The New Sports Illustrated

About 15 years ago I stopped reading Sports Illustrated (SI) because after Notre Dame won the national championship in 1988 everything SI wrote about them was negative. I gave them an extra few years grace because I assumed they were just picking on the easiest target, but it persisted and I eventually dropped my subscription. A few years back ESPN began publishing their own sports periodical and, while objective to start, it has quickly turned to writing the type of anti- Notre Dame fodder that drove me away from SI. Any chance they get to take a shot at the school, administration, or players, they take. Take for example this mock mock draft posted on espn.com's Page 2 by resident jackass DJ Gallo:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=gallo/070427&sportCat=nfl

Notice anything unusual about the fake picks? How about that out of the 32 predicted first round draft choices the only draftee he disparages is Brady Quinn. I know Quinn is an easy target after quarterbacking ND for four years, having model-esque good looks, and supposedly playing poorly in big games, but he could've shared the wealth. Dwayne Jarrett was involved in a housing/booster scandal at USC, Adrian Peterson broke his collarbone show-boating in the 4th quarter with his team up by 4 touchdowns, there are plenty of other examples. But no, Quinn gets picked on because he's a stand-up kid who just so happens to have been the quarterback at Notre Dame. Guess I'll be canceling my ESPN the Magazine subscription soon...

The Ty Effect

Over the past few days a lot of college football "experts" have been updating their pre-season top 25 lists now that most spring games have taken place. What simply cracks me up is that Notre Dame is not ranked in any pre-season top 25 list. That's not to say that I don't mind - playing the underdog role is always preferable to oodles of unreal expectations - but have you ever heard of a team being the consensus #1 one season, finishing that season at 10-3 (and playing in a BCS game), then being unranked the next? It's almost unbelievable. You pretty much have to chalk it up to a lack of depth - we simply graduated all our (offensive) studs and are left with the dregs of Ty Willingham's recruiting, ahem, efforts. I think there are something like 6 true seniors on scholarship, which is a joke. Regardless, I'm looking forward to a low-key season in which nobody expects anything from the Irish, at least until they win a couple games and everyone immediately moves them from unranked to #6. But we could be worse off, we could still have Ty as our head coach. Have a fun season Huskie fans! Shoot for the moon, i.e. 2 wins...

Lame

Seriously, how hard is it to make a kelly green t-shirt that says either 'IRISH' or 'NOTRE DAME' (on two lines) on the front with a big freaking shamrock on the back? Everyone in the world would by that shirt and it would even cost less because they wouldn't need to silk-screen 87 colors onto the image that eventually just ends up cooking your back in the September sun because it's 4 inches thick. And is it impossible to maybe pick a standard color and stick with it from year to year? Maybe then our fans could have a unified look rather than 1/4 in yellow, 1/4 in navy, 1/4 in forest green, and 1/4 in some other hideous, greenish hue.

I think Notre Dame should consider dropping the engineering school in favor of some sort of fashion institute. Good God almighty - it's looks like this was designed by Saint Lucy, but she was only given a 16 pack of Crayola crayons and all the primary colors removed. If you ask me, 'The Shirt' has an unnecessary definite article and one too many R's...

(spit) On Wisconsin

Bret Bielema, head coach of the Wisconsin football team, is still a bit perturbed that his team did not make the BCS. Who does he blame? ND. Check it out, what a cry-baby.

HERE

Let The Speculation Begin

Notre Dame released the format and rosters for this weekend's annual Blue-Gold game this morning. What immediately struck me is that the teams seem to be separated by first-team offense and first-team defense. One the Blue team you have Travis Thomas, Armando Allen, and Luke Schmidt in the backfield, David Grimes and George West at receiver, and John Carlson at tight-end. Meanwhile, the Gold team has Zibby, Maurice Crum, Lambert and Wooden, Toryan Smith, and Trevor Laws.

The big story, as has been the case all spring, is that the Blue team's quarterbacks are Clausen and Jones while Sharpley and Frazer will lead the Gold.

