First Win

A year and a half ago, I wrote about the beginning of my coaching career.  I wasn't really coaching.  I was just standing on the sidelines wearing a suit and managing substitutions.  Last year, I was the assistant coach of my school's basketball team.  It was a good experience.  I learned a lot and I felt like I could actually coach a team going into this year.  In September, last year's head coach asked me if I wanted to take over the head coaching job this year.  So now I'm coaching a team on my own.

Our team last year was all eighth graders except for two seventh graders.  We were pretty good and finished 8-4.  This year, I was worried with only two returning players.  We had some practices in October and November and I was somewhat optimistic.  We were a deeper team than last year.  The end of our bench is better than it was last year.  The problem is that our best players aren't nearly as good as they were last year.  We have two players that are about six feet tall.  So far we've played two teams with kids that were at least five inches taller than anybody we have (and they could play).  We have no chance against teams like that.  We played one team that we were very evenly matched with in December.  We had a shot at the buzzer that would have won the game, but it didn't go in and we lost by one.  One mistake I made was sticking with a zone press too long.  It worked fairly well at first, but then they started to break it and get some easy baskets.  I called it off for the fourth quarter, but I shouldn't have waited that long.

Another problem has been that we didn't practice for the entire month of December.  Between games and the gym not being available for other reasons, we played some games, but we couldn't practice.  That came into play last week.  We were hanging in there in a road game.  We got off to a slow start, but got it down to two by the end of the third quarter.  Between quarters, I told the team to press after we scored our first basket in the fourth quarter.  It worked, but it was still a mistake.  We scored, got a turnover off the press, and scored again to take the lead.  But once the other team scored, they pressed us for the first time.  I had spent some time way back in November working on a zone press break and they were pretty good at it, but we hadn't practiced a man to man press break.  We couldn't handle the press and we lost.  Maybe they would have pressed us anyway, but I feel like my decision to press is what led the other team to press.  In fact, in the game before, I purposely didn't press the other team because I didn't want them to press us.  It kind of worked in that game.  We scored our most points of the season and we only lost by six, even though the other team had the three best players.  The other team could have beaten us by a lot, but I think they held back a little because I wasn't overaggressive.  I should have kept that in mind.

I knew today was an opportunity to win.  We were playing the other winless team.  We have played well against lesser talent when our opponents take out their starters.  We've outscored the other team in the second half of two of our games.  Unfortunately, they always outscored us by a lot more in the first half than we outscored them by in the second half.  Today, we got off to a slow start.  The other team got out to a 7-2 lead.  We cut it to 7-6 by the end of the first quarter.  We led by one at halftime and two at the end of the third quarter.  We dominated the fourth quarter and ended up winning 42-28.  I had one regret.  I pulled all my best players in the last minute, but I should have done it a little earlier.  I took out my two big guys about halfway through the quarter, but then the other team went on a little run and I put them back in.  I probably should have gotten everybody out with about two minutes left.  We scored a couple of late baskets off turnovers that we didn't need to score.

We have eight more games.  Obviously, we won't have a very good record this year, but I'm enjoying it.  Hopefully I'll learn from my mistakes.  Three of our top six players are in sixth or seventh grade.  The problem is that all of our height is in eighth grade.  Maybe some of the other players will grow a lot.  The one sixth grader I have on my team is going to be really good when he gets older.  His older brother was our best player last year and he definitely will be by the time he's in eighth grade (he might even be next year).  To make a cross-sport comparison, he's like Clayton Kershaw in 2008 or 2009.  He's young and he has flashes of brilliance, but he's not quite there yet.  I am completely confident that he will get there.  Also like Kershaw, he's left-handed.  And like Kershaw is my favorite baseball player, he's one of my favorite students ever (I had him in class last year).  It will be a fun team to coach in two years if I can find some other players to put around him.

So I kind of had two wins as coach of the legendary Swamp Donkeys back in the day (although I actually dressed for both of those games because we were missing a couple of players).  But today I got my first real win as a coach.  The next step is to take Butler to two consecutive National Championship Games and then become the head coach of the Boston Celtics.

I love this guy.  I can't wait until Danny Ainge gets him some good players with all those draft picks.  Go Celtics!

Actually, I'm just kidding.  I like coaching, but I wouldn't make it a career.  But if I did, what would be my ideal job if I could have any basketball coaching job?  Obviously, it would be between Notre Dame and the Celtics.  You might find this surprising, but I actually care about the Celtics more than the Notre Dame basketball team (whereas the Jets don't come anywhere close to the Notre Dame football team for me).  But if I was qualified and had my choice of jobs, it would be the Notre Dame job.  It would be so much less stressful and I'd have to work much less.

Quick tangent to finish up.  The benefits of moderate alcohol consumption are well documented.  I would say I have a beer four or five nights a week usually.  Either Friday or Saturday night, I'll often drink a little bit more.  With my 20s coming to an end, my alcohol consumption would be described as more than moderate for the last couple of weeks.  I went out this past Friday and stayed out until about 3:00 in the morning.  Since then I haven't had a drink (like I said, I don't usually drink a lot, but five straight days without a single drink is a long time for me).  Until tonight.  I'm definitely enjoying a victory Sam Adams tonight.

Frozen Fenway

I met my friend Kyle nine years ago today when we transferred to Notre Dame.  We celebrated our nine year anniversary a little early with a trip to Boston for Frozen Fenway.  I really like Boston.  Let's review my Boston history:

Summer 1995- My brothers went to look at colleges in Boston.  I went with them and my dad.  Mo Vaughn hits a grand slam seven years before starting his career as a bouncer at Finnegan's (Pete got that joke).

