Found this video made by a kid who lived next door to me growing up. If any Salisbury Police are reading, next door is not literal.
March 3, 2007
How We Do in Da Bury
Carolina On My Mind...
A sign at today's game (See J-Red's post below about the Terps' total domination of all Carolina-related teams). Is this team peaking too early? Discuss.
Domination of Carolina
For the first time since the formation of the ACC, Maryland went undefeated against teams from the State of North Carolina. They went 6-0 against conference opponents from the Tarheel State, including wins over Duke twice, NC State, Wake Forest and UNC. In addition, they beat High Point in non-conference play.
Also, Maryland defeated both of its South Carolina opponents a total of three times, with two wins over Clemson and a non-conference win over tournament-bound Winthrop.
Go to Hell Carolina, go to Hell.
Gruesome Sports Injuries
So I heard from somebody who was actually a fan of Brien's very first post which had video of two extremely nasty college basketball injuries. When I heard this, it reminded me of the scene from The Simpsons where Homer is at the video store and is torn between two videos... one a truly all-time famous movie (I forget which one), and the other, which he ultimately chooses, called "Greatest Sports Injuries" which we later see him watching while gulping down chips and beer and hearing in the background Joe Theismann get his leg snapped. Well, for this person, and for any others who enjoy seeing the darker side of sports, I'm linking to a post on someone else's blog, which has links to the YouTube videos of what this guy considers to be the 10 most gruesome sports injuries ever. Enjoy.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/scorecard/jimmys_blog/2007/02/most-gruesomebizarre-injuries.html
I have to add one more that I remember that I can't believe isn't on the list. This one is truly disgusting... Napoleon McCallum's knee is literally bent 180 degrees the wrong way during a Raiders-49ers game:
ACC Tourney Seeding (Corrected Mar. 3)
Here are the roads to an ACC bye for MD:
MD beats NC State
UNC loses to Dook
BC beats GT (4th seed), or BC loses to GT (3rd seed)
VT hosting Clemson is actually irrelevant because they beat BC, MD and UNC in the tiebreaker. VT has clinched a top-4 seeding for the ACC Tourney. They can be 2nd, 3rd, or 4th, but no lower.
Maryland can be no lower than 5th and no higher than 3rd.
(ACC tiebreakers here)
Reasoning:
--MD win + UNC loss puts both at 10-6. MD beat UNC.
--MD win + UNC loss + BC loss puts all three teams at 10-6. Rule 3(a) says three-way tiebreaker involves round-robin record and all three teams are 1-1 against the other two. Rule 3(b) says next tiebreaker is overall (conference + non-con) winning pct., and MD and UNC are tied, with BC behind both. Rule 3(d) says since now only MD and UNC are tied revert to Rule 1, Rule 1(a) says head-to-head breaks the tie, and Maryland is 3rd seed. Then compare UNC and BC and UNC is 4th, BC 5th.
--VT is irrelevant because they win a four-team tiebreaker over UNC, MD and BC if all four teams are 10-6.
March 2, 2007
Pickler "Improvements"
I'm sure we all remember Kelly Pickler from last season's American Idol. She was cute, dumb, and blonde. We've all done stupid things for that before. Here is Kelly Pickler:
Not bad. Pre-Idol HS Prom pic.
"After"
Last night she performed it what appeared to me to be a push-up bra. All the talk now is that she's had a boob job. Let me say, objectively, that she already had nice boobs. That didn't prevent this exchange:
--Seacrest: What have you spent your money on?
--Pickler: Shoes, just shoes
--Seacrest: Anything else? [leers at Pickler boobs, in the way an overcompensating gay man would]
I happen to consider myself an expert on humongous boobs. I think those were her original, real-deal faceslappers.
Counterpoint - You're a Filthy Traitor
The subject line says it all. Here's why:
1) AS WASHINGTONIAN AS MANASSAS - Jeremy grew up in Calverton (He likes to call it Colesville. Typical Montgomery County mentality.). According to Google Maps, his hometown is 33 minutes from Camden Yards and 30 minutes from where the Nats' new stadium will be. Given traffic, Baltimore is the closer team. On Metro, Navy Yard is 45 minutes from Greenbelt, and longer on the Red Line.
