father met) in the Fire Station downtown. He was a fireman and they had random photos of old firefighters up.

We also went to the family plots at the cemetery. I learned that originally the plots were supposed to be for my great grandmothers family. However they didn't pay the cemetery their dues so my grandpa and grandma paid for it and we over took it.

My dad's Aunt was the town drunk. She was fine until she married the wrong guy. The guy she married was a drunk and turned her into one too. The guy she married was so drunk once that he fell into a snow bank and fell asleep drunk and then lost his foot because of it. My dad's aunt was also apparently famous for walking into bars drunk and then saying she was the sister of my grandpa who owned that business downtown. My grandpa apparently abhored that, and no wonder. He did apparently say he was very much thankful that she married and had a different last name than he did.

I've also heard that when she was drunk that she was really mean and that she would curse a lot. My uncle remembered learning many words from her. There is also a story that my grandma loaned $168 to my dad's aunt so that she could get her 1968 Chevy fixed. She was broke at the time I guess and couldn't believe it would cost that much money to fix her car. The story goes that my grandma was hoping she wouldn't pay her back because that way my dad's aunt would avoid coming back for more money. If she repaid than she could come back asking for more.

Another one of my dad's aunts moved out of town. My father only saw her once, at his father's funeral. Apparently his father (my grandpa) called her the smart one for moving out of town.

My grandpa died of a heart attack while on jury duty. He had a heart attack previously in his life and was hospitalized after that. He was told not to exercise by his doctors after that. Not exactly what would be recommended now. It's also no wonder he died of a heart attack because he returned to smoking two years after his hospital visit and he was famous for having rolls with lots and lots of butter later in his life. Growing up however, my grandfather was an Eagle Scout and in great shape. That just changed as he got older.

My grandpa also once pointed out a man on the street to either my dad or uncle. He said "You see that man over there. He has no teeth." When asked how he knew that my grandpa responded "I knocked them out." Apparently it was a friend of his who got boxing gloves as a gift and I guess my grandpa tried out the gloves to see if they worked, and they did. (I bet this story gets really embellished in coming generations...I may have unknowingly done some, but that's fairly accurate. He did apparently say he knocked them out)

My Uncle was able to give me the only two things I know about my great grandmother, my dad's paternal grandmother. Apparently she was known to be really tough. My Uncle's only VIVID memory of her is that one day she went "Hey Billy, come here. Come flush the toilet for me." What a wonderful memory.

Hopefully you leave better memories than that for people. My dad's paternal grandmother is also partly responsible for my name. I am named after my father. We have the same first name and same middle initial (but different middle names). My dad was named after his paternal grandmother's relative (I believe uncle). Our names differ on middle names. I was told my parents met a nice young man who they liked who had a name that began with T.

My dad's paternal grandmother also charged my father everytime he would use the phone at the house. I've heard the story go two ways...One way is that my dad's paternal grandmother (my grandpa's mother) came into my grandpas business and used the phone and my grandpa asked for the nickel to use the phone to get even with his mother who charged. The other way I heard the story is that my grandpas mother just gave him the five cents. When one of my grandpas workers saw this they gave him a hard time for charging his own mother to use the phone. He was just getting even.

My grandpa once (I've heard this story tons of times) punished one of his employees who locked himself out of the shop by making him climb through the window for a week. This sort of "memorable" punishment, which I laugh at, also inspired me this year to come up with a good way of making a freshman remember to get her shin guards. She left them at the field after her first practice. I didn't want this to be a habit so I brought them back with me to the dining hall and then put them on a plate by the desserts and told her to go get dessert.

My grandpa seems to be a bit of a clown or light hearted at times. Apparently if someone would call the house at the wrong time he would pick up and say "Tokyo Bridge Builder." At the time it was (and probably still is) obscenely expensive to call Tokyo. If someone thought they were calling Tokyo back when my grandpa was alive they hung up really quickly, or so the story goes. The other one he would use is "Sergeant O'Rourke - Main Desk." He would pretend to be a cop. Also effective at getting people to hang up.

When we got home my dad took out a knight stick that was a relative of ours. He was a New York city cop way, way back. He also apparently beat up three guys and threw them into a well. That's a family story that you treasure, and should.

On my dad's mother's side I found out that a relative was one of the first investors in Roton Point. It's a ridiculously expensive beach club. It would be nice if we still had connections to it. I think my father looked into getting a membership and judging by the price he mentioned, I am glad he didn't.

What I learned from video

2012-01-06T08:38:00.000-05:00

I just saw some home video of me from 1996.

It was just after a blizzard hit. Apparently I was a slave in the video, or atleast my dad made me seem like one. He had the camera and was talking about the snowstorm and our walkway. Apparently the walkway needed more shoveling so he yelled for me to shovel more snow.

Then I got into a snowball fight with my uncle. I threw a snowball into the driveway and my dad said "Don't throw it into the driveway because your just going to have to shovel it again."

Clearly you can see just how much fun I had in this blizzard.

I guess this helps to explain why I usually enjoy working and why I would consider "hanging out" a weakness of mine. I think I am bad at hanging out, although I think I have improved at it.

In some ways there is some evidence that I was raised to not have fun and to not waste time and be unproductive.

Stupid Sports Story

2012-01-04T17:30:00.002-05:00

Here is a stupid sports story to pass on to others.

It's about LeBron James and his birthday cake...which apparently cost $3,000...

I will never pay that much for a cake...ever... I would make it on my own if I had too.

...Would help if I posted the link

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/LeBron-James-rejects-his-3-000-birthday-cake-a;_ylt=AvqIVI38_Sisoy1ZVL3TKw68vLYF?urn=nba-wp12773

Steph Labbe's New Year Resolutions

2012-01-02T23:25:00.004-05:00

Steph Labbe has always been a wonderful blogger, and writer. She's the athlete I most wanted to see when I attended my first UConn Women's Soccer game.

Anyway, I LOVE her New Years Resolutions...I think they are spectacular. She wrote them for Our Game Magazine.

http://www.ourgamemagazine.com/?p=3749

One interesting thing Steph talked about was not checking her phone when she wakes up in the morning.

It got me thinking about people who are attached to their phones. The people I REALLY DON'T GET are those who bring their phones with them to the gym. You can't effectively work out while checking out groupon. You can't run while texting back and forth with someone. Part of the reason I enjoy working out is to get away from the world. I can't understand why anyone would want to bring their phone to the gym with them.

Why I hate the New York Giants

2012-01-01T23:44:00.004-05:00

The team I dislike the most in all of sports is the New York Giants.

They finish just above the Yankees somehow. For a while it was the Yankees, but since they constantly choked they didn't bother me as much at the end of the decade.

The reason I can't stand the Giants more than any other team in sports is because of one of their fans...

We don't need to spell out his name. Don't want him to google himself.

He is quite possibly the dumbest person I know. Ok maybe dumb is unfair...I think he's in law school. He's just crazy and insane and extremely annoying.

He wrote a letter that he posted on facebook, to Tom Coughlin stating that he should cut a cornerback because he thought that corner stunk. He told Coughlin he should listen to him because he lead his intramural team to a championship in college.

You see the idiots we have to deal with in sports?

He is annoying as a fan. He is the fan you love to hate. BIASED to a degree that makes him as committable as a human who records themselves singing love songs while kissing squirrels at the park. I expect fans to say their team is going to win and that the referees had a bad call or two, but at the same time you should be able to take a step back and congratulate or respect the other team. This fan can't. It's why I hate the Giants so much.

He claimed he actually intimidated former Cowboys guard and future Hall of Famer Larry Allen, at a Giants game by looking him in the eyes. He thought that because of that he was part of the reason the Cowboys lost. Because someone who can Bench Press 690 plus pounds is afraid of a six foot 170 pound non-athlete.

This fan stated that Kerry Collins is a hall of fame quarterback. Excuse me?

He stated the most asinine remark in the history of sports, that Tiki Barber was a better running back than Emmitt Smith, the NFL's all-time leading rusher. Tiki Barber was a great running back. He WAS NOT better than the NFL's all-time leading rusher. There are a few you could list as better or atleast as good as Emmitt and they would be the likes of Jim Brown, Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, Walter Payton ....not Tiki Barber.

This is the sort of fan that also enjoys rubbing things in. That's what's most annoying about him. He rubs it in so much.

The Giants were better than the Cowboys this year. Victor Cruz is a phenomenal wide receiver and Eli Manning is an amazing quarterback who has grown a lot, and is someone I respect. I can say that. I can admit that.

This fan can't and he is so annoying and in your face that I LOVE seeing the Giants lose. I can't stand the Giants because of this one fanatic. He is the Ahmadinejad of sports fans.

2012 Sports Predictions

2012-01-01T17:47:00.003-05:00

A lot of babbling idiots make sports predictions.

Lots of people who know nothing about sports, write about them like they do.

I'm going to join them and make some very uninformed, out of the know, idiotic, and hopefully correct predictions.

1. Golf explodes, Tiger Woods wins TWO majors and between Tiger, Rory McElroy and company, golf and the PGA will see their interest go up.

2. Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins the Daytona 500. The streak that everyone talks about in NASCAR, the fact that Dale Jr. hasn't won in so many races, will end after the first race of the season.

3. NIKE will make NFL jerseys popular to wear again. I see this as the biggest DUH of all my predictions.

4. The Miami Heat will win the NBA Championship.

5. People will be talking about Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps again...the London Olympics are here.

6. The US Women's Soccer Team WILL WIN GOLD at the Olympics. Canada wins Bronze.

7. The Mets will finish in last place in the NL East.

8. Rex Ryan will shut up, or we will stop listening, if we haven't already.

9. The Red Sox will rebound and make the playoffs, The Yankees won't win the World Series. I don't know who will win the World Series, maybe the Red Sox. All I do know is that baseball's popularity will continue to slowly decline.

10. The Knicks and Rangers bring back some life to Madison Square Garden in the spring. The Rangers go to the Stanley Cup Finals

11. The Jerry Sandusky case only gets worse.

12. College Sports continue to deal with scandal, but not as much as in 2011.

13. Courts rule that West Virginia has to play in the BIG EAST for the next few seasons. Conference Realignment calms down, although there will be plenty of rumors involving BIG EAST football schools. Those rumors will also have some solid foundation to them.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T08:06:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year. 2012 is bound to be a big year for me. It will hopefully be the first year I am fully employed, but at the very least it will more than likely be my last year as a full time student.

I wouldn't rule out thinking about law school or going for an MBA, but at this point in my life I'm tired of school work and want to apply things.

I may also be moving far, far away this year for the first time. For all I know I could be leaving New England for the first time in my life. (I've actually left New England...I've spent a couple weeks in a Hawaii and three in Florida before...and been to 34 states, but I haven't really left New England as a place to live)

My New Year's Resolution

2011-12-31T16:32:00.003-05:00

My New Year's Resolution is the same each year. My resolution is to talk less, and when I do talk, to be more interesting.

This is not to say I'm boring.

Ok maybe I am.

My point is that I am always most impressed with people who can talk about anything, which clearly I can't do, to anyone.

I also find that my smartness can also be a downside in conversations. I realize that just because I can talk about the nuances of sports, doesn't mean I should get into it when someone asks an innocent question like "so how is UCONN doing?"

I was proud of myself when someone asked that to me at the mall this week. She was actually an old boss of mine at RBS that I liked. She asked about UCONN sports. My reply was "Their doing great." I resisted the temptation to elaborate, because I realize she could care less. She's wasn't interested in an hour long conversation about the history of women's soccer. She just wanted a basic understanding.

I thought I did a better job towards working to my resolution from last year, this year. My only slip up may have occurred at the end of the year. Someone complained that I didn't respond to their text messages, so I made sure I did. Unless someone asked me a question or said something really great, I tried not to respond to the text message because I know that if left unchecked I'd never stop talking.

The gift of gab is a blessing and a curse. Seriously.

This just makes me laugh

2011-12-28T23:40:00.002-05:00

A NASCAR driver got in trouble for talking about breastfeeding being disgusting on twitter.

http://espn.go.com/racing/nascar/cup/story/_/id/7398609/kasey-kahne-apologizes-tweet-breastfeeding

I can't believe I am linking this to here. I can't believe this was a big deal either. I don't know that this is front page side bar news on ESPN...

I also don't know what would make a person want to tweet about such a subject, especially when you are famous. When you are a famous person your tweets should be really really generic. So generic that anyone but you is writing them. Generic tweets will avoid controversy.

One of those moments

2011-12-28T19:38:00.002-05:00

I distinctly remember a player seeing an L.A. Fitness gym in New Jersey and then said, oh look it's "LAH Fitness"

That made everyone's day.

You are not a pool shark unless

2011-12-28T00:25:00.001-05:00

You are not a pool shark unless you can do this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfd0GqjWD-E

Imagine the bar bets you could win....

What they look like to me...

2011-12-27T08:12:00.002-05:00

In my opinion...

The Men look like an Elite Eight Team. I think they are as hyped as the 2005-06 team. I think they have some work to do. I expected to see a Final Four team, but I don't see that yet. They are good, but not Elite yet. I think their ranking is well deserved, and will rightfully be put to the test vs BIG EAST teams soon. I would like to see the team dominate teams more. They are winning, but I don't feel like they are dominating the way they could yet.

The Women look like a Final Four Team and I'll say should get to the National Championship game. They are exceeding my expectations. I was very impressed with how the women played so far. They are better than what I expected them to be this year so far. They were clearly better than Texas A&M and Stanford. They have some work to do vs Baylor, but I was impressed they held the lead in the second half. Notre Dame will be an interesting match-up and another good measuring stick.

Both have some work to do though.

What do you say?

2011-12-27T07:42:00.002-05:00

Someone in my hometown of Stamford made the news on Christmas for a very unfortunate reason. In a section of town that I am probably the most unfamiliar with, (as it is the furthest from the woodsy North Stamford I am from) the part on the water called Shippan, a house fire claimed the lives of five people.

