the only national championship preview that matters
(to me)


this is the day.

44 days following the beat-down of their outclassed, out-talented, and out-coached bitter rivals, the university of alabama plays for its second national title in three years.

i am ready.

i could bore you with a data/stats/analytics driven breakdown of what happened on november 5th versus what i think will happen tonight, but every name-that-sports-website has paid someone(s) to do that already. what's funny about that is you won't find a much bigger fan of data/stats/analytics than me. but, in this case, in how i feel things are going to shake down and shake out tonight, i don't really think it matters.

why?

it's all psychological. nick saban, in a recent interview, called out espn's tom rinaldi on the shaky notion that it's more difficult to beat a team twice in one season. in college football, there isn't enough quantifiable data to show any sort of realistic trends that would support the idea. think about it for a second. how many college football rematches in years past can you think of right now? one? two? three at the most? how did those turn out? do you think it matters how those rematches played out versus who is going to win the game tonight in even the teensiest, weensiest little bit? i don't.

the idea that it's more difficult to defeat another football team twice in one season is ridiculous, because the idea, in and of itself, is a media driven narrative. now, i will honor the thought that college athletes watch television. i will also honor and respect the thought that college-aged anyones can and are swayed by what they see on television, what people say about them, and what they hear they can and can't do. but, do i believe that even if the college athlete at lsu totally buys into the narrative and is totally anxious at his team's chances of beating alabama means any one thing once the game kicks off? i do not.

in football, there are three factors that i believe play the most realizable determinants in a football game. talent. coaching. execution.

who has the most talent? 

it's all in the eye of the beholder. if you are judging talent based on how many football players playing in tonight's game will play at the next level next year, espn's todd mcshay gives alabama the slight edge at 12-10. i think that's a fair assessment, and considering how the close the prediction is, i am willing to cede talent level in tonight's game as a push.

who has the better coaching?

again, which statistic would you like to rip to prove your case? nick saban has 2 national titles to les miles' one. les miles has beaten nick saban coached teams 3 times to two losses. neither group of coaches could defeat the other in regulation as recently as two months ago. although alabama fans would never admit it out loud, i am willing to say to you, today, that les miles has method to his mad hatted-ness and knows what he is doing, coaching-wise. if he does not, he has surrounded himself with a staff and coordinators that do. i am calling this a push, too.

who will execute more efficiently?

the question that will solve the riddle of this game. each team has a plan, their plan. each team, i suppose, firmly believes that if they execute their plan more effectively than their opponent, they will emerge the victor. those beliefs can be founded and supported by the respective successes of each team over the course of the 2011-12 college football season. they cannot, however, be supported by the outcome on november 5th, which, in my humble opinion, is where things get interesting.

i said as much in this post written on dec. 6.  to my eyes, alabama won the run of play on november 5th. what do i mean by run of play? it's something that i've talked about a lot, but something that i think still gets lost in translation because the majority in this country irrationally hates and does not watch soccer. their reasons being that the game is "boring".  ignorance is as ignorance does. winning you over on soccer can be another post for another day. while run of play is a fairly subjective term, the feeling of which team in any given contest is better is the most personal and objective of feelings. if i am the judge and the jury, which team does my gut tell me is the better team whilst watching any athletic competition? most often, the teams that win the run of play win also on the scoreboard. their style, technique, efficiency and execution supports their bid for goals/points/run in a more honest way than their opponent. the end result, the majority of the time, will fall in line with your gut telling you, "yep. they were the better team."

but not all the time.

november 5th in tuscaloosa was one of those rare exceptions to the rule. alabama ran the ball more effectively. alabama passed the ball more effectively. alabama defended the run more effectively. alabama defended the pass more effectively. for 53-57 minutes of the game, lsu, this team that is on the precipice of being crowned as one of the top five teams in the history of college football, was beaten. soundly. and i think they knew it. the most damning piece of evidence being the frustration of their heisman trophy finalist that led to the clothesline of dre kirkpatrick. teams winning the run of play do not react in frustration. teams that can feel they are not the better team do.

what i believe we will see play out tonight is more of the same. i believe alabama will have the best player on the football field in trent richardson. i believe alabama's defense, given 44 days to prepare for an offense they completely stifled two months ago, will contain lsu more effectively than lsu will contain trent richardson. i believe the want for revenge is a stronger motivator than is the want for recognition. and i believe that alabama's achilles heel in the first match-up, their quarterback, will be less terrible tonight than he was on november 5th. and make no mistake, aj was far less than average.

what i hope to see is alabama win by two touchdowns and turning the story the media is writing of this greatest team ever into a punchline. whether or not will happen remains to be seen.

if alabama wins, i do not care if it plays out the way i have seen it here.

if alabama loses, i will come back in a few days and try and analyze how wrong i was.

either way, i will entertain myself.

roll tide.

confessions of an alabama football "fan"


let's get this out of the way first.

before you think it or feel compelled to throw the term at me as a pejorative, i am beating you to the punch. as i have mentioned here and in other posts here on HACAJAM, i am fairweather fan. in every sense of the word, i am fairweather. even with the teams that i love and live and die with the most (alabama football, atlanta braves, atlanta falcons, alabama basketball...in that order), if they suck and don't show much potential for improvement, dude, i am off that boat.

it's not that i'll only root for a winner. i love a good underdog story, and, shoot, nothing stirs my drink in a more bonds-ian way than when one of my teams is being given points. no, it's not that i'll only root for a winner, but i will only root for a team that is intentional about wanting to win. and by "win" i mean compete for the highest of titles in their respective leagues/conferences. for example, vanderbilt may say that they want to win, but they don't really mean "win" by my definition. the lack or resources afforded to vanderbilt football do not set their bar of accomplishment at "sec champs". to "win" at vanderbilt means to hopefully beat tennessee once every ten years and maybe go .500 in-conference. unless you are a vanderbilt alum or a masochist, i haven't the slightest clue how someone could be interested in that program.

the same can be said for many, many professional teams as well. in major league baseball, in spite of how much i love my friend, philip gibson, his pirates will never actually compete for a world series title, not when three other teams in THEIR OWN DIVISION are willing to outspend them. the same goes for the astros, a's, royals and a handful more of other teams. through no fault of their own, the championship bar in baseball has been determined by the "have's". exceptions to the rule like the a's of ten years ago or the rays of the last three years only prove the rule. they are cinderellas only because the stars are or were aligned in just the right way for them to compete, talent-wise, with the "have's" over the course of a 162 game season. their deficiencies are then ultimately exposed in a best of 5 or 7 game series, the nation nods in approval of those mighty "mights" and their achievements, and then we move on to celebrate a world series champion with a 85-200 million dollar payroll.

(see also: 2/3 of the nba, 85-90 percent of "big-time" college football)

for me, myself, and i, these odds against winning it all would be too great for me to waste my time with.

for me, the value of my sports fandom can be measured in these ways:

1) can my team potentially and legitimately win their league/conference this year or in the next three seasons?

2) if not this year, is there work happening in recruiting, free agency, or a farm system that leads me to believe the "three year plan" is potentially and legitimately realistic?

3) is there a superstar that i can own and attach my man-fan-wagon to in a way that will interest me and engage me on the field and off even if my team of rooting interest is struggling to find consistent success?

that's it. that's pretty much the list. for me to be a card carrying member of any team during any given season, only one of these three criteria must be met.

i'm still relatively young. i have a little disposable income. pay free agent lebron james to come to miami? i'll be a heats fan and buy a t-shirt. sign ichiro to an otherwise irrelevant seattle franchise ten years ago??? i'll buy the bobblehead and look along interested from birmingham, al. draft alabama wunderkind wide receiver, julio jones, to play only two hours away from me? i'll convince my wife and friends that we should get falcons season tickets.

there are many, many more examples of such impulse in my sporting fandom i am sure, if i sat down and thought about it long and hard enough.