Montgomery County kids like to pretend they're Washingtonians, but really what they mean is that they associate with the wealthy non-Black portion of Northwest D.C. Of course, nearly no one who lives in NW D.C. is from D.C., but they've got the money and class that Baltimore supposedly lacks, so that gets overlooked. We'll see how many people are actually willing to stomach real D.C. on the Green Line and Yellow Line after 11p.
2) MoCo HAS HORRIBLE SPORTS FANS - So I guess we shouldn't be too surprised at the exodus of supposed Orioles fans to watch the low-budget Nats play. It's easy to romanticize the new thing when they make it easy for you. However, this is Northern Virginia's team. They made that clear when MLB did everything short of setting up a puppet ownership group to get the stadium built in NoVa. Granted, they didn't want to deal with the D.C. government, but no one ever does. Even MLB assumed that Montgomery County, PG County, and AA County would remain Orioles' hotbeds. Only the southernmost counties were considered possible Nats fans. That's why the stadium was built along 295 and 395, so NoVas and Southern Marylanders could have easy access. That's why it's as far away as possible from Montgomery County without being in Virginia. This is not Montgomery County's team, but they underestimated MoCo's flavor of the month mentality and fickleness.
3) D.C. HATES BASEBALL - It's true. People born and raised in D.C. have no interest in baseball. They've said it many times. The councilpeople have said it many times. They don't even expect to have a full house, with the possible exception of the first year in the new park. Oh, they'll make money. They'll sell those luxury boxes out year after year to the D.C. law firms and power players. No one will actually be there though. Just look at the horrendous attendance at RFK last season. In D.C., it's not about watching baseball. It's about schmoozing and status. Once the luster wears off the team will be in financial trouble and D.C. will lose it's third baseball franchise.
4) JEREMY UNDERSTATES HIS ORIOLE FANDOM - His AOL Screen Name is based on Cal Ripken, Jr., Jeremy's childhood hero and favorite baseball player of all time.
5) ANGELOS OWNS THE NATS TOO - Technically, the Lerners are the Nats' majority owners, but thanks to Angelos' sweetheart deal with MLB, he has a huge financial stake in the Nats via his ownership of MASN. Basically, if the Nats do well the O's make money. If the Nats do poorly, the O's make money. Why on Earth would you abandon your childhood team as a protest of the ownership, only to latch onto a team that has a big Angelos leech stuck right on its ass?
6) IT'S NOT THE AL EAST - You can't be a Duke fan and a UNC fan, you can't root for the Cowboys and the Redskins, and you can't abandon a team you grew up with just because times are rough. I understand the Orioles are in a tough division, despite Toronto winning back-to-back World Series in the early 90's and the Orioles themselves going to two straight ALCS in the mid-90's. It's not impossible though. The Orioles drought is no worse than some other former powerhouse teams, like Oakland and Minnesota. Sure, those teams made the playoffs more often recently, but what satisfaction is there in making the playoffs at or barely above .500 just to lose? The oft-cited Nats playoff fever of a couple years ago ended with the Nats in last place, but not far out of a playoff spot. That's not exciting, that's celebrating mediocrity.
7) PARTING SHOT - Now obviously I haven't spent the past 2 years concocting an elaborate and well-planned cover story like Jeremy has, so forgive the weak organization of my response. I guess I just can't imagine betraying a team that was loved as much as Jeremy loved the Orioles. I'm proud to say I don't know, nor know of, a single Redskins fan who truly became a Ravens fan when the Ravens arrived. They know they weren't welcome. I guess the Nats will take whatever they can get for the 5 to 10 years they can get them. At least D.C. United will have a nice stadium when the Nats move to Norfolk.
Why are you a Nats fan?????