Two people survived, the mother and her male acquaintance.

The mother, Madonna Badger, is apparently an advertising executive in New York.

In the fire she lost pretty much her entire life, her parents and three kids died and her house was destroyed.

She didn't have a Merry Christmas, and may never have one because Christmas may have too painful of a meaning to her now.

What I wonder is what a friend or family member could say to her. There is nothing that could possibly make her feel better.

Can you think of something to make someone who lost their house, children and parents feel better?

Can you think of anything to do to make them feel better?

When you stop and think about it there is nothing.

She's probably going to need counseling and monitoring, for a long time.

I just really wouldn't know what to say. Saying, brighter days are ahead, or it's unfortunate don't do justice. You can't even say, I feel you pain, or I can't imagine what you are going through. Most people will NEVER be able to imagine what that person is going through.

And then put yourself in her position. How do you get over something like that happening? If that was you, and you lost that much, you could be on suicide watch. I would hope you would be smart enough to know you need counseling. You would hopefully go to church, although I can see how some might take the opposite approach if they have been faithful, because an event like that could only challenge one's faith in religion.

It will take a while to get over it too. You have to deal with all of the anniversary's of birthdays, all of the things that trigger memories of those you loved the most, the ones who surrounded them for their life.

On the flip side, if you are a special person, who can recover from things like this and be stronger and better for it, you will come off as insensitive. Maybe there are some people who are tough enough to get over this. However, if you move on so easily, people will see you as someone who doesn't care about the little things in life.

I have to say the story about someone losing their entire family and house on Christmas to a fire is the worst news story I can remember hearing in my hometown ever, and one of the worst stories I have heard in a long time.

Jerry Jones

2011-12-27T07:28:00.002-05:00

As a Dallas Cowboys fan, I love Jerry Jones and think he is a wonderful owner.

However, Jones committed a sin as far as I am concerned at his last game on Christmas Eve.

Jones is known as someone who puts his hand in too many different places. He loves his team and is very involved, almost too involved.

Owners own, and can set culture, help run the business operations of a team, and set what kind of team they want to have on the field based on who they hire, and promote etc.

Owners need to let go of player decisions after they hire others to take care of player decisions.

During the middle of the game Jones went down to the sideline to talk to head coach Jason Garrett about not playing injured players since the Cowboys needed players to be healthy for their next game.

Talk about showing up your head coach. On National TV you leave your suite and run down on to the field to talk to your head coach and tell him what to do. How on earth is that not conveying the idea that you don't have full confidence in your head coach, or not conveying that you the owner is the person who is in charge of all decisions, including ones involving the game itself?

What head coach, or what employee would want their boss (who is unfamiliar with the job you do) to come to them during the middle of a project to tell them what to do?

The mayor shouldn't be coming to a fire to tell the fireman how to put out the fire.

The worst filming location

2011-12-26T23:02:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Founder's Field and the University of Pittsburgh for offering the worst film platform in the conference. Thankfully Pitt has a new field, and I assume a much better place to film from.

Pitt's field in 2010 was so bad in terms of filming that I almost thought about asking the coaches if I could not film the game, and instead use the other teams copy.

I carried up just a tripod and camera and said the hell with the laptop and DVD copier because the ladder was too steep, tall and uh well crooked.

I looked at the ladder in complete, total, disbelief. Not only was it ridiculously tall, the tallest ladder I ever went up, but it was also crooked. A CROOKED ladder.

I can't believe I went up that crooked ladder. I must say though, I sure has hell only went up and down that ladder a few times. I stayed up during halftime, which I don't normally do, because the ladder was so steep. I had zero interest in going down for a drink, and was going to hold in any need for the bathroom. If I had to go, I would have peed off the back of the platform and into the woods.

What annoyed me even more about the platform was the fact that the back of the platform was so close to ground behind the field. It would make more sense, and be safer, if you were just to build a walkway behind the platform that would get rid of the need for a ladder.

As if the crooked tall ladder wasn't enough, the platform also had a nice family of bees and wasps that kept me company while filming.

Pitt's old field was awful.

The best view was a view I probably didn't get to see, and that was the view from the top of Harvard Stadium for our game against Harvard. I didn't film, our other manager did, but when I helped him set up I couldn't get over the wonderful view.

Wake Forest and South Florida had steep ladders to their filming platforms, but I liked South Florida's better because they had a system for getting all our gear up. You would tie a cord to the top rung of the ladder and then tie the other end of the cord to the gear and pull all the gear up. It looked daunting at first to get camera up, but it was actually pretty easy with help from the people at South Florida.

Wake Forest also had really nice and helpful people, but since no one told me about their pulley system at first I used one arm to carry something and than two legs and one arm to climb. It was probably more dangerous than it needed to be, but I got the job done. The next game their I got help, and their facilities person told me how much he also hated going up to the top of the press box.

I think West Virginia was steep as well, but it didn't seem as bad as the others to me.

Personally I liked Penn State's filming location the best. It was inside. Need I say more?

This year wasn't bad for weather, but in 2009 vs West Virginia in October it was FREEZING. I was so cold for that game. 2010 at West Virginia was also really cold, as were all of our November games that year.

The Best Hotel

2011-12-26T22:10:00.006-05:00

I did talk about which trip of mine was my favorite, but I didn't talk about my favorite Hotel.

As an FYI, I never dealt with the hotel staff's at these places. This is all based on me as a guest.

My favorite Hotel is actually also the one that we stayed in for my favorite trip.
Quite simply the Embassy Suites was my favorite, despite the fact that their exercise room lacked a fully functional bike. It's amazing I said that because I usually deduct a lot for that.

Embassy Suites gave me a free Chocolate Chip Cookie, just like DoubleTree, except these cookies didn't have any nuts in them. (The Courtyard Marriott Laguardia will get great rankings for the exceptional Chocolate Chip Cookies too)

The Embassy Suites wins because I liked the set-up of the hotel. I liked that the center was open and overlooking the lobby. This allowed for a paper airplane to be sent down to a player who was meeting her friend. I liked the plants and waterfall/running water in the lobby.

I loved my room. It allowed me to comfortably host my Uncle for the day.

I had two televisions for one person. AWESOME. They were also flat screen..EVEN BETTER. The icing on the cake was that they had all the best stations first, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic and ESPNNEWS, plus the Golf Channel, MLB Network too I think. More sports channels than I could possibly dream of.

I love the two extra pillows that were left at my door without asking...wait a minute...some mischievous player called for those...It was either one of two freshman...

Speaking of laundry, I LOVED that I could do laundry after our win vs South Florida at the hotel. Not all hotels have laundry available. Immediately after the game I got laundry from the team, and then I put it in the washer and dryer. By the time it was all done (washer and dryer) and I was back in my room it was about 1 am. Atleast I was productive and worked on the pump up video for the Marquette game while waiting for laundry.

I had enough room to spread out laundry throughout the entire room to let it dry completely. Not everything was completely dry, but I wasn't about to wait another 40 minutes at 12:30 am, when we were going to be leaving by 8am the next day for our flight. All 22 players had jerseys and uniforms etc. hanging up on hangers, on door knobs, on chairs, on the couch, on the lights, etc. to help them dry out more.

I also loved my breakfast. Belgian Waffles, french toast sticks, SYRUP and orange juice. I was happy. Easily the best Breakfast of all Hotels I went too.

Embassy Suites USF was my favorite hotel. It also helped that the hotel was on campus and close to where we were playing. If the bus got lost, we could walk. That makes things really less stressful.

I'll actually rank the hotels later, once I remember all of their names.

I remember all their names...now...this isn't the ranking of them...but I did determine last place.

Atherton - Penn State
Crowne Plaza NJ BIG EAST
Needham Sheraton - 2009 NCAA's
Embassy Suites - USF - FL
Courtyard Marriott LaGuardia - St. John's
2010 NCAA's - I believe was a Crowne Plaza in Natick
Doubletree Skokie - DePaul
Doubletree New Jersey - Rutgers
Courtyard Mariott - Seton Hall
Doubletree South Bend/Notre Dame
Sundance Plaza - Wake Forest
DoubleTree - Syracuse
Westin Convention Center Pittsburgh
Waterfront Place - West Virginia

Last Place: Milwaukee Ramada - Marquette - video of players counting hair in their bed really cements this as my least favorite. The lack of quality exercise room also hurts. The bar reminded me of the movie Fargo and the lights for the elevator buttons didn't work.

Georgetown 2009

2011-12-26T21:55:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite games while being involved with our team was the 2009 game at home against Georgetown. I don't remember too much about the game, other than that Linda scored a goal to give us the lead in a critical conference game for us.

We were winning and then, well then something really really really bad happened.

I'm not going to go through the details on this one because it could come close to home, but I must say I never felt worse for one of our players than after they let something shall we say, slip away.

We can talk about this since it's old news right?

All of a sudden it was a tie game, late in the game. We seemed to be dominating, or atleast doing better than Georgetown, if I remember correctly, but a mistake tied everything up.

Not long after though, Brittany Taylor just completely took over in a way that only she did. No other player that I watched took over like she did against Georgetown and BU in the NCAA's.

Taylor got a pass from Court just on the other side of the circle and she ran through the Hoyas. Taylor just kept going and going and you just knew she wasn't about to pass to anyone until she got near the penalty box. Taylor was unstoppable for 50 yards with the ball. She looked like a knife going through soft butter.

As Taylor neared the penalty box she passed it to Mel who was to the right of her who then chipped it over the keeper and into the far post for a beautiful goal, that would end up being the match winner.

Taylor's run and the way the team responded to the game getting tied up late makes the 2009 Georgetown game really stick out to me.

Read a telegram

2011-12-26T21:25:00.003-05:00

For the first time in my life I read a telegram.

It wasn't sent to me, obviously. The telegrams I saw were actually sent to my grandparents in the 1930's..I think 1933..for their wedding.

One was from Irish relatives who mentioned Irish luck to my grandparents for their wedding.

I also read a newspaper clipping about my grandparents wedding.

I am fascinated by history. I love history, and I view writing this, or making the soccer banquet video as a way of shaping history.

Since I never met my grandpa I try to connect to him as best as I can. Somehow he shaped who I am, and I am curious to know how.

I had never even seen a picture of my great grandpa until today. (not counting the picture of him as a firefighter in Stamford, where he is sitting on a horse drawn firetruck..he is very hard to see) Seeing that photo was probably the best part of Christmas to me.

My neighbors

2011-12-25T23:42:00.002-05:00

One thing I realized yesterday when I got back from a Christmas Eve event, was how lucky I am to live in the neighborhood I do.

I have so many great connections from the people that live next door, and not everyone else can benefit from that.

I am so lucky to live where I do. Gene Wilder is often seen at the Grocery Store. Bobby Valentine lives in my zip code. A reporter on a local news station lives across the street from me. My eye doctor also lives across the street. (Thankfully I have no vision problems) The person who got me my first GOOD summer job at RBS was a neighbor.

The area we live in was once owned by the famous sculptor Gutzon Borglum. If you aren't familiar with his work, now you are...

http://www.nps.gov/moru/index.htm

Mount Rushmore.

A person who lives in one of his properties now is Mort Walker, a famous cartoonist who created Beetle Bailey

I'm not trying to gloat. It's sad to me. I know that the chances are that I will never be able to be in a place with more connections than the one I live in now.

As I am thinking about my future, where I want to live and what I want to do, I realize that I have it really lucky and that it will be hard for me to give my kids (if I have any) a better life than I did.

I have always liked the idea of living out in the country on a good piece of land, far away from traffic. The downside of not living in the city is that you are exposed to less in the way of people, ideas and technology. As an example I spent so much time away from civilization that I didn't know what a Red Box (movie rentals) was until a couple of months ago.

Living where I do with the connections I have also helps me realize how hard it is for people to get out of poverty. People in poverty live by those in poverty. They don't have a doctor that's a neighbor that will check them up for free, or have someone who can get their foot in the door at a company.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T23:18:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas to everyone.

That's what I celebrate. Happy Holidays to those who don't celebrate Christmas.

First of all, here is me mouthing off...or in this case typing off.
I heard that at some public elementary schools that people aren't allowed to celebrate Christmas, or have gifts on their desks, or decorations up because it offends someone.

THIS REALLY PISSES ME OFF. You shouldn't force someone to celebrate if they don't want too. However, you CANNOT allow a few people who are offended by Christmas to ruin it for 70% of those who celebrate it. How selfish of people to think that the majority of people should stop doing something because it offends them. YOU don't have to celebrate it, but just because you don't celebrate it doesn't mean that the rest of the world can't either.

Lots of things bother me, or annoy me, but as an adult I can deal with it, and ignore it, or work to make it better. I don't go around complaining about every little thing that people do that offends me. Unfortunately there are people who are selfish enough out there to complain about every little thing that could possibly offend them.

Anyway, this really doesn't fit the mood of Christmas.

So to lighten things up a little again. Hopefully Santa left everyone good gifts. My mom had a great idea for gift giving, but as a rule I won't talk about it. I'm not the type of person that would tell someone how much money they have in their pocket, even if it's not much at all. She was creative, as usual though.

I think she became a lot more creative after I found Christmas gifts in my closet when I was two or three. At some point well before Christmas I saw all of these wrapped gifts in my room, in my closet. I found a box and chair and was able to reach up to the shelf to take a peak at the gifts, until my mom stopped me. She told me they were just gifts for other people and boxes of Christmas Ornaments and I totally believed her.

Ally Mancino

2011-12-21T22:29:00.006-05:00

Ally Mancino was such a big part of my time with UCONN. I forgot that I could actually write about her now since she transferred.

Ally's passion for soccer and intensity for the game were what made her one of my favorite athletes. I even interviewed her for a class project in sports psychology for being in the zone, because to me she was always in the zone. I really really missed Ally after she left.

