Ricky Dobbs for PRES

This story is kind of old hat and won’t come to fruition for at least 15 some odd years. And in that time a lot will probably have to changed, but in the scenario that we are living in now it would be pretty cool to think about.

Navy starting quarterback and vice-president of his class, Ricky Dobbs, has an outgoing dream to become the President of the US. And if you have ever edited any of my application essays (which will be most of the people who are reading this blog) you know that I’m convinced that the attributes that you use in sports you also use daily in life. I believe that the correlation from sports to life is strong.

He is a young man with a big dream. He has led many men on the gridiron and will serve the country after his years as a Midshipman. He has charisma. (Media and outsiders have yet to mock his goals out of kindness or belief that it could actually happen.) Hard work and persistence. (He chose to go to Navy to play football, being a collegiate athlete is time consuming. Just imagine the time commitment of the military, football, and not to mention actual schooling.) And many other attributes that will only exponentially grow as he continues his football and Military careers.

Let’s not forget that people aren’t as politically savvy as they have been in the past. This generation votes more on popularity than their actual stance on an issue. The era of being solely with a party is gone. So how many sports fans will vote for him due to the fact that he once played D-1 college football? A lot. Running the triple-option may not necessarily qualify him for this job, but people will cast that ballot in his favor more often than not.

2024 or 2028 VOTE DOBBS

Anchoring Review

If you already saw the youtube clips of my anchoring debut, and you think my career in broadcast is over I say to you, “NOT SO FAST!”

Okay the brutality of it is undeniable. But let me at least explain myself.

Video #1, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzQrfsEUJFY&feature=related

Our mikes come on late in the open to the show. We had only seen the open once prior to doing the show and that was 3 minutes before we went live. The Cal highlight was decent. And I sincerely apologize to Bryant Nnabuife, probably mispronounced your name bad. You can’t really have a good highlight when you show the only 5 gains the Buffs had all day, in a 52-7 loss. There is only so much we can do. And the stat lines, yeah, we didn’t see them until we were in them. Not too shabby of an ad-lib. They came out of that late and covered half of LaRose’s mug with the OTS. But he got through his and I got through my reader without much trouble. (Which is REAL impressive when you see what happened in B-block) They both were a little choppy but the nerves were still in the mix at this point. As we sent it to break we looked at each other and didn’t know who was to say what. But after the 2 second staring match (I won) we were all done with A-block.

B-Block stands for brutal. Just watch.

Video #2, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXe1zN4fP5Y&feature=related

Soccer highlight. Cool. Volleyball highlight. Good. Then it happened. It was a mess and to this day it is a complete blur. The prompter stopped. LaRose lost his script. The prompter moved back down a couple lines, and stopped. Still couldn’t find his script. Got through it, then the camera turn. And here is when, with utmost elegance, I decided its best for me to throw it to break. Did I mention that LaRose was still on camera at that point, or that the prompter figured it out and he found his script? But after he did his women’s soccer reader, with the golf OTS that you will see later in the show, we laughed it off like true pros and sent it to break. For how much of a shit show it felt on camera it actually wasn’t that bad, or was it?

Lets just move on before anything else goes wrong. And then there was C-Block.

Video #3, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSmsUNMUEbc&feature=related

If you are paying any attention to the timing of the show you probably already noticed that we are running really slow and the last segment is going to be looong. What you didn’t see was us sending it to the Double-Team set or as we saw it, a silent movie scene. They were talking we just couldn’t hear a lick. So we were on that for a while then came back and sent it to Mike Kerner with his baseball package. The only thing I’m gonna say about it is, man how cute does little Mikey look in his baby-blue polo. Came back and it was time for my camera turn. (Mid-break I told LaRose he could screw up my camera turn because well I completely demolished his. I think it was only fair.) It went better than B, that’s all I’m gonna say. Finished up and sent it to D-Block, still trying to recover from the Double Team crash.

