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Longtime Listener – April 9, 2010

:00 It starts out with some normal announcing from Sal Masekela, Chris Miller, and Tony Hawk.  It’s kind of stupid because it’s the X-Games, but just get through it with me. Level 1

:25 The guys start to perk up a little bit.  Level 2

:35 Sal’s head explodes. Level 47

1:04 The run ends officially, but Bob keeps going.  Level 48

1:10 The other guys’ heads explode. Level 5,023

1:14 “We have lost our minds in the booth right now…. That was one of the most furious displays of beautiful skateboarding…”

“Oh, the REwind REvert!”

Longtime Listener – February 17, 2010

Also, be sure to keep an eye out for Mitch’s regular column, which should be starting in the near future.

After knocking off Case 7–2 on Saturday, the 16th-ranked Maroons were points away from toppling third-ranked Wash U Sunday. Even with the 5–4 loss to the Bears, though, Chicago is feeling good about its closest match with Wash U over the past decade.

“If we would have beaten Wash U, that would have been the biggest win on the men’s side by far since I’ve been here,” head coach Marty Perry said. “The men did well; it’s looking like they have some potential this year.”

The narrow loss to the Bears came on the heels of a strong win over Case a day before. With six matches already under their belts, the Maroons were much more match-tested than their opponents—Wash U was in its first weekend of competition—but the Bears have historically dominated the South Siders.

Chicago has never taken more than three doubles and singles matches from Wash U over the past decade, and last season the Maroons fell to the Bears 8–1 in the UAA tournament. On Sunday, Chicago was confident as it began singles play trailing 2–1.

“I felt good about having one point after doubles,” Perry said. “I told the guys ‘We played them [at Bally’s] and almost got swept a couple of years ago. We’ve got one point, so let’s use it.’”

From there, the Maroons stayed right with the Bears. Third-year Will Zhang and second-year Jan Stefanski dropped the top two spots, but a solid middle of the lineup pushed Wash U to the brink. First-year Dillon Klincke and second-year Jonathan Alexander took wins at three and four, while third-year Troy Brinker had a comeback win at the fifth spot.

For the Maroons, however, the first match to be played actually decided the game. With his singles match starting during doubles play, first-year Harrison Abrams had chances at the six spot but couldn’t pull out the win, and fell in the third set. That allowed Wash U to withstand Chicago’s charge later on in the afternoon.

“That was a pivotal match…. If we had won that, Troy Brinker’s match would have decided it, and that’s a guy I would really want the match to come down to,” Perry said.

Even with the sting of coming close and falling short, Zhang sees this weekend as a sign of things to come.

“We probably could have performed a little better, but it definitely shows we have a really solid lineup,” he said. “We’re looking pretty strong right now.”

Things seem to be coming together for a Chicago squad that has gone through some growing pains early on in the season, with two transfers and two first-years still acclimating to the team. Alexander has been the most productive newcomer thus far, going 7–3 in singles, but Chicago has relied on all four new contributors at times this season.

As the squad moves forward, it will be looking for more consistency, something that should help close the gap between the Maroons and teams like Wash U down the road.

“It’s taken some time to get that team mentality that you have to bring it every second you’re in a match,” Perry said. “We have to get everyone going into that mentality where, from warm-up to when we’re done, you’ve got to go 100 percent…. Our schedule’s not that easy, so it’s imperative that we put our best foot forward every time we play.”

The Maroons return to action for another test when they travel to 21st-ranked Kalamazoo on Sunday.

That’s the case with this Charles Barkley Taco Bell commercial, too.  It’s not even good, but I keep watching it.  Maybe it’s just how he says “a cheesy gordita, crunch to munch.”

What do you guys think?  Is this Lil Wayne or Dr. Seuss?

I really thought there were only three other good Super Bowl commercials this year.  Not a great crop, but I also enjoyed these ones:

“How bout lavender?”

“How bout not?”

These are my top three dunks of the NBA season so far.  Hopefully, if you’re an NBA person like me, you’ve seen all of these.  If you’re not an NBA person, you should be, and hopefully this will get you started.  Enjoy.

3. Excuse Derrick Rose while he kisses the sky (and dunks on it with both hands)

I’d like for this to be number one, and honestly it’s the nastiest dunk I’ve seen from the Bulls since I was in elementary school.  “Mama, there goes that man.”