One of the reasons I liked working with James and the goalkeepers at practice was because of Ally. Ally made everything in practice game like. Everything was do or die for her. I loved it and liked being with the goalkeepers to watch and listen to her scream and be intense. She was intense in all sports too. I saw her play pick up basketball and she got so mad after she missed a jumper. She took shots after the game so she could improve.

Ally was loud and always rooting for the team. I picked up on this right away as a manager. She was the second player I ever interviewed for our facebook page because of this. She was so serious during our interview and actually ran back with a ball bag after practice so that she wouldn't be late.

Ally would always say "Come on, Let's Go!!!" It was so infectious that I had it stuck in my head during swim class. I am a horrible swimmer, but the only time I beat someone in my class is when I visualized Ally screaming "Come On, Let's Go!!" to me while I did the backstroke.

I heard a story about Ally screaming at the players during warm-ups to ask if anyone else wanted a piece of her when they were taking shots on goal.

Ally had some moves that would be easy for a character on SNL to impersonate. I remember her little dancing that she would do before games during warm ups. I MEAN LITTLE. You had to be on the field to notice it. She might kill me for writing that. She would also bend down and hold her pose after catching a rolling ball in warm ups. After holding it for a second and a half she would slowly roll it back. Ally had swag.

Ally almost did kill me during the St. John's game. Ally HATED being on camera and I knew this. From time to time I felt like the Crocodile hunter when I had the video camera with me around her, or pointed anywhere near. I knew I had to be careful around her.

One time during the St. John's game I filmed her and she snapped big time. She yelled at me to stop filming and I sure as heck listened. I got concerned the coaches would hear this and put an end to all sideline filming. Thankfully they didn't. I'm not sure if I intentionally filmed her that time she snapped or not, but the lord knows I got as much footage of Ally as I could when she wasn't looking. I never did so because I was trying to be mean, I did so because I thought she was an important part of the team and I wanted clips of her intensity.

I thought she was important so I also decided to put her on a marketing flier. A small marketing flier. I asked Dulski about doing this via text message because I wanted her opinion. I also asked Leigh-Ann. Leigh-Ann gave the answer that made the most sense. "No way, that's crazy, she will kill you." Dulski than said that she was with Ally at study hall and would ask her. Dulski said "She turned red, but was ok with it. DO IT!"

I showed Ally at practice the next day and let's just say that I should have listened to Leigh-Ann. She was half mad about it and probably said she wanted to kill me. In the end Ally survived.

I have to say that by the end of the year I actually asked permission from her to film. She was actually really good about it when I asked. I also asked Mel to not film Ally when she had the camera on the road because I didn't want to upset Ally.

Ally would always get into the zone before games and would go off by herself to mentally prepare for games. She would get into her happy place I guess. I always respected Ally during this part of the day and never ever bothered her. I was impressed that games meant so much to her that she would prepare so much for them. I also remember being scared s^&less before our Notre Dame game in 2010 when I had to re-do our food order right before a game. I had to ask Ally during this time what kind of sandwich she wanted and I was so nervous and uncomfortable to ask. She was good about it and thanked me for asking.

On the field Ally was loud, energetic and vocal and as an outsider (someone not on the team) I always felt that she was a big part of warm-ups. It didn't feel right to me if she wasn't yelling "come on UCONN," "Let's GO Girls!"

The biggest play I remember Ally making came in the NCAA TOURNAMENT against Boston University. Ally played one phenomenal game and made an amazing save in the second half that allowed us to win the game. She came out off her line against a BU player and jumped up and knocked the ball away. It was a great scoring opportunity for BU, but Ally denied them. The two things I remember most about the NCAA Tournament in 2009 was Taylor's goal and Ally's save.

I asked Ally about this save for our highlight video because I thought it was such an important moment. When I told Ally it was in the video before we ate at our banquet she threatened to stab me with a fork. THANK GOD THEY WERE PLASTIC. After the video was over Ally came over and said I did a good job on the video and that meant a lot to me.

Ally is also one of the reasons the video came out so good. She came into the office one day and said that "You better make a good highlight video!" I was inspired. I had so much respect for her and her intensity that I made sure I would not let her down. Ally deserves some credit for the videos I make coming out good.

One thing I missed most about Ally was the hard time we would give one another at practice. I brought up the time I scored on her a few times to piss her off. She'd tell me I suck, or that I was lucky. I loved these conversations. We could give each other a hard time yet never take it personally. It's just something we did to pass time and mess with each other. We would also give each other a hard time about the NFL. She was a Giants fan and I am a Cowboys fan. We gave each other crap when one team wasn't doing well against the other.

I wish Ally well, and typing this makes me realize how much I miss her. The last I heard she said she was doing well and enjoying her new school and I am happy to hear that.

Shannon Algoe

2011-12-21T22:18:00.003-05:00

I have one really cool memory of Shannon Algoe. I ran the beep test with her in the Blue Gym. Why on earth did I do that?

I still have no idea. Actually I am lying, I probably wanted to get a good workout in. I don't know for sure how we started to run the beep test together though. My guess is that she came into the office to fill out something for our facebook page and ended up talking about doing the beep test. She may have jokingly asked if I wanted to join her. I am sure I would have said "absolutely." That might have been how it happened

The beep test is when you run back and forth a certain distance and have to beat the beeps. As the test goes on the beeps get closer and closer to each other, making them harder to get.

I remember running them with Shannon after I found out that she had transferred to Buffalo. I was happy for her and I remember the goal of her running was to get ready for Buffalo's spring season. Either way I wanted Shannon to succeed.

I check in with Buffalo's statistics and I am very happy to see that Shannon has been playing a lot, has scored some goals as a defender and is making an impact for her team.

Another memory I have of Shannon is when she came into the office to fill out "what gift we would give a teammate for the Holidays." I didn't put my name on the list, but she said I had to be included. I think she gave me a pedometer.

I also recently found out she was named to the Academic All District first team by COSIDA this year. It's an award given for top Scholar-Athletes.

Two players at once

2011-12-21T22:04:00.002-05:00

I'm going to write about two players in this one post. I hope they don't take offense to the fact that I can't write as much about them as I can about others, but I said I would write about every player, and I will not leave either of them out.

Both of these players were ones I knew from when I was a team manager in 2009.

The first would be Kelsey Komrij. I remember she was injured and on the bike a lot and since I love biking I was really really jealous that she got to ride the stationary bike at practice. I remember her being a 49ers fan since she was from California. I think she liked the Giants too. I think I knew Kelsey best for coming to our games as a fan after she left the team to focus on her studies as a nurse. I was glad she took the time to come and root for us even after she stopped playing.

Kate Wargo has a special place in my heart because she is the only fellow Dallas Cowboys fan to have been with our program while I was there. Kate was very quiet but was definitely someone I was rooting for. I remember trying to capture film of her during our spring season because I wanted to reward her for being a Cowboys fan.

I see both of these players around campus and always say hello when I see them. I wish them well and would always help them because they were a part of the program.

J.D.

2011-12-21T21:47:00.002-05:00

Memories of Jessica Diakun...not another J.D...I am continuing to write about all the players I remember and interacted with while part of UCONN Soccer.

I didn't know J.D. for all that long. I know that's her nickname, and I'm not even sure if I ever called her that when I was there since I really was a very insignificant and small part of her time at UCONN.

I think the funniest thing I remember about her is the interview I did with her for our facebook page. She was really good during her interview, but she also spoke SO QUICKLY. As I was transcribing what she said I had to replay it about five or six times on my recorder to get one sentence right.

Two other moments I remember that were unrelated to me being with the team was the time she hobbled around Gampel Pavilion on crutches to get free marketing gear and the time she was on a UCTV show.

As far as on the field memories of her I just remember her as a solid and reliable player. I knew so little about soccer then, as compared to the little I know now, that I couldn't say much more than that. I remember editing her goal against Providence on film. I was happy she scored and mad she got railroaded in the process. I also remember her flicking the ball over a defender and getting it back to herself in a game.

My favorite memory of her was at our team banquet and its for a selfish reason. I really didn't think I meant all that much to the senior class that year because I never traveled with the team and only helped out for the last half of their practices. However, I knew I was doing something right when Jess came up to me after the banquet to thank me. I really didn't expect to hear that coming from someone who had been with the program for so long and known me for such a short time.

Nela

2011-12-16T22:01:00.003-05:00

The first player I will write about is Nela. Angelika Johansson aka Nela brought her talents from Sweden to the United States and Franklin Pierce University, the Hudson Valley Quickstrike Lady Blues and finally UCONN.

Nela is one of the players I was closest too while at UCONN and I think there are two big reasons for that. We had actually met before she had gotten to UCONN. I met her as an intern with Franklin Pierce. I had no idea how close I would be with her when I first met her.

The first time I saw Nela was when she came back to Franklin Pierce. I had written several press releases on her and her success with Hudson Valley. She was the 2009 W-League MVP and I updated Franklin Pierce and their media contacts with press releases on her progress.

The first press release I ever wrote was on Nela. I also wrote a piece that was put on New Hampshire's WMUR website. (WMUR is famous for the primary debates they host) Since I had stuff put in those papers I had copies of my work on Nela framed and they are up in my house. I am glad I can say I actually met the player and even got lessons from her.

For most of that summer in the W-League Nela actually outscored all of UCONN's W-League and WPSL players. Nela walked in to the office I took over when my boss moved on to another job. She was with Cindy the trainer. I introduced myself to Nela and told her how I was following her. I could tell right away that she was really nice.

I also ran into Nela at her compliance meeting with her team at Franklin Pierce. I wished her good luck for the 2009 season and told her that I would say hello to her old Hudson Valley teammate Brittany Taylor. I figured this would be the last interaction I had with Nela, the person I wrote my first press release on.

I was wrong. Nela ended up transferring and of all places ended up at UCONN. This is when we got close. Nela and I were both graduate students, and like her I was familiar with Franklin Pierce. These unique common ties really fostered the friendship I developed with Nela. We both knew what it was like to be graduate students and what it was like at Franklin Pierce.

Nela and I were usually the first people to eat breakfast during preseason so the two of us would often sit and eat together at South. Usually I give the players distance and don't sit with them, but I think it was just natural for us to sit together and eat.

Nela's first goal against Central Connecticut was very special to me. I was so happy to see her validate her career at the Division I level. Division II athletes don't garner as much respect as they should. I remember going to a WPSL game and telling the parents there that Nela was joining the team because Franklin Pierce had told me she was. I told them that Nela was an All-American who lead Division II, the entire country, in goals scored in 2008. I believe she had 29 goals. Anyway one of the parents said something to the effect of "well it's only Division II that she did that in, who knows what she can do at Division I." I'm glad Nela got the respect she deserved for her work at Division II, because of the success she found at Division I.

Nela was never the most technical player, and she freely admits that. She also works to improve her technical skill daily. However, despite this shortcoming, I think she may have been one of the most effective players to ever play since I have watched the team. Before Nela became a starter I was hoping she would become one. I remember telling someone that I thought Nela should start. They said I was crazy, and then Nela proved me right by leading the team in goals scored. Nela was always in the right place at the right time and had a knack for scoring goals off of every body part.

I remember her scoring one off of her thigh against DePaul only to have had it called back due to an offsides. (I don't believe it was an offsides..I think it was a bad call). Her second goal at Syracuse last year on a header was amazing. Shoey placed a perfect cross that Nela headed out of the goalkeepers grasp and into the goal. It was a beautiful goal and was one of the few times I saw coach raise his hands in exuberance over a goal. Nela's goal vs Syracuse was one of my favorites from my time at UCONN. I also liked Nela's goal against Seton Hall with a pass from Shoey too. Nela made a great run and Shoey delivered a great rolling pass that Nela put into the back of the net. Nela was a post away from having a hat trick against Seton Hall that day.

Nela was also just another half a foot away from beating Virginia in overtime at Penn State. Nela and the UVA keeper collided around the 18 yard box I guess. Nela got enough of the ball to send it towards goal. It slowly rolled towards the net until a UVA player cleared it away at the last second. Nela was very close to beating Virginia.

The most phenomenal save I saw all season in 2010 was by West Virginia's Kerri Butler against Nela at West Virginia in the regular season. Nela headed the ball towards the goal line and the Mountaineer keeper made one amazing diving save to rob Nela. It is the best save I have seen an opposing keeper make against a UCONN player. I also felt that Kerri Butler was robbed of goalkeeper of the year for 2010.

Nela scored the most goals in conference play by any UCONN player since Kristen Graczyk in 2003. When Nela was in the game I always felt that we were going to score. I really always felt that. Always. Nela is a goal scorer.

I am extremely annoyed at the BIG EAST Conference and the coaches who voted that they did not select Nela to a BIG EAST team, or even name her to the BIG EAST honor roll or BIG EAST Player of the Week. As the third leading goal scorer in conference play she deserved recognition. Nela doesn't care about those awards, but I do. I don't know that people will ever appreciate just how good Nela was at scoring goals, which is quite frankly the name of the game.

Nela had 75% of her shots on frame. Extremely impressed by that.

What I liked best about Nela is her willingness to play soccer with me and teach me a few things. Today, for the final time, the two of us played soccer inside in the Blue Gym. She has helped my pathetic skills grow to less pathetic. Today we worked on heading the ball. She has certainly helped improve my first touch drastically. She also improved my ability to take a ball off of my thigh and then one touch it. Nela taught me so much about soccer and only her and I may ever know how much we progressed.

I also made sure Nela experienced some of the great things about college in the US. She went to watch the Men's Basketball National Championship game in Gampel. I also made sure she got the chance to experience a men's and women's basketball game at UCONN. She was a big Women's fan at Franklin Pierce.

Nela is a phenomenal person and an extremely hard worker. I believe she said her parents own a family business in Sweden so that they are constantly working. Nela is extremely nice and was open to playing soccer and spending time with anyone and everyone. She didn't care if someone was an athlete or not. Nela was also even more remarkably a 4.0 Graduate Student Athlete in Mathematics. She even was a teaching assistant with a class this past semester.

