Return of the Recapper: Alamo Bowl Edition

The Pac 10 Bowl Season started last night, and by started I mean the game began, they ran plays, then the game ended.  As far as how Arizona did in the Alamo Bowl , the best thing you could say about them is that they did not kill anyone (as far as I know...there were parts of the game I missed).

The Alamo Bowl is the newest bowl in the Pac 10's crown (and yes, I realize that metaphor is very strained).  After the Rose Bowl, the Alamo Bowl is the next big one, supplanting the Holiday as the number two bowl.  But since a certain team from Oregon is going to the National Championship (altogether now:  Woooooooooooooo!), and Stanford is going to the Rose Bowl, third place Arizona got to go to San Antonio.

However, losers of four straight games, and coached by Mike "I'm not high strung, who called me high strung, god dammit, who would SAY THAT?!?!" Stoops, there was little chance 7-5 Arizona would play well against Oklahoma State (10-2 and almost winners of the Big 12).

And...they didn't.  It was kind of a rout, even though the ESPN announcers kept talking about how great Arizona was playing and how they didn't roll over.  Hard-fighters or not, the Wildcats still got smoked 36-10.  It was an inauspicious beginning to a relatively small bowl season for the Pac 10, and things won't get any better tonight with the Holiday Bowl, a rematch of the ass-whupping that Nebraska put on Washington.

One more quick aside.  I saw a fan in the stands holding up a sign that referenced "Pokes Nation."  Pokes, I believe, would be a nickname for the Oklahoma State Cowboys (cow poke being a reference to cowboys that branded cattle and not a reference to what happened to the cows when the cowboys got lonely on the trail).  Anyway, I digress.  My real point here is that this whole "Nation" thing MUST stop.  First, fans of a team are NOT a nation.  In no way are fans of, say, Nebraska's football team, holders of the sovereignty which shapes the fundamental norms governing the functioning of the state.  And Pokes Nation does not have anything meaningful to say about the suffrage of its people (unless you consider "Yee Haw!" meaningful (note:  no one outside of Oklahoma considers "Yee Haw!" meaningful.)).  And Beaver Nation does not include members of a cultural nation who are aware of constituting an ethical-political body together, which is differentiated from others by the members sharing a number of defining cultural features (features which include language, religion, tradition, or shared history).  So, stop it.  Just stop.  The first person to say that Oregon is Ducks Nation will be hit in the head with a blunt object by me.  And the rest of the teams out there that think it's fun to call yourselves a Nation:  no, it's not fun.  It's stupid.  Stop it.

Barfy Holidays to All

So my mom lives in Salem and a few days ago, we loaded up the family truckster with the dog, two kids, pillows, clothes, a few presents, etc. and made the traffic-laden trip south down I-5 (as an aside, why do people suck at driving?  And why are they always in front of me, driving exactly the speed limit in the fast lane?  And why don't they respond to my wailing on my horn and flashing my lights at them?  You'd think they'd take the hint...jerks.).

Things at Nana's were going swimmingly.  Hanging with the family, the kids barely able to keep their hands off the presents under the small fake Christmas tree, even finding a tall boy Bud Light in the back of the fridge.  The family decided to go to a nice little Italian eatery (whose name, based on what is to come, I will not mention here, for fear of ruining their business.  Let's just say it rhymes with Bolive Farden.).  Both of my kids had the delightful Italian delicacy macaroni noodles with a light cheese-based sauce (new household rule:  my kids can NEVER order the same thing for dinner again).

The twins rolled out of bed at 6:00 am the next morning (which was awesome, by the way, because I was not at all tired) excited to open presents.  And then...well, then it was a Barfocalypse.  Apparently the cheese-based sauce from the night before may not have been the freshest.

Full disclosure:  I'm not fond of vomit...coming from me, from others, laying about, plastic versions, vomit coming from humans, from animals, heck, once I found out that flies vomit on food to digest it, I developed a nearly pathological fear of flies landing on me (microscopic vomit!  ack!).

So thumbs down on vomit.  But boy howdy, did my kids yak...a LOT.  Often.  Sometimes at the same time.  And I'm not all the great with multi-tasking, so having one kid barfing in a toilet and another kid barfing in a bucket really stretched my abilities.  And THEN, I started getting calls from work (on my vacation day!  The nerve of other people doing work while I'm on vacation).  So barfing kids, a puppy opening everyone's presents with his teeth, my phone ringing, and a partridge in a pear tree....

Ugh.

We limped home, my boy throwing up in a bucket in the backseat (and then telling us that he was in the lead because he had thrown up more times than his sister) and spent the rest of the evening trying to keep things from flying out of my kids' mouths.

Which proves two things:  kids are gross.  And try not to get too hung up in your plans, since a little bit of barf can derail the whole thing (and a lot of barf can, well, be disgusting).

Happy Holidays everyone.  Please keep the traditional Holiday Barf Buckets close by.

