Category Archives: Sports

ACC Sucking Wind

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Seven ACC teams made the big dance and four didn't make it past the first round, most notably Wake Forest being thumped by Cleveland State.  If you go buy tournament results you'd have to say that so far the vaunted depth and parity of the ACC was vastly overrated.  Personally I think a better gauge is the overall record of the conference's teams versus non-conference opponents during the season, but since so much emphasis is put on the tournament you can't totally discount the idea that the ACC teams are second-class citizens in March.  My reply is this: does anyone really believe that, despite winning the ACC tournament, Duke is a better team than North Carolina?

As for Wake I want to say only one thing: one of the reasons they were beaten so handily was that they couldn't stop two players from having all-world games against them.  Although Wake's defense is much improved this season they seemed to have a habit of letting players "go off" on them.  Hopefully for next season they'll find someone that they can designate to lock down on other teams' go-to players much like their opponents did to Jeff Teague at the end of this season and during the tournament.

Taking One On the Chin

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My daughter's soccer team (West Forsyth JV) was 30 seconds from a 0-0 tie with arch rival Reagan High School last night when the Reagan girls scored on a really nice break away goal, so the West girls had a tough loss to swallow last night. Besides the built in rivalry of the schools' location this one is even more special because most of these girls play with or against each other regularly on their club teams.  For instance one of my daughter's club teammates played for Reagan and a bunch of girls from the sister teams from our club and who practice and scrimmage together all the time also played for Reagan.  That made it a great atmosphere because while we were definitely rooting for our own kids we were also giving "atta girls" to the Reagan girls.

The next big rivalry game will be Davie High School.  There are quite a few of my daughter's club teammates playing for Davie and since I was the assistant coach on the club team I'm going to definitely have some mixed emotions going on.  Of course I'm pulling for West, but the perfect game to me would be a close win for West with all the girls from the club team playing great.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Great Ways to See the ACC Tourney

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If you don't feel like watching the ACC tournament while nibbling on stale potato chips I have two recommendations for you.  First is seeing the game at the new Deacon Tower Grille which Esbee highlights over at Life in Forsyth.  Sounds way cool.  Second is to go by Unity Moravian on Saturday and partake of some fresh BBQ.  The doors open at 4:00 and close at 7:30. The games probably won't be on in the dining area, but there's carry out and you can watch the games from the confines of your own couch while horsing down the best BBQ in Forsyth County (personal opinion).  BTW, my oldest son and I will once again be chopping pork for the BBQ at Unity so come on by and say hi.

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Head, Heart, Lungs and Legs

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I've spent a good percentage of my life on fields and courts as both a player and a coach.  At best I'm average at both playing or coaching, but I've enjoyed the process immensely and over the years I hope that I've learned much through my observations.  One thing I've learned through all that participation, and something I've tried to share with the kids that I've coached, is that too much attention is paid to the actualy playing of the game and not enough is paid to how to play the game.  My mantra is that the most important contributors to your success in sports are, in this order, the head, heart, lungs and legs.  

Most great competitors are not the most athletic, rather they have a certain level of athletic ability mixed with a superior mind.  They also possess an incredible drive, often referred to by coaches as "heart" that allows them to put forth an incredible amount of effort no matter what obstacles are put in their way.  Lungs and legs simply refer to the fact that the great players almost always train harder than anyone else in the game which means that when everyone else is ready to pass out they're ready to go.  Also, the great ones work on their technical skills long after everyone else has called it quits for the day so when the heat is on during the game they can rely on their skills even when they are completely stressed out.

I thought about all this when I read Dan Collins' most recent post on "My Take on Wake".  He writes about Wake Forest center Chas McFarland's struggles to keep his emotions in check and how McFarland's inability to do so has led to reduced playing time.  In this case it sounds like the heart is actually trumping the brain, and that's never a good thing.  I hope for McFarland's and Wake's sake he gets it together in the near future.  He's obviously worked his butt off and improved physically, but that will be all for naught if he doesn't get his head in order.