2. Carmelo Anthony claims block on Paul Millsap

Oh, Mike Tirico, you’ve made me so happy.  I liked Carmelo Anthony coming into the season, but this play made him my favorite non-Bull.

1. I don’t know even know what to say

I thought Dwyane Wade was joking, at first.  My goodness.  The “OH! A FACIAL!” seals the deal for me.  And on the second time you watch this one, make sure to keep your eyes on Anderson Varejao.

Check back tomorrow for another installment of SportsTube.

This feature may or may not work.  Since the blog has a much smaller staff than the newspaper (i.e. it’s pretty much me and Jordan), this feature will likely depend on what story the two of us are covering.  But, we’ll see how it works and what we can do to make it better.

Today’s Extra is a little bit weird because the entire story that should have gone into the paper didn’t, so really that whole thing could be in here.  But since I finished it with spacing concerns in mind and we posted that version on the Maroon website, we’ll just have to go with it.  You’ll probably want to check out that article before reading on.

Anywho, for today’s paper, I had some nice talks with second-year Moe Bahrani and third-year Arthur Baptist about the Chicago Duals and what’s going on with their roster.  Here are a couple of things that didn’t make it into the article but probably should have.

You know that old thing about not making excuses?  It started becoming a cliché hundreds of years ago, when King George reportedly didn’t make any excuses after losing the Revolutionary War.  But really, what isn’t a cliché these days?

Anyway, the men’s track team is doing its best to not make any excuses, and I thought Moe actually had a really good way of putting it: ”Every team has injuries. It’s not something where you can say, ‘Oh, we’re hurt.’ At the end of the day, no one cares.”

Pretty simple, but I thought that really captured the whole issue. When the Chicago Bears lost Brian Urlacher this year, the fans didn’t all of a sudden forgive them for being horrible.  That’s just the way it goes.

Fortunately, the men’s team is still ranked eighth in the country, and they’ve got a bunch of guys coming back.  Hopefully injury problems are a thing of the past come time for UAAs.

At the same time, though, it’s not necessarily injuries that are keeping these guys out right now.  Moe’s been keeping himself out because of a higher goal: He wants to dominate at the stacked Whitewater meet next weekend, so he’s pacing himself.  You should hear him talk about that race.

“I was the last guy out of nationals [for cross country], and so I went and talked to Coach Hall, and I told him I’m national caliber runner, and the only way I’m going make nationals is if I run the 5k at Whitewater…. So I sat down with Coach Hall and told him I really wanted to focus on that race because I think can hang with them, and he agreed.”

For Baptist, it’s more an issue of taking care of injuries to focus on performing well long-term (and maybe not with a single meet in mind).  He’s got outdoor nationals in mind, specifically, and it’s just tough to run at the level he wants to run at for two full seasons.  Last year that caught up with him, and he tore his hamstring, forcing him out of the outdoor season completely.  This year he’s easing into it to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Another part of the story that I wish had gone into the article was Moe’s discussion of UAAs. That’s another thing where you can tell just by the tone of his voice how much he wants to avenge last year’s three-point loss.

“Last year with losing conference, it still bothers me. Last year we went into conference the heavy favorites; if we just did what we were supposed to do, we would have won easily…. I don’t know what everyone else’s mindset is, at least my mindset, the first thing I think of when I get to practice is we’ve got to win conference…. It should all come together. We’re not going to be the overwhelming favorites this year I don’t think, but that’s good for us. We need that motivation. We need to be the Emory of last year.”

The whole story got me thinking about why track (and cross country and probably swimming too) is a unique sport.  When you’re hurt, it doesn’t help the team to rush back or to compete injured.  You’re just not going to do as well as a healthy runner or thrower or swimmer.  In basketball, you can play through ankle injuries because quickness or lift aren’t the only parts of the game.  A jumpshot can make you valuable even if you’re slowed by injuries.  In running, that’s just not the case.  If you injure your ankle, you’re probably not going to win.  The sport doesn’t have much pity.

Was this interesting? Helpful? Worth the time?  Let us know your thoughts by commenting or emailing in at gomaroons@gmail.com.