Goodbye (For Now)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It has been quite a ride the past 18 months or so. From the most serious of posts to the most hilarious, it has been fun writing on this site and sharing my opinions with the rest of you all. It has been great to express my "creative" side through this medium and something that I might come back to in the future. However, with RJS being more than 90% written by me, and since I have been busy with graduate school this past year, I have not had time to write my inspired (maybe) and insightful (sure, why not) posts. Perhaps when the school year ends and I have my M.S. in hand I will be able to return to post on this site. Until then, and until new people want to help out, I have to call for a RJS hiatus. We are only the latest in great things to take such a break. I would name others, but no reason to drag others into this. The sports world is full of very opinionated folks so I doubt this website taking a break will make people cry, although if it does, I'd like to know and personally apologize. To my Bruin readers out there, which is probably like 95% of my fanbase, stay strong. Especially this week with U$C and St. John's Lizard coming to Pauley. To everyone else, take care. It's been real.

much love,
Ran

Cal Time!

I wasn't going to let it get to me this time around. I wasn't going to partake in the trash talking. No, not this year. Heck, I am not even in California. I'm in New York. I thought I could do without getting riled up about this game, but I can't. Whether it is my friend rocking his Cal student section shirt to our graduate school class yesterday, or reading the message boards online, I just have to say something. I'll preface by saying I have the utmost respect for Cal as an academic institution. They are the #1 public school in the nation and have been. Heck they gave birth to UCLA 90 years ago. However, Cal fans seem to forget their former Southern Branch has overtaken big brother by quite a lot since. We don't have to count the higher applicant pool (10,000 people difference), or the lower admission rate (the theme of the last 10 years). Maybe how Cal's three biggest rivals (Stanford, U$C, and "little" brother) have the most national championships. But this week that doesn't matter. It's football. No reason to sweat over how Cal inspired Sons of Westwood, the colors, or even the name of UCLA. All of those are true Cal Bears, we know. So let's do a quick guide to how to make an annoying Cal fan who is trying to talk trash about the UCLA program shut up.

Cal fan: We have been so much better than you this decade.
UCLA fan: You have been better than us. You would consider this your best decade in sixty years, yet if you total the amount of conference wins you barely beat us. You also have a 6-4 against us and the same amount of Rose Bowls as us. And that is what we call a decade to forget.

Cal fan: When was the last time you guys played at home in January?
UCLA fan: Not since 1999. Which happens to be 40 years after your team did. And just to make something clear, the Washington schools, the Oregon schools, U$C, ASU, and your arch-rival Stanford have appeared in the Granddaddy of Them All. That's be 8/9 other conference foes.

Cal fan: No one likes UCLA football, it's like half full.
UCLA fan: Last year after a 4-8 season and a 7-6 season we had 66,000 people. Yes, that's roughly 72% of the capacity but still 5,000 more than Cal averaged in an era where fans in Berkeley have some optimism. How did the 90's attendance figures go for you?

Cal fan: Cal football has a rich tradition.
UCLA fan: If by rich tradition you mean no Rose Bowl since Jan 1, 1959, and a losing record against Stanford, U$C, and UCLA. In fact, all of those schools has at least 10 more victories in the head-to-head match-up. So if that counts as rich, yes. Very rich.

105 points, say WHAT?

Look out Big East, here comes Corey Fisher. The guard from Villanova recently did his>best impersonation of Wilt Chamberlain at a summer league game by not only breaking the century mark but by doing so by five points, although when you score that much I suppose that's somewhat statistically insignificant but still... wow! According to The Hoop Doctors, he scored 105 out of the 138 points his team scored, which accounts for a cool 76% of his team's offensive production. Yes, when a team scores 138 points in a 40 minute game it probably means that defense was not the top priority for the opposition, but you still got to love Fisher's performance. A player has to be really darn good to be able to nail 23 three pointers on a "mere" 28 attempts (82%). Who in the world can do that in practice? Probably a few of those professional guys, who get paid to play ball. This is an amateur who did this during a game, which has to mean his legs and wrists were getting tired. Especially after he allegedly scored 72 of the points in the first half. This is the middle of the summer, not conference season. No way is he in that amazing of shape to not have to try really, really hard to score so much. Finally, if you were on the other team, would you let some one drop triple digits on you? I know I wouldn't, and I'm not a competitive basketball player (sometimes, not always). So Corey Fisher, congrats. That is one heck of a performance, simply amazing.

The Reciprocal Relationship

Some relationships in life such as higher velocity -> higher momentum, lower resistance -> lower voltage used, and higher SAT scores -> higher chance of getting into college are called (directly) proportional relationships. Others such lower radius -> higher force are called inversely proportional relationships, or reciprocal ones. Well, we can now add another one of the type. When adrenaline goes up intelligence goes down. This one should be rightfully credit to U$C Fullback Stan Havili. Mr. Havili decided that such theory, which many Trojans might consider analogous to Einstein's theory of relativity, justifies breaking the cheekbone of a teammate in practice. Really Stanley, really? Just because emotions run high, doesn't mean breaking a bone in a teammates body is justified. There are plenty of other ways to be competitive without having to break a bones. You can trash talk, get in their faces with dumb jumping, or even to light shoving. I'm sure that there are many other ones you can do, but those three are the ones that come to mind. The bottom line is this, when emotions run high, don't break someone else's bones, especially of that someone happens to be the guy who come Saturdays will wear the same colors as you.

But hey, when the "school's" motto is FIGHT ON! can you really blame ole Stanley?

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.