December 2008- I went to John's Christmas party.  Despite the fact that I had to put up with Boston College fans a month after they had beaten Notre Dame for the sixth straight time, it was really fun.  Vin, Molly, and Darryl were there as well.  We wanted to go to the Sam Adams brewery, but none of us could get up early enough after the Christmas party to get there before they had reached capacity.  We went to the Harpoon brewery instead.  Fun, but it's not Sam Adams.  We also went to a comedy show and then we all drove back to New York together.

Darryl and me at John's Christmas party.  I mean, it was a good weekend.

July 2009- John took me on a Freedom Trail drinking tour and I got to Fenway Park for the first time in fourteen years.

February 2010- I planned to go to Boston to see the Celtics play at home for the first time in my life.  The game was on a Saturday afternoon, but 20 inches of snow in New York cancelled my bus on Friday night.  So I had to take the first bus on Saturday morning to get there in time.  To get to Penn Station in time, I had to take a train at about 3:45.  Let me tell you, Penn Station is a weird place to be at 5:00 on a Saturday morning.  What was also weird was that the storm that cancelled my bus was all rain in Boston and there was no snow on the ground.  John took me to the Green Dragon Tavern (where the Boston Tea Party was planned) and we had a few pints of Sam Adams before going to see the Celtics lose to a bad Nets team.  I was convinced the Celtics weren't going anywhere that year.  John and I watched Olympic curling that night (it's coming back soon, finally).

June 2010- Just two days after the Celtics lose Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals against the Lakers, I went to Boston for Dodgers-Red Sox.  Manny Ramirez hit a home run for the Dodgers, but the Red Sox won.

August 2011- I went to John's wedding in Beverly (north of Boston).  At some point at the reception, Darryl told me that I have to drive him to the airport the next morning.  Because of that, I stopped drinking at when the afterparty started.  Still, I wasn't 100% sure I was driving him to the airport until he called me as I was about to pass out around midnight and told me he needed to sleep in my room.  I had to get up around 6:30 to drive him to Logan.  He had just gotten back from Afghanistan, so really, I couldn't complain about anything.

And that's it.  I love Boston.  Fenway Park is my favorite baseball stadium.  With Notre Dame playing Boston College in hockey at Fenway and Kyle going to grad school at Dartmouth, we had to make this happen.

Once again, the weather was against me.  This time, New York got 6.4 inches of snow and Boston got 17.8 inches.  My Friday bus was once again cancelled.  That was probably good news because it was 8 degrees in New York City that night (ridiculously cold by New York standards) and 1 degree in Boston.  The game was Saturday night, but I was determined to make it to Boston early so that I could finally get to the Sam Adams brewery.

My brilliant plan was to take Amtrak at 2:40 in the morning from Penn Station and get to Boston at 8:00.  I got to Penn Station in plenty of time, but my train didn't leave until about 3:45.  Being an hour late wasn't a big deal because Kyle wasn't supposed to get to Boston until 9:30.  Not realizing it, I sat near two babies on the train.  One was really chill and the other one wasn't.  Kyle, I hope your baby is really chill.  I got some sleep, but not as much as I could have.  We were moving along well enough until we made it to Rhode Island.  Then we stopped.  And waited.  And waited.  They told us that we needed rescue engines to tow us to Boston.  It was almost two hours before we were moving again.  All part of the story.

I wanted to get to Boston as early as possible because the Sam Adams website says the brewery usually reaches capacity around noon on Saturdays.  I made it to Boston around 10:50.  Kyle was there waiting for me.  We went to the hotel and then took a cab to the Sam Adams brewery.  I guess weather kept people away because we got there right around noon and didn't have to wait long at all for our tour.  The brewery is much smaller than i was expecting.  There's not much to the tour.  Our tour guide was really good.  He explained that a lot of the brewing done there is experimental.  Most of the beer that they sell is brewed in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania or Cincinnati.  Anyway, they take you to an area where they go through the main ingredients that are used.  They give you some different grains that you can eat and then you take a handful of hops and rub your hands together and then your hands smell like beer.  After that, you go to another area and they go through the brewing process and the machinery that's used.  The last part is a tasting room.  The tour guide talked a lot about the Sam Adams glass.  One thing I didn't realize is that you're supposed to hold it down low on the narrow part of the glass to reduce heat transfer.  He also taught us how UV rays come down from space to kill beer.  We got to sample Boston Lager, Winter Lager, and Rebel IPA.  The tour guide talked about the proper way to drink beer.  You're not supposed to drink it out of the bottle (much more difficult to get the sense of smell involved) and you're supposed to let your entire tongue taste the beer.  I actually kind of instinctively figured out that you have to let your entire tongue taste the beer many years ago.  The last stop is the gift shop.  I bought a Summer Ale shirt.  Of course I did.  Much like I had to get to the Guinness brewery in Dublin, I needed to get to the Sam Adams brewery.  I don't know how it took me this long.  You should go if you're in Boston.  I would have paid probably $20 to see where the magic happens, but it's free (except for a suggested donation of $2 that goes to local charities).