I was asked this the other day by somebody very pointedly, given that: (1) the Nats have the worst odds of all 30 MLB teams to win the World Series; (2) have exactly one proven starting pitcher on their roster, and; (3) that I grew up an O's fan (J-Red and I had a partial plan to the O's during college). Given that today is the Nat's first Spring Training game, and I have a share of a Nat's full season ticket package this year, I'll briefly give the reasons.
1) I'M A WASHINGTONIAN
I grew up in Montgomery County. I consider myself both a proud Marylander, but also a Washingtonian. You can be both. When you grow up 6 miles from the D.C. line, it's pretty easy. My teams growing up were the Redskins, the Capitals, and the Wizards. By default, the Orioles were my baseball team because they were the only game in the state. When I moved to Baltimore for law school, it was like moving to a foreign city. That's not where I spent my time growing up. There is still something special to me about hopping on my city's overpriced subway system, taking the escalator upstairs, and being at a major league ballpark. If the Nats had been around when I was growing up, I think it's pretty safe to say that the O's would be my secondary team, as they are now. Look, I lived two blocks from Camden Yards my first two years of law school and lived six blocks from the stadium last year. I would routinely go to 15-20 games per year during that time. But my heart just isn't with the team anymore. Primarily because of reasons 2 and 3.
2) HOPE
I think every year the O's do just enough to make their fans have a glimmer of hope to make their fans think they will be a better team. But this hope is dashed by the realization that the O's just can't compete with the Yankees and Red Sox. I mean, seriously, the greatest thing to ever happen to the Orioles was the Devil Rays joining the division. Guaranteed 11 extra wins every year, and without the Devil Rays, the O's would essentially be Kansas City. And sometimes it's not even due to the competition within the division. Remember 2005 when the O's were in first place and flying along and then the shit hit the fan with Palmeiro, Ponson, and everything else? It's like the team is permanently snakebitten.
The Nats on the other hand have no place to go but up. It's building from the ground up. It will make any game that I go to this year where the Nats win extra special. We've got a gorgeous new stadium opening up in 2008 which will generate the necessary revenue to spend money on free agents, a new ownership group coming in (see below), and we play in a division where we can actually be competitive without having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. Really, the NL East... anything can happen. Just look at 2005 when the Nats were in the Wild Card hunt until the second week of September.
3) OWNERSHIP
Peter Angelos... Peter, Peter Angelos. There is so much that I dislike about this guy, but I think it speaks volumes that a thousand die hard Orioles fans went to a game last year, wore black armbands, and walked out en masse in protest of the current ownership. Angelos at this point has zero financial incentive to field a winning team. He has been guaranteed a purchase price by major league baseball for his team if and when he decides to sell. Why then would he go out and actually try to keep pace with the Yanks and Red Sox and sink a lot of money into a free agent? His return on the team is guaranteed. Any money that he spends is money lost. He ran off Jon Miller, the greatest announcer in baseball, because Miller had the audacity to make legitimate criticisms about the team. He shitcanned Davey Johnson, who was a fantastic manager, because Johnson wouldn't toe Angelos' line. All in all, he singlehandedly self-destructed a team that was fun to watch and competitive in the mid to late 90s. This team hasn't finished above .500 in what... 9 years now? It's just sad. One of the top three stadiums in the majors that sits largely vacant for most games unless the Yankees or Red Sox are in town, and then the stadium is full. Of 90% Yankees and Red Sox fans.
On the other hand, Nats ownership is excited to have the opportunity to own a team. They experienced such a competitive process to have this opportunity. RFK is decrepit, but they have made good faith efforts to make it a more enjoyable place to watch the game. They've been honest with the fan base that this is a year of rebuilding and .500 baseball is about the best we can hope for, but that this is a short-term sacrifice for long-term gains. They haven't made all great or popular decisions (not trading Soriano, shitcanning Frank Robinson). But their intentions are truly good. Unlike the man 25 miles to the north.
*************************
Anxiously awaiting J-Red's response to this post about why I'm a moron.
And to my fellow law clerks and others who dutifully have read this blog the past few days and who have asked, and to whom I have promised, some non-sports related posts. They are coming.