Video #4, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAiAbNQz-pA&feature=related

Good to have Luke on the desk, and he is sure passionate about the Buffs fall sports. And then when we tried to make the show funny and think it couldn’t get much worse one of the much esteemed anchors said ‘oven gloves’. Oven gloves? Really? I mean, that is kind of the way the show went for us, so it really is no surprise to have it end like that. And then prerecorded Kylie got cut off and we went to black quickly. And it was over, finally.

But I think it went decent for the circumstance that we had. Most of our veterans were gone so we had a bunch of new people doing new jobs. Learning on the fly isn’t standard but I guess it works. And I think we learned a lot. And I mean A LOT!

Weekend in Review

Two weeks in and I’m fully engulfed in football season. I don’t know why I’m feeling this way, I’ve never been like this in the past. I’m a baseball guy through-and-through, but this fall I’m all about the pigskin.

Here are some thoughts on the weekend.

One. What a beautiful day for football this past Saturday at Folsom Field. Kickoff was a brisk 50 something degrees and it was misting. And although it should have easily been 21-0 in the first quarter (for the second game in a row) it wasn’t. Somehow the defense came through. And it’s an astonishing fact of this team that the offense is providing ZERO help for the defense. No time to rest, and no support by scoring. But the second half the Buffs played like an average team that won’t compete in the Big XII but will beat the small schools. I can deal with decent.

(Hawkins note: It took an elbow to the nose-piece on Hawkins’ sunglasses and a cut that made him look like the swat linebacker from the Replacements to make the Buffs play better.)

Two. The Broncos will not go defeated this year. There next 4 games will be losses (Colts, at Tennessee, at Baltimore, NYJ) so it felt good to beat a bad team. That’s about it, beating a bad team at home. Although we did see a glimpse of D. Thomas, and the huge weapon he could be. (I do think he could be good, but I think we wasted a #22 pick on him. This type of receiver is a dime a dozen nowadays. And they don’t always come through. Aka Roy Williams, Calvin Johnson) We didn’t see much more. An aging defense, a conservative qb, too many places to improve and a sub-500 team.

Three. Some college side notes. Houston’s better machine like version of Colt Brennen, Casey Keenum is done for this year, and so is his backup. Such an unfortunate break that I feel obligated to say he will be a solid pro. He has all the tools; strong arm, understands a complicated system, and the best thing to happen to a small Texas school since Eric Dickerson and SMU. Auburn’s new qb Cameron Newton is too raw and has a long way to go to develop into an even decent SEC quarterback. And Kyle Parker should just sign with the Rockies so he can help them in October, what a story that would be. I jumped on the Iowa bandwagon early last year, and after so many breaks and games that somehow turned out in their favor came back to bite them in the foot. A tipped ball and pick-6, and a kickoff returned to the house put them down 20 at the half and eventually did them in. This could ruin the Big Ten, if they go out and beat/ruin the chances of any big time hope to win a national title. There is some other college talk I have, but I think I got most of it.

Four. Back to the pros. I watched most of the game last night, if you could even call it a game. Dwight Freeney looked literally unstoppable. There is not a single left-tackle in the game that can stop him, and my initial pick for defensive player of the year. The Bob Sanders loss won’t hurt the Colts as much if the opposing quarterback is looking around for #93 instead of his receivers downfield. Also Steve Smith is the ultimate pro. He went out and did his job in a 38-14 loss. Its hard to imagine that an idiot like Plaxico Burress and Steve Smith hung around each other on a daily basis. Favre will come back, even though I think he should just retire right now and ruin some people’s fantasy hopes. Finally, it’s going to be interesting how the NFL progresses with its strictness on concussed players. Kolb got held out for this week and Moore did not. Witten was upset they wouldn’t let him go back in the game against the Bear. But what is going to happen as the games become more meaningful? Is the NFL going to once again put the issue on the back-burner when the money tells you too? Is this like steroids in baseball, will it come back after something really bad happens?

I don’t what has gotten into me, but I like it. I’m ready for somemore football.

Let Him Have It!