All in all I will deeply miss Nela. She is a wonderful person who I plan to stay in touch with. I know that if I travel to Sweden that I will see her and she told me I will be taken care of should I go. I really hope to be able to watch her play as a professional there. She will become one, but it would mean a lot to me to see her play.

So my first player profile of a former player is done. It's fitting that it's about Nela.

Thinking back to 9/11

2011-12-12T20:18:00.004-05:00

I never spoke about my memories of September 11th. I think it's important that I do, so I don't forget. Since this is my site, I'll write about what I want.

I had a bad feeling on 9/11 in the morning. I remember before the attacks that day being outside for gym class. What I remember most is seeing all of these planes overhead. It was before the attack had happened, but something seemed odd to me about the amount of planes in the sky. For some strange reason I noticed all of the planes that morning.

Stamford, where I grew up, and still consider to be and always be my hometown since it's where I was born and raised, is only about forty-five minutes from New York City. Trains go in to the city often too, although I don't normally take the trains.

Anyway, I was sitting in Math class and we were talking about probability when our Principal at Turn of River Middle School Rodney Bass came on to the loud speakers and said. "Two small planes have just hit the World Trade Center." At the time I don't think that we were told it was a terrorist attack because I vividly remember Eric Demaio saying "Well what are the chances of two planes hitting the World Trade Center."

I also remember our Social Studies teacher at the time saying something infamous. He stated that this attack wouldn't really change anything for our country. He was wrong, although a great teacher. I remember sitting in his class and hearing military jets roaring over our head. That was scary, because unless it's a rare event for a National Holiday we never see or hear military jets overhead.

As the day went on things got more surreal. While we were exchanging classes we heard about the Pentagon being hit. During lunch which ever students were still left (because many classmates went home early that day) began thinking about what place might be attacked next. Then we heard about the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.

After school I had an orthodontist appointment. I didn't want to go. I ran half a mile home from the bus and wanted to see the news. My dad was home early and had it on. I tried to argue with my mom about getting out of the orthodontist appointment, but I lost that battle.

In the end my Uncle lost six of his parishioners in Wilton. He said several funerals. One of our former neighbors whose son I had been friends with passed away, as did another one of his relatives. My sister's friends father also passed away. It was impossible to be from Stamford and not know someone who knew someone who was effected by that day.

I remember going with my father to my first Mets game after the attack and looked to the right off of the Whitestone Bridge and saw for the first time in my life that those two towers were gone. I remember getting to Shea Stadium and saw the place covered with fliers of missing people. It was extremely sad, because I knew that everyone who was missing was dead.

Those Three Little Letters

2011-12-12T19:43:00.006-05:00

Those three little letters that affect most women's sports teams and many women's athletes are ACL. Anterior Cruciate Ligament.

Injuries to this ligament happen to teams pretty much every year. It's affected our program ever since I can remember following the team. Every year a good player is out.

I usually know the injury when I see it, or should I say, hear the player, or see their face, or see the reactions of their teammates.

Last year a player tore her ACL at Boston University. She had torn it the year before. From the press box during the game I saw the player go down on the turf and not get up right away. I saw her require assistance to get off the field and then saw a lot of teammates go over and hug her a little while later. I picked up on it pretty quickly and realized that there was a great chance she tore her ACL.

The second I saw happened right in front of me. Thankfully I was filming and didn't exactly see what happened or how it happened. Unfortunately I heard the players reaction. I knew right away from her scream that she had more than likely torn her ACL. I saw teammates go up to her while she was on the bench. Although nothing had been confirmed I was fairly sure she was done for a long time.

The last one that happened was the most frustrating to me. I was far away from what had happened, and since we already had an ACL injury this year, I couldn't believe we would have another one. Especially not to the player it happened too. I thought this player would be fine. Sort of like she was unsinkable, like the Titanic. When she first went down, I thought she would pop right up. I wasn't too concerned at first, but as every second went by my nervousness went up. Then I saw our trainer go out. They spent a long time, or atleast seemingly a really long time tending to her. As I saw the player walk off the field with assistance I noticed her face and body language. Her face looked white. She seemed numb, had no energy and looked beat up. She looked like she had been pulled out of the wreckage of a building that had collapsed but without the blood. On the tenth anniversary of September 11th, she looked exactly like the people on TV that I had seen evacuated out of the World Trade Center ten years earlier. Dazed, confused, battered. I will never forget her face because her face said it all. I knew she tore her ACL. I had no doubts about it. I prayed I was wrong, but was pretty sure I wasn't.

I heard that player ran today and that's music to my years. I was so tempted to say something to this player to try to cheer her up. However, I knew there was nothing I could say. I said nothing, even as we sat not that far from each other on the bench. I have to give credit to our trainer for keeping a conversation with her going, because I would have been unable too. I remember pretty vividly sitting on the bench staring up at the sky and wondering why god had done this to this player.

I have to reiterate that nothing makes me happier than to hear that she ran again. It makes me so happy. It just sucks I won't be able to see her dominate next year.

I remember thinking the same thing when Mel Thomas tore her ACL for women's basketball, and when Caroline Doty did for the second time.

I also was reporting on the game when Kalana Greene tore her ACL vs South Carolina. She was my first introduction to ACL injuries. I remember Greene yelping in pain and cursing and than seeing Geno and the trainer come out to see her. When she got up I could tell she was in serious pain.

I'm alive

2011-12-10T17:45:00.003-05:00

I'm still alive...

Nela is planning to play professionally back home. Don't know more than that yet. She graduates in the fall.

I think she was under appreciated based on not getting much love in conference and region awards last year. She had the most goals in conference by a Husky since 2003. I believe she was also tied for third in the conference in goals scored. Usually players with that many goals in conference play win conference awards, or weekly awards. The fact that she didn't is pathetic.

Conference awards are often earned, but a lot of it is also B.S. Best example would be when a conference selected two goal keepers and five defenders among their three all-conference teams.

Conflicted

2011-11-29T21:38:00.003-05:00

I think I've written before that I really don't see how the WPS can survive as a professional league, and this has nothing to do with the current problem which revolves around US Soccer sanctioning.

I don't see how it can happen because I just can't do that math to figure out how teams break-even. I've tried to market WPS at soccer tournaments as an intern and it often fell on deaf ears. One time we went to an event and we basically had no one come up interested in our tent.

I don't think the WPS can financially survive. I can't emphasize enough how I don't see it.

The conflicting part is that I really want it to survive for the college players with pro aspirations. I hate it for them. The pro league gives these players something to aim for.

Salary Caps in NCAA?

2011-11-27T16:37:00.003-05:00

I just read an article that Maryland is cutting 8 varsity sports to save money. 8?

8 Olympic Sports?

I can agree that some of those sports might not really be worth having. There are some obscure sports in the NCAA.

The problem though is that it's not in the spirit of college athletics to be dumping those eight sports, while spending millions of dollars to support football and basketball. No school will cut money to those programs because they won't for fear that it will hurt the competitiveness of their teams. They would only do it if everyone else cut costs.

I am beginning to think that a salary cap, or spending cap needs to be put on college athletics. It's beginning to get ridiculous when you read about schools cutting 8 sports, while spending huge sums of money (and more) on two or three programs. The amount of money being spent is also seemingly unsustainable. Schools can't afford a new facility every time a rival school builds something better.

Names of Stadium Songs

2011-11-26T23:09:00.003-05:00

Here are the names of a few famous stadium songs without any lyrics or many lyrics...In case you or anyone else were wondering...

Sandstorm by Darude
300 Violin Orchestra by Jorge Quintero
Lux Aeterna Remix
Mind Heist by Zach Hemsey
Rock and Roll Part 2 by Gary Glitter

From Basketball
Get Ready for This by 2 Unlimited
Twilight Zone Remix by 2 Unlimited

Warm Up Songs

2011-11-26T22:35:00.003-05:00

It's sad that I know the warm-up songs of our team so well.

I even remember hearing Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" in 2008 along with the overtime song of "Hells Bells"

In 2009 I remember "Down" and "Shooting Star." Shooting Star was my first introduction to LMFAO. I also remember hearing Lil Wayne's "Hot Relolver" playing right before kickoff for one game. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" made a lot of appearances right before the second half kickoff too.

I know the 2010 playlist really well. Hall and Oates would always come on at the most random time. I think that this playlist was ordered very well. I felt like it matched up well with what the team was doing in warm-ups. I think my favorite song of all was the strangest one for me to like and it was something called "Good Times" by Roll Deep. It was some strange European Dance/Techno song and I have to admit that it was really catchy and probably my favorite warm up song of all my years of listening to the songs before games. Good Times would always come on as the team was shooting on goal and hearing that play made me realize how close we were to game-time. "I like it" seemed to always come up early in warm-ups when the goalies started to get going. I remember the back-up keeper from Jersey would always do a bit of a dance during that song. When I say bit, she would barely move, but you could tell she was moving to the beat. 1901 was a cool song and I really liked "Ali in the Jungle."

The 2011 playlist was not exactly my favorite. It grew on me, but nothing stood out. It's also possible that it's because I was busier this year before games. As a matter of fact I didn't have everything working for the Cincinnati game until six minutes before kickoff. I wasn't on the sideline, or even listening to music prior to the game at all. I had to tend to a video crisis. We also didn't have many home games this year either. So for some reason, possibly unrelated to song choice, I really don't remember that much about it.

Speaking of all of this, I think hearing the National Anthem is special. The moment I heard that song I got really excited because I knew it was truly game time.

Some UCONN Basketball Observations

2011-11-26T07:13:00.003-05:00

I don't know how you limit a team to five points in the half, so I am very impressed with the Women's Team. The Women's team is actually exceeding my expectations up to this point, especially Kaleena Mosqueda Lewis. I was so impressed with her performance in the Stanford game. She can shoot and score. People need to lower expectations for her though. She is still a freshman and will have natural ups and downs and things to learn. However, she's really really good and can carry the team at times.

I'd like to see a certain UCONN player cut to the rim and stop settling for three's.

The thing that I like best about the women is more depth in the front court. Last year they didn't have that. This year I think they do, or atleast they have more. Heather Buck, although I still haven't seen her play, scored 7 points in the box score vs Fairleigh Dickinson. Kiah Stokes almost had a double-double and you still have Dolson. Although it's early for UCONN it looks like UCONN has a good front court. It's important to have depth for when UCONN faces Baylor and Brittney Griner. I can't wait to watch that.

As for the men, I am concerned about them. In general I think it's really hard to repeat because to some degree I think complacency sets in naturally. By this time last year I knew UCONN had the best team that I had seen since 2006-07 and thought it had a better chance of winning a National Championship than the team that went to the final four in 2008-2009. There was something special about that team last year that I could just sense from watching them. This year I don't have that sense. I can't explain it, but something is just missing right now and I have thought this despite the loss yesterday. As a matter of fact I've been expecting the men to lose at anytime.

I'm thinking that the missing something is Kemba Walker, and I do believe that he can make that big of a difference. I still think UCONN has a very good team and that talent wise they will be one of the top four teams in conference and make the NCAA's. I just don't know how special this team is yet.

New York vs Boston and where I fit in

2011-11-23T22:59:00.003-05:00

I am trying to figure out where I fall on the New York and Boston continuum. Being from Fairfield County in Connecticut, a suburb of New York City and recently spending more time at my parents summer house in a suburb of Boston (extreme suburb, but very Bostonian) can confuse a person's identity.

I identify myself as someone from Connecticut. That's very much true, and I am proud to be from Connecticut. Within that however are some differences. Are you a Boston fan or a New York fan? People in Connecticut generally associate with either Boston or New York.

As for favorite teams, the Connecticut in me makes me a UConn Huskies fan. I'd argue that UCONN Women's Basketball is the one team that unites the entire state of Connecticut behind one team. My favorite baseball team is the New York Mets. My favorite football team is the Dallas Cowboys. I hate the New York Giants, but the New York Jets are my AFC team, and a team I generally root for and have followed in the past. My NBA team are the Boston Celtics. Overall the advantage goes to New York.

My accent is not either a full blown New York or Boston accent. However, I do have atleast a slight New York accent. Some people say I have a New York accent. Advantage New York.

Family. My father's side of the family originally came from Massachusetts, but that was a long long long time ago. My dad's family (going way back) is from Fairfield County and relatives going way way back have been from places such as Greenwich/New Canaan/Stamford and Ridgefield. My mom's family is more from New York. My mom grew up in White Plains and Greenwich. Her family would often boat and water-ski on the Hudson (when they didn't know what was in the river). Her mother was from mostly Stamford and Danielson CT, although I believe she also spent sometime in New York. My mom's father is a full blown New Yorker. He refers to my mom as "ur muddah" and he was born and raised in New York to my knowledge. I believe his parents were buried in the city. My grandpa also owned a clothes cleaning business in the Bronx that dry cleaned clothes from Broadway. Advantage here is New York.

I'm giving New York the edge right now...I'm thinking I have a little bit more New York in me than Boston.

Getting Heckled

2011-11-22T20:30:00.003-05:00

Part of wearing Connecticut Gear on the road means that you will get heckled, even when you are a staff member as unimportant as me.

I never dreamt I would ever be heckled but luckily I was. I really enjoyed every moment of being heckled.

The first time it happened was at St. John's this season. I walked by their student section at half-time and they were yelling at me.

Some kid went "Hey it's a guy in UConn gear, let's boo him!!" I was booed. Thought it was cool. I didn't look at them, I just moved forward. I listened, but didn't want to provoke anyone or get myself in trouble. I put my head down and pretended to ignore them. They also called me a coward. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe they wanted me to stare them down.

The second time it happened was at Marquette. There students saw me and asked "hey are you a coach or a manager?" I totally ignored them. "Hey we know you can hear us!" I continued walking and I think they asked if I was a manager or coach again. Then they said "Either way you suck at what you do!" I thought it was awesome.

The comments were so paper thin that they neither bothered me nor motivated me.