March 1, 2007
Klosterman on Arenas
Chuck Klosterman has an article in the NY Times "Play" magazine on Gilbert Arenas. If you like Klosterman, this is a must read. If you don't know who Klosterman is, you need to read this and find out. If you don't like Klosterman, we can't be friends.
I don't really follow the Wiz all that closely, so I know who Arenas is, but I wasn't aware of all his "quirks." There are two great quotes in the article. The first one made me an Arenas fan for life:
Arenas claims he would sacrifice an entire N.B.A. season to play one game against Duke, solely to punish its head coach, Mike Krzyzewski, who, as the head coach for the United States team competing in the world championship last year, cut Arenas from the squad.
The second one almost made me laugh out loud in the middle of class:
The number of clandestine hyperbaric chambers in the N.H.L. remains unclear.
Read the article, it'll make sense then.
Duke Game Roundup
Some posts from other blogs about last night's game:
MSH over at No One Appreciates Me has some great thoughts on the game. I love the SVP quote "Duke has famously said Maryland is not their rivals. So Maryland will just have to settle for being Duke's nemesis." I'm not going to go as far as J-Red's man crush on Scotty, but that's a great quote. MSH rightly attributes the recent Maryland turnaround to his excellent montage. Now I'm going to have that song in my head during class. "What a feelin..."
Also, any time someone comes up with a reason to use this picture, I just have to stand and applaud.
Paul Mirengoff at Powerline gives his take on the game. I can't tell you how great it is to be reading a political blog and see a random Maryland basketball post every so often. I like the breakdown of the offensive stats. I hadn't realized that we shot that well from the field, and especially behind the three point line. If we shoot 50% from 3 and put up more than 20 points in the paint, we're going to be really tough to beat.
You're Not Our Rival
The most painful thing any Dookie could say during the 1995-2001 acsencion of Maryland as a legitimate national contender was "you're not OUR rival." The implication was that Duke was on top, and had been for 20 years, and we were just another upstart. Perhaps another Wake Forest with Tim Duncan or Georgia Tech with Harpring, or at worst a decade-long blip like N.C. State. It hurt because it was true. To Maryland fans, beating Duke was the highest possible achievement, short of winning the NCAAs. To many of us, beating Duke at least once in the season was a prerequisite to doing anything significant in the NCAAs. But, we were not their rival. UNC was and still is.
It's still true. We're still not Duke's rival. We're not really anyone's rival. We have a mutual dislike of Virginia, but only because Virginia is Maryland's Mexico. And it was proven again last night. Duke, for at least the 4th time in the past 6 years, has failed to protect its own home court when we come into town. We brought a freshman, with a goofy name, from Venezuela, to Cameron, and he was so intimidated he came one board short of the triple-double. He probably would have gotten it if we hadn't had so many un- or under-contested layups.
The Dook mystique is gone, or at least it has been exposed for what it is. Florida State, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Georgia Tech, and especially Maryland don't get scared by the royal blue uniforms and the synchronized nerd jumping. Face paint no longer causes the ball to get thrown out of bounds or a player to dribble off their knees. The whole circus swallowed the actual playing of basketball at Cameron, and the rest of the ACC is the richer for it. I look forward to more instances of DukeSweep in coming years.
And for the record, some Dookies now proclaim irrational hatred of Maryland, but still refuse to accept a rivalry.
Random Musings on Last Night's Game
Wow... I would be totally basking in the afterglow of last night's game except I'm completely sleep-deprived from a game that didn't end until 11:15. Thank you Steven Calder for calling my cell phone at 12:30 a.m. to try to go over the high points of the game. Remember, YOU'RE IN CALIFORNIA ON BUSINESS AND IT WAS THREE HOURS LATER HERE. But a few random thoughts before I go through my typical review of the DC and Baltimore papers (and of course the Raleigh newspaper to see the loser's perspective), and become full of the sportswriter's opinions...