...

and then, of course, there are exceptions to my own rules.

as much as i love my alabama football team, as much as i love knowing about them and following them and talking about them, this year has been a struggle for me, even though they easily cover all three of my fairweather fan qualifiers.

i call it my julio jones hangover.

way back during his junior year in high school, julio hooked me in as being interesting. as a junior at foley high, he was already considered the best wide receiver prospect the state of alabama had ever produced and he was already considered a university of alabama lean. over many a dreamland lunch, andy, kiker and i swooned at the idea of bama having a dominating presence at wide receiver. through its rich tradition and history, it's the one thing (outside of the heisman) the school had really lacked. not that alabama has ever been considered a passing school, but, then again, maybe they could be.

yada, yada, yada, julio came. as i documented for over three years, his impact was almost immeasurably positive. alabama did not become a passing school, but julio's skill-set opened running lanes for mark ingram and trent richardson in a way that eventually proved the school to be heisman worthy. julio left last year as the most accomplished wideout in the history of the school, won a national title, and was drafted sixth by the falcons in the 2011 nfl draft.

when julio left the capstone, though, it left a julio-sized hole in my heart. it left me scrambling for a supernova of a super freshman to hitch my man-fan-wagon to. if i couldn't find that freshmen, the season, no matter how highly thought of the team as a whole would be, would feel less exciting. and so, i attached my love to dee hart, a rich man's version of lsu's former waterbug, trindon holliday. i attached my love to dee and then...??? shit. dee tore up his knee before fall practice even officially started.

dammit.

i kind of went into an alabama football daze after hart went down. i loved trent, of course. and hightower. and my little terrorhawk, mark barron. but i didn't love them like that, you know? not like julio. not like i wanted to love dee.

and so the season started.

one of the crappy things about following alabama football in the new, golden age of saban ball is that once the season begins, there are really only four-five games on the twelve game schedule that alabama can legitimately lose. alabama has become so efficient, such a juggernaut, that a loss to someone outside of lsu or arkansas would have required a state of emergency being declared. their sheer depth of talent and skill and resources and coaching render most opponents moot before the game even begins. and while that process proves entirely fascinating during the offseason and can make the football team a 365 day a year show worth watching, once the games kick off, the result is hardly in question. it's one thing i have found completely fresh and wonderful about the falcons this year. in the nfl, the falcons can absolutely and potentially lose every game they start (as can the packers for that matter, which makes what they are doing so special). you can live and die with the product on the field. the same can't be said for alabama football. you can tell yourself that auburn or tennessee or penn state or florida had a chance to win, but some honesty and forethought might tell you otherwise. i digress.

and so the season started.

alabama blows through their first 8 opponents. they average just over 39 points. the average margin of victory is just over 32. the closest any one opponent gets is 16. they use the pre-julio alabama formula for success in all eight games. run the ball. run the ball some more. play action here. one deep throw a game there. overwhelm the other team with a suffocating defense. impose will. win game. rinse. repeat. to some alabama fans, this was immensely exciting. this was the product of all of the recruiting and the money and the saban and the history and the tradition and the best of the best that alabama football has to offer a player or a fan manifested as unstoppable force/indestructible object.

to me, i'll be honest. it was boring. what i wanted was more creativity in the offense. take some chances. fling it around a little. be more aesthetically pleasing. wear a black jersey. just do something, anything, a little different from what every alabama fan knows and loves.

i caught flak for saying as much on facebook, pining for the excitement that came with being a fan of an auburn team that's just barely good enough to beat utah state, because at least the utah state game made you feel something. wishing i could somehow claim oregon and their flavor of the week uniforms and their zippity-fast athletes flying all over the place. long tenured bama fans scolded, "go, dammit. go be an auburn fan!" "are you kidding? you should LOVE this type of smash mouth football!" "this. is. alabama football, you heathen!" "sounds fairweather to me." can i say for just a minute how fucking retarded the few fairweather comments i got on facebook and off were. truthfully, weren't my comments the opposite of fairweather??? you can't really get any higher up on the mountain than alabama football right now. fairweather would mean i had left the mountain during times of trial and now wanted back on. that wasn't the case at all. i kind of wanted off the mountain in these times of utmost prosperity. anyway, maybe there are other definitions of fairweather out there that i don't know about. i digress again.

i caught flak for calling alabama football, in-season, boring, but, again, i just wanted to feel something, anything.

and then i did. lsu came into alabama having already played a game that they could have lost versus "my" oregon ducks. they didn't lose. they destroyed them. they had played a game versus the eventual big east champ, west virginia. they didn't lose. they beat them worse than they did oregon. they embarrassed florida, same as alabama and kicked the crap out of auburn. they came to tuscaloosa with an edge, with a number one ranking, and with the only real shot of blemishing alabama's season.

and fuck it all. they won. in overtime. in one of the most dramatic football games i've ever watched. both defenses brought their "a" game. alabama's offense showed sparks of trent, a dash of creativity, and several more scoring opportunities than did lsu. but they couldn't convert enough of those opportunities. they let lsu hang around. regulation ended in a tie. aj mccarron showed his nerves during overtime. and lsu escaped tuscaloosa with a win and started driving down this now ridiculous road of being considered an all-time great collegiate team.

i was heartbroken, but, looking back, i think i was a little happy. if nothing else, even though it was sadness i felt, at least i felt something, anything.

and thus the switch turned back on. the julio jones hangover ended, and my alabama football fandom was back. i fumed at their shitty play versus miss. st. i refused to watch a meaningless game against a lower tier opponent in georgia southern. i digested the undressing of their arch rivals in auburn and genuinely hoped that some of my auburn friends felt some of the same pain i had allowed myself to feel last year during the greatest iron bowl meltdown/comeback ever. i rooted for their misery and hoped it felt bad, if only for a couple of hours 'til we all came back to our senses and realized it was "just a game". after all, it's not schools we root against. it's our friends and family that don't see things the way we do that we hope are hurting. (kinda screwed up, really.)

i felt something during the auburn game most especially because of dominoes having fallen and stars having aligned back in the favor of "my" alabama football team. if they beat auburn, they would have their second chance at lsu.

they did. and they do.

it's funny to me. as much as this year's team has accomplished, i am already waiting for next year. i want to see dee hart and tell him that i love him and that i wish him well. i want him to light the sec on fire in the same way lamichael james has done so with the pac 10 12 the last three years.

in the meantime, though, my switch as been flipped. my fairweather flag is waving proudly behind me. i am 34 days away from alabama playing for and possibly winning their second national championship in three years. it's going to be incredible. it's going to be insane. i will yell. and scream. and cuss. and eat. and it will be wonderful, because alabama is going to win the scoreboard this time, not just the game.

let's be honest. we are all fairweather fans of some thing, some place, or some one, whether we choose to admit it or not. and there is no shame in admitting it.

just admit it.

i'm the pot. you are the kettle.

roll tide.    

not seeing the trees for the forest


it's trendy in the national sports media post-national signing day to bemoan the celebration/exploitation of high school football players. surely, these 17 year-olds don't deserve this type of attention, do they?

well, of course they do.

ivan maisel wrote this column last thursday. i won't waste your time and link to all of the like-minded articles that i've read in the past week because most of them share the same sentiment. that being, for all the stars and the hype and the faux-celebrity that is created for many of the high-profile football recruits, a very small percentage of them pan out to be something truly great. in his column, maisel cross-references espn's top 150 of 2006 prospects with the 2010 nfl draft and finds only 20 of that group had their name called by roger goodell or one of his underlings. you can't argue with the facts i suppose, but the thing is...

he totally misses the point.

do you know what a number one recruiting class looks like?

here, let me show you.

 how many of those names do you recognize? be honest. my guess is one, maybe two at the most. in this state, cyrus kouandjio became a household name over the course of three days, so he's a gimme. he's the guy that went on espnu and announced his intentions to play for auburn university with the most pained look i've ever seen on the face of somebody that was laying down his path for the next four years, the "best days of his life". about an hour after the announcement, a young lady from scout.com broke the story that auburn had yet to receive the lineman's letter of intent. by that time, facebook was aflutter, mainly because all of the recruiting "experts" had penned in cyrus to join his brother at alabama for weeks. so, the same auburn fans that on my facebook nation didn't announce/celebrate any other signings that day (not one!!!) made a point to welcome cyrus to auburn's "au"ll in family. a funny thing happened on cyrus' way to auburn, though, and he quietly faxed his scholarship papers to tuscaloosa saturday afternoon. those same facebook people never posted retractions. then again, most of them likely didn't even know who the big fella was until a friend of theirs told them he was "supposed" to go to alabama, but they still used his momentary brain-freeze to flip the proverbial bird in the faces of their alabama "friends". most of those folks probably will still assume that cyrus will be on the loveliest village come the fall. he won't. i digress. back to the names. if i give you cyrus, how many others do you recognize? maybe one? two at the most? and that's fine. completely normal even for you to not take off work for signing day the same way you would for, say, columbus day or something of much greater importance.