Sam Adams bottles from the beginning up until today

Kyle and me at the brewery

After the brewery, there's a trolley that takes people to Doyle's, which was the first bar to serve Sam Adams on tap.  Apparently, there have been a few movies with scenes shot in Doyle's, but I hadn't seen any of them.  The trolley driver was something right out of a Saturday Night Live skit.  Amazing Boston accent.  He also really loved Doyle's.  He told us that it was the third best clam chowder in the city (I had it, it was very good).  He also said their burgers are better than Five Guys.  I like Five Guys, but Kyle and I both thought that was setting the bar pretty low.  We had Sam Adams Brick Red, which I think is only available in the Boston area.  If you bring your tour ticket (which is a label for one of their bottles) to Doyle's, you get the Sam Adams pint glass for free.  I already have one, so I didn't bother taking it, but Kyle got one.

Clam chowder at Doyle's

From there, we were ready to go to Fenway.  We still had a few hours until our game, but we figured we'd walk around for a little bit and go to a bar and drink and have some dinner before the game.  We started walking north toward Fenway.  We were a few miles away, but we figured we'd reduce our cab fare by heading in that direction.  We ended up walking a good mile and a half before we got a cab.  The cold was tolerable (perhaps because of the alcohol), but walking in the snow was annoying.  We got to Fenway, picked up our tickets, and said hi to John.  We tried to go to Cask 'n Flagon, but it was too crowded.  We went to another bar and watched some of the Chiefs-Colts game, the first hockey game (Merrimack vs. Providence), drank, and ate dinner.  Kyle and I talked about how it was nice to go to a game that we didn't really care about too much.  If we go to a football game and we lose, it ruins my week (or entire fall, whatever the case may be).  But I can't say that I care very much about Notre Dame hockey.  I probably won't watch another game unless we get to the Frozen Four.  It would be nice to beat Boston College, but I wasn't going to be too upset if we didnt.  The first hockey game went to overtime, pushing our start time back.  When it ended, we left and headed into the park.

We definitely didn't realize how much time there would be between games.  We got in with about 55 minutes until the start of the game.  We walked around Fenway a bunch to try to keep warm.  I had never walked around the inside of the park that much.  I never truly appreciated how weird Fenway is until this weekend.  You have all these randomly placed ramps and stairs all over the concourse.  It's such an oddly designed ballpark.  Anyway, our seats were supposed to be out in right field (very far from the rink, not a good view), but we could pretty much sit anywhere we wanted on the lower level.  The best views were higher up, but they wouldn't let you up to the second level without a ticket.  Despite the bad views from many seats, I'm totally in favor of outdoor hockey, especially at a place like Fenway.  The snow on the field added a nice touch.  We sat behind one of the goals for the first period.  That wasn't a bad view because it was reasonable close to the ice.  Boston College took a 2-0 lead.  John got done working and took Kyle and I on a little tour.  He took us up to the Green Monster seats.  Those were pretty good seats.  John left before the start of the second period.  I couldn't blame him since he had been standing out in the cold for several hours.  Kyle and I watched the second period from the Green Monster.  It was colder up there.  The temperature for the game was around 25 degrees.  According to the box score, the Notre Dame-Syracuse game in 2008 was 27 degrees.  It was also the most miserable sporting event I've ever been to.  This hockey game was probably colder, but I was much better prepared.  I wore six layers (undershirt, two thermal long sleeve shirts, another t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and heavy jacket).  After the second period, we couldn't handle the Green Monster anymore, so we went down to the concourse behind home plate where it was fairly warm during the intermission.  With the game tied at 2, we went back behind one of the goals for the third period.  Boston College scored, we scored, and then they scored again.  With Boston College leading 4-3, we left halfway through the third period.  We had seen enough.  If Notre Dame had come back and I had missed it, I could have lived with that, but it didn't happen.  The final score was 4-3.  So that was the end of my three consecutive Saturdays of three different Notre Dame sports.  We went 1-2, but fortunately the win was in football.

The ceremonial puck drop

The view from on top of the Green Monster

The next morning, I went to mass right by Harvard and the walked around the Harvard campus for a bit.  Fortunately, the students weren't back yet so there weren't a bunch of hippies around.  I went to Yale four times when I was in high school and I don't really remember their campus.  Harvard didn't impress me much.  Actually, of all the college campuses I've been to (which isn't a huge number, but probably like 15), the campuses that really impressed me were Notre Dame and Virginia (I'd probably put Georgetown third on my list of favorite campuses).  At least I can say I've seen Harvard.  It was an adventure getting there, but it was well worth it.  I'm not going back to Boston in the winter, though.  Thanks again, John and Kyle.  I'll have to get back to Boston when the weather is good.

The gates to Harvard.  If I could trade my Notre Dame degree for a degree from Harvard, there's no way I would make that trade.

I've been to 20 of the largest 77 cities in the United States and two foreign cities.  Quickly, here's my city power rankings:

5.  Pittsburgh.  Yes, Pittsburgh.  I saw my first college football game there.  Notre Dame won and it was a great night.  They also have a great baseball stadium.

4.  Dublin.  It was the first foreign city I visited.  The Guinness brewery was great.  Temple bar was great.  Notre Dame beat Navy.  And the Irish accent is my second favorite foreign accent (a distant second to the Australian accent).

3.  London.  I had wanted to get to London for a long time.  I spent five days there last summer.  The history is amazing.  Going to the Churchill War Rooms was one of my favorite touristy things I've ever done.  Wimbledon was a lot of fun.  The tube is really easy to use.  The only drawbacks are how expensive it is and the fact that the queen lives there.