A Tale of Two High School Sports Stories

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The other day I was watching Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN 2 (link is to audio of show) and they were talking about the girls high school basketball game that featured one team beating the other 100-0.  They were rightly outraged, not by the score but by the fact that the winning team ran a full court press well into the second half and one of the assistant coaches was openly cheering them on to the 100 point mark.  Some folks emailed in to defend the winning team, but the two Mikes rightly pointed out that there are right and honorable ways to play a game and what the winning team did was not that. It's not that you ask your better players to play poorly, you simply ask them to play differently.  Instead of pressing, work on your zone defense.  Instead of pushing fast breaks, work on your offensive sets and try to only score on the inside.  Whatever, there are ways to play hard and not embarass your opponent.

The flip side of the story are the kids that play the game knowing that they are outmatched but giving it their all anyway.  The losing team in that girl's game is one example, but the Greensboro News & Record recently carried a story that offers an even better example.  The swim team on Greensboro's Smith High School has seven swimmers.  That's right, seven.  The day that the reporter went to see them swim they competed against perennial power Grimsley who had 100 swimmers.  Some of the Smith swimmers didn't know how to swim at the beginning of the season, but they continued to work and improve and one swimmer interviewed in the article saw his 50-meter freestyle time drop from 47 seconds to 32 seconds in one month.  

Two stories that highlight the good and bad of sports.

Mulhern’s New Digs and Gig

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Mike Mulhern, the Winston-Salem Journal's ex-NASCAR reporter, has his new website up and running.  He tells me that this is phase one and that phase two of his site promises more features.  As it is right now he has a Breaking Now/Hot Scoop section, The Pit Bull's Daily Briefing and Mike's Take: NASCAR In Depth.  He's also posting video via YouTube, which is a great idea.  Looks like he's off to a flying running start.

Go get 'em Mike.

News Juxtaposition

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JournalWeirdUpdate
I just received my daily email news update from the Winston-Salem Journal and their lead headline is the crash of a Charlotte-bound US Airways flight into the Hudson River in New York.  Not to make light of that story, which hopefully will find that no one was seriously injured since early reports seem to indicate that the plane seemed to stay atop the water until rescue boats could get to it, but it's what's under the headline and the accompanying photo that was kind of jarring.  It's this sentence: "Also, Midfielder Michael Lahoud of Wake Forest went as the No. 9 pick, to Club Deportivo Chivas USA, based outside Los Angeles."  That's followed by the link to the "Full Story" which is the airplane crash story. (Click on the picture to the left to see what it looked like).

It looks like the wrong description was attached to the headline, which is too bad for Lahoud since it's a happy occassion for him.  It's also a tad confusing because until you click through to the story you think maybe he was on the plane or something.  Why else would he be mentioned?  I suspect that what happened was that the MLS draft story was the lead until the plane crashed and they had to do a last minute switch and forgot to change the description.

But let's end on a positive: kudos to the Journal for highlighting two of Wake's soccer players getting drafted.  All too often the Deacon soccer program is forgotten despite being a national powerhouse.

Mud or Poop? UNC or Duke?

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Ed Cone, a big UNC fan who otherwise is a very fine fellow, was asked by his wife why a UNC loss to Wake is just another loss while a UNC loss to Duke was like "drinking lye."  After getting over the fact that she actually asked him this after 20 years of marriage he came up with this: "It's like the difference between stepping in mud and stepping in dog poop, that's why."

Well I have to concur that Duke is like poop, but in my world UNC is mud. 

Shows What I Know

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Over the last few weeks I've had multiple conversations with fellow basketball fans about Wake Forest's young and very talented basketball team.  My take was that they were a good team, but they're young and I didn't think they'd played the kind of schedule that merited their high ranking.  When North Carolina lost to Boston College I figured that was their wake up call and they'd come into the Joel with a chip on their shoulders and beat the Deacs in a hard fought game with about a 10 point margin.  Although I thought that Wake Forest's win at BYU was a great win, and a big deal for a young team, I also thought that UNC would be the first real test for them and that their youth would betray them.  Happily I'm eating my words.