It was a
successful weekend for the Shocker Cross Country squad as we hosted our annual
early season meet, the JK Gold Classic.
We had 16
colleges and 11 high schools attend our meet this year and the Shockers came
away with the double victory, taking down Division I opponents Kansas St and
Oral Roberts. The DI portion of the meet
was scored as duals and our men came away with perfect “15’s” in both
meets. The women’s meet was much closer as
we edged Kansas St 28-29. The difference
was getting our sixth and seventh runners in ahead of KSU’s fifth.
Hosting a
cross country meet isn’t nearly as difficult as putting on a big track meet but
there is still a lot to do. We have our entire 130 person team out on the
course working at 7am. It’s a good way
to do some team building and even though most college kids aren’t that excited
to get up early on a Saturday morning and drive 30 minutes out into the
country, once they get there they generally have a good time. It also helped that it was a beautiful
morning in the mid 60’s and 70’s – perfect for cross country!
This was
our first week of getting our entire group together for track practice as well. It’s always interesting to see how the first
few workouts go. We get to see who put
in work this summer and who did not. I’d
say overall our kids look pretty solid.
Our men probably look a little better than our women but that is to be
expected since they are more experienced.
It’s too early to tell how good we’ll be but looking at our groups work
out last week reminded me of how talented we are. Now the grind of the fall has begun and we
will try to mold them into a team – getting in shape and teaching them how to
work together in search of our goals.
The fall
training seems like an endless stage of training because the meets are so far
away so you have to try to mix things up to not get bored. I like to get away from the track as much as
possible so we will go off campus for workouts from time to time. Most of our work on the actual track will be
warmups and sprinting.
Our track
schedule should be posted on our website this week. Next week I’ll talk a little bit about how we
put our schedule together and where we’re going this year!
I don’t like ESPN anymore
I’m old
enough to remember when ESPN got started and for a sports geek like me it was
heaven. Unfortunately I have changed my
opinion of the “World Wide Leader in Sports” lately.
Like most
sports fans I used to watch SportsCenter religiously and it was always a great
place to get scores and see the great highlights from around the world of
sports. A few years ago SportsCenter
started turning more and more into human interest stories and accordingly I
started losing interest. This is not why
I have now turned away from ESPN, however.
In mid-May,
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made some comments after all the racist stuff
about the Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling came out. Cuban, not defending Sterling but being
honest about himself, basically said all of us have discriminatory tendencies
and if it was late at night and he saw a black kid with a hoodie walking down
the street he would go to the other side. Then if he saw a white kid who is
bald and with tattoos on his head on that side he would walk back to the
original side of the street.
It was an
honest, straightforward, non-racist answer to a question. But like so many other things in the sports
world today, ESPN turned it into a “Mark Cuban is racist” story and only
focused on the images of Trayvon Martin in a hoodie aspect.
Now I’m
not really all that interested in sitting here and talking about racism, but my
point is that instead of reporting about sports ESPN decided to take an
opinionated stance on this issue and make it out to be more than it was. And ESPN has consistently done this more and
more over the years to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore.
Last year
I mentioned how ESPN.com is probably my favorite website and that the
information on there is as good as it gets.
Well after this deal I decided only to watch live sporting events on
ESPN and only to look at their website for statistical information regarding
those events. Since May, my brain has
not been inundated with ESPN’s slant on anything and I have to say I haven’t
been more at peace!
I heard
people talking about Johnny Manziel and Michael Sam. I didn’t pay it any attention because neither
of those guys are significant in actually playing in the NFL. They’re just stories. As I get older I guess I feel like I’ve heard
enough of the “stories” and mostly just want to see or hear about the sport –
now that I think about it that’s why I fell in love with sports in the first
place – the actual competition and the story that evolves from that
competition. There is a place for
stories to be told on ESPN and the 30 for 30 series is great – they should
leave it to people who know how to tell stories properly.
So if you
are a big sports fan and want to continue to love sports for what they are –
avoid anything on ESPN that isn’t a live sporting event and you’ll be just
fine. There are plenty of other channels
and shows on television for made up drama.
“B” Movies
Last week
I gave my best “A” movies that I own, here is my list of 12 “B” movies from
best to worst …..
Movie Name (year made, length,
MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Box office)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984, 105 min, R, 7.3, $316.3m)
– Eddie Murphy at his peak. Everything
he did around this time was the funniest thing on the planet.
Buck (2011, 88 min, PG, 7.6, $4m) –
Documentary about Buck Brannaman, who was the original “horse whisperer”. Wonderful and inspiring story that will make
you feel good about humanity. I was
lucky to have stumbled upon it, if you can find it you should watch it ASAP.
Black Swan (2010, 108 min, R, 8.0, $329.3m)
– On top of being just a flat out great movie, who wouldn’t like that Natalie Portman
and Mila Kunis make out scene?
Beverly Hills Cop II (1987, 100 min, R, 6.4, $299.9m)
– A really great sequel. 1980’s Eddie
Murphy could do no wrong. He even made
Judge Reinhold look funny in this one.
Bowfinger (1999, 97 min, PG-13, 6.4,
$98.6m) – I’m realizing Eddie Murphy made a lot of “B” movies. This one with Steve Martin is really, really
funny in my opinion. One of Murphy’s best
performances is him playing “Kit”.
Burn After Reading (2008, 96 min, R, 7.0, $$163.7m)
– Another quirky, funny, off-beat, and entertaining movie by the Coen Brothers. Brad Pitt as the over excitable gym trainer is
my favorite character in the movie.
Ben-Hur (1959, 212 min, PG, 8.2, $74m) –
Charleton Heston as a Jewish prince who becomes a slave and has the most
intense chariot race ever! It’s long as
heck but the chariot race towards the end is all worth it.
Bruce Almighty (2003, 101 min, PG-13, 6.7,
$484.5m) – Jim Carey and Steve Carrell were hilarious in this funny flick. Lot
of other people must have thought so too as it made almost half a billion
dollars worldwide!
Boiler Room (2000, 120 min, R, 7.0, $28.7m) –
Basically a lower budget version of the Wolf of Wall Street with Vin Deisel and
Ben Affleck. Great little movie that if
it was made today would’ve made a lot more money.
Black Sheep (1996, 87 min, PG-13, 6.2,
$32.4m) – Underrated follow-up to Tommy Boy by Chris Farley and David
Spade. Who would ever forget the
RO-AAAAAAAADS scene? “Sir you were
driving 7 miles per hour.”
Beverly Hills Cop III (1994, 104 min, R, 5.4, $119.2m)
– Luckily Eddie Murphy has announced Beverly Hills Cop IV will come out in 2016
so we can all forget #3 ever happened. I
only own this because it came in the 3-pack with #1 and #2.
Lots of
great movies here! I would say all of
them except the last one are worth a viewing!
See you
next week! Go Shocks!
Enjoyed the read.
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