again, maisel and his ilk are nothing but right in the numbers they use to extrapolate what they see as a day that is full of sound and fury most often signifying nothing.

except, it does signify something.

what the national pundits miss when they try and mock the importance of the celebration of signing day is the idea that these names will be the ones that i (and fans across the nation) will emotionally invest in for the next four to five years of my (our) life. it makes zero difference if they go on to be drafted in 2015 or if they become all-americans or if they make all-sec. the important part is that they are now a part of my favorite football team. their journey will make up a part of my journey. i will celebrate their highs with them and poo-poo their lows at them.

four years ago, alabama signed another number one class. take a look at these names. if you are an alabama fan or even an sec fan, how many names do you recognize from this group? a helluva lot, right? to maisel's point, a lot of those starry-starred athletes didn't work out the way recruiting sites predicted. even for me, i remember being infatuated with burton (b.j.) scott when he signed. i was obviously already in love with julio, but i was happy to have burton be my mistress. he caught a pass in the first quarter of the clemson game his  true freshman year and then fell off the map or into nick saban's doghouse, rarely to be heard from again. after this year ended, he opted out of tuscaloosa and went to play at south alabama where he could play on the field his final year. how about tyler love? five stars just like cyrus and he has yet to see significant playing time.

to my point, though, 18 of those 32 names have played roles, if not key roles, to alabama's success and even the ones that didn't i have worried and wondered about.

why?

because they play for alabama, stupid.

when the national columnists call out those that spend time with and invest in recruiting, all it tells me is that they don't have a local rooting interest.

they would probably argue that they are trying to identify and represent the "bigger picture" of college athletics, and i get that. in many facets of my life, i make pained and concerted efforts to be a big picture guy. not with college football, though. i pay attention because these guys, these young men are going to be my boys for however long they roll with the tide.

that alone, is worth my attention.

i'll probably grade myself on a curve
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part forty-four))


we had a pretty interesting conversation sunday in limbo about the idea and execution of new year's resolutions. the consensus in the room seemed to be that january 1 was a fairly arbitrary start date, but everyone was pretty keen with the notion of goal-setting, which was comforting, especially given that when i asked our collected group how many were planning on making resolutions this year, only three (myself included) out of eleven raised their hands. our hour together nailed down the fact, though, that we all wanted to find ways to better our lives and the lives of those around us even if we didn't agree on the concept of the calendar telling us when to do so.

me, i am a calendar guy. for as long as i've been setting goals on the blog and writing follow-ups like today's, my simple mind wraps itself quite easily around starting at the beginning of the year and evaluating at the end. and so, i continue that schedule today as i take my final official look-back into the year that was kevin o'kelley's 2010.

here is the refresher.

now, let's review...

1) don't die - ... maybe sliding this one up to number one last year after my scare in the summer of 2009 played a significant role in my still being here in january of 2011 to write this post. maybe it just wasn't in the cards for me to meet my maker last year. either way, i am glad that i am still here. i can't say that i didn't think A LOT about the idea of dying. every day, i am not shitting you, every day i have a deathdream. i am able to shake them off and away a lot quicker than i did in the final few months of 2009, but i am obviously still not at ease with what comes next. maybe i never will be. maybe this is one of my curses. it seems unfair to me and everyone around me that i can't get my head out of today and look ahead some to "tomorrow". i am glad i didn't die in 2010. i am. now, if i could just stop thinking about it so much. score: +1

2) get "operation limbo" off the ground, up and running - ... well, well, well. my first real success story of 2010. early last year, i asked jacob sutton and joseph florence to help me with a sketch that we would perform at the beginning of worship to pimp the idea, this idea in my head that was limbo at the time. jacob and joseph, in spite of the morning's technical difficulties, were really funny like they always are. the sketch had to do with the gap that had developed at our church in the last several years where there was no real group or place for students and young adults to plug into after high school. we had a couple of fledgling young-ish adult sunday school classes, but i wasn't real confident either would speak to the group that i had in mind for limbo. so, jacob and joseph riffed on the idea that now they were in their twenties, they were just hanging out in the sanctuary with no real purpose in the proverbial life of the church and joseph asked jacob what they were supposed to do about it. jacob's response? "we wait...................until we're 30." it was hilarious. and pointed. and true. and so, limbo was born. and now, at our church, you don't have to wait if you are looking for something after you've crossed that barrier into adulthood and come to the realization that you still have no idea what the hell is going on in the world. nowadays, i don't think of limbo as an "age-group" thing (we span from early twenties to mid-thirties) as much as i do a "this doesn't make sense to me. let's make sense of it together." group. and it seems to be working. part of our evolution in 2011 will be to become more effective and affective at getting our word and work out to the masses. looking back one more time, though, we've now had 37 unique and special people come to room 218 at some point in the last 45 weeks, and we gather every sunday morning with between 10-15. numbers are a pretty weak measure when it comes to spiritual impact, but they do suggest there was a need in our church (even if we are still dangling on the outer edge of the church corporate) and limbo is trying to help fill it. score: +1

 3) be a more than serviceable lay leader - ... hmm, this one is probably not the easiest for me to judge myself on. i could take a straw poll within the church and if the standard was "serviceable", well, i might get a pass. if it's "more than serviceable", i don't know. what has happened that is good in the life of the church over the last 12 months? consensus within the congregation is that we are in better "health". that meaning, there is less overall drama. members and visitors, alike, seem to be harris fans. our finances are currently well within order. long range planning has been meeting and visioning for over six months. natural church development is starting back up and the church, right now, seems committed to that process. our connectional giving has improved drastically with the church meeting it's "target" in 2010 (for the first time in a very, very long time). leadership in the church is getting younger, in no small part to the weeds and limbo. along those lines, we made efforts to streamline the administrative board of the church in the hopes that 2011 will be more efficient. missions are still happening and giving members opportunities to serve. the halloween carnival succeeded again. the children's place daycare is a lighthouse and symbol of hope in our immediate community. i am probably forgetting many others. but, this all begs the question, what credit can i take for any of it? what blame rests at my feet if i were to list the cons of 2010, too. it's a good question, and we'll address it again soon. "serviceable" in the church is relative, thus "more than serviceable" probably is as well. i am going to give myself a point here. if you disagree, please feel free to comment and tell me why. score: +1

4) prepare for the inevitable - ... ugh. i called this one, right? not that it took a rocket scientist to predict that any college football team would eventually lose a game, and lose a game(s) alabama did. in spite of their talent and potential that was on full display for 20 minutes of the iron bowl and 60 of the capital one bowl, alabama finished a disappointing 10-3 and probably 10 spots lower than their preseason number one ranking. the first loss to south carolina was easier than i thought it would be to swallow, mainly because they were down the whole game. the idea of predicting the future of next year's team with the likely departures of 3-5 underclassmen seems discouraging currently. we'll wait til after the a-day game for that. and we'll also give myself credit for being a realist with this particular resolution a year ago. score: +1

5) don't forget about my deceitfully evil gang of weeds - ... maybe my first miss of 2010. i remember vividly the conversation that i had with the weeds on a sunday morning early on in 2010, that i was thinking of using my positive, free and clear scan in january as a springboard to get my head back in the game of making a difference in the church again. what that meant to them was that i wouldn't be available on sunday mornings anymore. my doing limbo, kathy and deb doing kids sunday school, the goldens having their hands full with noah, kim getting elected to city council, among other things pulled our sunday school class in many different directions, and it's been hard to feel like a cohesive whole all year. i don't know that blaming any one person or event or circumstance would do justice to all the mitigating factors. i didn't "forget" the weeds, but actions spoke louder than words. score: -1

6) say no to drugs... and by drugs, i mean lexapro - ... an interesting result with this one. i told myself that if i got a clean bill of health again in july, i would start to wean myself off of the anti-depressant. even though there was a little scare with a "motion artifact" in my lung that turned out to be nothing, the clean bill of health came a few days after i had my scan on july 9. after that, i took a half-dose of the lexapro through my and sarah's trip to gatlinburg later that month and then put the pill bottle in the pantry for good. since then, it's been an up and down ride. i have found my good moods hard to sustain, especially the last couple of months, what with the anticipation of the next scan this month ramping up my awareness of every little thing in my body that's not 100 percent anymore. the bottle of lexapro sits right next to my bottle of multi-vitamins in the pantry, and the last two or three weeks i've wondered if starting them again wouldn't be better for me and my family. maybe all the doctor would order is another clean scan and some peace of mind to go along with the apple a day. we'll see soon enough. this one is a technical notch in the "win" column, with mixed results as to the quality of my life since i realized the resolution. score: +1

