How embarassing

New uniforms did the Lions no justice last night.

It was quite embarassing to see them get blown out on national television. To get a gauge of how bad they looked, fans started filing for the exits before the half way point on the third quarter.

Thigns were so bad that when the Lions did get into the end zone the touchdown was called back because of two holding penalties on the same play. Granted the Rams are a good team, but are the Lions that bad??

Michael Rosenberg's column in today's Detroit Free Press simply displays how terrible the team looked and echoes my thoughts on the situation perfectly.

My hopes are now that the first unit will please please score a touchdown sometime in the next preseason game - cuz right now im not even sure if they are capable of reaching the end zone. The only touchdown that the Lions scored last night came in the final minute with all the third stringers in and like no one in the crowd.

Last night just must have not been the night to be a Detroit sports fan. Because while the Lions were being taken to school, the Indians were beating up on the Tigers. The Tigers had a 5-0 entering the bottom half of the first and let Cleveland score 6 runs in that inning to take the lead. When your ace is on the mound (which was the case with Jeremy Bonderman pitching) I'd expect that five runs would be enough. But apparently I was wrong.

Now I'm trying to figure out which is worst right now - the Lions offense or the Tigers pitching

IN OTHER NEWS:
* Right around this time is when I was always gettin prepared for the long days of OTEAM/NSOA training leading up to the four day orienation at EMU which starts on Saturday. I'm glad to not have to go through such long days this year. Sure I might miss it slightly but mainly for the people aspect
* The hurricane's domino effects are hurting my pocket. I wish gas would go down and stay down for awhile.
* The Pistons added former Chicago Bull Ron Harper to their coaching staff
* My feature turned out well - Check it out here Kelly Kohn

i choked

the weekend turned out to be a solid one with the things I covered. Friday night I saw a solid football game between Addison and Onsted, which Addison won 25-14. Pretty competitive the whole night. At least it wasn't like this other game in our county that featured Morenci beating Mt. Zion Academy 85-0 (I'm still trying to figure out how that happened)

Yesterday I was at a soccer tournament at Lenawee Christian that was in memory of Bronson Mansfield, an All-State soccer player at the school who died in a car accident. Pretty solid tournament but Tecumseh ended up whipping Adrian 5-0 to win the title.

Then this weekend I managed to finish my story on Adrian High's star basketball player Kelly Kohn. Funny thing when I was at Adrian High on Friday, I ran into Ronald Walker, one of the players I had to interview for our football preview. The funny thing was that he was there considering twice when I went to the school at interviews he was ALWAYS at the doctor and no where to be found. He came up to me and asked if I was goin to their game and told me that they would beat AA Huron - he was right. Him and his boys made our sports staff look good after we put them on the cover touting their high powered offense. He had like 130 yards receiving and three TD's, the running back Marqone Russell ran for 182 yards and the star quarterback Steve Threet threw for 180.

Other than that I got a chance to hit the bowling alley this weekend to avenge my shitty performance a couple weeks ago against crystal. It turned out to get into a pretty heated battle. She manhandled me the first game b/c i bowled like shit - She had a 113 and I had 95. I came back in the second game and finally started to compete beating her 137-126. We decided to go for the winner takes all match and thats where it got heated. She marked in every frame but the final two but we pretty much had matched each other through the first six. I didnt mark in four frames (the first, fifth, ninth and tenth) but bowled several strikes including a turkey.

I even had a chance to catch her at the end but choked and did shitty. Man I should concentrate more. anyways i lost 179-161. oh well ill get he next time

Busy work schedule begins

Its been some very busy times with me of late. With school starting means the return of high school sports and the laid back schedule of working in the summer is changing to fast pace. The last week I've been kept pretty busy with NASCAR (all last weekend) and working on our high school football section all this week. It comes out today so I'll finally get to see how our finished product turned out.

The busy times continue today with the kickoff of HS football. I'll be covering Addison vs. Onsted, one of the better games going on between Lenawee County teams tonight. Before that I have to interview Adrian High school's standout basketball player for our preview on the girl's basketball season which starts on Tuesday.

College football picks up for most teams next week. I'm definitely pumped about that and looking forward to seeing how EMU will stack up.

Other than work, not too much has been going on recently. I really don't remember what I've been up to in the past week other than my Dad visiting me last Thursday and Crystal and I have hung out every day whenever I haven't been busy with work and shes not had class or homework to do.

Oh and the other thing was they finally put my picture up on this website from a few weeks back after I rode in a two seat IndyCar. Check it out

It's pretty cool. My mom like sent it to all her friends for some crazy reason, but whatever.