Everyone was POed when the Buffs got their butts kicked by the Cal Bears this past Saturday. But one guy took it too far. (I regret even printing this, because in effect he is getting more attention due to it.)

As the ColoradoDaily reports (http://www.coloradodaily.com/cu-boulder/ci_16085432#axzz0zfA7p7WE) this student from the University of Colorado decided to travel to the game to catch some California sun and maybe a little football. And once CU lost, he decided in his peanut-sized brain that it was a good idea to email Athletic Director Mike Bohn to get his money back.

Okay, lets get some things straight first. He admitted to taking the idea from a season ticket holder at Oregon last year when the Ducks went into Boise State and lost. The Oregon fan was an alumni of OU, so he obviously has a good head on his shoulders. Kid probably is getting his degree in COMM. He was mad at a team that would go on to lose in the Rose Bowl to Ohio St; so this could have legitimately held them from winning a national title. CU, by no means, is supposed to be good or even expected to win this game. And didn’t even end up cashing the check, knowing the full effect of this gesture was way beyond him into what Chip Kelly and the Oregon program stands for. Will he cash it?

Ha, he already called his mom to tell her he was in the paper. She didn’t care.

David Plati ended up responding the fan and was rather short and spoke to the kid in a while I wish it would have happened in person. In the article he is quoted as saying,
“That does not even deserve a response”, also "In all sports, there are no guarantees on the back of any ticket that says the home team must win or your money back or the person's favorite team," and finally my personal favorite, "Sounds like someone wants his 15 minutes of fame.”

This story is not a feel good story and won’t be a headline on many, if any newspapers. And this is the way it should be. Plati knows the prestige of the University of Colorado, although many of the young fans don’t.

[Side note: The University of Colorado is one of the more prestigious athletic programs in the Nation. Yes, the NATION. The Buffaloes were and still are a dynasty in many minds, including mine. We are just in a lull and will return to the promiseland soon enough. All they need is support and belief.

Think about this… Coach Hawkins has had a price on his head for a few years now, and possibly rightly so. He hasn’t produced in the way a program like this one should. But him asking for an extension was the right move. If we give him support and don’t pull the chair out from under him he will find a way to win. The Buffs will be back as a football powerhouse. And Hawkins just wants an extension Bill McCartney got. We interviewed Coach McC today and talked about all the good years; 1990 and the National Title, Rasham Salaam’s Heisman Trophy, and the glory days. But we forget that McCartney went 4-7, 2-8 and 1-10 the first three years as head coach. And after that third year he got an extension and the program somehow turned around after that. You think there may be a correlation???

And another thing, Bill McCartney is a LEGEND. He is an incredible man, with high unfathomable values. He quit college football, his passion, to be more involved in Promise Keepers, where he was ‘uniting men to become "godly influences" in the world’. I’m truly lucky to meet him.]

NORTHWESTERN!!

Across the 6 BCS Conference’s Schools are pretty ambiguous in academic and athletic clout. But there are some things that differentiate the schools apart and separate them from the crowd.

Like… What is Duke known for? Basketball and nerds. Penn State has Joe Pa. What about USC? Giving back. What is Ohio State known for? Being good at everything, even marching band. Notre Dame has touchdown Jesus. What is CU known for? Home of Dr. Pure.

And how about NORTHWESTERN???

These lesser known Wildcats are at the cellar of everything in the BIG 10. But that does not stop them from being a prestigious school and producing some one of the best alumni classes.

Elaine Benis, or Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Seinfeld is only the second show EVER to be Number 1 in ratings in its final season, the other show, I Love Lucy. Everything it life relates to Seinfeld.

David Shwimmer or Ross. Friends awkward nerd. Need I say more, he’s kinda big deal.

Steven Colbert. The talk-show host that people love and love to hate. And commented about himself by saying “an attractive vessel through which the river of truth can flow.”

Seth Meyers hosted the ESPYs. He’s funny.

Mike Greenberg, my favorite of all-time people to do with sports that I look up to.

Rich Eisen is the face of the NFL… Network. The number one guy for the number one sport television conglomerate in America.