7) find brian again - ...hmm. does seeing him on one road trip, three visits in three days count as a "win"? maybe, but probably not. i am going to give myself a half-point here, because we did have to drive six hours to see him and it probably ended up being one of the more fulfilling three days of my year, but seeing them once per year doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you are talking about someone that i care so deeply about. score:  +.5

8) find dad again - my second full-fledged fail. for me, the spirit of this one is more important than the letter number of times we saw each other, which was actually several thanks to a lunch or two, a handful of hannah's socccer games and a christmas get together. no one did anything "wrong" this year. i just don't know if i feel like we are any closer to being closer. i hope so. for 2010, though? score: -1

9) take ken to a braves game - ... another technical win, even if it didn't flesh itself out to us seeing each other as much as i would have liked to. we went to an incredible phillies game the second week of the season that included a jason heyward homer and a walk-off by nate mcclouth. ken even returned the favor by picking up the tab for the bullet through the forehead that ended up being game three of the division series with the giants. much like brian, i think if we were a little closer, ken and i would be, too. the distance and just life, i guess, has been a riddle we have not been able to solve the last few years. bottom line for the grade, though, is i did, in fact, take ken to a braves game. score: +1

10) keep loving my girls - ... the one big "gimme" of last year. i did keep loving sarah, hannah and caroline. it's hard, at times, to keep that loving from becoming conditional. i'll love you like you deserve just so long as you don't piss me off, okay? that kind of sentiment. hannah is really hard right now, and it's a combination of a lot of things i know. hanging out with older kids at daycare. observing and mimicking older girls that she sees on television and at church. having to deal with a little sister that always wants to do what she does. i know it's tough. now that she's her own little person, she wants more than anything to figure out who she is and she wants it to happen fast. she needs her way all the time. she is hardheaded. just like me. she has a quick temper. just like me. once the heat of any moment has passed, she wants to over-manipulate the rest of the day/night to make sure everything is okay. just like me. she is infuriating. i am sure...just like me. caroline, on the other hand, is three. she's a silly three and is really only a handful when our agenda takes the onus away from her being the center of the universe. no problem with four people in the house, right? ugh. she's adorable most of the time, though, and she's grown to love her daddy in 2010 much like i feel hannah always has. it's been nice. i hope that sarah and i can keep our collective heads in 2011 when it comes to the girls. our daughters really are too special to not appreciate them being in our lives every waking second. score: +1

wrapping up, let's see, it looks like i went 7.5 for 10!!! not too bad if i say so myself, which i just did. 

i read several status updates on new year's eve that spoke very poorly of 2010, and i hate that it was a tough year for so many people, including some dear friends. at the same time, i am happy that last year was much less volatile for the o'kelley family. if you removed me being constantly worried about things i have no control over from the equation, who knows what kind of banner year it may have been. that thought will be a nice springboard into my resolutions for 2011, which i'll try and have posted shortly after my january scan. 

one final thanks for everyone that stopped by hannah and caroline and me in 2010. whether you love me, hate me or are somewhere in between, whether you agree with me or disagree with me and my potty mouth, whether you came here through your own free will or were forcefully handed a copy of a post or emailed a link, thank you for sharing in this experience with me. this is an open place. an honest place. a place that makes me strive to be a better person for you and for "you".

if you would begrudge me or me in this forum, shame on you, and get a fucking life. you have more important things to worry about. go invite someone to church for god's sake instead of waiting on someone to save the church for you. 

a happy 2011 for those of you that love HACAM for what it is. comment more in 2011! if you write, write more! about anything!!! 

2010.

the end.    

hannah and caroline and me
(part forty-two)
((my first real mistake as a parent))


mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys...

or football fans.

i was having a conversation a couple days ago with a buddy about how i loved a (good-) spirited debate. surprising, right? my definition of debate, though, especially in the realm of this blog or on facebook must be naive or misshapen or skewed or something. if i've learned anything from HACAM and facebook over the past five years, it's that i am "dangerous", "stupid", "sexist", a "bammer", a "mind-reader", "cold-hearted", "mean", "bad for my church", "tactless", among other qualifiers, most of these from people that i've enjoyed, at some point in my life, fraternizing with. it's hard to argue with any of them i guess. mainly, because if i do, people will call me names again.

i imagine these, my most glowing qualities, come out and to the surface while i am watching an alabama football game. since hannah was born, absolutely nothing has changed with my attitude or the way i comport myself during these games, at least the ones that mean something to the greater "process" and the ultimate end of a conference and/or national title. i clap and yell with glorious support when the team executes a play to perfection. i flail and moan and kick and scream and hurl venom towards the field or television when something goes wrong.

all the while, hannah (and now caroline) are somewhere in the vicinity of the game, too, taking it all in.

readers of this blog that don't use the word "fuck", don't worry (yet). neither of the girls have taken to the interwebs with their own journals contributing to the downfall of civilization by using their own variations on their daddy's "dirty words". that'll come, though. don't you worry.

when we got in the car after the game last friday, though, indisputable evidence of my (and her mommy's) influence poured out of the first baby girl. as we pulled away from rebecca's, hannah started crying. soon, her crying turned to bawling and within a few seconds, she was inconsolable. after letting her cry it out for a few minutes, i asked why she was so upset. it was because she was worried that a friend, whose parents root for auburn, would brag and make fun of her the next time they saw each other. damn.

was she upset that alabama lost the game? maybe, but not so much in the literal outcome of the literal game. she was upset that her friends who had chosen to root for auburn would have something on her the next time they got together. i resemble this sentiment, wholeheartedly.

i love a spirited debate, mainly because, removed from the subject in question, whether that be a football team or lunch at krystal, i pride myself on being able to separate the sinner from the sin, if you will. if you don't like alabama as much as i do, that's fine. if you think a whopper is tastier than my little piece of heaven, that's fine, too. i'll argue why i think i am right, or feel right. i might even argue why i think you are wrong. i am not going to call you a douchebag, even if i think you are being one. that's just the way it is.

kids, specifically my first grader, can't be this rational. not yet. kids are the worst trash-talkers, because it's all emotion that's vomiting from their mouth. they don't care about making good points. they just "nanny, nanny, poo-poo" all over their classmates faces with no regard for the emotional trainwrecks they are leaving in their wake. i know this because i was the worst at it. i can specifically remember an instance from my childhood when i lost a friend for over a month because i kicked his ass in tecmo bowl and wouldn't stop talking about it for a week. it was "mean". "tactless". "stupid". all of those. i suppose i knew better. my mom would've kicked my ass had she known about it. but i didn't go to school with my mom. and hannah doesn't go to school with hers. or her dad. we can't protect her from kids being cruel. we just get to pick up the pieces after someone's broken her heart.

the sad part about that meltdown in the car after the iron bowl was how predictable it was. by my injecting her, week after week, year after year, season after season with the idea that football and alabama football is worth giving your friends a hard time about, i let the meltdown happen. i produced it. it was my creation.

as i said, i know kids are mean. that part i can't change. they are all emotion. it's part of their charm and part of the reason i want to stick my head through a glass door half the time.

i also know kids are impressionable. and i've impressed upon my child that she should give a shit when a friend of hers who has parents that have impressed upon them to be an auburn fan comes bragging about a victory in a football game. because i've done this, i've given her a reason to worry about something that she didn't ask for.

that kind of sucks.

as she gets older, i'll have to make sure she is able and trained to respond to others with something more substantial than tears. i'll have to impress upon her the value in (good-) spirited debate.

then she won't have any friends either.  

football?


for all the attention that HACAM has paid to alabama's football season, you'd have thought the owners presidents had locked their paid-to-play scholarship athletes out, paving the way for fans to spend more quality time with their families, make up with long lost friends and find mission opportunities in our local and respective communities. those ideas, in an of themselves, are fairly ludicrous. in fact, college football has been played this fall.