I don't think the Notre Dame students really heckled me. They were too busy heckling our goalie. I listened to what they said and left it there. My observation of those kids, were that unlike the Marquette and St. John's students I got the feeling that the Notre Dame kids were really some of the biggest losers on campus. I don't know why I thought that. I just did. I felt as if I had turned around and told them to go "bleep.... themselves" that they would have shut up and listened. I thought if I told that to the Marquette or St. John's fans that they would have really gotten after me.

NFL picks

2011-11-22T17:40:00.002-05:00

So I picked every NFL game on some ESPN playoff predictor.

My picks gave me these results.

AFC
1 Baltimore
2.New England
3. Oakland
4. Houston
5. Pittsburgh (13-3 and a 5 seed)
6. New York Jets

NFC
1. Green Bay (I have them losing to Detroit on Thanksgiving)
2. San Francisco
3. New Orleans
4. Dallas
5. Chicago
6. Detroit

Biggest Game for playoff implications will be the Jets and Giants. I think the loser of that game will be out. I picked the Jets to win that one.

The Giants are the team that I think are the hardest to predict and can mess up my picks more than any other team. I have the Giants losing to the Jets, Saints and Packers. I have them splitting with the Cowboys and beating the Redskins. I can see the Giants beating the Packers, or the Saints, because they always seem to play well against good teams. They also always seem to fall off the face of earth as the year goes on. I am biased against the Giants and it probably shows...

A little soccer talk

2011-11-22T07:18:00.003-05:00

I was reading something about statistics and which stats certain people find important.

Stats lie. They prove locomotives fly.

Anyway, there are a couple of things that I have observed in soccer as important stats that I would want to win every game.

Two that really matter to me (besides goals...duh the most important stat) are corner kicks and shots on goal.

Teams can take 30 shots in a game but it doesn't mean much if those shots come from 25 yards out and end up hitting buildings beyond the field. Shots on goal are legitimate scoring chances. If I was a coach I would want to win that battle. Shots on goal also challenge keepers. You have to atleast force them to make a save, or deflect the ball. To me rebounds are the easiest goals in the world to score. However, in order to score off a rebound you need to have a shot on goal first.

The other stat is corner kicks. Corner Kicks are an indication of several things. One is maintaining possession in your offensive third. It also indicates an ability to get endline, which is a dangerous area for a team to score from. It's also an indication that you are challenging the keeper and defense. If you force a keeper to deflect the ball over the bar than you are getting good shots on goal. If a defense is just kicking the ball out of the endline than you are making them really uncomfortable.

Random Road Trip Moment

2011-11-21T22:55:00.003-05:00

One random moment from this year was our players getting their laundry before the DePaul game. I worked out in the morning, than ran to breakfast and inhaled breakfast, as our sports information director Sagan, and Assistant Coach Zac pointed out. Then I ran back to my room to shower. I told coach that the players could get their jerseys in 15 minutes...exactly fifteen minutes.

I knew that I would have showered and changed within 15 minutes.

About ten minutes after leaving breakfast I hopped out of the shower and heard my phone ring. Shoey called me and asked if I was in room 605 (I don't know if that was the number or not, but close enough) and I said yes. Than I heard "oh great, were here" to which I said "uhhhh...hold on." I wasn't exactly ready for them yet.

I got dressed quickly and then opened my door to find half our team waiting for their jerseys. There was a reason I said fifteen minutes and not ten.

It's not the only time I've been contacted at strange times or awkward times. I remember getting a 1:30 am and 7 am text message about something.

I also called a player at around 9am expecting them to be awake, and man oh man I could tell she wasn't. I felt so bad.

I have another early morning phone call story to talk about later.

What other things will I write about...

2011-11-21T22:24:00.004-05:00

My least favorite road trip will also be written about.

Most Awkward moments deserve a place. A goalkeeper owns that one.

Favorite prank...happened this preseason all because someone left something at the field...we should write about that soon, especially since the player who I got doesn't quite remember the story the way she should.

Favorite lines I had or things I told players...

One was just recently when a player told me she had $650 on her in cash. She was afraid she was going to get jumped while walking around campus. I told her "well unless you write that you have $650 on your forehead no one will know." It was much better in person.

Another one was when I made fun of our volunteer assistant coach James and the goalkeepers heard me. Somehow we were talking about planets and I said something about James miss-hit (which he rarely does) by saying "well that one went to a different universe."

The last one was via text message. I believe Dulski asked me what our teams plans were for dinner on our road trip in Pittsburgh. Since we had lost the day before, and didn't want to tell them where we were really going I texted back "McDonalds, because we need some Happy Meals.) At the time I didn't think it was all that funny, but when I saw Dulski and her roommate Nela they told me how funny they thought it was.

Speaking of dinner and Pittsburgh, I vividly remember our team being fascinated by birds in the hotel lobby which made us leave later than we should have for dinner. I was relieved that our reservations were not given away. I was so antsy while the team stared at birds. I think I joined the circle and walked towards the bus three times with the hope that someone would catch on and realize it was time to go to dinner. No one did.

Favorite players...just kidding, they are all favorites, just some more than others? It's my belief that you click with some people better than others, but I can't honestly say I've had a favorite player, or top five favorite players or even a top 10. I can't really come up with a list. I like everyone for different reasons.

SOMEONE on the team actually asked me on camera who my favorite player was. I really wonder who they expected me to say.

Other topics I will write about include

Favorite goals

Favorite moments

Favorite games

Least favorite moments

Favorite Bus Driver - Brian Boken. I'll treat this one like an award. He did such a great job at Pittsburgh/West Virginia last season. I actually called the bus company to tell them he did such a good job. He did whatever he could to help us out. Jesse and Tom Rotella have also done excellent jobs for our team as bus drivers. I do know some of their names, and I have to say that having good bus drivers makes me so much more relaxed.

Favorite post-game food

There are so many things to write about. I look forward to writing about them. Any ideas, or things you want me to write about, then just let me know.

When I am gone, so probably over the summer, I may go over each player and my memories specific to them.

I love history, and like typing up my memories, or making videos to help capture others memories. Reminiscing is fun.

Favorite Pre-Game video...

Favorite Warm-Up song...

So Lets Start Re-living

2011-11-21T21:30:00.006-05:00

So I guess now would be as good as time as any to start writing about my experiences with women's soccer.

I thought about writing a book about everything I've done in athletics but honestly, no one would buy it...it's not like anyone reads this anyway.

I sort of don't want to write about players yet, or using their names. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

The first thing I will write about is my favorite road trip.

I've really had to think hard about this one. My first trip was to the NCAA's in 2009. I drove myself, so it wasn't a full fledged trip, but I did spend the night in the hotel. I remember breakfast being a learning experience. As a morning person I was extremely hungry when I woke up at 7:00am, but breakfast with the team wasn't supposed to be until around 10. I ended up eating a snack size bag or two of potato chips to hold me over. Then I felt so weird being at breakfast in the first place. I was so hesitant to actually go and sit with the team for breakfast. I finally did, but I waited until the last possible second before I went in to eat.

I've always felt really lucky and blessed to be able to travel with the team. I feel like I owe so much since the team, school and state is paying a plane ticket for me, a hotel room for me and food for me. I don't ever take a trip for granted, and really feel lucky the entire time. I also felt like I was representing my state and school at all times on the road. I tried to conduct myself in the best way possible, so that people in places like West Virginia, would have a good impression of people from Connecticut.

I also love flying. I LOVE FLYING and love taking off and landing. I don't remember our first plane trip to Pittsburgh all that much to be honest. The only thing I remember is arranging the baggage at the baggage claim in numerical order.

Usually I correlate winning with favorite road trips. There are three trips that stick out to me. One was to Notre Dame for the Big East Tournament. That one only sticks out for the winning. Another was our trip to Wake Forest this year. I loved seeing my Aunt, seeing us beat a ranked team at their place and getting to eat my first Krispy Kreme donuts. I also liked that we stayed in the same place for an entire weekend. However, I think this trip finishes a close second to our trip to South Florida.

South Florida was a really special trip to me. First of all it's Florida, and I love warm weather and the state. When I was a sophomore I paid my own way to take a trip to report on the Women's Final Four in Tampa, in which UConn lost to Stanford. I spent a lot of time with my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins, and 2nd cousins when I was there. It meant a lot to me to see them, since it's rare that I get too. It was also special because my Aunt was diagnosed with cancer so I really was glad to spend time with her. I vowed to work hard so that I could hopefully get the chance to return to South Florida while representing UCONN.

I had really hoped to see my Aunt again this year, but unfortunately she passed away about four months before our trip. Even though I missed her, I was able to see the rest of my family. My Uncle visited before the South Florida game, and saw my cousins and their families before the game. I was really glad to give away nine tickets for that game.

I made sure to bring gifts for the boys (my cousins each have two sons...Keaton, Caden, Will and Morgen) who went to the game. All of them play soccer, and Caden knows everything about the game for someone his age. He is also really good. He scored nine of his teams ten goals in a game, while playing a quarter in goal. I packed prize packs from athletic marketing full of promotional items for each of the boys and had our team sign posters for them. I even had a player personalize a team autographed photo for them. I got my uncle a t-shirt too. I've gotten so many gifts and it meant a lot that I could give something back.

When the boys got to the game I got some hugs and hellos and then I took them behind our goal during warm-ups to help collect the ball. The boys had so much fun chasing the balls kicked over in warm ups. (I have a list of players who are best known for making people chase after a ball that I will release later. Long Islander's are on it). The boys ran around like maniacs expending energy and making operations job easier. One of them even told Coach what they were doing, and they made coach smile. I was actually a little concerned about safety and their loudness during warm ups. They were screaming behind the goal and I wasn't sure if that would bother our team. Morgen, who is referred to as a dare devil, is the youngest one and I had to keep my eye on him and what was going on. Morgen seemed to want to climb on to the field and I was not about to let that happen.

Even though seeing my family was brief, it meant a lot to me. I said goodbye to the boys at halftime, as it was late and getting near their bed time. I spent longer than ever before in the bleachers before half. I was climbing up the ladder to film just seconds before the second half kickoff. It's the only time I haven't been ready to film three minutes before the half starts.

The fact that we won cemented the South Florida trip as my favorite trip. Devin Prendergast netted the game winner and it made my day. That goal meant a lot to me because it allowed me to make the trip to South Florida an all around success.

There were other things I liked about our South Florida trip. It was my favorite hotel that I stayed in. I had a bedroom and living room with two TV's just for me. The television also had all of the sports channels imaginable, and had them at the top of their channel line-up. The free Chocolate Chip cookies was an added bonus. My only complaint is that the bike in the fitness center did not work. However, the awesome breakfast entirely made up for that. I got to eat yummy (yes using that word) waffles and french toast sticks, with syrup of course, for breakfast twice. SO GOOD. I really enjoyed sitting with the assistant volleyball coach at the bar the night before our game too. I don't shoot the breeze and hang out as often as I should, but I really enjoyed doing that. I also really loved the South Florida campus. It was beautiful and I enjoyed the run I went on around campus on the morning of our game day. It really made me wonder why I didn't go to Florida for college. I love getting up in the morning and going outside to find it's 70 degrees.

Oh and I really loved that our players cared enough about me to have the hotel send me two extra pillows without asking for them....The things you can do when you know people's room number.

One of the Dumber NCAA Ideas

2011-11-21T10:13:00.002-05:00

The NCAA has proposed cutting the non-championship segments of seasons for several college sports including lacrosse (the spring sports fall "exhibition" season) and soccer (the fall sports spring"exhibition" season). Reasons for this would seemingly include student-athlete welfare, more focus on academics and cost cutting.

This is one of the dumbest ideas to achieve this.

First of all 80% of all of the NCAA problems come from Division I Football and Basketball. Lots not focus on the 20% and pretend that's going to solve the problem.

One easy way to make academics more important would be to be much stricter on GPA's required to be eligible to compete. Raise it from a 2.0 to a 2.5 or a 2.7. Freshman are eligible right away, after their first semester they need to have that GPA or they are ineligible. That's a simple way to make academics important.

I also like the idea of banning teams from postseason competition for poor academic progress. That's fine. This incentive to study should help create good academic cultures on teams. Some teams do actually have a culture that finds academic excellence to be important. Coaches usually set that up.

If the NCAA claims that their student-athletes don't have enough time to study than maybe they should look at their countable hours system. Rehab doesn't count for hours, and a game day counts for three hours no matter how long the student athlete is busy. Why don't you count those "uncountable" hours and raise the limit for a countable week to 25 hours.

The idea that cutting spring competition will save lots of money is not accurate. Post-Game meals for five days and transportation for three events isn't back breaking for a BCS school's budget. If you want to cut costs you could start to look at ways for football and basketball to do so. The money that those sports have give them all the power, and idea that they need to skirt around the rules to keep that status quo. Cutting costs from the big programs would take some of the egos and problems out of college sports.

Cutting spring sports only hurts student-athletes. If student-athletes can't handle the demands of both athletics and academics than they probably don't care about one or the other. That's the honest truth. Spring seasons are vitally important for most student-athletes because it gives them a chance to work on their skills and to play in exhibition games that allow younger players, and hard working players a chance to show coaches what they can do. Spring season is so important for coaches and athletes alike.

Why the NCAA is focusing on something as stupid as this is mind boggling. Everyone knows where the problems lie. Basketball and Football.

If the NCAA doesn't focus on changing those sports, and doing drastic things such as providing spending limits on recruiting or salary caps on coaching salaries, than it might be a sign that the NCAA knows it has no power over Division I BCS programs. Maybe it knows that if it does real reform, than those schools will simply leave the NCAA and play under their own governing umbrella.

The Things You Learn

2011-11-19T22:13:00.002-05:00

Today I learned that my dad's draft lottery day was one of the first numbers called for Vietnam. As it turns out he was the first in his dorm to have his birthday called. Had he been born a day later he would have had the last number.

My dad had to get a physical and he ended up joining the National Guard instead of potentially going to training and then being shipped off to Vietnam.