1) Let me begin by noting that it's now March. The greatest sports month of the year for the college basketball fan. Specifically, this year, Thursday and Friday, March 15 and 16, when there are 16 games on each day, all day, from noon until midnight. When I was in college and law school, I had a little bit more freedom to watch these games (i.e. skip class, or during 2L, while I was clerking at a law firm in Baltimore, going with the two partners to watch the games at a local bar all afternoon). Now that I have a real job, I will have to rely on the greatest invention ever, the thing on CBS Sportsline that allows you to watch every game in real time on your computer.
2) So if you're a Duke senior, at this point probably the worst thing in the world to see when the schedule comes out is Maryland set to play at Cameron on your Senior Night. The way I look at it, the men got revenge for the Duke women spoiling my favorite Israeli basketball player, Shay Doron's, senior night. Shay narrowly beats out John Gilchrist for this honor.
3) Can I officially petition ESPN to never, ever make me listen to Mike Patrick and Dick Vitale call another Duke-Maryland game. Or another basketball game period? Here's the thing... when I used to work out at the gym at UM Law, there was a mentally challenged janitor who went about 300 pounds, wore coke bottle glasses, and would go about 2 mph on the treadmill and watch Sportscenter. Then he would try to pick up women all over the gym by just randomly repeating the top sports stories of the day. Such as, "Hey, did you hear about the Yankees winning last night?" He would also occasionally do this for entertainment stories. It came off as a non sequitur that caught the girls completely off-guard. I had total deja vu last night listening to Mike Patrick and Dick Vitale. Who the FUCK talks about Britney Spears shaving her head when there is under a minute to go in the first half of a ridiculously hotly contested basketball game? It adds credence to my theory that Mike Patrick is actually mentally challenged (see below). I was almost happy when the ESPN feed went dead so I could listen to Johnny and Chris on the radio. It made me remember how a game should be called.
3a) Wow... Dick Vitale... what can you say about this guy? It's really a shame too, because he really does know a lot about basketball. But he is so caught up in his schtick that he is absolutely intolerable to anybody who cares about what is going on with the actual game. He spends two hours name dropping, screaming, and basically not doing anything related to color commentary.
3b) So that leaves Mike Patrick to save the day as the play-by-play guy. Right? WRONG. There were so many wrong statements made by Mike Patrick last night about what was going on the floor. Saying that fouls were getting called against wrong people. How difficult is this Mike? The referee signals the number of the player getting called. The P.A. announcer in the arena announces it. Not to mention the fact that numerous occasions you were saying that a foul was called when play was stopped by the refs when really it was just that the ball had gone out of bounds. Horrible. DREADFUL.
3c) Don't even get me started about how these two asshats are actively recruiting for Duke while they are broadcasting. I mean, there is little to no attempt to be impartial. You're going to show 18 artist's renderings of "The Mike Krzyzewski Center for Academic Excellence" instead of showing Duke shoot important free throws down the stretch, and talk about how great it is that Duke University is spending $30 million on this state-of-the-art facility? And I caught myself wondering why they didn't just name the place "The Mike Krzyzewski Center For Duke Athletes Who Can't Read Good [Sean Dockery] And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too."
4) Prediction: By his senior year, Greivis Vasquez will be more hated by the Cameron Crazies than J.J. Redick ever was by the students at Comcast. Here's the difference between the two... ESPN will never run a softball feature on Greivis Vasquez talking about how he writes poetry and how it hurts him when he is mocked by opposing fans. You know why? Cause Greivis actually has the heart and spirit of a warrior. Walking into Cameron as a freshman and being one board shy of being the second Terp ever to pull a triple-double. Are you kidding me???
5) Nice job people who voted in the coach's poll. Maryland unranked. Duke 14th in the country. Same record. Duke with more home losses which reflect worse on a team. You know what? Keep not voting for us. I love it.