as it has happened, i've actually watched most of alabama's games in their entirety. i left work early twice this year to make it home before the 2:30 cbs kick only to watch bama's potential dynasty fall at the hands of stephen freaking garcia and jordan "he's a quarterback now?" jefferson. as the season and the promise of back to back sec and national championships went down in flames courtesy of the two biggest underachievers at quarterback the sec has seen in 10 years, you can understand my lack of want to wax poetic about a team that, on the field, turned out not to be who i thought they were back when i put up this season's only college football preview that mattered. in that column, i feared the idea that auburn would come into today's game with more at stake. i cannot tell you how brutal the reality of that idea coming to fruition is for this alabama fan. not because i hate auburn, mind you, but because i wanted something incredibly special to bookend julio jones career in a way that, no matter the outcome now, cannot happen anymore.

julio jones has been the most prominent recurring character on this blog since it's inception, if you'll allow for the obvious exception of my girls. julio and his coming to alabama marked clearly the end of one era of alabama football and the beginning of something newer, something more polished, something more worthy of the resources my rooting interest of choice possesses. remember when tim tebow chose florida over alabama? of course you do. remember when julio chose alabama over everyone else? of course you do. the next year, trent richardson sealed julio's ("he a pretty big...") deal and chose alabama over florida, signaling not only the end of urban myer's overlord-ship of the sec, but it meant that things like sec championships and the like would now run through tuscaloosa for the foreseeable future. much to my dismay, this season, south carolina and lsu came through t-town, figuratively, and lived to tell the tale. they both navigated through alabama's still young secondary and made their seasons memorable at alabama's expense. it's been a hard pill to swallow.

harder still is that a win today over auburn doesn't mean much of anything for the tide. sure, it would end auburn's national championship hopes, but, for alabama, it's would only be a moral victory. the alabama in my head takes no joy in playing spoiler. it would continue into next season an impressive run of consecutive victories at home. yet, it would only feel fulfilling up until auburn and south carolina met next saturday for the right to carry the sec champion's banner for a year. in my eyes and my eyes only, i almost view the outcome for this alabama football team in today's iron bowl as lose, lose. if they lose to auburn, their state rivals continue a march towards their own dream season that proportionately and historically would mirror alabama's run last year. if they beat auburn, it only shines a brighter light onto the losses in columbia and baton rouge and makes the season's lost relevance seem more substantial.

for julio, if when he declares himself eligible for next spring's nfl draft, the impact will not feel nearly as significant as it should or would have if he could claim two sec and/or national championships on his resume'. instead, he will simply be remembered as the best receiver in the history of the school. that's it. the torch of his legend will quickly be passed to trent and his memory will start to fade. it makes me sad.

today, in the three and a half hours the game will be played, i will root, root, root for the home team, but, if they don't win, it won't be a shame, per se'. it will just be another loss to another good team with flaws that this group of alabama football players and coaches couldn't take advantage of this year. my world will not end.

if they win, though, i hope it's because julio treated the auburn secondary like he did tennessee's. i hope, by the end, he's established himself as the best, pound for pound, player on the field. i hope he can take this game by the horns from his totally dependant position and dominate.

the credibility of my predictions became null and void the moment alabama transformed stephen garcia into brett favre (the good one) and alshon jeffrey into terrell owens (the younger one), so there is no need to predictably fashion a scenario in which alabama wins this game.

i will say this, though. in the meta-narrative that has been the last three years of alabama football, i was right about julio.

and that makes me happy.

roll julio.

 

the first post of september


this morning in worship, i pulled out my phone and read a lot about the alabama and auburn football games of yesterday evening.

i fully expected to be able to keep up with the bama game on espn3 at the store, but it ended up being blacked out. instead, i kept up with the game by watching red arrows representing alabama and blue arrows representing san jose st. moving back and forth across a two dimensional field of dreams. it was terrible. alabama won, though, so that was good. as i type this, i'll start watching the css replay.

what i read during worship was pretty exciting. alabama took care of their weak competition just as they should. there was not a significant drop-off in production due to mark ingram being out. instead, the maturation of greg mcelroy and a group of players that seem to be growing comfortable in their current offensive system was detailed in several different articles by several different authors, all duly impressed.

auburn, too, lit up their scoreboard. the quarterback that will make or break their season was, before last night, best known as the guy that was tim tebow's back-up at florida. the guy that got caught stealing a laptop. as campus authorities marched to his dorm room to question his involvement in the stealing of said laptop, dude tossed that shit out the window, cuz, yeah, that was ever going to work. anyway, all that's water under the bridge, cuz, from what i read this morning in worship, dude is the next randall cunningham. go figure.

so, "roll tide" and "war eagle", for whatever the first week of the season is worth. from what i read in worship this morning, we are marching toward an iron bowl matching two undefeated, offensive machines. I CANNOT WAIT!

so, why were you reading about football during worship?

great question. i don't really know, to be honest. i tried to tune in during the hymns and during the communion service and during the something about pottery and christ message, but i couldn't stay connected. on communion sundays, with hannah sitting in big church with us, i like to try and pretend that something meaningful or relevant will present itself.

that seems dishonest.

good call. you are right. it is dishonest. but i don't want to give up the ghost that big church could be a meaningful and relevant place for my children even if i don't find it as one myself currently. just because i am jaded doesn't mean i should indoctrinate my children with my cynicism.

d.j. fluker is freaking huge.

i love how marquis maze just dropped the ball and ran over to his own sideline after his td catch.

so, was there a point to this post?

not really. not other than the fact that eddie lacy and "war CAM eagle" and most especially julio jones are of way more interest and excitement to me than something about pottery and christ. don't get me wrong. pottery and christ got hannah talking, and that's all that really matters. at this point, i am pretty sure it would take harris cutting off his own hand and god sewing it back on in front of us for me to sit up and take notice.

that would be pretty awesome.

right? we could advertise it online or in the paper "recommended if you liked "the last exorcism"" that would bring the crowds. they'd come roaring in, rubberneckers all. we'd celebrate the packed house and then smash them across the face with the one and the only jesus h. christ.

that would show 'em.

i love my phone.

the only college football preview that matters
(to me)
((part two))


man.

today's news makes it a little harder to write what i had in mind today, that being a completely biased take on the college football season (or, at least, alabama's football season) to come written by a completely biased alabama football fan.

wait a minute. no, it doesn't.

mark ingram missing a game (or two or three) sucks. let's not dance around it. it sucks uncomfortably hard. one of the most intimidating aspects of alabama's team this year was their overwhelming depth, depth that is possibly more impressive this year than it was last year when they won it all. four and five star recruits back up four and five star starters. outside of the secondary, there isn't a spot on the roster that shouldn't be able to overcome an injury to a starter. that includes overcoming an injury to the reigning best player in college football. as you'll hear ad naseum over the next couple of days, trent richardson may, in fact, be "better" than mark ingram, whatever that means. ingram has won a heisman, so anyone suggesting that bama isn't going to miss a beat without him has got to be completely out of their minds. fortunately for the tide, they can miss a beat or ten against san jose st. and still live to tell about it. boy, had an equivalent injury happened before the clemson game two years ago or last year against va. tech, i would have been really, really worried. not so much right now. ingram's injury does add an unexpected storyline to the season, though, one where the only real headline of significance would be if alabama lost before the sec championship game. we have another headline now, a nauseating headline that makes what seemed to be an offensive juggernaut a little less juggernaut-ish. we can't get too caught up in the ingram stuff now. if we do, we'll miss the forest for the trees, or, rather, we'd miss the forest for the redwood wearing a crimson, number 22 jersey.

college football preview, commence!!!

san jose st. - how many times will ingram be shown on the sidelines during this ppv broadcast? i'll put the over/under at 10. any takers? the best news of my week was hearing that the game will be shown on espn3, meaning i'll be able to catch some of it at the store saturday night. the atmosphere will be insane. i wish i could be there for the announcements of the starters alone. goodness. it will be fantastic. everything leading up to the opening kickoff will be special because it will be the last of the celebration, the last opportunity to look back and remember how special 2009 was. there will also be a game played. it shouldn't be close for much longer than a quarter. should the game go according to plan, the commentators will be speculating by the second half whether or not ingram will be back for...

