1/6/07

Saturday Sports Report

I haven't had much to blog about the last couple of weeks. I am almost ready to break down and do another meme, but those get boring after a while. There's only so many times you can tell people what size of shoes you are wearing.

I didn't really do much in the way of fantastic today. Matthew had his first basketball game. It was fun! This kid really loves sports of all kinds. He's just as big a watcher as a player. There's a game of some sort on his TV at any given time and he loves the Olympics!

The basketball game began with the same pre-game build-up that they do in the pros: the tunnel, the fog machine, the announcer and all of it shown on the big screen. This is just in a church gymnasium where they play two half-court games with a divider screen in the middle. The kids loved all the hype! Matthew said he hopes they do that every game. So do I! His team ended up winning 44 to 18. It was still a good back and forth and the other team made as many shot attempts as we did, but the missed a little more. It was a real confidence-booster after losing every single game in football.

Everyone's favorite 4-year-old, Steven, couldn't have cared if we were watching the Super Bowl. He sat in his chair and played his Gameboy. It kept him quiet and kept him engaged. Otherwise, he would have asked about 40 million times when it was going to be over. Hey, if it brings a little bit more peace to my Saturday and allows me to actually watch Matthew play, I'm all for it!

I only wish we'd had that Gameboy during football! Practice was 4 nights a week and games on Saturdays. Most of the time, Steven played on the baseball diamond and got dirty, but if it was cold, he sat in the car with me and colored, but that only lasted so long. He'd be climbing all over and whining that he wanted to go home. 2 hours is a long time for such an active kid to be cooped up in a car... unless there's video games involved! Something to keep his brain busy!

While we're on the subject of sports, we need to discuss the Bucks for a minute. Monday night is the BCS National Championship game in which the Ohio State Buckeyes will trample the Gators!!! GO BUCKS!! O-H! I-O!

As you can see, we're pretty jazzed about the game. Matthew was even desperately looking for 'gator jerky' at Gander Mountain last week!

I am slightly ticked as I have a meeting Monday night at 7. That thing had darned well be over in time for me to be home to see the kickoff! I am pretty confident that it will be and it's less than a mile away, so I'm not too worried; I'll start sweating at 7:45 if we aren't at least half-way through our agenda, though.

I am so happy the Bucks are headed back to Glendale and I'm thrilled they are playing the Gators ( FS is toast!), but I myself would like to see a college playoff. I'm not complaining about the BCS, but I'd really like to see how a playoff played out. Too bad no one can bring themselves to stand up to Jim Delaney and convince him to endorse it.

To sum it up for you, Delaney is the Big 10 Conference Commissioner. Everyone values his opinion and he's usually right when he takes a side on something. That's all fine and good, but he says that as long as the ratings and attendance for college football regular season games and bowl games continues to grow, there will be no college playoffs.

Now, no one in their right mind is going to boycott college football in a attempt to get a playoff. If you ask me, the growing attendance should be a signal that people WANT more college football games and a playoff season would only prove to draw more fans to the sport.

I highly doubt Jim Delaney will be calling me for advice anytime soon, but I had to throw my two cents worth in there.

I like watching college games more that the pros anyways. There's just something about watching the pros and knowing they are all making six figures or more and not one of them shows a tenth of the drive and desire of a college player.

I also have a little theory that more people are watching and attending college games because no one can afford tickets to the pro games anymore. Professional sports were built by the working class going to the games for a relaxing couple of hours at the ball park. The average worker can't even afford bleacher seats anymore, let alone parking. We bought tickets on EBay for face-value this year and it was still expensive.

NASCAR is going through the very same thing.

As a kid, my Dad used to take up to all kinds of games. We lived near Cleveland and went to many games at Municipal Stadium. Then, when we moved to Missouri, we watched the Cardinals (both baseball and football then) all the time. We even timed a trip to visit family in Kansas City, Mo. while the Indians were in town to play the Royals.

I know the economy has a lot to do with all of the above, too. Don't even get me started on the economy unless you have a couple of hours.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! GO BUCKS!!!

1 comment:

Samantha said...

The girls are already wanting to get into sports...among other things LOL The other day Shelby said to me (after watching a rerun of America's Next Top Model) "Mommy? I want to be a model when I grow up, but do I HAVE TO show my butt and nene's?" (nene's are our "bosom's" ;) ) I was like uhhhhhhhh...NO! LOL