My dad was in the artillery unit of the National Guard. He would translate the field soldiers coordinates for where to shoot something to the angle and trajectory of the artillery gun used.

The Jets and NFL

2011-11-18T07:11:00.002-05:00

I almost never write about Tim Tebow. I didn't want the game yesterday, but I am going to make this comment. Maybe, honestly, Tim Tebow just knows how to win. Maybe he isn't the best quarterback in terms of his technical abilities, but maybe he can do the most important thing, win.

The Jets, well they are in such a bad position. They have a head to head loss to a team with the same record (Broncos), and two other teams competing for the playoffs, and would currently be in now (AFC West leader Raiders and Wild Card Baltimore Ravens). The Jets also have a losing conference record which is a tie breaker. The Jets still have the Dolphins, Bills and Kansas City left. The Jets MUST WIN those games.

The Jets basically have to win out for a chance to make the playoffs. I have my doubts that the Jets can get in with a 10-6 record. I think their tie breakers will hurt them. They need to be a game better than those other teams.

UConn Baseball Former Player Notes

2011-11-17T19:30:00.002-05:00

George Springer hit a homerun and knocked in three runs in eight games in low A ball last year. His batting average will improve...

Nick Ahmed hit .262 in rookie ball with four homeruns and 24 RBI's in 59 games.

Mike Nemeth had a homerun and 16 RBI's in 47 games in Rookie Ball in the Brewers organization...batting average will improve.....

Dusty Odenbach is in the Royals organization and had a 3.50 era in 2011 in High A Ball.

Greg Nappo had a 4.61 ERA in A ball.

Kevin Vance had a 4.54 ERA and save in Rookie Ball

Elliott Glynn had a 4.86 ERA in Rookie Ball

UConn Football Former Player Notes

2011-11-16T21:30:00.006-05:00

Jordan Todman has yet to play for the Chargers this season. No stats are available on him.

Lawrence Wilson was just cut by the Panthers...

Donald Brown has two touchdowns for the Colts this season, and just surpassed 1,000 career rushing yards.

Darius Butler now plays for the Panthers and has 21 tackles this season and has started four of the eight games he has played in.

Robert McClain played for the Panthers in 2010 and recorded 14 tackles by himself and assisted on two.

Will Beatty has started nine games for the Giants this season.

Anthony Sherman has five catches for 51 yards for the Cardinals this season.

Larry Taylor is playing with the Calgary Stampeders this season in the CFL. He has over 1,000 yards in kick returns this year. He has not returned a kick or a punt for a touchdown this year though. Taylor was also a 2011 West Division All-Star as a special teams player.

Music To My Ears

2011-11-16T20:49:00.002-05:00

The greatest thing ever said by a player on our team was said today.

Most impressive thing ever.

So profound.

With Nick Mangold at center the Jets average 123 yards rushing per game and without him average 80 yards a game.

Best thing ever said, and you know that I really believe that based on all of the wacky statistics that I have put on this before.

My jaw dropped with that statement. I learned something, some sports trivia, from one of our players.

A Thought on Coaching

2011-11-16T07:00:00.003-05:00

I'm not a coach, but I can imagine what it is like to be one.

I think being a coach can really wear a person out. I takes so much energy to be a coach. One job of a coach is to get everyone on the same page and working together. Coaches need to get everyone to stay on the same track and make sure they are doing everything necessary at all times to reach their goals.

It's extremely draining when you think about it.

Think about all the players who constantly show up late to meetings. Every single time you have a problem you try to go over with them why it's important to be on time. You try being nice about it and explaining the consequences of being late. When that doesn't work you punish them and take away things. No luck there? You keep trying. You try to have all the players on the team work together to make sure everyone is on time.

You have to deal with players who have confidence issues. You know exactly how talented they are, yet you can't seem to get everything to click for them. You tell them how great they are. You show them examples of them doing things well and you give them opportunities, yet it just doesn't work out.

Then you have to deal with injuries and bad calls and just dumb luck. You have the perfect game plan but then the player who is supposed to execute that game plan is injured and can't play. When that call costs you a season you just have to deal with it and get ready for next year.

Coaches are constantly working on achieving success and the formula to do that is so complex and ever changing that it takes an enormous amount of energy to do the job. This is especially the case when you reiterate important points to players constantly and they still don't listen.

Coaching seems like it is a lot of fun, and it is. However, it's not for people who want an easy job. It's complex and requires repackaging some of the same information over and over until the person getting the package thinks it's attractive enough to open up.

The other reason coaching takes up a lot of energy is that it's hard not to think about all of the what ifs. If they weren't injured that game we would have won that. If that call had gone our way that would have been a win. If that player had cut to the left instead of the right they could have gotten open and scored. If we could have just converted that one play. If we were only stronger. If we only did more video sessions. What if this happened questions can consume you. Maybe that more than anything makes coaching mentally hard.

Writers Block

2011-11-15T22:42:00.003-05:00

I have a story I want to tell about one of our players who has a Kevin Mawae jersey. I just don't know how to say it. I'm stuck.

What I want to say for now is that I find it to be ridiculously awesome that one of our players owns a Kevin Mawae jersey.

Seriously this is so amazing on so many different levels.

Seriously

I found this out in September and I still can't get over it. (Finally admitting to not being able to get over it) It's that awesome.

It's just like the ESPN commercials.

It's Not Crazy
It's Sports

Really, its all it is. It's Sports. It's so amazing how having a Kevin Mawae Jersey can totally blow my mind away, and make me think great of the person who has it. Sports are just so unique in that way.

Passion for sports and knowledge of it makes me truly appreciate what a person who has a Kevin Mawae jersey is like. To want to identify with an offensive lineman is unique. I can appreciate people for things like their favorite team or player, but I can't about their favorite toothpaste, investment firm or brand of tissues. This is one way sports are unique.

I seriously find this person fascinating because they own a Kevin Mawae jersey. It's really quite sad.

Some Motivation

2011-11-15T22:04:00.002-05:00

I think I finally got some motivation to write more often again. As a graduate student it's really begun to hit me how important it is that I start looking for jobs and a way up the career ladder. I decided that it would be a wise investment of my time to go to an ESPN meeting on campus today.

One thing that I took out of it was that blogging can be a good thing. It can be something you put on your resume. It improves my communication and shows the passion I have for sports. It keeps me active and keeps me learning new things.

Who knows what I will write about. I'm afraid it's not going to take the team to long to find this...if they don't already know.

Certainly, now I can begin to start to talk about some of the stories from the past few years with UConn Women's Soccer. There are lots of them, and they need to be told.

M&M's had too

2011-11-12T22:44:00.002-05:00

NASCAR driver Kyle Busch intentionally wrecked another driver during caution laps in a truck race at Texas Motor Speedway last week.

Not surprisingly M&M's doesn't want to sponsor Busch right now and you can't blame them for not wanting too. A candy company can't really deal as well with someone as controversial as Busch to be a pitch person for their product right now. It's bad marketing to be associated with Busch as a candy company.

Other products would work. A candy that is marketed to families, moms and kids doesn't want much to do with a driver who wrecked someone.

Do different teams like each other?

2011-11-06T08:12:00.002-05:00

Teams have to compete for resources in athletic departments and because of this there is inevitably some competition between teams.

Athletic Departments and their cultures vary from school to school but I think many programs within an athletic department, especially within the same sport, have their fair share of below the surface jealousy, envy and sometimes dislike.

Sometimes I wonder if they root against each other. No program would admit to rooting against another program at their school, but below the surface I think it happens.

When you compete to use the same fields, meeting rooms and budget money, clashes will happen. When one team starts to do really well then the whole department will divert attention and resources to the team that's doing well. All of a sudden decisions might not cut your way.

"With their recent success we think they should get the first choice for practice time."

Another reason for issues could stem in a way from the fact that programs get similar resources for the same sport played by different sexes. When teams get the same resources, it's only natural to hope that their isn't a large gap in output (winning). A large difference in output with the same resources means there is something wrong with the process, or the people or both that take the resources and make them into outputs.

I doubt coaches realize it, but to some degree, while they root for their school and their athletes, I think they also are a little relieved when other teams aren't doing significantly better then they are.

Do you need to be a jerk?

2011-11-02T22:53:00.003-04:00

Interesting thought that someone had about having to be a jerk in order to be really successful as a coach.

I think there is a lot of truth to that.

In order to be a good coach or a good leader you have to keep everyone's eye on the goal. Everything you do is about reaching that goal. Every decision from really important ones to the pictures on the wall all have to do with the goal you have in mind.

Part of this is demanding of others. You have to be able to demand from others in order to be a great leader. You have to be able to make a hard decision and cut an employee. You have to set demands on them for them to complete or face consequences.

It's the tough part of leadership for nice people. But I think it's necessary. You can't let your emotions get the best of you when it comes to achieving your goals.

July meet November

2011-11-01T22:52:00.002-04:00

Guess it's been a while. I've been busy, what can I say?

I've been so far removed from the world lately with power outages that I am not sure what the heck to say or talk about.

No power has given me a lot of time to freeze and reflect on my life and what I want to do next with it. To be truthful, I still don't know.

But here are things I know about myself.

I want to be a leader. I want to be a transformational leader. I want the chance to do that somewhere sometime in my life because I think I would be good at it.

I want to help people reach goals that they don't think they can reach.

Sports will obviously be a part of my job.

I'm thinking about sports information, television/video, compliance, event management among other things.

While I am not all that interested in pro sports, I think the sport I would like to work in the most, most people would find this strange in the Northeast, but probably NASCAR. There is something about those loud race engines that just gets me going.

Anyway I have a lot of job searches and resume editing ahead of me...and hopefully interviews.

Where would I like to go?

Well I'd prefer New England, more specifically Connecticut or New Hampshire. Beyond that I'd prefer not to be in a city (unless it's Stamford because I know my hometown really well) and I'd prefer to be on the east coast. Other states that appeal to me are North Carolina and Florida. I'd feel comfortable in the Midwest as well. The West is not as appealing, although I have a feeling I would like Colorado and Wyoming.

The place I absolutely have no interest in is the Pacific Coast...All of the Pacific Coast. The exception of course is Hawaii and Alaska. Those places are fine...although Hawaii is much preferred over Alaska.

I'm taking the next BIG STEP in my life. I know I have to take it, just not sure in which direction to go yet.

Good article

2011-07-30T09:02:00.001-04:00

Depression is more common in athletes than people might think. A roommate of mine left school because of it.

http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/hc-jacobs-irabu-column-0730-20110730,0,3288217.column

It's been a week huh?

2011-07-29T23:04:00.001-04:00

So if you can't figure it out, I'm on vacation...and with a big family reunion coming up tomorrow I will still be busy.

Pretty annoyed that I snapped a gear cable on my bike. Can't cycle tomorrow!!! NOOOOO

On the flip side while playing golf I hit a shot 2 feet from the hole and got a birdie. Not bad for a beginner.

Yesterday's bike ride

2011-07-22T10:36:00.003-04:00

So I decided to bike during the heat of the day, during a heat wave and go 34 miles.

It was like volunteering to send yourself to hell.

Ok it wasn't that bad, but it was grueling.

First of all I needed to be careful of the heat, so I did hose myself off before going. I also had water and gatorade before I went, plus brought plenty of cold water with me too.

For the first six miles or so, which had some shade, I thought to myself "man this is easy" "What's everyone complaining about"

Once I got onto Route 119 the sun got on me, and I had hills to go up. Hills slow me down and the heat and the heat coming off of the road bakes me. I started to feel the heat. I realized I had a long way to go, but that I should just push through.

I decided to go on a side street with some shade and pretty views of a stream to cool off for a second.

Then I got back on 119 and I thought to myself, man this really is sort of brutal, maybe I should turn around and not go quite so many miles. I could feel the heat starting to get to me But I decided to keep going even though by this time I could lick my lips and around my mouth and taste all of the salt in my sweat.

I turned off onto a road that leads to the Cathedral of the Pines and a large hill. Just past this was the half-way point and at this point I started thinking to msyelf "your freaking nuts. Why on earth are you doing this."

Getting up each hill after half-way felt like a mini accomplishment.

As I got off the side road and back on to 119 I started to realize that maybe I was running a little short on water. I actually wasn't but was getting concerned I was. I started to be conscious of not using too much water, which is difficult when cycling in extreme heat.

As I was on my final 10 miles I just remember focusing on pedaling. I usually can think when I cycle. I could write books with the thoughts on my bike. I've thought about comments and stuff I've written about while biking. Yesterday for those final miles I could do no thinking. All I did was taste my sweat, grit my teeth, feel the heat and thought about pedaling and pedaling and sitting in a tub of cold water.

As I got finished with my final climb I realized I was pretty much home and had this feeling of surviving and accomplishing something worth writing and talking about.

The funny thing though is that cycling in the heat probably doesn't come close to running or playing other sports in it because at least in cycling you have the wind from riding, even though on several occasions the head winds yesterday made me work even harder.

Anyway yesterday's cycling was a lot of fun in retrospect because of the sense of accomplishment that accompanied getting home. I don't get that feeling on normal rides.

I LOVE THIS WEATHER

2011-07-22T10:22:00.002-04:00

I actually really enjoy heat waves. I like the heat, but I also really enjoy listening to other people complain about the weather and then doing more things outside in that weather than they do when it's cooler out.

I don't know when I started to enjoy doing this because I remember my grandma telling me to get up off the couch when it was brutally hot at her house in Essex, Conn. I remember just praying I could be inside and watch ESPN because at the time I didn't have cable and she did. As a matter of fact my parents didn't get cable until the 7th grade so I never watched cartoons or kids shows growing up. I remember being absolutely shocked to see the Home Shopping network and Channel 14 one day before school.