2.  Boston.  Like London, the history is great.  It's the home of one of my heroes, John Adams, and my favorite beer, Sam Adams.  My favorite basketball team plays there.  My favorite game of all time in any sport happened there (Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals).  I've already said how much I love Fenway Park.

1.  Los Angeles.  If I was rich, I'd have three homes.  One on Long Island, one somewhere close to Notre Dame, and one in Los Angeles.  I would absolutely be a Dodgers season ticket holder.  I've had travel issues with Boston.  I've actually had travel issues in Los Angeles.  But that was because of a hurricane in New York pushed back my return flight three days, not terrible.  Los Angeles weather is never a problem.  Dealing with Laker fans and USC fans might be rough, but the Dodgers and the weather would make it worth it.

Happy Birthday Bart Starr!  He's a really underrated quarterback (he should be easily considered top 10 all time), but this is gone on long enough so I'll try to tackle that another time.

I'm Really Upset about the 19th Spot in the AP Poll

I still have to work on a post on Frozen Fenway.  I'll get there, but first some final thoughts on the 2013 college football season.

Last night's game was really good, but I will always hate Florida State for 1993.  Notre Dame deserved the National Championship that year.  If you don't know the history, we beat them and both schools finished with one loss.  They had the good fortune of losing first so they were given the championship.

Florida State's football team's graduation rate is 58%.  That is shameful.  They're good, but they don't have 42% of their players leaving early for the NFL.

I did really like Florida State's game winning touchdown.  They had guys coming out of the backfield running toward the sidelines and opening up the middle for their big tall wide receiver for the touchdown.  Brian Kelly loves the fade and empty backfields too much.  That throw was so much easier for a quarterback to make than the fade.

But the real reason for this post is that the final AP rankings had me upset.  Nope, I don't care about the top 5 or the top 10.  I'm upset about spots 19 (USC), 20 (Notre Dame), and 21 (Arizona State).  I'm not going to tell you that Notre Dame was underrated, but these rankings don't make sense.  I happened to see Notre Dame play those other two teams in person.  Notre Dame went 2-0 in those games.  Arizona State beat USC.  Now, there's a lot more to the season than just those three games among those three teams.  In fact, I wouldn't have ranked Notre Dame the best out of those three.  Let's review.

USC:  10-4 (got to play an extra game because they played at Hawaii), 1-3 against teams that finished the season ranked (teams that finished with an average ranking of 17), impressive wins against Stanford and Fresno State, really bad loss against Washington State.

Notre Dame:  9-4, 3-2 against ranked teams (teams that finished with an average ranking of 12, wins over Michigan State, Arizona State, and USC), really bad loss against Pittsburgh, bad loss against Michigan.

Arizona State: 10-4 (played an extra game because they won the Pac-12 South, but played an FCS team also), 4-3 against ranked teams (teams that finished with an average ranking of 17.7, wins over Wisconsin, USC, Washington, and UCLA), bad loss against Texas Tech.

Based on all of that, Arizona State was the best of those three teams and USC was the worst.  Arizona State won its division, played the most ranked teams, and spanked USC.  Sure, some bad officiating at the end helped them beat Wisconsin, but there's no guarantee that they would have lost if the game had been properly officiated.  Notre Dame played more games against ranked teams than USC and won two more games against ranked teams.  The ranked teams that we played were clearly better than the ranked teams that USC played.  USC had a good win against Stanford and we lost to Stanford, but we beat USC, so don't give me any transitive property nonsense.  Out of USC, Notre Dame, and Arizona State, Notre Dame was the only team with a win against a top 5 team (or a top 10 team for that matter).

So Notre Dame was properly rated.  The problem was that USC was overrated and Arizona State was underrated.  We'll just have to beat USC again next year.  Go Irish!

Pinstripe Bowl

I'm not going to lie, I was way too excited about the Pinstripe Bowl.  I want the Pinstripe Bowl to become a big event.  It has a solid name (check my last post).  I like football in Yankee Stadium.  I've said the Super Bowl should be there instead of Met Life Stadium.  Next year it will be an ACC-Big Ten bowl, which should be better than the current Big 12-American Athletic Conference set up.  But this year, thanks to the Big 12 not having enough bowl eligible teams, it meant that I got to go to an extra Notre Dame football game.  If we were going to play in a meaningless bowl, I couldn't have been any happier than I was with ending up in the Pinstripe Bowl.

It seemed for a while that we would end up in the Pinstripe Bowl.  Once I saw the official announcement made, I got on Stubhub and got two tickets in section 332B, which was the second highest level around the 25 yard line.  I bought at the right time, because prices had pretty much doubled by the next day.  I could have gotten slightly cheaper tickets from Notre Dame, but I probably wouldn't have had as good of a view.  I was on the Rutgers side of the field, but there were a lot of Notre Dame fans where I was sitting.  A day or two before the game, I got an extra ticket on Stubhub in the next section.

My dad and I met my brother Tom at Penn Station on Saturday morning.  I took the subway with two subway alums to the game.  My friends John, Vin, and Sean ended up going to the game at the last minute and were tailgating on top of a parking garage.  If I had known, I would have gotten there earlier and met up with them before the game.  But by the time we finally got to the stadium, we just headed in and got to our seats about 15 minutes before kickoff.  We sat in section 332B for about the first quarter, but then our row finally filled up and there wasn't a seat for my brother.  So we moved over to his section where there were plenty of open seats.  Those seats were around the 15 yard line, so they weren't quite as good of a view of the field, but it was still better than the view I had at any of the other Notre Dame games I went to this season.

