Cross Country has begun, Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick, and my "A" movies

It seems like not long ago our track season was just completed (actually it wasn’t long ago with summer meets) and now we are already into our cross country season.  Our cross country team took some of their younger runners down to Tulsa Saturday to get some experience and see who might be contending for top-7 spots in bigger meets this year.  Overall the young Shocks ran pretty well and this week the whole team will run when we host our only home cross country meet of the year.

The JK Gold Classic, named for former Shocker head coach John “JK” Kornelson, is held at the RAFT in Augusta, Kansas.  The RAFT stands for Retired Area for Teachers and is an old sand green golf course.  That’s right – sand greens.

Once upon a time sand green golf courses outnumbered what we consider regular golf courses today, especially in the Midwest when both summer grass strains and irrigation systems were rare.  From the tee to green, golf on sand green courses is the same as regular golf.  On chips and short pitches players can be more aggressive since the greens are flat and the ball stops immediately.  Putting on the green is obviously a unique experience.  Next to every green are a roller and a rake.  Players smooth a path from their ball to the hole, and well, you just have to see it to believe it.

So if you’re a cross country fan or want to check out a sand green golf course, come out to the RAFT this Saturday morning!

This past week we had our newcomers a week early for practice to get a head start on their upperclassmen teammates.  It was a solid week of learning and training, hopefully some of these youngsters can make an immediate impact on our team.  Usually you can’t depend on freshmen to be significant contributors right away but I think we have a few that can make a difference.  We also have some transfers from both 2-year and 4-year colleges that need to be ready this year!

We will get the rest of the squad going this week with our pre-season conditioning.

NASCAR

I usually don’t get too opinionated on here but I thought I would give my two cents on a couple of items in another form of racing – NASCAR.  I feel that I have some credibility considering I grew up in the racing world and was a passionate racer from the age of 6 until I went to college.  I raced all around the Midwest on both asphalt road courses and dirt ovals, often competing against kids who are now in NASCAR and IndyCar.

When I heard about Tony Stewart hitting a fellow driver and killing him during a dirt track race, I felt terrible.  Unfortunately, deaths from motor sports have been part of its long history and usually no one is to blame when something bad happens.  Obviously this was different.  For those few of you who don’t know, Stewart and Kevin Hall had a wreck where Hall’s car wound up in the outside wall and Stewart raced on.  Hall, visibly upset that he was wrecked on purpose, got out of his car and walked down into the racing line, eventually being hit and killed by Stewart’s car on the next lap.

After this happened there were many, many people felt that Tony Stewart purposely ran over Hall, or hit him when he was trying to give him a scare.  These people wanted Stewart to be put in prison for murder.  While Tony Stewart is probably the only person who knows exactly what happened, let me explain something about what probably occurred.

First of all, a large portion of the blame (if not all) is to be put on Hall for walking down into the racing line.  I can tell you from experience when you are driving around a track, seeing a person standing in the middle of the track would immediately throw you off guard because you don’t look down and across the track when you are driving.  You look directly in front of you or to the side.  There was a car in front of Stewart who also almost ran into Hall right before Stewart did.  Next, they were driving on dirt.  If you are driving on dirt and turn left to avoid a wreck (or in this case a person), your back end of the car will slide out – and the rear right wheel is what hit Kevin Hall.  I imagine Stewart saw Hall at the last second, turned left and the right wheel slid out and got him.

For those of you who think Stewart should go away for murder I feel you are wrong.  I believe in innocent until being proved guilty.  Was Stewart at fault?  I don’t know and neither do you.  What I do know is Hall played a major role in his own death.  What percentage was his fault?  I don’t know that either but I would guess it was at least 95% his fault, maybe 100%.  If you think Hall wasn’t at fault then you don’t understand racing.

I generally try to listen to everyone’s opinion with an open mind but some people make it tough for me on this one.  If I don’t understand something – for instance like how to run electrical wiring in a house – then I won’t give my opinion.  Let’s all take that advice!