Anyway, I give my grandma credit for making me like the heat because she does not believe in air conditioning. She made sure her car did not come with it. Maybe that's why she hasn't gotten a new car since 1991. Her house also does not have it. All she has are fans. In the heat she enjoyed gardening and yard work and being outside, so as a consequence when I was at grandma's I ended up being outside, and while I hated being outside then, I have come to love it now.

I remember one day five years ago or so, the heat index was 110. I was practically yelling at the sky and sun to make it hotter. I decided to go on a 30 mile bike ride that day, in that extreme heat just to say I did. I was smart and had a lot to drink and also hosed myself with water beforehand, but I did it.

I don't know what the temperature was yesterday, but it was hot and humid. I decided to bike 34.55 miles (during the heat of the day), jog four miles, kayak, attempt to wakeboard, mow the lawn and move mulch for my mom yesterday in the heat.

I was proud of myself, because I did so much and did an amount of activity that most people would consider insane for a cooler day, let alone during a heat wave. I know grandma was proud that I got off the couch yesterday.

Record Crowd

2011-07-20T23:08:00.004-04:00

WPS had record attendance of 15,404 in Rochester for the WNY game vs MagicJack. Must have been really cool for team, area and most especially players.

Is it sustainable? I hope so, but not sure. That game more than likely actually made money for their team and that's a great thing.

My favorite reactions to a sporting event

2011-07-18T09:38:00.003-04:00

I got thinking about my favorite reactions to a win or great play by a favorite sports team of mine.

I don't know if I can accurately say what the top ones are for my whole life, but probably could for the last year.

In ranking ones in recent memory...so this past year

1. Kemba Walker's step back against Pittsburgh in the Big East Tournament got me going crazy. I jumped up and down and ran around the room. As a matter of fact I jumped on top of my hard drive with all the highlight videos I was working on. Thankfully I quickly realized it and didn't stomp on it and break it. I was really excited because UConn won and because I said they would and few believed me. When I am proved right I celebrate just a little bit more...and then usually text the person or person's who disagreed with me.

2. Abby Wambach's goal against Brazil got me really excited. I was so into the game, and did a fist pump and screamed at the TV. That was a close second to Kemba's.

3. Dave Teggart's field goal was unbelievable against South Florida. That was another jump up and down moment. The field goal was hit from so far away and UConn was going to a BCS Bowl. Growing up in Connecticut you have no idea how far-fetched saying that was for such a long time. I was so excited I drove from my apartment to school expecting to find others celebrating...turns out it was just me. Disappointed by the lack of energy others seemed to have I decided to use my excess energy by running stadiums a couple of times at Memorial Stadium.

Those were the top three in energetic celebrations.

Other moments I clearly remember being extremely excited for was Women's Soccer in 2008 in the BIG EAST Tournament against West Virginia. I was watching that on TV, screaming at the TV at the top of my lungs...at like 4pm on a Friday. I was so excited to see Meghan Cunningham convert her PK to win it and see Steph Labbe make big time saves.

I remember jumping up and down and running around our playroom twice for the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football. One was a comeback win against the Seattle Seahawks. Everyone in my house was asleep and I had school the next day but I jumped up and down, touched the ceiling and did the quietest (because I was warned once already during the game to be quiet) and weirdest celebration after Vinny Testaverde threw a TD pass and Julius Jones scored a TD in the final two minutes of the game to erase a 10 point deficit and win. I did the same similar muted, but extremely excited celebration after the Cowboys beat the Eagles on Monday Night Football in 2005 when Roy Williams intercepted a pass really late in the 4th quarter to also have the Cowboys comeback and win.

Rey Ordonez was a light hitting New York Met shortstop. He had an amazing glove but could not hit, except for the one moment in September when he would always hit a homerun. Ordonez came up with the bases loaded and hit a grand slam. I couldn't believe it. I think I rolled around on the floor, screamed and than called my mom in the age before cell phones to let her know what had happened. Also celebrated big time when Robin Ventura hit a walk-off grand slam single (he hit a grand slam but was mobbed by teammates before he could get to home plate) in the NLCS in 1999 vs the Braves.

A few things

2011-07-17T20:06:00.003-04:00

Well obviously I am really sad the US lost but there are some silver lining things out of this World Cup.

The first is that this Women's World Cup was a dream for Women's Soccer. It elevated the sport to a new level. I'm not saying it put it on the stage of men's soccer, the NFL etc. but it garnered a lot of attention and brought the sport to a new level. Women's Soccer is better off because of this World Cup. WPS ticket sales for the Boston Breakers were up 400% I believe after the Brazil vs US game.

We saw amazing goals by Christine Sinclair, the Swedish player who won the game yesterday at the end, by Marta too. We saw amazing finishes by the US and Abby Wambach.

(Can you believe Sinclair, Marta and Morgan all play for the Western New York Flash?)

Now losing the World Cup was bad for the US and the WPS. Winning would boost attendance and interest a lot. Certainly more people will pay attention now, but it's not going to be as if the Women won it. I also must say that Women's Soccer is probably more interesting and dramatic and fun too watch than the WNBA. I think if games are as interesting as the World Cup games than the WPS should have a goal of overtaking the WNBA as the premier Women's Sports league in the US.

I'm following Alex Morgan and Hope Solo on twitter now.

For the Women's Team itself and the players I have to say that overall they should be proud of themselves. Losing sucks, but there is a right way and wrong way to lose. The wrong way to lose is to lose by having a bad attitude, not preparing etc. If you give it your all, truly your all, work together, etc. and you lose than you can be proud. The Women's team lost the right way.

The sad thing is that by losing we forget about them and because of that WPS attendance will probably not get the bump it could have had they won. I'm hoping Penalty Kicks won't be the difference between a pro league surviving or dying, so I urge everyone to get to a WPS game if they can.

I don't really feel like talking about the game that much. I mean I have opinions but they don't matter too much. I'm no soccer professor...I'd like to see Whitney Engen and Brittany Taylor in London.

I think the future is bright for the team. I expect them to bounce back and win gold in London. The question is whether or not they can do it in 2015? They are most likely early favorites.

I'm writing this in bunches and talking to others about the game so I apolgize if it's not flowing.

So overall, good tournament, great job by Germany and filling stadiums, tournament helped Women's Soccer, brought lots of good attention, but I am afraid the US losing takes away what would have been a lot of momentum for the game in helping it succeed in the US professionally...

As for that last part, the players can't worry about that. All they can do is play their game.

Anyway, the tournament far exceeded my expectations and I am looking forward to London in 2012. Hopefully everyone else is too.

My goal in life

2011-07-17T09:48:00.003-04:00

My ultimate goal in life is to have a house on an island on Lake Winnipesaukee, or atleast on the water. I want a jet ski, kayak and a bigger motor boat that can handle the waves of the lake. I want to have a view of the mountains too and I want it to be peaceful and quiet when I need it to be. I'd like to have a place to cycle nearby, and a place to golf and fish.

I guess people are either Lake people or Ocean people, and while I like the ocean, especially Florida's West Coast (Naples, Tampa/St. Pete) and Hawaii, I am more of a Lake person...I like the idea of not coming out of water covered in salt.

Lake Winnipesaukee and New Hampshire Lakes Region is where I have gone every year of my life for vacation, and since it's been my vacation destination for so long, it feels like home to me and it's also home to many of my happiest memories. Every one of the 22 years I have been on earth I have been in the water at the Lake. There is something about that area that relaxes me.

Achieving this goal will be difficult and extremely expensive. The only obstacle to this goal is money and at 22 as a student I can't do too much to achieve this goal yet.

Soon though, hopefully next May or soon after I will have a paying job.

As these final weeks of summer wind down, I'm realizing how much I need to enjoy them, because after this there might not be anymore summer vacation, or vacation until I actually can afford to have that house on Winnipesaukee. I've enjoyed this summer a lot, and want to for whatever is left of it. It's been very peaceful and low key and refreshing. It's help clear my mind and prepare for the future.

The future will be interesting though, I can't wait to find out where I will be working in a year from now... I am really hoping that I will be in New Hampshire. I really want to live in that state!!!

A little late but so what?

2011-07-16T20:45:00.002-04:00

Ok so I really dislike the New York Yankees, but I have a lot of respect for Derek Jeter. Derek Jeter is one of the games greats, a first ballot hall of famer. Five World Series rings, 3,000 hits and (having learned this from Tiger Woods) SEEMS to be a great person too.

I am very happy for Derek Jeter and his achievement of 3,000 hits, as it is an amazing accomplishment and something worth celebrating. He deserves all the praise he gets.

I was also thrilled that the value of his autograph went up with his 3,000th hit, since I have that too. I have no plans to sell it, but it's good to know it's value went up!

Dumbfounded

2011-07-16T20:35:00.002-04:00

I am astonished at a few things that I found out while watching CNBC last night.

One is that a couple was gullible enough to invest $300,000 in pigeons because some one convinced them that pigeons were going to overtake chickens as a food source.

Gullible people need someone in their life who don't take everything at face value...if not they will be just like the birds that get sucked into plane engines...end up badly hurt.

Another came from the Bernie Madoff mess. I found it laughable that a family member didn't think something fishy was going on when he ended up getting a $16,000,000 return on a $14 investment. I can't even comprehend the return on that. With that kind of return...you have to wonder how your earning your money. You might be afraid to know, but you have to be curious. It's not like the whole 57 cents in interest you get on your savings each month.

Attitude Belief...

2011-07-16T20:33:00.001-04:00

Attitude, belief, self confidence, enthusiasm, work ethic, courage, heart..etc all of more to do with winning than talent and brains.

Someone asked for a prediction

2011-07-15T22:36:00.002-04:00

Someone asked me for a prediction for the game on Sunday...The Women's World Cup final.

France created so many good opportunities last game against the US. It's hard to think they will shut out their opponent in a Championship Game, but I like Hope Solo and think she will get a clean sheet.

I say 2-0 US with goals from Lauren Cheney and Carli Lloyd.

I'm surprised I'm not picking Wambach, Rapinoe or O'Reilly to score...but obviously I also hold those players in high regard.

Great Sports Day coming up

2011-07-15T22:13:00.002-04:00

So what sports have I been watching on TV the most lately?

Well interestingly enough two of the three were never on my television in 2007 or before. I've been watching the Women's World Cup pretty closely. I've also been watching a lot of golf lately.

My guilty pleasure in life, one of them, is watching NASCAR while eating Peanut Butter M&M's. Never thought I would admit to that, but somehow, sometime that started and I've continued it. NASCAR starts in the winter, in February, when I can't be outside all the time. I think that habit started one winter day. Often times I fall asleep on the couch in the middle of the race because it's Sunday and I get really tired from working out in the morning.

So yes I am a NASCAR fan. Get over it, make fun of me, whatever. I love the sound of the engines, I like how down to earth the drivers are, and I LOVE THE SOUND OF THE ENGINES. I've been to a race at Pocono once. (Yes I watched the cars drive around the track 200 times for 500 miles) I've been to New Hampshire for qualifying a couple of times. I LOVE THE SOUND OF THE ENGINES. There is nothing quite like standing by the fence and hearing the cars roar by. You will get hooked if you go.

So pretty much the only sports I watch on TV this summer are NASCAR, Women's Soccer and Golf.

You couldn't find a stranger combination if you tried.

So basically this Sunday is going to be one HELL of a day for me to watch Sports on TV. My favorite state is New Hampshire, and my favorite track is New Hampshire Motor Speedway and that's where this weekends race is. Then you have the Women's World Cup Final which is a MUST WATCH. It has priority this weekend. Finally you have a Major Championship in Golf on Sunday.

So I will work out in the morning and be ready to watch soccer and race in the afternoon and then go back outside and enjoy the sun and water.

Sunday is going to be a GREAT DAY...or atleast the anticipation is there.

Now I still enjoy baseball, LOVE NFL and FOOTBALL and watch basketball too, but right now the sports I've watched the most will all be available on one day. It's like the Super Bowl in July for me.

Sad, very sad and very pathetic, but true.

Had to stop

2011-07-15T21:24:00.002-04:00

I was cycling today in New Hampshire on the road that leads to the Cathedral of the Pines and saw these two enterprising young boys trying to sell lemonade. I passed by them the first time, knowing that I could stop on my way back past them.

I thought about it for a while and decided that I should reward them for their efforts. At one point I tried to sell lemonade or something like it at the end of my driveway. Extremely unsuccessful when you live at the end of a dead end, but at five, who cares?

I really couldn't pass by them without getting something because I thought that they should be rewarded for their effort. How many kids are just sitting behind a tv screen on a summer day? Atleast these two made an effort to do something productive. Secondly, I used to do this so I want to be someone who helped support the tradition going...Kids should be selling lemonade, it's very American...and thirdly, I wanted the two boys to gain some confidence that they can sell things and that they can do some business. I wanted them to be able to run into their mom and say they made a dollar (it was only 25 cents, but I had to let them keep the change). They would have so much pride when they told their father about their sale. They would also be able to show the people who doubted them that they could do it. (My father was probably very quick to point out that I wouldn't make money when I did it..but again at age five that's not the point). Lastly I wanted them to feel like what they did was worthwhile and not a huge waste of time.

So anyway buying that lemonade was the highlight of my day. I'm glad the kids made atleast one sale. Hopefully they got more.

I also encouraged them to watch the soccer game on Sunday...not sure they will though. They said they weren't interested.

Maya Moore an All-Star

2011-07-15T08:11:00.002-04:00

Maya Moore was named an All-Star in the WNBA as a rookie and will start in the game. Tina Charles, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Swin Cash are also in the game.

Front Page News

2011-07-15T08:08:00.001-04:00

I just saw that the Women's Win in the World Cup made front page news on the NY Times. That's pretty darn good coverage.

2011-07-15T06:05:00.002-04:00

Well I am improving on the wakeboard. I get up without a problem and was able to go for a lap around our pond. I am beginning to get the feel for how to control the board so I'm happy with my progress. I also think I over-reacted when I said I needed a helmet. You really don't...instead we just needed to slow down the boat. Wakeboarding at waterskiing speed isn't recommended for a beginner.