6) Gary Williams is the man, as he simply calls it like he sees it... in yesterday's Baltimore Sun, prior to the game, referring to the Cameron Crazies... "They have about half the number of students at the game. We have 4,000; they have 2,000. They get there early, they hand out sheets to practice their cheers. If you think all that stuff is spur-of-the-moment that you see on television, I've got an exclusive for you. It's well-done. It's well-documented. If I see another story on Krzyzewskiville, I might get a little sick."
7) So much more to say except I have to actually start working now and so I guess I don't have anything more to say about the game itself except what Brien said below. Bring on March Madness.
Go Terps!!!
Turnaround
When Maryland was 3-6 in the ACC (it seems like forever ago, even though it has just been a few weeks), I looked at the upcoming schedule and started counting losses. I figured that we had to go at least 7-9 in ACC play to make the tournament, and realistically we needed to be 8-8. With two games against Duke, one against UNC, and a trip to Littlejohn ahead, I figured this year would be another trip to the NIT.
Obviously the entire season has turned around since then, and I've been loving every minute of it. But what changed from that second UVA game to today? It's the same players, same coaches, totally different outcome. I've been trying to put my finger on the difference between the first half and the second half of the ACC season, and I think last night I figured it out.
The difference became clear when Duke came back to tie the game last night (with about 5 minutes left). They team didn't collapse, they responded with a run that put the game away. Something similar happened in the UNC game. The team faced adversity and, just when things looked worst, played their best basketball.
What was so shocking to me is that, in both of those games, I never doubted that we could win. I haven't had confidence in any sports team like that since the NCAA Champion Maryland team.
My biggest complaint about the team the past two years was that they lacked heart. There just didn't seem to be a real will to win, and when things started going bad for the team, they would check out. Even when things were going well, they would often mail in a huge chunk of the game. I can't count how many times over the past three years the team went more than 5 minutes without scoring. This year's team is different, and it makes me excited for March.
February 28, 2007
Cameron is our house
"Maryland is the team to beat in the ACC" --Sportscenter after the game
What could be sweeter than 3-0 against Duke and UNC after being written off at 3-6 in the ACC? I'm thinking 4 seed in the big dance.
On the Eve of Maryland-Duke
This was the loudest I heard Cole Field House in my four years there and I have to imagine it was just about the loudest the good 'ol arena ever got. Steve Blake absolutely makes Jason Williams (a.k.a. Mad Max) his bitch. It still brings a smile to my face to watch the reaction of the Duke coaching staff as they trudge into the Maryland locker room after this happens. And for those who want to know what it was like in the student section at Cole Field House for games like this, look when they pan the crowd and you can literally see this sea of red just going INSANE. I think that if anybody ever wants to know why I'm a rabid Terps fan, I can just show them this crowd shot and say that's what it was like every year for six football games, and every year for fifteen basketball games (well really only a handful were THIS crazy). But this is why I truly think that anybody who goes to a non-DI school misses out on the experience of collegiate sports. Unless you're really into Chaucer. Then by all means go to your small liberal arts school.
I look at this and think Comcast Center might be pretty, and I'm sure it attracts recruits, but it will never, ever, ever, touch Cole. More to come on this subject I'm sure in future posts.
Dormroom Basketball
I have no intentions of making this a YouTube favorites blog, but this was just too good to pass up.
I feel like I wasted my entire college career. With a little bit of dedication, I could have been famous! Why oh why did I waste my time on studies, drinking, and watching tons of sports on TV? This, this is a legacy.
I'll say it right now, if my son finishes his first semester of college with terrible grades, I'm going to be pissed. I'll ask him why he didn't spend more time studying and going to class. And you know what? If he shows me something like this, I'll understand completely.
Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste...