JA Adande has a lounge for goodness sake.

Rachel Nichols has every scoop. She is the one woman, other than Suzy Koelber, I respect for making it as a women in the business for being a great journalist. If she doesn’t know it, nobody does.

Michael Wilbon hosts PTI and keeps people like me liking Tony Kornheiser. Now that is impressive.

Kevin Blackenstone. I don’t know how made this list, but his cameo on Around the Horn is decent enough even though he never wins.

Luke Donald came from England to go to a school in Illinois. And still made it on the Tour and is still popular, and didn’t even lose his British accent.

Joe Girardi manages the Yankees. Possibly the easiest job in sports. The guys up top give him the best lineup and rotation in the league while Joe sits in the dugout crossing his fingers the superstars don’t screw it all up.

JA Happ, pitcher Philadelphia Phillies.

This isn’t the most impressive list in the world be any means. But for a school that hasn’t done anything worth noting in the last century, I’d say its solid.

[You maybe wondering where in the world I came up with this topic. Okay, I was watching a game a couple months ago and somebody brought up Northwestern (it turned out to be a Yankees game and Joe GIrardi) I was a little surprised and intrigued. Then this past weekend I was watching the golf tournament and they brought up the fact that Luke Donald was wearing purple possibly for his school… Northwestern. So I looked up who else went there, I got hooked and here we are.]

us N-OPEn

Did you watch the US Open Final on Sunday? No, me neither. How about on Monday at 4 ET/2MT? Or how about when it finally came back on at dinner time??

You didn’t? You’re not a resilient/avid tennis fan? Well you’re not alone.

Better get used to the cheese and cracker trays Novak...

Okay, let me give you the quick recap. Nadal. Nadal. Nadal. He is now hands down the best player in the world at what has become the most popular individual sport in the world. (Probably didn’t see Dustin Johnson win the BMW and Matt Kuchar leading the Fedex Cup either did ya? Or how about Michael Phelps not being the best swimmer in the US? That title belongs to Ryan Lochte now.)

He beat the 3^rd ranked player in the world and the much improved Novak Djokavic in 4 long sets. And that is the most tennis Nadal has played all tournament. He lost ONE set the whole tournament. The only set, THE ONLY SET, he surrendered was in the finals. And then he proceeded to win the next 2 sets to complete the career grand slam.

That is unreal. That’s like Shaq not missing a free throw the entire Playoffs. Like Tiger not bogeying a hole the whole US Open. (Which I’m pretty sure he did at Pebble Beach in 2000.) Like this post getting retweeted by ESPN.

But the biggest point that proved that Nadal is hands down the best player in the world was the look on Novak’s face after the defeat. A grin; not a good for him, I’ll get him next time grin. A I’m so lucky I beat Federer and am complete satisfied I took a set of this hombre.

[I kept thinking, what did tennis ever do to deserve this? The tennis gods ruined a great finale. In a niche sport that this has become there are only a select few tennis fans that’ll go to a bar and waste 4 hours of their lives glued to the little Panasonic non-HD tv in the corner while everyone else is watching the NFL. And now they didn’t get to watch it because it was on a Monday in an awful time-slot because CBS won’t let the match go over the re-runs of How I Met Your Mother. Ridiculous.]

Sporting Plateau

Over the past 50 some odd years the evolution of sport has been drastic. From the super athleticism that exists in basketball among other sports, as well as the vast improvements of technology of the golf world and just about everywhere else.

And just like the way a body builder tries to avoid the plateau effect sports do too. But it is bound to happen, without major synthetic/robotic contributions.

In 1968 Jim Hines was the fastest man alive breaking the 10 second barrier in the 100 meters. Now the record sits at 9.58 seconds by Unsain ‘Insane’ Bolt. Will we soon be waiting for the first person to break the 9 second barrier? Sounds a little ridiculous now.

Every athlete could be classified as a 'Freak'. Sorry Tim.