Happy Holidays

I love the holidays (aside from standing in line for Santa...that sucks it hard.  Everyone wants to get a picture with the mall Santa, propping up their squalling little life form on his lap, making faces and squeaking toys all in the hopes that the kid will stop screaming for a second and a half so they can get the perfect Christmas present, and guess what...doesn't work.  Welcome to Baby's First Screamin' Christmas.  Me, I just want my kids to jump up on Santa's lap, tell him what they want, hop down, say thank you and get their candy canes.  45 minutes in line for three minutes...that does NOT fill me with Christmas spirit).

Anyway, I really do love the holidays.  I'm unabashedly fond of every bit about it:  hunting for parking spaces, 103.3 playing 24 hours of Christmas music from Thanksgiving through Christmas, pushing over old people to get to the last awesomest gift in the perfect color, my kids overwhelming excitement growing more and more overwhelming every day, nasty weather, 17 straight days off from work, decorations on the houses, watching meaningless bowl games on tv (and seeing snow on HD...LOVE that).  That's just the start of the list.

I love buying presents and giving presents.  I love being with my family.  I love my friends; for those that don't know me, I'm not especially close with my sister, and both my parents live far enough away that they don't make it out to my house very much, but I have a group of friends that I've known for almost 30 years, and every one of them is like family.  So this holiday season I get to spend time with them, celebrating at our annual Christmas party, hang out on New Year's, and that is easily one of the best parts of the holidays.

Not exactly hilarious, I know, but Christmas makes me happy and a little overly sentimental.  So to all of you that stop by and read, and the 12 kick ass fans I have, I wish you and your family the very best Holiday season.

Pac 10 Recap, Final Week 2010

Excuse this minor indulgence for me, if you would:  Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
(stop to give my right ring finger a rest, and….)
Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Thank you.  I feel much better now.

Onward

There are a few things I never thought I would experience in my lifetime:  visiting my grandkids on Moon Base Alpha 1, skydiving off the Eiffel Tower (mostly because I’m afraid of a) skydiving and b) France), and winning a Best Actor Oscar (because I couldn’t act hurt if someone punched me in the face).  Also on that list was seeing the Oregon Ducks football team play in the National Championship game.  But Saturday, Oregon beat arch-rival Oregon State in the 114th Civil War, 37-20.  It was easily the most stressful game I’ve ever sat through, even though I felt confident going in, even after the Ducks started to pull away in the second half.  But when it was all over, the Ducks and their fans ran on the field and celebrated their chance to complete for the National Championship (it should be noted that the Beavers actually gave permission to the Ducks, their team and their fans to celebrate on the field, an incredibly classy move).  I celebrated at home by jumping up and down, saying woo, getting bit by my dog for jumping up and down, high fiving my kids and a few close friends, and then taking a nap (I'm old!).  A few days later and it still hasn’t really sunk in:  seeing the bottom line scroll by on ESPN with the words Auburn v. Oregon, Jan. 10 National Championship is as mind-blowing as the Pink Floyd laser light show, without the accompanying distinctive smell.  I could go on and on about this, but I'll stop now because there's a line of OSU fans at my cubicle that want to punch me in the face for being overly gloaty.

Also, there were other games.  For example, Washington State, looking to build on the momentum of their 1 Pac 10 win, hoped to beat rival Washington in the Apple Cup.  And they didn’t.  The Huskies got bowl eligible by beating the Cougs, 35-28.  Washington running back Chris Polk ran for 284 (!) yards in an up and down, back and forth game.  And unlike the classy ending to the Civil War, the Apple Cup ended up with the Huskies jumping up and down on the WSU logo and the Coug fans throwing water bottles and snow balls.  So like most everything else, the state of Oregon is better than the state of Washington at finishing rivalry games.  In your face, state of Washington.

Also there was the continuation of the oldest continuous rivalry, the Territorial Cup played by ASU and Arizona.  Arizona, which at one point was looking like a legitimate contender for Pac 10 supremacy, talking about how they could win the title if this happened and that happened, entered this game on a three game losing streak.  Their coach, Mike "Mad Man" Stoops probably spent all day every day yelling at stuff:  cars in front of him for going slow, his cats for walking too loudly while he was trying to nap, the wind for blowing his hair around, air for being so necessary to breathe.  He's a little tightly wound.  And like their coach, the team tightened up as the season went along, culminating in the Wildcats' double overtime loss to ASU 30-29 (Territorial Cup Fever...catch it!).  Two, that's right, two blocked extra points was the difference.  After the second one, Mad Man Stoops ran on to the field, went into convulsions, frothed at the mouth, both eyes popped out, his hair exploded and then he ate the kicker.  Not a pretty sight.

Big cheaters USC wound down their Season of Irrelevance (probably won't be the title of the season's video montage, but if it is, I want money for that, dammit).  USC beat cross-town rival UCLA in the We're too Cool to Name Our Rivalry Cup (WTCTNORC, for short (suddenly I'm a marketing genius!)) 28-14.  Afterward, Coach Lane Kiffin, always the optimist, said "We would have gone to the Holiday Bowl.  That would have been pretty neat."  Yes, it would have been neat.  Maybe they can play a pretend Holiday Bowl (oh, sorry, a pretend Bridgeport Education Holiday Bowl) and the Trojans can win that and have a pretend trophy.  That would also be neat.  Not neat was UCLA's season.  May I be so bold as to say, ugh.  What the hell happened to UCLA?  Once a tradition rich program, they're left with this scintillating quote from their coach, talking about bringing back the glory years:  "I've got to look hard at how we're going to turn the corner.  Those are hard decisions, and that's hard analysis, but it's absolutely mandatory that we come up with positive conclusions that will make those great Bruin fans keep coming back excited."  I don't know about you, but I'm already pumped up for UCLA football next year.