Alright, so before I start posting on here (or responding to insults against my first LSAT experience which I would dub libelous, but they are unfortunately true), I should let you all know who I am. I'm Jeremy. I'm a lawyer. Make your jokes. I'm a rabid Terps fan. I take pride in the label of the Maryland fanbase being "classless." I'm a proud 2002 graduate of THE University of Maryland at College Park. Yes, my senior year Terp sports achieved nirvana with the football team winning the ACC Championship and the basketball team winning it all (and I was in the Georgia Dome that evening). I will never pay a dime to send any child of mine to Duke University or the University of Virginia not because they're bad schools, but because I would prefer to send my as-of-yet nonexistent children to any of the many equivalent or better schools because the two above-named institutions churn out obnoxious, self-indulgent, pompous, and sanctimonious graduates. Please spare me your "I know so-and-so who went there and they're not like that," because although I rarely engage in blind stereotyping, I choose to do so in this limited context in the full understanding that there might be a few exceptions to this rule out there.. Of course, this is all moot because my children will be attending The University of Maryland, whether they like it or not. And yes, as you probably can see, I have a bad habit of using legal terms and big words, even when I'm talking sports.
Jayson Blair was my T.A. for JOUR100, so anybody reading this should draw any inference that they choose about the factual accuracy of my posts or whether or not the incidences described therein actually took place at all. I can tell you though that I witnessed J-Red get into a verbal altercation with Mr. Sweatpants himself, Coach Al Groh (J-Red really got the better end of that one, and I would call it like I saw it if J-Red embarrassed himself). I taught Brien during his freshman year at College Park, but I disclaim responsibility for all deviancy that may appear in his posts. I attended the 2001 ACC Tourney with both of them in Hotlanta, where we enjoyed smack-talking to the rest of our ACC foes and then joining in with all of these one-time foes in turning on Duke fans who got on the MARTA train. I had the same seat in the front row of Section O at Cole Field House for all home Maryland basketball games my sophomore, junior, and senior years of college, right next to J-Red and Brien, and was known for my Ficker-esque heckling abilities in which I was able to get three opposing coaches to make obscene gestures at me and even earned the wrath of one of the fellow big-dollar contributing Terp fans. I have, however, mellowed out in my elder years (the mid-20s are a bitch), and am no longer a hazard to myself or to others at Maryland sporting events. Not to mention I'm getting married in September, so I will officially be totally whipped.
I am in the Terrapin Club and if you read this and want to join, you need to contact ME so that I can get the referral points. Yeah, I'm a lawyer, but believe me, I have chosen to not make the Monopoly Money by working for one of the DC or Baltimore factories for the personal reason that I would actually like to enjoy my legal career and do substantive legal work without spending 4-5 years doing document review 80 hours a week.
My posts will largely involve the teams that I am a fan of (Terps, Redskins, Nats, and to a lesser extent the Wizards and Capitals). J-Red and Brien hate at least two of those teams, so this should make for an interesting dialogue.
So in the timeless words of Marvin Gaye... "Let's get it on...."
Evil Sister
On the eve of DukeSweep 2007, I'm faced with a horrible personal dilemma seldom faced by loyal Maryland alumni. My girlfriend's sister, a high-school junior outside of Detroit, has decided her top college choice is Dook. The situation is becoming untenable, what with the girlfriend herself being a USC alumna and the recent erosion of my once-solid Maryland sports superiority over her family (Tigers, Trojans and Pistons?!?! Can't we jump back to 1995?).
I have to tread lightly. I've delivered the usual anti-Duke propaganda, but like in raising an unfortunately svelte teenage daughter, I don't want this sister to rebel against me and end up like Erika Christensen in Traffic. My experience at Tulane has taught me that whoring oneself out for crack is common among both rebellious teenagers and kids who leave blue collar towns to go to carpetbagger schools.
I even contacted UNC and Wake Forest and had them send her recruiting materials in case she is just enamored with Tobacco Road. As silly as that sounds, compared to Detroit even Tuscaloosa looks good; Alabama is her second choice. What's next? Gainesville and Tallahassee as safety schools?
Luckily, her first shot at the ACT might make Towson a reach, but given her high school resume I think she may have just posted a choke-job rivaling Marty Schottenheimer, Kansas basketball, and Jeremy Rachlin's first LSAT administration. I'm not out of the woods, but another Dook Senior Night beatdown at the hands of the Terps might be just what she needs to see the light, even if it's the dim light of U of Florida.
Gruesome Injuries
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