penn st. - all i can think about when it comes to the penn st. game is the unnerving interview espn ran with joe paterno during the big 10 media days. it was unsettling and unfortunate. gameday will most likely be in tuscaloosa for this game. i wonder if they'll run that interview again. penn st. will be competitive. i will be massively surprised if the game is still in question in the 4th quarter. bama, 2-0.

duke - AT duke. already scheduled for a 2:30 national television spotlight. duke has got to be extremely excited about this game, considering ingram will probably be making a token appearance to make sure he's game ready for the following week. there was a time, three years ago, that i would worry about alabama sleepwalking through this game. no worries here. 3-0.

arkansas - the first sec road test of the year against a lot of people's heisman contender, ryan mallet. mallet's receivers let him down during the first half in tuscaloosa last year. really, the only thing arkansas performed efficiently all game was the block that ended hightower's season. dont'a hightower likely remembers that game. my money is on dont'a announcing his butkus candidacy here with a pair of sacks and an interception. ingram and richardson go for 100 yards each for the first time this season and alabama feels dominant. 4-0.

florida - hmm. this game is the one i can't wait for. barring injuries, it should be the first nailbiter of the year. i don't believe in the rhetoric coming out of gainesville about how much better a "true" quarterback than tebow brantley will be. if he brings his team to alabama and wins, i'll eat crow and own my shortsightedness. i am not, on august 31st., worried about this in the least. ingram goes for 150 and 2 td's and people lament for the last time that he may have had a shot to heisman repeat "if he didn't miss those first two (or three) games. 5-0, but close into the fourth.

south carolina - this game scares me a little. it'll be the week after the huge emotional payoff of the florida game. marcus lattimore will have established himself as the rookie of the year in the sec and spurrier will use last year's game (the game that won ingram the heisman) as motivation to stop the run. introducing, julio jones!!! can you believe i was able to go six games without mentioning jesus, himself. think about this for a second. forever etched in stone will be the fact (THE FACT) that it was julio's coming to the capstone that set the stage for the potential five year dynasty that is the current era of alabama football. he was hurt last year. he was leaped over by a teammate in production and value to the team during a stretch of 8-9 games where he was not at 100 percent. he is now healthy. his quarterback has taken off the training wheels. i guaran-damn-tee you this. there will be two epic julio jones performances this year. i predict we see the first one on this night in a tight game. 6-0.

ole miss - a dangerous homecoming game, but this is the game i see alabama hitting their stride. jeremiah masoli will wish he stole a computer or something and got suspended (from his second team) prior to this game after the beating he and his team will take. not close. 7-0 (edit: doesn't look like masoli's going to be eligible. even not-closer.)

tennessee - i won't predict a laugher here, but i do think it could be a long, long year for young coach dooley. his best running back isn't on the team anymore. ut is rebuilding. rebuilding teams do not beat this year's alabama football team. 8-0, going away.

lsu - if jordan jefferson takes any sort of significant step towards becoming a real quarterback this year, this game could be tight. even les miles can figure out ways to get russell shepherd the ball. russell shepherd scares me. julio could be taken out of this game, or he could announce that he's a lot surer a nfl prospect than the cornerback that blanketed him last year in patrick peterson. flip of a coin on that mano-a-mano, but i think alabama wins this game by two touchdowns. 9-0

mississippi st. - ingram and richardson do their thing. mississippi st. thinks they are turning a corner 'til they get blown away by 28 points. 10-0.

georgia st. - bill curry brings star jackson back to t-town in a game that neither of the two will ever forget. alabama will win by 50, but this is a very cool game with very cool storylines. 11-0.

auburn. - oh, auburn. what will your record be coming into the iron bowl? 8-3? maybe 9-2? better??? who knows. according to a couple espn "experts", the 2010 iron bowl could have a trip to atlanta added to the already high, emotional stakes. auburn, i expect to be better, but i don't know how much i expect. i am not sold on cam newton...yet. i am not sold that auburn won't really miss ben tate. i am sold on michael dyer. but, if the season plays out the way i have it doing so above, this game will mean much, much more to alabama and they'll be at home. if alabama has stumbled once, twice or more coming into this game, this could be the game that puts gene chizik on the real map and not just the one they sell in alabama gas stations. also, keep in mind this will likely be julio (tear) and mcelroy (he's not terribly exciting, but he did quarterback a national championship team. he's the new jay barker.) and ingram's (yesterday's injury to ingram set that in stone for him) last home game. i don't see them losing their last home game. 12-0.

am i a homer? sure. biased? completely. off-base? probably not. alabama hasn't lost ONE of it's last TWENTY-FOUR regular season games. this team is deeper and more talented than the last two. are they better? who knows. that'll play out, beginning saturday night. i think they could be, though, and, if i think that, it makes sense to project them winning all twelve again this season.

if we make it to atlanta again, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

in years past, i kept my ear much closer to the national ground than i have the last two years. alabama's story and their runs through the sec have more than enough to keep my attention.

i can tell you that i hate, hate, HATE va. tech, and yet i'll still be rooting for them on labor day against boise st.

i can tell you that i will root for EVERY sec team to win their out of conference games to shut up everybody that's been talking about other leagues "catching up".

i can tell you that mark ingram WILL NOT win the heisman again, but trent WILL next year.

and i can tell you that i love being right (see last item). god help us all if i am right with the above predictions. god help us all.

roll saban.

28 days later
(we'll have football to talk about)


for now, we have football talk to talk about. and what else would we talk about than the preseason coaches poll being released today.

for the first time since 1978, alabama begins a season at number one. it should always be this way. not alabama being ranked number one, but the previous season's champ beginning the next on top of the mountain. regardless of how many key members of that team you lost, until some other team proves otherwise, this team is still king.

as we get closer to the season, there will, of course, be much more to discuss, dismiss and dismantle about the upcoming college football season.

today, we have this.

55 of 59 votes, and let's be honest. the other four coaches are just being contrarian. i would love to hear their arguments against voting alabama one. what would it be? they lost an awful lot on defense. they are replacing all of those losses with more "talent" than last year. continue. ...

...

they lost their kicker and punter.

...

...

 there really aren't many holes, are there? the offense that was pretty powerful last year comes back stacked and more experienced. and, oh yeah, julio is healthy at the moment. he wasn't most of last year. think about for a second. also, depending on how the chips fall, this alabama backfield could be remembered as one of the best in college history. already, they are every bit as dangerous as the cadillac/ronnie brown duo from a few years back. julio will be better. maze will be better. i am getting ahead of myself. it's not time to get excited just yet. it's time to close the celebration of the 2009/10 season and begin the process of being an alabama fan for the 2010/11 season.

i was two when expectations were last this high. it will be fascinating to see how saban plays with this deck of cards as compared to his rag-tag group of cory reamers and javy arenas' and like overachievers. will the success of last year bring with it complacency. or swagger.

what if this year's team is (shiver) better?

jesus. i need to calm down and go watch the braves.

we'll start counting down and breaking down soon.

very soon...

world cup 2010
(part five)
((rob green = colt mccoy))
(((thank you, robert green and colt mccoy)))


driving home from nasty's mancave, listening to the instant analysis of the soccer "match to end all matches" (until the us's match on friday, which is now hugely big), i was entirely content with the result. recaps and commentary be damned, the us played the far more talented and far more highly paid english to a well-deserved draw. yes, i said well-deserved. i'll get back to that. the us gained an unexpected and important first point in their pool by playing the world giants toe-to-toe for sixty minutes of the 90-plus minute match. the us started slow and sloppy and gave up an early goal (that one was on you, ricardo clark). for the last twenty minutes, the us hung on and cleared the ball like a twelve year-old "Y" team every time the ball found us feet in their penalty area. i kept yelling "clear it" at the television with absolutely no want or regard for "the beautiful game" or "poetry in motion". i was happy with the idea of taking a point away and i wanted the ball as far away from tim howard's goal as possible. for the middle two-thirds of the match, though, the us was the better team. not only did they create three legitimate chances (the botched header from jozy on the wonderful cross from landon, the dempsey goal, the jozy shot off the post), but they scored on one thanks to the goat of all england, one mr. robert green.

driving home, i thought of how many england fans would echo sentiments similar to those of texas fans or non-alabama fans after colt mccoy couldn't shake off the vicious hit of marcel dareus to return to the national championship game. in that game, surely things "would have been different" if mccoy had played the entire game.  in today's match, surely things "would have been different" if robert green would have positioned his hands slightly more parallel to the goal face or laid his body in front of the ball and smothered it or done anything else to prevent the ball from squirting away from him and into his goal. sure, things may have been different, but guess what. they weren't.