The opening kickoff

Notre Dame about to score

I think the Notre Dame fans outnumbered the Rutgers fans, but the Rutgers fans were definitely more into the game than we were.  The team wasn't into the game in the first half either.  After a crappy half, we were tied at 13.  Tom and I went down a level to meet up with John, Vin, and Sean.  I hadn't seen Vin since the night before I left for England.  I watched the first Notre Dame possession of the second half from the concourse with those guys.  A penalty gave us a second chance after missing a field goal.  The second one was good and we led 16-13.  Then I headed back up to my seat.

My view at the start of the second half

A panoramic shot of Yankee Stadium

In the fourth quarter, I was checking out the stats on the scoreboard.  We were dominating Rutgers in terms of yards and first downs, but we weren't scoring touchdowns.  I was kind of worried about losing the game until Tarean Folston ran for a touchdown with 3:38 left to give us a ten point lead.  We tacked on a field goal after an interception and won by 13.  There were definitely some fans there that were upset about not covering the spread.  Zack Martin was named the MVP.  He was our best player this year, so I was glad to see that.  It's unusual for an offensive lineman to win the award so I thought it might be Tommy Rees (319 yards, no interceptions) or Stephon Tuitt (1.5 sacks).  I suspect that since nobody stood out statistically, they asked Brian Kelly after the game who should be the MVP and he said Martin.

Me, Dad, and Tom after the game

It wasn't an impressive performance, but it was a win.  Nobody can take that George M. Steinbrenner Trophy away from us.  The sad reality is that this was our second best season since I was a student.  Playing a bad bowl opponent certainly helped get us a ninth win, but our 8-4 regular season was better than every regular season since 2006 except for 2011 and 2012.  2012 was obviously much better.  In 2011, we might have also ended up at 9-4 with an easier bowl opponent, but Michigan State and Arizona State were definitely better than anybody we beat during 2011 (and USC probably was also).  The seniors won at least eight games every year for the first time since Lou Holtz was the coach.  Yes, part of that is that we didn't play 12 games every year until 2006.  But part of that is that we had three really bad coaches between Holtz and Brian Kelly.  This year wasn't good enough, but a big part of that was our starting quarterback getting himself kicked out of school back in May.  He'll be back next season.  I expect a better year.  The win also illustrates the silliness of the bowl system.  Am I supposed to be happy about winning the Pinstripe Bowl?  Last year we lost our bowl game (and it wasn't close), but it was obviously a much better season.

My dad and I finished the day by going to the 5:15 mass at St. Francis near Penn Station.  I always like to go to mass on Saturday night whenever I can.  Then at night I enjoyed Michigan losing to Kansas State and giving us back the all time winning percentage lead.  At least I can say I saw Notre Dame win a bowl game in person.  Of course, if I could have made a deal a year ago that Notre Dame would win the first bowl game that I went to, but they would lose the next one I'd go to, I gladly would have made that deal.

So that's it for the 2013 college football season.  I went to five games, which is the most I've been to since I was a student.  I added Jerry World to the list of stadiums I've seen Notre Dame play in.  I've seen us play in 11 different stadiums, which is actually more than the number of stadiums I've seen the Dodgers play in (10).  Notre Dame went 4-1 in the games I went to, running my all time record to 25-11.  That's a .694 winning percentage in games I've been to since 2005.  In games that I haven't gone to during that time period, Notre Dame is 47-31 (.603).  We're better with me in attendance than when I'm not there, so I guess I should go to more games.  I already have my tickets for the Syracuse game in the Meadowlands next year.  I'll probably go to the Navy game at FedEx Field.  I don't have a place to stay at Notre Dame anymore, so I won't be getting back to campus as much.  If I go to the Shamrock Series game in Indianapolis, I probably won't get back to campus at all for the 2014 season, but I'm still undecided about that.

My next sporting event is Notre Dame against Boston College in hockey at Fenway Park.  The weather is looking a little scary, but hopefully I'll make it up there on Friday night and survive the cold on Saturday night.  Go Irish!

Ranking the Bowl Game Names

I'm guessing somebody has done this before, but I haven't seen it.  I'm ranking all the bowl names.  The rankings are based on history, the appropriateness of the name for the location, and how pleasing they are to say.  Bowls that are only named for a corporate sponsor rank behind all the other bowls.  Bowls that are only named for the place where they are played don't fare much better.  The best are predictable, but I think you might be surprised by some of my rankings.  Let's start at the bottom:

35.  Belk Bowl
34.  Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl
What the hell is Belk?  Beef 'O' Brady's finishes ahead of Belk because it's much funnier.

33.  AdvoCare V100 Bowl
32.  BBVA Compass Bowl
The AdvoCare V100 Bowl should be the Independence Bowl, in which case it would have a decent ranking.  The BBVA Compass Bowl used to be the Birmingham Bowl and the PapaJohns.com Bowl.  The BBVA Compass Bowl is the second best of those three names.

31.  Capital One Bowl
It's not terrible as far as corporate sponsors go, but it should be the Citrus Bowl.

30.  GoDaddy Bowl
It's had other names that weren't good either.  It should be shortened to the Daddy Bowl.  That would be better.

29.  Chick-fil-A Bowl
It's a decent sponsor name, but it should be the Peach Bowl, it which case it would probably rank in the top 10.  There are reports that it's going back to the Peach Bowl next year.