Anyways here is the NASCAR stories from last weekend. I'm glad to be done with doing that kind of stuff for awhile. It wouldn't be so bad but race traffic kills me because theres so many damn people at MIS for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup races that it takes forever to get home from it, no matter where your going. Oh well though, I guess that is part of being at a big event that is in the middle of nowhere.

And one more funny thing bout my time at MIS. During the middle of the race I went down to the media center just to sit down and watch the race from a TV and I heard this guy from some TV station talkin on the phone and naming football players - then I finally came to realize that he was doing his fantasy football draft over a phone and having somebody draft players for him. Thought it was rather hilarious when he kept shouting I said Janikowski in reference to kicker Sebastian Janikowski.

Steve Wallace wins ARCA
Nemechek wins GFS pole
Newman wins Busch race
Mayfield wins GFS 400


Oh and it was nice to see the Tigers show some life in August and pop off five straight wins and ride Carlos Pena's bat. They got back up there within the wild card contenders but then proceeded to drop the next 2 games with Oakland- argh

Streak!

You never know what you will see at a baseball game

Streakers at Comerica Park

Detroit News story

Free Press story

Harrington vs. Garcia

Well so much has been made of this quarterback controversy in Detroit between Joey Harrington and Jeff Garcia, with a majority of people ready to see Garcia take over the reigns immediately.



However I think differently and for more reasons than being a fan of Harrington. Sure he has not produced up to standards yet but he has had a lot of things going against him. Keep in mind last season he got the Lions off to a solid 4-2 start before they kind of fell off. But look at what he had going against him:

Roy Williams being not at full strength
Charles Rogers hurt again
A bad case of wide receivers with dropped ball syndrome (Az Hakim, Tai Streets and anyone else)

In most of his seasons he has had receivers prone to drop the ball like Bill Schroeder which doesn't help. People say he isn't accurate enough, but if a receiver can get their hand on the ball they should be able to pull it in.
Hopefully he will finally be able to use his full compliment of receivers of Charles Rogers can finally string together a healthy season in the NFL. Having him out I believe has hurt Harrington considering he is a first round pick that was expected to do big things.

This year hopefully things will come together for Harrington and I see no reason to play Garcia over him. Lets see what Harrington can do with solid compliments in his offense. He has a legit tight end in Marcus Pollard who has played with the best in Peyton Manning. He has a legit rushing attack to help him in Kevin Jones, who should be one of the NFL's top backs this year, anad he looks to have a solid core of receivers in Rogers, Roy Williams, Mike Williams and Kevin Johnson. Let's hope they can stay healthy because thay will be an important key to Harrington having success.

Also if you look at the numbers from last season, Harrington has a leg up on Garcia and had improved numbers from his previous seasons in the NFL.

Harrington

Comp/Att - 274/489
Comp % - 56
Yards - 3,047
TD - 19
INT - 12
2004 record as starter - 6-10

Garcia

Comp/Att - 144/252
Comp % - 57.1
Yards - 1,731
TD - 10
INT - 9
2004 record as starter - 3-7

Granted Garcia split time with two other quarterbacks look at the touchdown to interception ratio. Some might argue that Garcia is better acquainted with the West coast offense thanks to his days in San Francisco under coach Steve Mariucci. While it is a plus I still don't think it is reason enough to play him over Harrington. I'd go with Harrington for one last chance - this will be his third year in the offense and the first year with a real compliment of talent. If he can't get it done this year, then you start trying to find a viable replacement, which I dont think is Garcia.

LINK
Det News article about Harrington's meeting w/ Terry Bradshaw, who also faced the same problems as Harrington has early in his career.

bowling - blah

Now I know that I can never EVER take so much time off from bowling again. After not having bowled since some time in June I made my return to the alley and threw like shit.

I went out with C Money (aka Crystal) to this alley called Ten Pin Lanes out in Tecumseh. It was my first time there and Crystal had been there once before back in the day and she killed me. She got me 132-117 the first game and 122-91 the second game. I had never had such a crappy game like I had that second game where I didnt even mark until the eighth frame.
This leads me to believe I hate the Tecumseh alley, although it was nicer than the other place I'd been in the area.

It was pretty cool because after your roll is completed it tells you the speed of your ball. I'c never been to a place like that before.

After bowling we jsut went back and chilled with Bobby and Rob and watched the Bonnaroo DVD until I started to get tired from my late night on Tues night and hit the bed.

Busy

This has to be one of the best times of year with everyone beginning to play football again. I love football season but with that being said that also means I will start being real busy with constant coverage of high school stuff. I say bring it!

With Monday being the first day schools could hold football practice, I found myself out at Onsted High School seeing some of their practice and doing the generic story that every paper does announcing that the guys are back on the field. Besides going to Onsted, I called a couple of the coaches from the top programs in the county to do a little first glance at the teams.