leading up to the bcs title game and every other game that any american football players play, players, quarterbacks included, practice and relentlessly workout and masochistically train their bodies and minds for every possible scenario that could happen during the run of a football game. sometimes, their training benefits their efforts. sometimes, the result betrays the hard work the body and the mind have put in. either way, "what happened, happened". in the lead-up to the bcs national championship game, colt mccoy, i am sure, practiced and prepared and worked out and ran as hard as he's ever done any of those things. and yet, he couldn't get up and move on from one tough hit. his team lost the game. regrets and excuses abounded aplenty.

leading up to the england/us match today and every other game that any world footballer plays, players, goalies included, practice and relentlessly workout and masochistically train their bodies and minds for every possible scenario that could happen during the run of a football match. sometimes, their training benefits their efforts. sometimes, the result betrays the hard work the body and the mind have put in. either way, "what happened, happened". in today's match, robert green had the play and clint dempsey completely in front of him. dempsey shot from 25 yards away, the knock a pond-hopper that was struck with pace but not enough that it should have proved difficult to defend, especially for a goalie that is allowed to use his hands. in that moment, though, robert green choked blinked. his attention deviated from the task at hand, if only for the most severely split of split-seconds. his hands' position betrayed his mind's idea on how best to stop the shot. the ball squirted away and into the goal. 1-1.

what happened, happened.

tim howard was tested more often than robert green and rose to the occasion all but once. the top three men of the match all were american (howard, onyewu, cherundolo). landon outplayed the more expensive lampard. dempsey outperformed the more highly thought of aaron lennon. jozy absolutely owned jamie carragher on his run and near miss.

soccer, when the result on the scoreboard is a draw, is the only sport that can be then judged by vested observers by the merit count of "who deserved to win". over the run of play and staring through very american tinted glasses, i felt like the americans every bit deserved the draw and may have even "deserved" to win. my subjective opinion will never change the actual result, and i don't care that it doesn't.

colt mccoy trained and was paid to bounce back up after the dareus hit. he didn't.

rob green trained and was paid to make that stop on the dempsey shot today. he didn't.

"what happened, happened."

now that is the exegesis of a platitude, dammit. (winking smiley)

"i didn't care that you left and abandoned me. what hurts more is i would still die for you."


now, we are still a long way away from this, but not as long as we once were. that makes sense, right?

whatforeart do i speak of?

i speak of the meta-narrative that will hover above and through the 2010 college football season seen through my eyes. i speak of the impending departure of the supernova that is and forever will be julio jones from the university of alabama. that is what.

some of my favorite columns of any news cycle of any part of the year are the kind that started popping up yesterday afternoon. immediately after one nfl draft is in the books, the so-called draft "experts" move on from one group of no-longer prospects to the next year's class, ready to dissect their speed and skill-sets and destroy whatever favorable reputation (gained on the field, mind you) those prospects may have. there will be those that perform more than admirably on the highest level and keep their overrated teams in games that they shouldn't be in for the course of an entire season (cough, jimmy clausen, cough) that will drop like a rock on draft day(s) because the "experts" continue to call into question his "attitude". there will be those players that no one has ever heard of that rocket up draft boards because they can bench press 225 pounds five hundred and forty-six times in thirty seconds. the "experts" will like this prospect's "motor" and that prospect's "upside/potential". there will be next years version of legarrette blount, a black player with a "questionable" upbringing that punches some cocky/fratty white boy in the face, misses the season, goes undrafted and will make the pro bowl three years later (by the way, you can book that. i would take legarrette blount. today. and start him. he's a beast...in a manner of speaking.).

and then there are those prospects that, barring catastrophic injury, are can't miss. critic proof. "expert" proof. the kind of prospects that "experts" can try to pick apart their numbers but what you see on film tells you all you need to know (see: avatar. you may think the story's been done before, but avatar has never been done before. can't miss. critic proof. biggest movie ever.). prospects that will reside in the top 15 of the "2011 Mock Draft" columns from now until the 2011 NFL Draft comes and goes. it just so happens that, according to si.com, alabama has THREE of those guys. marcell dareus, mark ingram and, of course, julio.

i can't stand the thought of julio (or ingram or dareus or possibly mark barron) leaving, but i will understand when they do. with each game that is played (and won), we will be one game closer to that news conference where julio and saban stand shoulder to shoulder, acknowledging the inevitable has come to pass. it's tough to think about.

mark ingram will be remembered longer, but julio will always be my favorite alabama player of all time. we're still a long way away from him leaving, but not as long as we once were.

that makes sense, right?

rich eisen is not very fast


this link and clip is amusing on a lot of different levels, but i think the take home point is this. nfl caliber athletes are freaks.

when they are all collected on the same field, running into and past each other, their athletic prowess is impressive, sure, but i think it is hard to realize just what kind speed, shiftiness and grace these not-natural human beings possess.

rich eisen used to be my favorite sportscenter anchor. i hate that the nfl network paid him more to work for them. i can't get the nfl network.

my guess is, though, he's not what a lay person would consider a terrible athlete. i bet he played ball as a kid, just like me. i bet he made all-stars, just like me. i bet he could still make his way around a rec-league softball field, just like me. and i bet he runs a forty yard dash, just like me.

check out this link and watch the video. watch how fast tebow is. how fast mt. cody is compared to eisen (keep in mind that cody weighed in at the combine at a slim 354). and watch freaking jacoby ford. dear lord.

this thing is just awesome. big props to rich eisen for being self-deprecating enough to have some fun at his own expense.

http://deadspin.com/5484897/rich-eisens-40+yard-dash-an-amusing-special+effects-bonanza

i resolve...
(2010)
((the year we face our fears))


new year's resolutions are like boxes of chocolate. you never know what you're gonna get. some ridiculously overrated movie character said something like that once.

speaking of...

tell me to name my top five movies of all time. do it!

i can't. narrowing the list down to five would just be too hard.

do it!!!

ok. ok. jeebus. shawshank, pulp fiction, cool hand luke, la confidential, fight club. there. there's a rough draft. satisfied???

two of my favorite movies of ALL TIME were released the same year as "runnn, forrest, runnn", and both were deemed not as deserving for that year's greatest prize. and it's a damn shame. one changed the way movies were made and one, in my opinion, is the single greatest movie and story about hope that ever was. gump was a fine movie. i will give it that. i enjoyed it. would enjoy it again if i sat down and watched it right now. it just wasn't "change the world" good, just like every box of chocolates i've ever had.

give me shawshank or give me death. i'll probably just re-gift your box of candy.

i digress.

to the resolutions.

i am a couple weeks late, but no one will remember that come the end of december. man, i hope i make it to the end of december, which brings us to number one. are you surprised???

1) don't die - no shocker here. karma bit me on the ass last year when i let this one slip to number two. her cruel joke was to take one kidney from me, put the fear of death into my brain so that i would not be able to shake it and see how i reacted. well, i see your joke, karma, and i hear you loud and clear. to be serious for a moment, i didn't realize it at the time, but i do now. the moment i first peed blood, i was being given a second chance. at least, that is how i am choosing to look at it. a second chance to be all i can be for my family, for my friends and for my church. which brings us to number two...

2) get "operation limbo" off the ground, up and running - my first year as lay leader was a relatively quiet one, right??? unless you partly blame me and my deceitfully evil gang of weeds for running off dcd. if that is the case, invite me to your fantasy world, won't you? i would love a cup of special tea too, but i hope you'll come back and join us at 711 gene reed road soon. things will be changing this year for the better. for the first time in a long time. gone, for now, is the discord that has defined us for too many years. here, for now, is a peace and quiet that might allow good people to do good things and reap good rewards along the way. "operation limbo" will be my first honest attempt at stirring the juices of our fair starship humc since 2005. don't know what i am talking about yet? you will. soon. stay tuned.

3) be a more than serviceable lay leader - for those of you that pay attention, this one will serve to be the next logical step towards my new year's resolutions in 2014 when number two that year will be "be the greatest motherscratching lay leader god ever put on this earth". last year, i laid in wait for the most part, serving my church in quiet and subtle ways. voicing opinions that i found important. reading some scripture. kicking some ass in vbs. you know...the usual. this year, my guess is that you'll see my ugly mug and my crooked teeth a little more often. i hope this isn't too much of a turnoff for those that walk our halls that still have trouble making eye contact with me. just know that i love you. and i am trying to be more than serviceable.