Given the lean towards offense on the Blue team, I can't help but speculate that Weis has Clausen and Jones as his #1 and #1a at the point, in no particular order. According to the release the starting QBs will be determined by a coin toss prior to the start of the game...

UPDATE: The results of the coin toss are in and it appears that Clausen and Sharpley will be the starters...

Screw Off Credit Cards!!!

Oh, what a momentous day! I just checked the balance on my two credit card accounts, and both read $0.00. Ali and I have finally emerged from credit card debt! For all of you who haven't shared this burden, I congratulate you. It is a hell from which we have now emerged.

My credit card history is a long and exciting one, so I'll regale you all with the story! Like many before and since, I got my first credit card during freshman orientation in college at Notre Dame. I'll never forget my first credit card purchase - the Totally 80's double CD set!!! What a great purchase! Throughout college, I had a nice $500 limit on my Citibank card. I never had any problem paying it off every month. That pattern continued through grad school and my first job. I had a zero balance when I started medical school in 1999. I also had a pretty new Platinum card and a very sizable limit, as the credit card companies continued to entice me to make larger and larger purchases.

Unfortunately, med school gives you a meager living expense stipend that inevitably would run out 6 weeks before the next loan check arrived. Unlike law school (I'm not bitter), med students do service projects in the summer for free, and attend clinics year around after the second year, so we can't earn any cash. So I would resort to using the credit cards to pay utility bills, car payments and even buy groceries. When Ali and I got married, we needed a honeymoon - thanks Citibank! Of course, the balance grew. The end result was a significant amount of debt.

We did the smart thing and did a giant balance transfer to a new American Express Blue card - with 0% interest on balance transfers. We slowly paid it down while making only rare credit card purchases from there on out. Finally, we paid it off last month! So now I will happily close out that AMEX Blue card and put the old Citibank card away. Screw those companies and their ever increasing interest rates. I will be very happy to use my debit card! Secretly though, don't we all long for the final scene from Fight Club? You know I do!

Now That's A Cover I Can Dig

Ladies and gentlemen, Hurt. As performed by Kermit the Frog...

Like Father Like Daughter

So after a month of March Madness, we're down to the Championship Game of the Final Four tomorrow. In years past, I have both run pools and entered in pools to fill out the ubiquitous "Brackets." I don't think I've ever won an NCAA bracket, but I usually come pretty close. It takes a careful balance of luck and strategy to make good picks. I have the strategy part down, but the luck just hasn't been there.

Let me start off by making a few interesting notes...

• An ungodly amount of us picked Georgetown to go all the way - 7 in all, with another person putting them in the finals. That's a pretty high number considering we had 18 entries.
• 8 of the top 9 entries right now are women. The Heffernan men had an absolutely AWFUL showing in this year's pool. The lone exception is yours truly. I was sitting pretty until UCLA played the game of their lives to knock of Kansas. As it stands, I'm still hanging on, but not for long.
• Kevin may be the worst bracket prognosticator of all-time. After organizing the pool, he actually took the time to enter 2 brackets. They sit at #17 and #18 out of 18 entries!!!

So before the big game, I wanted to analyze the possible scenarios for our friendly little family pool on ESPN.com. Keep in mind that the Championship between Ohio State and Florida is worth 160 points if you pick the winner. It really is pretty simple at this point.

1) Ohio State wins
Bridget wins it going away. She picked the Championship matchup, and currently sits in a first place tie with me. Steph will have a nice 2nd place finish, also picking the same outcome in the Championship game.

2) Florida wins
In what some will call "beginner's luck," Ava wins it all with her Mermaid Food entry!!! Daddy helped Ava in her 1st ever bracket selection. He gave her the pen and a bracket and let her select her picks. Unfortunately, after making quite a few selections, Ava thought it would be more fun to poke holes through the paper with the pen - while the paper was on the couch cushion. We have since flipped the cushion. Runner-up would be Mom, who can't quite catch Ava.

Needless to say, it will be an easy decision for me on Monday night...

GO GATORS!