Or how about tennis serves? Americans Andy Roddick and John Isner are smashing serves at 140+ miles per hour. When will we watching athletes hitting it 160-170mph? Sooner than you think?

Aroldis Chapman of the Reds is consistently throwing pitches at 102 mph. He isn’t unhittable but will this be the norm? Are we gonna be watching hitters out on their front foot for a 95mph changeup?

The sports world is getting further and further from the average joe. And although I want to be optimist it is hard to be. Sports are turning into a three-ring circus entertaining us where fewer of us have the opportunity to come close to reaching these levels. .00565% of people are professional athletes. Sports have evolved with the times, but are we looking at a sports version of ‘The Terminator’?

[I’m in a bad mood because I realize just how bad the Broncos will be this year. The Jaguars are bad and we got smacked by them. Gerrard was a nice story 3 years ago when he beat out Leftwich and Chrons disease, and Jack del Rio can’t coach. He went for it on 4^th and 1 on their own 39 in the second half while winning. Possible tangent… defensive players make the best coaches, but not linebackers. Mike Singletary. Orton is bad, our defensive is old and hurting. Broncos’ struggles will continue.
Just so I don’t forget; if the Broncos go 2-5 to start the year and lose a couple games that we or McDaniel’s believes we should win wouldn’t it be funny to see Tim Tebows first game to start be in London. On another continent. Well at least I think it kind of amusing.]

But seriously, what should I talk about concerning the NFL. Super Bowl prediction? Not the Broncos. Why Kevin Kolb was a mistake? The J-E-T-S? Who is Matt Moore, the guy in front of Jimmy Clausen? Or NCAA football? Pleeeease comment. (No countymac, I refuse to talk Division 1-AA football. Even if it was as epic as your texts made it sound.)

Reggie Give It Back

A scandal is old hat. It feels like a new controversial event happens every day. Roger Clemens is indicted. Whoa. Ben Roethlisberger’s suspension is dropped from 6 to 4 games. Alright. And today USC and Reggie Bush are getting asked to return the Heisman Trophy. Enough already.

I say take they stiff arming man back. What USC and in effect Reggie Bush did was very very against the rules and they should have known they were going to get caught.

SC= 'S'o 'C'lose to getting away with it.

Tangent: The NCAA was, is and hopefully will always be on top of their game. Back in 1952 when the NCAA was only in its infancy they suspended the University of Kentucky Wildcat Basketball team for the entire year for breaking protocol on NCAA rules. That is 2 years after they won the National Title and when historic coach Adolph Rupp was in his prime. So don’t think the NCAA won’t get ya, they will.

But the real story here is if they give it to the runner up. The guy who came in second place in the voting; Vince Young. And again I say no way.

This is no Miss America pageant. (David LaRose) Take it back and call it a wash. The NCAA should have noticed the Lamborghini in his parking spot and 2 inch studs, but they didn’t. And now it has finally come to their attention, so it’s time to make this whole deal right.

Quite possibly the best player ever to play in college football has a black cloud over his head, and a little less hardware on the mantle.

BOOM! There is some knowledge dropped on you Swoosh the Goose (Cole).

BCS Binded

With the approaching game that has gain ridiculous amounts of noterity over the college football season I thought people would appreciate my thoughts. Boise State is leaving the comfort of the blue turf behind to play a top ten Virginia Tech team. I feel like the only non zombie in a post apocalypse world, I love the Bowl Champion Series.

Its crystal clear... THE BCS ISN'T PERFECT BUT IT WORKS!

I repeat…. I’m the biggest fan of the BCS.

Why do schools like Boise St feel they deserve the spot in the National Title game? You have to beat the best to be the best, so does playing a weak schedule that you just roll through give you the right to be a champion? How are we so sure that a playoff system will work??

I wrote a speech on it for a class, I think this pretty much sums up my ideas.