4) prepare for the inevitable - how weak-ass weak is it that the college football season is over? alabama basketball sucks. the falcons suck. and spring training hasn't arrived, so i can't hate the braves yet. what is a floundering fan to attach his irrational emotional investment to? i don't know either. so, i'll just pine for alabama football and hope that august gets here sooner rather than later. the inevitable i resolve to prepare for is this. bama has not lost a regular season game in TWO FREAKING years. next season, they host penn st., florida and an improving auburn team. they have to go back to baton rouge. the law of averages is bound to catch up with this team at some point, right? i mean, they can't completely retool and reload their defense and go undefeated again next year, right? they can't just outscore every opponent with their entire offense coming back and control the sec like it was the late 70's again, right? jesus. i hope so. but i'll mentally prepare for a loss anyway, just to be safe. number four is pretty high for something as trivial as college sports, but the trivial crimson tide helped me heal from cancer. that's worth bumping them up a couple slots in my book. roll tide.

5) don't forget about my deceitfully evil gang of weeds - i announced "operation limbo" to my SS class this past sunday, and pledged to them that i wouldn't be leaving them for good when limbo gets started. concerning healing from cancer, this group was just as important, not only as a support system but as a carrot on a stick to get back to them, to look forward to hanging out with them on wednesday nights. there is no other group in the church that has given love a bad name like we have. and i couldn't be any more proud of anything than i am of that fact. all that being said, and sarah can attest to this, when i threw my head into "big things" at the church in the early 2000's, it was easy for me to get very single-minded and forge ahead with blinders on to the rest of the world. limbo is going to be extremely important, to me and to our church and to our community. my weeds must remain every bit as important.

6) say no to drugs - and by drugs, i mean lexapro. i would like to believe that, by the end of this year, i can fight off my demons naturally without the assistance of a tiny pill altering the chemical balances in my brain. we'll see.

7) find brian again - i failed at this last year, but i can't give up the ghost. whether it's driving to savannah or convincing him to come back home, i gotta get closer to my brother. and it can't be because i can't get out of my hospital bed without him.

8) find dad again - oh shit. what's going on here? i've tried to move on. i have. it's just not working out for me. there are about five people in this world that i could not see for months and then, out of the blue, go to dreamland with and pick up like we just saw each other last weekend. in my opinion, if you have those people in your life, you should probably spend more time with them, not less. dad is one of those. so, yeah. that's what's going on here.

9) take ken to a braves game - continuing number eight's theme. i have another brother. his name is ken. he lives in atlanta. he has a baby boy. i am his uncle. i've never met him. how fucking ridiculous am i? exactly. very fucking ridiculous. differences this. hurt feelings that. blah, blah, blah. excuses. i am the fucking vincent van gogh of excuses. only one other person i've met can carry the same loving disdain for the braves as i can. that's ken. i resolve to take him to a game this year and have seats close enough for melky cabrera to hear every single one of our taunts.

10) keep loving my girls - if you've read these lists before, you know i always offer myself a gimme. this one is easy, but ever-evolving. hannah's becoming a trainwreck. she is finding herself, testing boundaries, talking back. more often than not, i want to destroy all of her toys in front of her so that she can understand how painful she is making it for me to like her. and then she sucks on her "meow". she trances out and is the most Godly thing, in every sense of the word, i will ever lay eyes on. she understands her wrongdoings and starts to say "yessir" and "yes ma'am" in that sweet voice of hers. she plays with her sister. incites laughter that will make my heart fill with joy. she becomes, again, the reason i waste my time maintaining this site. she is my everything. and caroline, sweeeeet caroline (bah, bah, baaahhh). i have a hard time remembering hannah at this age. i was away a lot, in body and mind. caroline can be her own trainwreck, but it a weirdly different way. obstinate at times to the point of confusion. cute and cuddly and adorable in others. talkative. sitting on the potty. dancing to the black eyed peas. spitting out her food that she just chewed up. she's my everything too. keep loving my girls. this one should be easy.

good luck to all my fellow list makers. may you all have years that you can be proud of.

what would colt mccoy do?
(wrapping up)


is it frustrating? sure,...a little bit. i think most alabama fans are already tired of hearing how things may have been different had texas not lost their starting quarterback. the implication with that particular choice of words making it sound like someone stole colt mccoy as he was getting off the bus, or he was kidnapped in the tunnel prior to the team running out onto the field. something that would lead the uneducated reader to believe that colt mccoy did not, in fact, play in the national championship game.

quite the contrary. he played. he was just too much of a girl to finish it.

i am not getting too bent out of shape at the immediate revisioning of the history, for most of the kneejerk journalism will give way in the coming months and years to a more realistic perspective of the title game and the big picture that will paint alabama for what they currently are and will always be...national champions of the 2009 college football season.

years from the now, the story will read in this way. colt mccoy, the winningest college quarterback ever, was knocked out of the championship game, leaving a true freshman to pick up the pieces, find himself quite quickly halfway through what will end up being the biggest game of his life, make the game interesting and then allowing destiny to write the proper ending. being "knocked" out paints a different image than "lost", now doesn't it?

it is, to those that watched the game, a more accurate representation of the story. and it will play a bigger role in the retelling down the line.

i see it in this way. teams that run the ball look at their strategy like they were chopping down a tree. the first few times you swing the ax, the tree doesn't seem to budge. but damage is being inflicted even if you can't tell a major difference right from the jump. eventually, the axman will inflict so much damage that the tree will fall, the last few whacks being no more or no less important than the first few unless you spin the story that they were. doing so would be quite ridiculous, but doing so would be no different than retarded baseball columnists trying to convince you that games in april are meaningless and games in september are huge. how insane is that logic??? all games count equally in the standings, correct? the teams that are able to take their aprils as seriously as their septembers usually are the better teams. now back to football teams that run the ball and then hopefully i can find my way back to my point. teams that run the ball will run it in the first quarter and second quarter and third quarter, figuratively trying to wear and chop down the tree that is the opposing defense. how many times this year did alabama make this scheme pay off in spades? remember the south carolina game? mcelroy struggled, so they stuck with the run. stuck with the run. stuck with the run, and then, in the fourth quarter, ingram was able to take over and impose his will in the wildcat drive that started his heisman campaign. similar strategy worked to a tee in the virginia tech, lsu and florida games. some trees are tougher than others. but you see the idea. punish the opponent 'til they can take no more. 'til they begin to armtackle. 'til they don't want to hit you anymore. 'til they don't want you to hit them. punish them. be tougher than them. if you can win this tug of war, you will usually win the game.

this particular brand of gameplan can be applied on the defensive side as well. physical defenses want to push the opposing offense out of their comfort zone with toughness. if you are playing a running team, hit them hard in the first quarter so they might tippy-toe to the line of scrimmage late in the game on an important third or fourth and short. if the quarterback likes to sit in the pocket, bring pressure and make him move. if the quarterback fancies himself a runner, hit him and remind him he is a quarterback. again, if your will, your plan can be imposed over your opponent, you will usually win the game.

alabama knew mccoy would be dangerous out of the pocket if he chose to run. unfortunately for texas fans, it only took one running attempt for alabama to impose their will over their opponent. the hit on mccoy by dareus could not have been any cleaner. but it was damaging. and it changed the way texas would have to play the rest of the game.

is that alabama's fault? of course, and that is exactly the point. they didn't take mccoy out. they kicked his ass, and he wasn't strong enough to fight back. in football, the idea is to hit your opponent.

hypotheticals such as "it would have been different if mccoy was in the game" are not applicable if you are not able to play by the rules of the game. injuries happen and it was unfortunate if you were a texas fan to see your all-american go down. i am fairly sure your team counted the victory against oklahoma when bradford was knocked out, correct? yes, they did. you can't have it both ways. you just have to tip your hat and say, "yep. they were better and tougher than we were tonight."

mccoy's injury was unfortunate, not unlucky. to claim as much only draws attention to your ignorance about football. alabama was the better team thursday night, just as they were every time they stepped on the field this perfect season. 14-0. national champions.

goodness gracious. and roll tide.