NASCAR part 2

While we are talking about NASCAR I want to mention another person who is a lightning rod for controversy – Danica Patrick.  She just finished sixth this weekend in Atlanta which was her career best.  What I find interesting about Danica is that the people who hate on her the most are women.  I just don’t get it, I would think women would be celebrating Danica and how she is busting through barriers that no woman has ever done.

Her naysayers give the opinion that she is only there because she’s pretty and can bring in money.  Once again these are very uneducated people.  Danica has been a good racer for many years and even finished in the top-5 in the season long point standings on the IndyCar circuit.  Yes she is very pretty and that helps her bring in more sponsorships for her racing endeavors but that is the case for every male driver in NASCAR too.  They all do things to try to bring in more money, sometimes when their on track results don’t deserve it.

But here’s another way I look at it.  What other sport do women compete head to head with men?  There have never been professional women athletes in any of the major men’s sports.  Some would say driving a car isn’t like playing football or basketball – and you’re right – but it isn’t much different than playing golf.  There have been women who have tried to play events on the PGA Tour with pretty much zero success.  And how many times did the women of our country criticize them for it?  Not much at all – they were rooting for them!

Will Danica ever win a NASCAR championship?  Probably not.  But it wouldn’t surprise me if she eventually won a race or made the NASCAR playoffs.  Hey everyone – she can drive.  She’s really good and is only in her second full year in the sport.  There have been lots of pretty women to try and do what she’s doing in the past few years and no one can hold a candle to Danica.  Growing up I raced against Sarah Fisher who eventually raced Indy Cars and now is an owner.  Sarah never beat me in a race and made it to Indy Car largely because she was a decent driver and, yes, a woman.  After years of not being successful she moved into ownership and is doing much better.  Danica is so much better than Sarah, and yes she happens to be very pretty too.  Oh well.

As I was watching Danica race side by side with Carl Edwards to the finish for a top-5 I just thought – ladies, don’t be jealous, you’d be proud of your daughter if she was so talented AND pretty.

Movies

I can’t believe this but I had several people message me saying they enjoyed my take on movies so I decided on a different slant this year.  I own a couple hundred movies and people are always borrowing them so I thought each week I’d say what movies I own by letter and rank them from my favorite to least favorite.

Here are my eight “A” movies that I own from favorite to least favorite:

Movie Name (year made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Box office)

Anchorman (2004, 94 min, PG-13, 7.3, $90.5m) – If you don’t like this movie then we “agree to disagree” and you are what Ron Burgundy thinks San Diego is Spanish for.

Animal House (1978, 109 min, R, 7.6, $141.6m) – The all-time classic college comedy and you have to give it props for having Historic Hayward Field in a scene!

Audition (1999, 115 min, R, 7.3, $131k) – The last 30 minutes of this Japanese horror film totally freaked me out and I love making other people watch it and see their reaction at the end.

Airplane! (1980, 88 min, PG, 7.8, $83.4m) – This is a heckuva list when this movie is fourth!  Awesome goofball comedy that paved the way for all those Naked Gun classics.  Roger, Roger.

Attack the Gas Station! (1999, 113 min, R, $??) – Korean comedy/drama about some hooligans who try to rob a gas station and things go wrong.  I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in Kansas who has ever seen this movie.

Any Given Sunday (1999, 162 min, R, 6.8, $100.2m) – I actually like this movie a lot but this list is impressive!  A little over the top about professional football but very entertaining.  Al Pacino’s inches speech always gets me fired up!

The Aristocrats (2005, 89 min, R, 6.4, $6.8m) – Not to be mistaken with the cartoon “Aristrocrats” which is funny when you find out what this movie is about.  It’s an 89 minute long dirty joke.  I love the fact this movie got made.

Against the Ropes (2004, 110 min, PG-13, 5.2, $6.6m) – Boxing movie that was part of one of those two-CD deals with Necessary Roughness.  Watched it once, not impressed.

FYI – I don’t own too many movies that I don’t like.  I’ll have 12 “B” movies next week.

Have a great week everyone!  Go Shocks!