Yesterday I ended up running into Jeff Arnold, who covers EMU football for the Ann Arbor News at Michigan International Speedway and asked him his thoughts about what the Esgles for the season, about the freshman and the mystery of Tyler Griffin. Griffin was the defensive newcomer of the year last year and shortly following his stabbing and spring practices he was no longer on the team's roster.

Anyways, I was out at MIS to cover Paul Tracy who is going to be attempting to run a race in the NASCAR circuit after racing in open wheel series the past 11 years. Quite interesting.
After doing all that and doing a story I got a chance to meet up with Laina Shuey for dinner to discuss some crap and her adventures in DC.

Then after that I got a call from Casey Frazee who I go way back with at EMU. We worked at AVP together for a bit, had a fun memory from the Tigers excursion sophomore year and from PR class. Anyways I caught up with her adn she invited me to our PR professor (Lolita Hendrix) house for a cookout on Aug 21. Unfortunately I can't go because of NASCAR but its pretty tight the PR gang is getting together with Lolita. That lady loved our class when we had had in Fall 2003 semester, and everyone in the class seemed to click well.

I capped the day by having a real random evening that started with sand volleyball, which looks as if it will become a weekly tradition. Had most of the same group out again with Crystal, Bobby, Rob, Ryan, Dayna and a few others. Fun times. After the place shut down at 2 am we wll made a run for the border (aka Taco Bell) and ate our food in the parking lot and then kind of split off and I went to watch Guess Who with Crystal, Bobbby, another kid named Rob and his wife Jaime. It was a real late nite and I didn't get in until 5, which is the time I have to go to work on Friday AM. So I need to catch up on my sleep fast!

The other crazy thing about yesterday deals with office politics at the paper and seeing a good journalist being let go from the paper. A blog is becoming more and more of a dangerous place to discuss work-related things so I will leave it at that for the time being.

women's golf

The other day golfer Morgan Pressel made a remark in regards to Michelle Wie and how the young phenom should in essence quit trying to mix between the mens and womens events and just golf with women to help boost the sport and bring in more revenue, media coveragae and endorsements and things like that. She pretty much thinks Wie can do to the LPGA what Danica is doing to the IRL (in a different sense) by bringing a lot of attention.

Which kind of brings up interesting points because seeing some of the LPGA British Open, women's golf has a lot of bright stars and attractive people they could market that aren't being recognized. Take for instance Paula Creamer, who is in a sense a rival to Wie. Creamer is just 18 and from California and did decent at the British Open, and recently won the Evian Masters




Paula Creamer, Wie, Morgan Pressel

In addition you have fairly young golfers in Annika Sorenstam (34) and Christie Kerr (27) and women's golf could be in the limelight for a long time to come with a good mix of stars, with Wie kind of serving as a Tiger Woods to open the flood gates because she is a young stud.

So should Wie continue to compete with the men? She is obviously good enough to compete with a lot of them but should stick with the women's tournament for now. The girl is still 16. Nothing against her competing with men because she has proven she can hold her own, but Pressel has a point in what she can do for the women's game. After she helps them get established then she can do what Sorenstam has done.

life at the little league ball park

One of the most experiences I've had since I've been working was tonight when I was sent to cover an 11-year old state championship all star game in Tecumseh. It was quite funny because Wasinger was there shooting photos and upon arriving there he found me in the press box to find out what color was the team wearing that we cared about and I told him and then he whispered to me "well we really dont care about either team" and I quietly laughed.

Thats been one of the interesting points this summer. The former sports editor loves covering all these little league events whereas Sean mainly wants championship games for it only as opposed to having us cover all those games. And most of the writers prefer to not cover little league anyways.

But seeing today's state championship game was nuts and made me imagine what if press was out covering games like this when I was growing up to see some of the crazy embarrasing things that goes in little league sports. Like in the game I was at this girl was pitching and wasn't doing well and her team was already gettin blown out. Well when her coach went to pull her out the game she started crying on the mound and had to be consoled by the catcher and the first baseman. Then when she got moved to left field she was still crying and a coach ran out and talked to her.

Besides that you had a catcher on this South Portage team that couldnt keep her mask on if her life depended on her and it seemed like she had to readjust her glasses after every pitch.

What kinda makes the job more frustrating for someone covering this is this girl from Tecumseh pitched a one-hitter in the four innings the game went on (ended because of the mercry rule with Tecumseh taking a 15-1 victory) didn't even know what to say when i asked her questions about her performance but it was good and her dad(who coached the team) was pretty much standing there telling her what to say.

Needless to say she didn't get quoted in the paper. I know that this happens in the older ranks where you have hard times getting things out of people but thats just one reason why its harder to cover little league stuff. Its a totally different atmosphere and a different level of maturity with the kids.

