Georgetown Girls

It seems like Laker players are all over YouTube these days. First it was Ron Artest and then it was Shannon Brown. But since Ron Ron is much more ridiculous and actually "raps" in his video, I'll focus on that. Plus, since it is closely related to college, all the more reason to blog about it. For those who have not seen the video yet, here it is:

I really wish I knew where to start about critiquing this fine piece of music (and video). So here we go:

1. According to basically everyone, Ron Artest attended St. John's university, which happens to be a Big East school, just like Georgetown. Since when do rappers talk about girls from schools in the same conference? Well aside from the fact that most rappers never attended college, like zero percent of the time. So this seems a little ridiculous. What's wrong with St. John's girls? Too New York for Ron Ron?
2. Georgetown girls are not nearly that hood, unless of course they play on the women's basketball team. Last time I checked, Georgetown costs like 40-50k per year and is also a fine academic institution (ranked #23 on US News's ranking) so no way will Ron Artest and his homie Killa Kyleon picked them up from some place that looks like the inner city.
3. I don't think that the overall Georgetown female population hangs out around strange rappers wearing a "hoed out" #21 jersey. Sure, Jason Clark happens to wear it nowadays but who cares? Why not rep' someone much better like Greg (Craig) Monroe? How about literally anyone else on the 2010 team? The video was released that year, was it really that hard to find a more relevant jersey?
4. This is not really a new point, just a summary. All the Georgetown girls I met when I visited back in March look and act nothing like the ladies in this video. Yes, they like to party with NBA players (Shelley, I know about Roy), and yes, they are fine looking, and most importantly, have a good time. Here is how I would have portrayed the Georgetown girl: alcohol drinking (at Rhino's), hard studying, sombrero wearing, girl. Probably rocking some gray shirt that doesn't make them look too slutty, but maybe not. Who knows.

And the Next Contestant is...

Well the news today make the SEC seem even sketchier than college aged men listening to Miley Cyrus. A 4th school was contacted by the NCAA about a possible agent connection with a player (or more). Clearly, this is no good news for the SEC, nor for the NCAA. However, it is nice to see the organization many consider weak actually be proactive about a serious issue. Now it is just time to see what actually happens in terms of findings and possible sanctions. This will be an interesting rest of July and month of August! Can't wait (for the season to actually start that is).

P.S. The 4th SEC school is Georgia.

6 Degrees of Separation - NCAA Crusade Style

Since a new school has been added to the apparent crusade the NCAA is on against agents infiltrating college football, I figured why not try to link up all these schools thus far that have been targeted. So far according to my records, those schools are North Carolina, USC, Florida, Alabama, and of course, U$C. Without further ado, here we go:

1. Alabama beat Florida for the SEC title while in the process dethroning it from the Nation Championship.

2. USC's coach, Steve Spurrier, is Flordia's former coach and Heisman trophy winner.

3. UNC has 13 players investigated, with the main player being good friends with the one being questioned at USC.

4. UNC's Herman Davidson hails from Long Beach Poly, where he was teammates with four current Trojan players.

5. All four of those players were recruited (at least initially) by current Seahawk and former Trojan lier Pete Carroll.

6. Pete Carroll recruited Reggie "Show me the money" Bush and coached him for his three seasons in the Ketchup and Mustard.

There you go, a bit of a stretch, but sometimes you have to put a bit of an effort to implicate and connect all bad things to U$C. But just a bit, not too much effort, there's no need to try that hard to achieve it.

USC Being Investigated for Violations

Except this time it is the real USC, South Carolina. And unlike the Trojans, they will not be playing dumb and avoiding investigators. There is only one player currently in question according to The State. The reason the NCAA even got to him is because he is good friends with the main player under investigation at UNC (not to be confused with either USC). While it is not a good sight to see so many schools being investigated (now Florida is too), what the NCAA is doing is trying to clean up the sport as much as it can. Does it mean there is a huge problem in college football? Probably not. However, no reason not to get the few bad apples out of there before the reputation of a school and the sport is shattered. Additionally, it is nice to see the coach who's player is being investigated not deny anything, but rather be proactive. It also doesn't hurt that in the process he takes a shot at Pete Carroll. Good for you Steve Spurrier! Maybe Spurrier should be the one writing a book about winning forever. After all, he won a Heisman and a National Championship that haven't been taken away from the record books like the former coach of the "other" USC.

More Underaged Drinking at Notre Dame? So What?

I just did my daily browse through Yahoo! Sports blogs, and came across a blog post about more college kids getting arrested for partying and drinking even though they are under the legal age to drink (21). To be honest, the only reason this is any news is because one of them is Nate, the son of Notre Dame and 49er great Joe Montana. Yes, when someone breaks the law it should be taken seriously, but not be blown out of proportion. Yes, this is not the first time Notre Dame has had to deal with this due to a recruit dieing from alcohol related reasons and Jimmy Clausen "broing it up" at the Beer Olympics (pictured below).
Do any of us really think those cops that made the arrest didn't drink as college underclassmen? Let's be real. The vast majority of college-aged "kids" drink and have some sort of social life. Not only that, but why make a big deal about what people do in their spare time? This party was not in the middle of summer camp, regular season, or even bowl game prep. So why scrutinize college kids for having a good time, especially when no one was hurt, no brawls broke out, and nothing Notre Dame football related was impeded due to this transgression. Sometimes athletes are held to a double standard saying they should not act like any other kid having the college experience. I would say that during the season or camp they should definitely not forget the reason why they are getting a scholarship and focus only on school (unless they are U$C athletes, in which case school is not part of the equation) and contributing their talents in the best way to the football team. But this is July, it was a house party, and they simply broke a law. Let the police deal with it, and move on. This happens all the time, and if no one gets hurt there is no reason to make a big deal out of it.