Recapper’s Final Pac 10 Power Rankings 

1.        Oregon – 12-0.  National Championship game.  What a season
2.        Stanford – 11-1.  Orange Bowl bound.  A great team this year
3.        Arizona – 7-5, lost four straight to finish the season, going to the Valero Alamo Bowl
4.        Washington – 6-6, on a bit of a winning streak, going to Bridgeport Education Holiday Bowl (seriously that’s the name)
5.        USC – 8-5, going to no bowls, because they’re big cheaters
6.        ASU – 6-6, but not going to bowl because two of their wins were against D2 schools
7.        OSU – 5-7, no bowl, up and down season
8.        Cal – 5-7, see OSU
9.        UCLA – 4-8, could easily be dead last in the final standings
10.        WSU – 2-10, just didn’t really improve since last year.  Coach possibly on the outs

Ass Handers 

This week, OSU gets the award, only because they lost by more points than anyone else that played in the Pac 10 this week.  

This year's winner of the Ass Handers of the Year Award was a tough call.  I looked at the bottom two teams and did some honest to goodness research.  For example, WSU's average margin of losing in their 10 losses was 39-18.  UCLA's was 37-14.  So kind of even.  Washington State finished 42nd overall in passing, but 117th (out of 120 teams) in rushing, 106th in points for and 110th in points against.  That's not good.  UCLA managed 116th in passing, a robust 34th in rushing, 104th in points for and 85th in points against.  Also not good.  But then, I was thinking, well, WSU was more competitive than they have been in past years.  Until I looked at the scores:  65-17 loss to Oklahoma State, 42-0 to ASU, 50-16 to USC.  Other than the 60-13 loss to Oregon, UCLA didn't have as many bad losses.  So as much as I'd like to give it to someone else, this year's AHotY goes, again, to the WSU Cougars, in a squeaker.

****

Well, that's it for me and the recaps this year.  Hope you liked 'em.  God willing, I'll be back next year with more fun and pith.  Until then, some words to live by:  "So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains.  And we never even know we have the key." So true, The Eagles.  So true.

Civil War Eve

It's the eve of the 114th (I think) Civil War here in Oregon, the annual football game against Oregon and Oregon State.  This year, as most of you should know, Oregon is playing for a spot in the National Championship game.  Also this year, Oregon State is playing for a chance to ruin Oregon's chances.  And to go to a miserable bowl game.

Coach Mike Riley, of the OSU Beavers, said that if OSU wins this game, it'll be the biggest win in OSU history.

Really?

Between the two schools, there's always been this concept of the "big brother" and the "little brother."  Oregon is the big brother with the flashy uniforms and the ridiculous facilities and the giant booster (Uncle Phil).  They have all the money and none of the class, people say.  The Beavers are the little brother, often over-looked despite their abilities, with a genuinely nice guy coach and an aura of doing things the "right way."  They wouldn't take a big booster like Uncle Phil, cause they are such a boot-strappy team (an idea that is absolutely ludicrous, but I'll let it go for now).

I think that idea is bullshit.  I don't think of OSU as the little brother at all.  Or at least, I didn't, until Coach Riley busted out the "biggest win ever" quote.  Because honestly, if there's anything more "little brother" than playing to ruin your rival's season, and then claiming it's the team's biggest win, I don't know what it is.

People will point to Oregon's win over OSU in Corvallis a few years ago that kept OSU from the Rose Bowl and say "well, all the Ducks cared about was ruining the Beavs' season."  And that might be true, but that wasn't Oregon's biggest win ever.  Oregon was having a down year, but went into their arch-rival's stadium and beat the snot out of them.  And then went to some crappy bowl.  It was nice to beat the Beavers, and felt good keeping them out of the Rose Bowl, but that win wasn't even close to as big as the win over, say Washington with "The Pick."  Or some of the wins in '95 when the Ducks went to the Rose Bowl.  Or beating the snot out of USC last season on Halloween.  Hell, I'm not even sure that win over OSU ranks in the top ten.

But for OSU, who claims not to be the little brother, beating Oregon and keeping them out of the National Championship, THAT'S their biggest win?  Isn't the very definition of little brother measuring your life against what the big brother does, and being jealous, and wanting to beat him?

I was shocked to hear Riley say that.  It diminishes what the Beavers have done, it diminishes their Fiesta Bowl year, and the "Giant Killer" team.  It makes them seem small and petty.  Yeah, winning against Oregon will be sweet for them, but the team is still 6-6 and going to a bad bowl game.  That should make Beaver fans pissed, not elated.  Not treating the game as the Biggest Win Ever.  It should be a stepping stone to better things.  Not the bench-mark for all victories ever.

Small and petty are words most people would associate with little brothers.