Needless to say Wasinger and I had an interesting time at the ball park today

In other news:
Hung out with Crystal, Trisha, Bobby and Rob last nite for a bit and made a late night trip to Wally World (Wal Mart) with them which was fun and rather interesting. Everytime I've hung with those people I always have a funny story to tell out of it. but one thing that was pretty cool was I got to play Tecmo Super Bowl for nintendo when I was over there. Its VERY hard gettin used to the limited controls on the nintendo when your used to playing on a PS2 all the time.
In Tecmo Bowl I beat Bobby pretty bad. He took my team (the Lions) which I always used when I played taht game b/c I let Barry Sanders run like crazy. so what I did was I picked Buffalo, remembering that they had Thurman Thomas back in the day. And i beat him pretty bad (like 31-7) and rushed for 200 yds on 20 carries and three TD's with Thurman and held Barry to 15 yards on 15 carries.
That game is seriously one of the things I miss most about nintendo... It was a classic one

sand volleyball at the Cafe

For the first time since I've really been down in Adrian, I've found myself immersed in the culture. Last night I headed up to the LA Cafe, meeting up with this girl Crystal I met last week. I guess they typically go and play volleyball on Tuesday night so I was able to join the fun and had a blast. My team of 4' s even won the mini tournament that we had. But it was a cool night of playin volleyball from 10:30 - 2 am and enjoying 50 cent drafts and meeting some new people like Crystals cousin Trish and her husband Bobby and several others who were out playing volleyball

I hadn't played in awhile so it was tight to get back in the swing of things - even if I came home sandy like crazy. Met this girl Dana from Tecumseh who was an interesting character. Pretty cool gal but she was tellin me she got kicked out of college for walking down her hallway naked with alcohol in her hand. And i guess her school had a dry campus too. Found it interesting but she was on my team most of the nite when we were tearing it up

Then a crazy black dude named Quinton was drunk as fuck tryin to play volleyball. He had a classic shirt that said "It's not easy being easy" - I was like nice buddy. But he was talking about how living in the Bronx was so cheap when he had to be corrected by Crystal and her cousin because they are all from Syracuse and know the lifestyle of NY. Crazy times fo sho

Now if I could only completely get all the sand off me

Weekend at the races

This weekend I spent at the superspeedway known as MIS. It began Friday with media day which was at Victory Lane Speedway in Brooklyn where I had an opportunity to talk with Buddy Rice, Sam Hornish Jr. and Tomas Scheckter. Then from there I headed over to MIS for the Indy Racing Experience

Boy was this the experience of a lifetime. I ended up suiting up in racing gear (fire suit and boots, helmet and all the get go) and riding in a two-seat IndyCar. I was kinda nervous about it after signing all the paperwork before hoping in - I felt like I was signing my life away, but after doing it it was simply amazing. Kinda scary flying in one of those cars at speeds of 170 miles per hour around the turns at MIS. You definitely could feel the g-forces. Out of my experience I was able to come up with a column.
Fox Sports Detroit reporter Ryan Field was there and was doin a little segment on his experience on it for FSD nightly show. He asked me how it was when I saw him in the dressing area shortly after I finished and I told him he'd like it.
After being in that car though I definitely got a first hand appreciation for what drivers do.

Saturday was qualifying for the race and that was pretty cool and exciting. Nice to see Danica Patrick drive for the first time in person too. And after the press conference for the pole-sitter and runner-up, they had a special half hour conference with Danica, who qualified eighth for the Firestone Indy 400. Ended up gettin a story out of that.

Yesterday was the race which ended in an exciting way with Bryan Herta, who won the pole, taking the checkered flag. It was kinda disapointing that 10 drivers didnt finish the race for various reasons (accident, mechanical problems) and Danica was one of them. all in all an awesome weekend at MIS and with the Indy Racing League.

I cant figure out which one is better, NASCAR or IRL. But after talkin to A i think IRL takes it. especially because there was less traffic when leaving the track than at a NASCAR event.

In other things:
- hung out with my landlord and her sister for a bit on Friday night - very interesting experience
- my mom seems to be recovering fine from her surgery she had on thursday
- was sad to see Farnsworth dealt by the Tigs yesterday but knowing he was going to test free agency made me feel better bout it
- been playing a lot of Tiger Woods golf/NASCAR lately on the PS2 when i've had time- not sure how I got onto those kicks
- my summer camp story ran yesterday
- Lastly an interesting quote that was in SI that Milwaukee Bucks guard Michael Redd said after signing a 90-million dollar contract :

"To me, I'm the same person I was five years ago when I was making $700,000."

figured u'd like that one Nate, being a Bucks fan