Tom Watson was impressive to me at the British Open. I just turned on TV and saw Watson get up to the tee and hit a hole in one. Literally all I saw was Watson at the tee, swinging and hitting a hole in one. That's perfect timing as a viewer.

I am also proud of my aunt. She's 75 and had a stroke maybe five to ten years ago that inhibits her mobility. Last night she fell, and it's scary to see people you remember as young and active as scared and helpless when they can't control their bodies. Anyway she was able to get in the water two days ago. I wasn't here when it happened, but she was able to get in the water so we could say she went in for a swim. Somehow I don't think she thought she could do that. I'm very happy that she could proof to herself that she can do things that she didn't think she could do. I'm very happy for her.

Weird things you didn't know

2011-07-13T22:59:00.003-04:00

Ok so you probably don't want to know about this, but I decided that I would share this.

There are weird people out there, and on occasion letters from prison's show up looking for pictures of student-athletes or cheerleaders. One I actually saw asked for pictures of cheerleaders, volleyball players and the gymnastics team (which doesn't exist) ...plus a highlight video too.

A former Women's Basketball player was stalked while at UConn too.

Sad, but true.

There is a reason I don't store athletes contact information by their names in my phone, god forbid anything happen to my phone, or that someone who shouldn't pick it up does.

Abby

2011-07-13T22:45:00.002-04:00

I think one problem for the US Women's National Soccer Team has been a lack of star power after Hamm, Chastain, Lilly and Foudy were gone. No one really carried the torch from them, even though statistically there have been players who have been really effective.

Abby Wambach has probably already put herself on that level with her big goals in the last two games and will probably cement herself as a great, along with Hope Solo if the Women win on Sunday.

It will be interesting to see if this enthusiasm carries over to the WPS. I am sure many people will want to watch Abby Wambach play now, the way many wanted to watch Mia Hamm. Already WPS ticket sales have reportedly gone up.

Abby Wambach and her name is being tweeted and talked about by people that I never thought would know about women's soccer or care about it.

Anyway besides Hope Solo and Wambach, I really like Carli Lloyd for some reason. I didn't know Lloyd has BIG EAST ties, playing for a school other than the one that should be mentioned. I also like Megan Rapinoe and look forward to her being subbed in.

A Sports Dream

2011-07-11T07:27:00.004-04:00

I bet your wondering where my post about the game was.

How often can you say "the game" and have people know your talking about the US Women's Soccer Team?

I didn't see or follow the 1999 team, so this yesterday was the big USWNT moment for me.

Yesterday was Women's Soccer's Dream. Sports like women's soccer, which are not in the mainstream like Men's Soccer, NFL, NHL, NBA, NASCAR, MLB etc. only have a few opportunities every once in awhile to catch the Nation's conscience.

(We saw that with Women's Basketball this year when UCONN brought attention to Women's Basketball for the 90 game win streak)

Women's Soccer gets the opportunity twice every four years, during the Women's World Cup and the Summer Olympics. During these two opportunities the sport must take advantage of the attention it gets on the big stage. This is very hard to do because it's not easy to tell two teams that they have to go play an amazing, competitive and riveting game. The hardest thing to control in sports is the actual playing of sport. You can control your halftime entertainment, but not the outcome of games.

Women's Soccer got a huge break yesterday and could have arguably over time generated more interest or as much interest than the 1999 team did. For me the 1999 Women's Team made me aware of the sport of women's soccer on the big stage. I think it brought awareness of it to the National Stage, and made those already aware more vested in the game, but as evidenced by the failure of the WUSA, it did not make it a sustainable professional sport that we follow everyday.

Yesterday's game was another step. People were aware of the game because of the 1999 team, and now they will probably show some more interest in women's soccer from now on.

Now social media is a big deal, and peer pressure has great influences. Twitter and facebook will help women's soccer because when people log on they will see their friends say "GO USA" or "Abby Wambach you've made me a fan" etc. All of their friends who have no idea what they are talking about will google those things or ask about those things to find out what they are talking about.

Now with ESPN.com and the greater prevalence of cable people will be able to consume the game easier. Once you hear about the amazing plays you can tune in and watch sportscenter to see the highlights, or log on to espn.com and do the same thing. Sports fans in general, always watch sportscenter, and today they will get a good dose of Women's Soccer.

ESPN has done a fantastic job covering the game and has given it the justice it deserves as the lead story on sportscenter. It made it's top 10 "dramatic moments" because of yesterday's game.

Women's Soccer got so much publicity from yesterday's match it's impossible to put dollar figures on it right now.

Hopefully the interest in this World Cup only goes up.

Yesterday's match itself was a marketers dream for several reasons. Emotions were really stirred because it was an international soccer match. Everyone in America had a rooting interest because their team was playing.

You had two great teams playing which made the game interesting. You had the world's top players, Hope Solo, Marta and Abby Wambach playing, so you had the best talent. You ended up having a great and close game that kept people on the edge of their seats. You had villians that further stirred emotions and made people emotionally invested in the game and it's outcome. People hated the referee (like me) and people hated Marta, and Erika who just fell down to waste time...then got right up and started playing. I cursed at the TV screen and threw my sandal after they took away Hope Solo's PK save. Then at the end you had an amazing and dramatic end to the game with a late game tying goal and then the drama of Penalty Kicks.

All of that emotion makes the game so interesting, riveting and watchable. This game for many American's could have been what the 2008 UCONN vs Yale game and UCONN vs WVU BIG EAST TOURNAMENT game was for me.

As for the game, I love Hope Solo and her confident attitude. I love Abby Wambach because she is a winner (And now people know who she and Solo are, the way people knew about Hamm, Chastain, Lilly and Foudy). Megan Rapinoe played a fantastic, fantastic ball to get the game winning goal.

Yesterday's game was a fantastic moment in US Sports History. It remains to be seen what kind of impact it has, but I'm sure it has already had a big positive one.

Winning the whole thing for the American's will make no mistake, be very important. The game will be somewhat forgotten and not have as great of a long lasting effect if the American's don't win. People, like it or not, don't remember things as well if a team doesn't win a Championship.

The 2011 Women's World Cup team might have the whole nation's attention right now, and it's very hard to get their attention, so good has already been done with yesterdays game. But winning the whole thing will help a lot more.

I had a lot to say in a short amount of time, hope it's easy to understand.

I'm excited, more than I expected to be honestly. GO USA!!!

One of worst sports stories ever

2011-07-09T06:33:00.003-04:00

Baseball games and sports in general are supposed to bring together father and son...and recently father's and mother's and their daughters.

One of the saddest and worst sports stories I've ever known is the one involving the Texas Rangers fan who fell to his death trying to catch a foul ball that was thrown to him by a player. Obviously this ball was going to be given to his six year old son.

Instead of this event bringing a son and his father together it took a father away from his son prematurely.

One's mind can't wrap around this and why this had to happen. The father was a fireman, someone who has probably saved numerous lives. A fireman, a real hero, who died going for a ball he was going to give his son. He was trying to have an unforgettable memory for his son. Getting a foul ball at a game from your favorite Big League player, Josh Hamilton.

It is the epitome of a big deal for a six year old boy. It get's no better than that. I still remember being inches from a foul ball. I remember meeting Derek Jeter, Jose Reyes and David Wright and getting their autographs. It was a highlight for me.

I hope some good comes of this...but I don't know what that could be.

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/mlb/news/story?id=6749966

Another sad story is the Len Bias story. He was one of the best college basketball players ever. He was drafted by the Boston Celtics with the 2nd overall pick in 1986. Two days later he died of a drug overdose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiXvNhXWHOc

Hope Solo vs Marta

2011-07-09T02:43:00.004-04:00

The US vs Brazil should be a very good women's soccer match and I'm hoping that a lot of people will tune in to watch.

I'm not sure what to make of this match. The US is supposed to be really good, but they really need to proof that now. I can see the US winning 1-0 or 2-1 or getting destroyed by Brazil and their talented forwards.

I hope a lot of people tune in. It's going to be a good game and I'm trying to plan part of my weekend on getting to a television to watch. If the US can get on a run I think it can have the best TV ratings since 1999. Why I think that? No clue, but I just feel like this World Cup is garnering more interest for some reason than in the past...but to be fair it's also the first one I've watched ever.

It would be sad however for the WPS should the US lose. The league is getting free publicity and attention so long as the US is on the news and on TV.

Favorite part of what I do

2011-07-06T23:26:00.002-04:00

My favorite part of working with a team itself and working in college athletics is seeing the student-athletes succeed, both as people and on the field and in whatever they pursue. It's by far my favorite thing. If they say they want to be an All-American than I sure as hell want them to become one and would support them however I could.

It's hard to explain how happy I would be for them when they reach their goals.

I get so excited and happy when I read about a player scoring a game winning goal with 20 seconds left. I'll just do a Tiger Woods first pump when I read about it. I enjoy seeing our players score goals, the pure joy and sometimes dancing, or awkward dancing of first career goals.

Moments like those are the reason coaches like to coach and teachers like to teach. They enjoy and get a lot out of seeing others succeed.

It's those seconds of success that make the hours and hours of training, work, administrative work etc. all worthwhile.

Different Coordination

2011-07-05T22:23:00.002-04:00

One thing that fascinated me when observing some soccer players playing volleyball and basketball is just how uncoordinated some are with their hands.

Soccer players are amazing athletes, and many of them excel at more than one sport, but for those that specialized in just soccer, or soccer and another sport like running or swimming sometimes lack the coordination necessary to play a sport like basketball. Some of the shots taken by these soccer players in basketball were dreadful and hilarious.

I once played against long distance runners in basketball and those long distance runners were some of the worst players I've ever seen. They could run forever, but didn't know how to dribble with their head up.

It also works conversely with those who have never played soccer and only arm dominated sports, as I am an example. I look AWFUL when I play soccer. I just mastered keeping my head up while dribbling in soccer. I also can't juggle and although I can get some power behind shots, they are often inaccurate or not well struck...and look awkward.

Interesting Story on Hope Solo

2011-07-04T08:13:00.000-04:00

Interesting piece/video by ESPN on Hope Solo.

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/columnist/carlisle_jeff/id/6691703/hope-solo-overcoming-physical-emotional-issues-women-world-cup-soccer

So when you smack your head...

2011-07-03T00:05:00.002-04:00

So even though I said that I was going to wake board with a helmet on from now on...I already ignored that saying...(but I don't encourage not wearing helmets...Head injuries are really serious.

I went again today and improved. The big thing was not to go too fast today, which was our problem last time. Going closer to waterskiing speed is not good for wakeboarding...and especially bad for face plants.

Getting the boat speed right was progress, as was everything else I did which makes me happy. When you smack the water as hard as I did on your first try...and it was extremely hard...it's natural to have some apprehension when going again, but you really have to make sure you don't think about getting hurt. Thankfully I didn't think about injuries too much and I have visualized myself succeeding recently.

I needed to make sure I had a good attitude. I told myself I would improve today. I wanted to gain confidence, that's about it. I didn't want to hurt myself again, wanted to get up and get more comfortable behind the boat on the board and also start to be able to control the board. I set reasonable goals and I met them. I got up and out of the water easily, almost all of the time. I fell frequently, but I was getting more comfortable on the board in the water and I began to learn how to (although didn't successfully) move to the left and right.

It's all a process and I'm glad I got back on the board and than made some more improvements.

Heather O'Reilly....

2011-07-02T23:51:00.005-04:00

I was very impressed by Heather O'Reilly's goal today. That was just so well struck. I don't know what else to say.

I'm waiting for Abby Wambach to start scoring. It's coming...although I can't believe she didn't score.

I loved Megan Rapinoe's goal celebration. It was cool to see some excitement and dare I say cockiness when she went over to the microphone and screamed "USA GOOOAAAALLLL." I liked that.

The Columbian keeper made some big saves early on, but I don't know what to say about the one she let in against Carli Lloyd. I guess mistakes happen...and she was also battling finger issues??

I really like Hope Solo and her attitude. Overall I think she is a great personality for the game. She has a little bit of spunk and edge to her. She could be used as a villian figure in WPS, which would also be good for the pro league to generate some buzz. Anyway, I just like Hope Solo for some reason, and a lot more since this tournament began than before.

I felt really bad for Schelin on Sweden...I mean you got to get the ball on frame. She just seemed out of sorts today. For her countries sake I hope she can figure things out.

If you can't tell I have been paying attention to the Women's World Cup this year, which is something I have never done before. I have gotten really into it, but that's no surprise since I have/had a connection to the sport at elite levels. I enjoy watching the game, and I can understand why it's called the "Beautiful Game."

I also really enjoy watching the games for learning purposes. I learn a lot about soccer and tactics etc. just by watching the game. I brought my laptop with me and ended up taking a couple of notes while watching the game...Very nerdy of me.

I also found that I really enjoyed watching the Women's World Cup more than the Men's World Cup last year. I enjoyed the Men's but I have watched several full games from start to finish for the women. I often turn on sports events but do other things in the background. I've watched atleast three games from start to finish.

I think this World Cup has more buzz than the past few and I think ESPN is doing a great job covering the event by having people like Bob Ley, Ian Darke and Julie Foudy announcing games. The USA vs Columbia game was a lot of fun too watch.

What I am looking forward too in 2015 is to knowing a few of the players playing in it, besides the one there now, and possibly in 2015 too, Steph Labbe. I'd like to see a few others I know, on television, so that I can point to them and tell everyone watching that I know what kind of post game drink they prefer.

The best Pre-Game Videos...give you

2011-07-02T11:47:00.002-04:00

The best pre-game videos or highlight videos give you goosebumps. Just something to remember.

No Work

2011-07-02T06:13:00.002-04:00

I really don't believe in working around July 4th. It and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays.

Anyway the weather is TOO NICE in July to be inside and sitting on a computer and doing work.

When I get vacation time at my job...if I can take it around the 4th...I would. I'd take atleast one week if not a little bit more.