28.  Russell Athletic Bowl
If it was the Athletic Bowl sponsored by Russell, that wouldn't be terrible.

27.  Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl
It's probably the sponsor name that makes the most sense.

26.  Outback Bowl
It's not a bad name considering it's just named for a corporate sponsor.  If the game was played in Australia, it would be a really good name.

25.  Las Vegas Bowl
24.  Texas Bowl
23.  Heart of Dallas Bowl
22.  New Mexico Bowl
21.  New Orleans Bowl
20.  Hawaii Bowl
I hate Las Vegas and everything that it stands for.  I like Texas, but there are lots of bowls played in Texas.  How about the Lone Star Bowl?  It makes sense for Texas and you could make Spaceballs references.  The Heart of Dallas Bowl?  Whatever.  I can't think of another name for the New Mexico Bowl.  The New Orleans Bowl and Hawaii Bowl aren't bad, but the Bayou Bowl and Aloha Bowl would be better.

19.  Fight Hunger Bowl
Can we just change this one to the Golden Gate Bowl?  But actually, the game is moving to the new 49ers stadium in Santa Clara, so I guess that wouldn't really make sense.

18.  Pizza Bowl
It loses points for being named the Pizza Bowl only because its corporate sponsor is Little Caesars.  As soon as the sponsor changes, the name will change also.  And I definitely don't associate pizza with Detroit.  But I guess you don't want to name a bowl for things you would associate with Detroit.  The Urban Blight Bowl doesn't sound too good.

17.  Fiesta Bowl
It loses points for being the only bowl with a name in another language.  I'd like it a lot better if it was the Cactus Bowl.

16.  Music City Bowl
It's played in Nashville.  Whatever.

15.  Holiday Bowl
I'd like it more if it was actually played on a holiday.

14.  BCS National Championship Game
Boring.  Switching to the double hosting format for the championship game (adding the fifth BCS bowl) had a couple of negative effects.  First, it devalued the other BCS games.  The national championship used to be won in the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl, or Orange Bowl.  Since the 2006 season, the national champions haven't played in any of those games.  And second, it was a lot cooler to have the national championship decided in the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl, or Orange Bowl than in the very blandly named BCS National Championship Game.  Next season it will be replaced by the College Football Championship Game.  Slightly better (also, the big bowls will be revalued as the playoff games).  I feel like they were trying to come up with a better name like when Krusty the Clown  tells his writers that he wants the name of the new Itchy and Scratchy character to be "something along the line of say, Poochie, only more proactive," and they settled on the College Football Championship Game.  How about the Rockne Bowl in honor of the greatest football coach of all time and the winner would get the Knute Rockne Trophy?

13.  Military Bowl
12.  Armed Forces Bowl
We've reached names that I actually like.  Tough call here between these two.  On the one hand, the Military Bowl might gain points because it's played in Annapolis.  But they just moved it there this year, so I'm not giving them points for that.  I'm giving the Armed Forces Bowl the edge because six out of the last seven games have featured a service academy.  The Military Bowl has existed for six years and has only had a service academy twice.

11.  Pinstripe Bowl
I'd probably prefer something that is more New York-specific rather than Yankee-specific.  I'd like the Big Apple Bowl.  But you have to give them credit for the fact that you know this name isn't going to change, unlike most of the games I've gone through so far.

10.  Poinsettia Bowl
They should make this game the Mountain West champion against the MAC champion so it could really be the Rose Bowl's less attractive cousin.

9.  Liberty Bowl
8.  Gator Bowl
7.  Sun Bowl
I like liberty.  It gets points for being named after the stadium where it's played, but I don't associate liberty with Memphis.  If it was played in Philadelphia, it would probably be a top five name.  The Gator Bowl is the sixth oldest college bowl game and I definitely associate alligators with Florida.  The Sun Bowl is tied with the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl as the second oldest bowl games.  I don't specifically associate sun with El Paso, but that's just a really solid name.  If that game had more prestige, it could be top five.

6.  Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
This might be a controversial ranking.  The game lacks prestige, but it's a good name.  I'd shorten it to just the Potato Bowl, but it's a great name for a bowl played in Idaho.  One problem with this name is that if the Idaho Potato Commission decides it doesn't want to sponsor the game anymore, the name is changing.

5.  Cotton Bowl
It's the fifth oldest bowl game.  It's a really good name.  I like that it's named for the stadium where it used to be played.  My only question:  Should I associate cotton with Dallas?

4.  Alamo Bowl
What do you think of when you think of San Antonio?  The Alamo.  And it's played in the Alamo Dome.  It's a great name.

3.  Sugar Bowl
There's a lot to like.  New Orleans has hosted the most Super Bowls (10, tied with Miami).  Of course, the Sugar Bowl has been around a lot longer than the Super Bowl, but many championships have been decided in the Sugar Bowl and I like that it's only two letters off from Super Bowl.  Like the Cotton Bowl, I don't really associate sugar specifically with New Orleans.  Maybe I should.  But I think of the South in general when I think of sugar.  Couldn't any bowl in the South be named the Sugar Bowl?

2.  Rose Bowl
You were expecting this to be number 1.  It's named for the stadium and it's the oldest bowl.  Actually, it wasn't originally called the Rose Bowl and it wasn't played in the Rose Bowl until 1923.  It was the Tournament East-West Football Game and played in Tournament Park.  Great name, but again, I can find roses lots of places.  I don't need to go to Southern California to find roses.  But all the other bowl games were inspired by the Rose Bowl, so that's big points for the Rose Bowl.