Who is Sponsoring World Cup Teams?

Though this is not directly related to college sports, it is somewhat related. There are always discussions about whether a school should stay with a particular company or switch to a rival one. This was discussed here in regards to Adidas schools. So who are Adidas teams? Nike teams? Puma teams? or anything else for that matter. It is time to examine who is the dominating apparel provider in the world of (not-American) football.
Adidas:
France, Spain, South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Greece, Paraguay, Germany, Denmark, Slovakia, Japan, Nigeria

Nike:
United States, Slovenia, Brazil, Portugal, Holland, Serbia, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand

Puma:
Algeria, Switzerland, Uruguay, Italy, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon


Others:
Honduras, North Korea, Chile, England

Clearly, it is a three horse race between Adidas, Nike, and Puma as I mentioned above. Puma has a huge stronghold on the African continent as the only country which is not representing the German company is Nigeria, which is rocking the gear of another German company (Adidas). As far as the two real giants go, the cake goes to Adidas in the world of football. As if having the rights to outfit referees and provide the official ball weren't enough, they are represented through 12 countries, compared to 9 of Nike.

It's (essentially) Official: Utah to Join the Pac

So it was announced earlier today that Utah will be the 12th member of the Pac-10 conference (or soon to be known as the Pac-12). Personally, this isn't that big of a deal because aside from a solid football team that has done well in the MWC and bowl games, and a basketball team that was solid in the late 90's, there is nothing much to it. They have some other nice programs and what not, but that aside, big deal. Plus Utah is just an absolute boring place. But hey, at least they hate BYU, and so do I. That being said, the big question here is how the conference will not divide itself to accommodate all the teams. You have to go with a North-South alignment because East-West would mean one eight team division and a four team division. The big question with a North-South division is who goes in the North and who goes in the South. Do the Bay Area schools go with the South to keep California together, or do Utah and Colorado and their bad weather and actual Northern location go in the North? Personally, I would like to see the California schools stay together and play in a division with the Arizona schools. Those are all much closer together and culturally make sense too. And again, they are closer geographically. The new ski schools should play with the other cold climate schools in Oregon and Washington because it will save on travel and make for a lot of cold games that no one wants to actually play in if you are for California or Arizona. I also saw somewhere an alignment that would split each natural rivalry which is probably insane idiotic and does not make any sense from a fiscal and logistic stand point. However, I am not Larry Scott or any of the ADs of the member schools, so we shall see what happens. In the meanwhile, we can all just wait and write and read more banter about this.

Pac-16? Not Happenin'

First, I am back! These past couple of months were filled with so much writing for school that I got so disillusioned that my blogging had to take a backseat. Either way, it is summer again and time to return to blogging about the happenings of college athletics. For weeks now, the raging topic of conversation has been conference expansion. We've all heard about it. School A will bolt conference X and will join conference Y thus leaving conference X is utter shambles. A, X, and Y have taken on many names recently and while some of these rumors have been true, many have been proven to just be a tease. What's hilarious is that many rumors that have been about East Coast schools, such as some ACC ones jumping to SEC, have taken a back seat to West Coast rumors. I'm shocked no one has mentioned how this is the first time ever that there's a reverse East Coast bias going on in the mainstream media. Since this blog is all about the West Coast we will examine the A, X, and Y pertaining to this side of the Mississippi.
The rumors that came to fruition last week when Colorado accepted the Pac-10 invitation to join its conference while Nebraska bolted on the old Big-12, for the new Big-12 (formerly known as Big-10 with 11 teams). This was believed to be a huge step towards turning both the Big-10 and Pac-10 into 16 team megaconferences. However, at least for the Pac-10 that will not happen. Today Texas turned down the Pac-10 invitation to join its conference, and Oklahoma and Texas A&M announced that they will stay put and try to keep the Big-12 together, as a 10 team conference. Personally, as a UCLA and Pac-10 enthusiast, I am happy about this. It for sure would have been cool to play those guys on a regular basis, but realistically, having a gigantic conference isn't that great. It creates tons of imbalance and weird scheduling problems and a lot more travel than the current format. Plus, having two eight team conferences seems pretty silly. With regards to recruiting, sure, it could have helped land a few top Texas prospects, but who's to say that the Plains schools won't come to California and nab a few prep stars as well? Also, some Pac-10 schools are already scheduled to play schools from the Lone Star state, so no big deal. In the end, the conference will probably stay with eleven or maybe nab one more (lets hope its a good catch) and hopefully put on a newly formed championship game.

Also, can the Big XII and Big 10 just like swap logos or something? Seems to be the simplest solution to me.