[Persuasive Speech: BCS bowls should remain

Coach of the Indianapolis Colts Jim Mora says it best. Courtesy of YouTube accessed right now. [Jim Mora sound byte] Yes Jim, playoffs. College football has used the BCS, Bowl Championship Series, for the last 12 years. Many people, including our president, thinks that a playoff system is needed. Allow the wide support among this class and many others I believe the BCS system should remain in place. There are 3 reasons why this is the case: #1 the system to decide the rankings are as accurate as we can get, #2 money is the most influential reason playoffs won’t happen, #3 why break down the most passionate sport, college football.

People think the BCS is faulty but in fact it’s actually is accurate as you can get. According to www.bcsfootball.com accessed on October 27, 2009 last updated in 2006 it says that the rankings that is used to determine who goes to what bowl and their overall ranking is based on 3 separate polls that each contribute 1/3 of the overall vote. One is the Harris poll which consists of a committee from each conference that vote on the rankings, overall 114 people participate. The next poll is the Coaches poll who takes votes from coaches across the nation to individually select who they think the best team in the nation is. The final factor is the computers where many people think the system is flawed. There are 6 separate equation thought up by math whizzes that use raw data; they use some but not all points, points against, home field advantage, strength of schedule, margin. Once each computer has made its poll, the highest and lowest ranking is dropped and the rest makes up the last third of the polls. So actually the polls are not the ones that are flawed. They only contribute small amounts of votes to the larger rankings that occur. And allow we like to think as people that our votes are better than the computers, number don’t lie.

Next, and probably the most important factor of all of this is the money side of things. In a USA Today Article by Thomas O’Toole published on December 6, 2006 that each BCS bowl game pays out 17 million dollars to both teams regardless of outcome. This money doesn’t go directly to them either, the money goes to the conference of the team which in turn distributes the money equally throughout the entire conference. The money does drop slightly when you move through the other bowls. The lowest payout that occurs in the PapaJohns.com Bowl where it only pays out 300 thousand dollars to each team, and conference. A total of 220 million dollars will be paid out to schools this year alone. Taking away these bowl games takes away a large lump of the revenue stream that the schools get from the conference. And this money doesn’t all go to the athletic department, it is used at the school discretion. Money not only contributes to the schools but to the venue at which they are playing. According to www.outbackbowl.com accessed on November 30, 2009 the communities in which host a bowl game will bring in an average of 1.3 billion dollars of economic impact for their communities. Not only this but most bowls are non-profit organizations which, on average, contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity each year during the bowl season. Removing the bowl system and putting the playoff system in place would be crazy due to the fact that we, as a country, would lose millions of dollars that could be used in so many productive ways. Although we might not like it, the money is a huge contributor to the reason the bowl still exist and should remain intact for years to come.

Enough with the money, it’s for the fans. Again according to the Outback Bowl webstie 1.7 million fans across the nation attend these 27 bowl games. The stadiums had a 87% capacity, and of the bowls that had been around longer than 8 years, which are 20 bowls, there was a 97% capacity. But for the fans that didn’t make it to the game there was a combined TV audience average of 134 million houldholds. The fans are the most important factor to all sports and getting rid of the bowls we would be getting rid of the fans. And the fans have made traditions. According to www.cfreference.net accessed on October 27, 2009 says that the Rose Bowl was first played in 1901, and has seen 95 bowls games played. The Orange and Sugar Bowls have both been played for 75 years. All 3 of these bowls were played before the first Heisman Trophy was given out. Would we get rid of the Heisman Trophy? These bowls have been around longer, are we willing to get rid of all this tradition?

As a die hard sports fan there is nothing better than bowl season. For the last 12 years the BCS has governed college football and the end of the season bowls. There has been controversy; Auburn going undefeated in a BCS conference only to not get a chance to win a National Title, Boise State and their miracle runs, and Hawaii getting blown out of the water. The BCS system isn’t perfect by any means but getting rid of the bowl system and putting in the playoff system would only hurt the most passionate sport in the country, college football. In the latest issue of Sports Illistrated on November 30, 2009 Bill Hancock, the new executive director of the BCS says about the bowl system in place today, “So many teams have such great experiences with the bowl games. It’s an awesome thing. We need to keep that.”]