1.  Orange Bowl
The stadium was named for the game.  Three Orange Bowls took place before the Orange Bowl was built.  But the Orange Bowl is the perfect match of name and location.  When I think of oranges, I think of Florida.  It also gets points for the fact that the winner gets a bowl of oranges.  There are other good names, but none of them make more sense than the Orange Bowl.

Happy New Year!  Hopefully Notre Dame will be playing in the Rose Bowl or Sugar Bowl (the playoff games next year) a year from today.  Go Irish!

Airing Some Grievances

I went to two basketball games in the last two weeks.  On December 10, I saw the Celtics play the Nets in the Barclays Center.  It was nice to be there for the first game Pierce and Garnett played against the Celtics since being traded, but it was weird to see them wearing a different uniform.  There were a lot of Celtic fans at the game and it was cool to hear them acknowledge Pierce and Garnett.  I would love to be in Boston for their first game back, but that won't happen.  Deron Williams and Brook Lopez played well and the Celtics lost.  But I have no grievances with the Celtics to air.  It's clear that they made a great deal with the Nets.  Three first round picks for two guys that weren't going to help them win anything anymore.  And those might be some good picks.  Also, Brad Stevens is going to be great.  I hope he's the Celtics' Gregg Popovich.  He just needs to find his Tim Duncan.  My only possible grievance with the Celtics is that they're winning too many games.  Obviously, they're not good enough to go anywhere in the playoffs (maybe they could win a first round series in the East, but the Heat and Pacers are the only two contenders in the conference).  But they're just not bad enough to be one of the worst teams in the league.  My ideal scenario would be the Celtics missing the playoffs (they'd need the Raptors or Knicks to win the division) and getting lucky in the lottery.  Even if they don't get a great draft pick, I feel confident about the future with Brad Stevens and all those draft picks.

My view in Brooklyn.

This past Saturday I went to Madison Square Garden for the BlackRock Gotham Classic.  Notre Dame was taking on Ohio State.  It was my first trip to the Garden since the renovations have been completed.  They did a good job.  I like it better than the Barclays Center.  There's still something special about Madison Square Garden.  The Barclays Center looks like it was designed by the Goth kids on South Park (the inside, at least).  Of course, New York City is ridiculous and is forcing Madison Square Garden to move in ten years.  How many hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be wasted on that?

Anyway, they weren't selling tickets for the upper level of the Garden, so I ended up behind one of the baskets.  My seats were actually inside the hockey rink.  That was the closest I've sat at a basketball game since I was in college, but I have to say that they weren't very good seats.  For one thing, I was too low.  I was about at the height of the backboard.  You don't have good depth perception when you're down that low.  Also, the height differential between the rows behind the basket is not that big.  That means that you kind of have to look around people to see the action.  On the near side of the court, I couldn't see the floor.  On outside shots, I couldn't tell if it was a three or a two.  And the last problem about sitting behind the basket is that the basket itself gets in the way of your view.

Close to the action, but not a great view.

Of course, the biggest problem was the performance of the Fighting Irish.  I didn't have high hopes considering Ohio State was ranked number three and we haven't played too well so far. But we hung in there in the first half, going in down by seven.  We came out with a great start to the second half.  The atmosphere was really good even though only the lower level was full.  Ohio State definitely had more fans, but there were a lot of Notre Dame fans there also.  The crowd really got into it when we took the lead.  Jerian Grant made a couple of beautiful jumpers and we led by as many as eight.  With a 58-50 lead with a minute to go, it looked like I was going to see the best win I've ever seen in person for Notre Dame basketball.  And then everything went wrong.  Eric Atkins fouled out and we had no idea what to do without him.  Garrick Sherman was playing in the middle of the zone with four fouls and not playing any defense to avoid fouling out.  Come on, Brey, you have to go offense-defense there.  Ohio State scored, got a quick turnover, and scored again.  At 58-54, it felt like we were going to find a way to lose.  We quickly turned it over again and committed a foul.  They ended up outscoring us 14-3 in the final minute of the game.  Bad times.  Terrible loss, but it's just a December basketball game.  That win would have been great for us, but no single game in December is going to ruin your season.  If we had a loss in football that was equivalent to the way we lost that game, I probably wouldn't want to speak to anybody for a week.  I won't overreact to a basketball game, but then yesterday it was announced that Jerian Grant (our leading scorer) has been kicked out of school.  It looks like our streak of making it to the NCAA Tournament is coming to an end this year, but there have been other years when things looked bleak and Brey found a way to make the tournament.  But yeah, I'm not too optimistic about ACC play.

What I didn't realize until I printed the tickets the day before the game was that it was a double header.  Bryant took on Delaware in the second game.  I would guess that at least 95% of the crowd cleared out after the first game.  I had no idea where Bryant was (Rhode Island), but they brought a small, but rowdy contingent to the game.  There were hardly any Delaware fans.  My dad and I moved to seats right by mid-court.  We only stayed for about the first ten minutes of the game to catch a train.  The last basket we saw was a sweet alley oop.  It turns out we missed quite a game.  Delaware won 108-107 in overtime.  If we had stayed, we wouldn't have gotten home until after 2:00 in the morning with the train schedule.

Delaware vs. Bryant

This was the first of my three straight Saturdays of Notre Dame sports.  Next up is the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium.  Hopefully the football team will perform better than the basketball team.

The Shamrock Series: The Search for More Money

This post is way overdue.  I went to the Shamrock Series game in early October in Dallas.  I held off this post until now because of the first part of my day.  I met my brother Sean at the Dallas airport late in the morning.  We had several hours until the game at Jerry World.  We had discussed what to do before the game.  My preference was go to to the George W. Bush Presidential Library at SMU.  That was out because of the government shutdown.  So like everybody else in town for the game, we went to Dealey Plaza.

The Texas School Book Depository

The sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository is now a museum on John F. Kennedy's life and the assassination.  We had to wait in line for a good 40 minutes to get tickets to go in.  We got our tickets around 2:00 and they were for 3:00.  So we got Chipotle while we waited.  When we went back around 3:00, we had to wait for another 20 minutes or so.  When we finally got up to the sixth floor, it was packed, but it was manageable.  You get headphones to listen to stuff as you go.  It was a really good museum.  They reconstructed the corner of the floor where Oswald fired the shots to what it would have looked like when he assassinated Kennedy.  That's partitioned off and you can look through the glass.  You can look down through the other windows.  That was the first weird feeling I had.  It was weird having almost the same view that a presidential assassin had.  The next weird feeling I had was when we left.  We drove down Elm street, which is where Kennedy was shot.

I took this picture as we turned onto Elm Street.

A few thoughts on John F. Kennedy:  He has to be one of the most overrated presidents in US history.  I'm not anti-Kennedy.  I'm opposed to people over-romanticizing his presidency.  There are people who talk about him like he's Washington or Lincoln.  He wasn't president long enough to be a great president.  If I was grading all the presidents, I'd give Kennedy an incomplete.  (Lincoln, on the other hand, was able to accomplish the greatest thing a president ever accomplished despite the fact that his presidency was also cut short).  Kennedy is less historically significant than his successor.  Judge Lyndon Johnson however you want, but his civil rights achievements and Vietnam make him more important as a president than Kennedy.  Although I'm not much of a Kennedy fan, I do love "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  I find it ironic that the people who love Kennedy also seem to be the people who think that the government should do everything for everybody.  Pete and I discussed that quote at his wedding.  Although Pete and I don't see eye to eye politically, he also appreciated the irony.  Then there's Cuba.  Kennedy gets too much credit for the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Give him credit for avoiding war, but the Soviets got something that they wanted out of it (getting American missiles out of Italy and Turkey).  Kennedy didn't lose, but he didn't win either.  The other thing with Cuba is the Bay of Pigs invasion.  I wish it had been successful, but it was a total failure.  I said to my brother at the museum, "If this happened today, the media would go nuts."  Then I thought for a little bit and said, "Actually, if George Bush did this, the media would go nuts.  If Barack Obama did this, they'd be cheerleading for him the whole time."  Finally, you have all the conspiracy theories about Kennedy's death.  Just like pretty much every conspiracy theory, the people who believe these theories are nuts.  All the evidence shows that it was Lee Harvey Oswald that acted alone.

After Dealey Plaza, we drove to Jerry World.  We met up with Wilhelm.  Before this year, it had been more than five years since I saw Wilhelm.  I saw him four times this year (National Championship, Oklahama game, Shamrock Series, and Navy game).  We had a beer with him outside the stadium.  I wish I had seen him after the game.  When I saw him the weekend of the Navy game, he told me a great story about how on the way home from the game, he drunkenly got really mad at his father for murdering a skunk (and it wasn't even his father who killed the skunk) and then had no memory of this the next day.

Me and Wilhelm before the game.

The game was entertaining.  I had very low expectations, but we played one of our best games of the season.  T.J. Jones, Prince Shembo, Jaylon Smith, and Stephon Tuitt all had excellent games.  We went into the fourth quarter with a 24-13 lead.  Tommy Rees had an interception returned for a touchdown early in the quarter.  Arizona State tied the game with 8:18 left and it felt like it was falling apart for Notre Dame.  We retook the lead on a field goal with 3:03 left.  Dan Fox's interception return for a touchdown with 1:08 left seemed to seal it for us, but we still had to recover an onside kick because of some horrendous defense that led to an easy touchdown to make the game look closer than it should have been.

I wasn't a fan of the cup, but it was good beer.

Dallas was a great site for the Shamrock Series.  I didn't like our uniforms, but I liked them more than what we wore the last two years (what we wore for the Maryland game in 2011 wasn't bad except for the helmet, but if we're going to slap tradition in the face, don't try to look somewhat traditional while doing it).  Jerry World was great.  My brother and I had corner endzone seats down low.  Unlike in Notre Dame Stadium, we could buy beer.  I don't remember what I had, but it was good.  I have two issues with Jerry world.  We could only walk around the endzone area on our level.  The middle of the field was the club level or something and we weren't allowed on that part of the concourse.  The other issue is the giant screens.  They were helpful because you could get good looks at replays.  They didn't bother me because we were down low.  But I feel like if you're up high, they'd be in your field of vision no matter what.  I've heard people say they just end up watching the game on the screen.  I didn't watch any live plays on the screen, but I could see that being a problem if you're up high.  But still, I liked Jerry World more than most NFL stadiums I've been to.  Dallas was fun.  I'll have to get back soon for the Bush Library and a Ranger game.

I knew this was coming.  Hopefully we'll see it again on January 12, 2015.