We got lots to talk about

Ok, so I'm back from a little hiatus. My bad! When I got to Denver, I was able to write a blog post because we were snowed in, but after that... no computer or phone for several days. It was kind of nice, even though most of the time, I was gambling in a casino :)

I have SSSSSOOOOO much to write about that I think I'll have blog posts for days. Some subjects that I will discuss and things you can look forward to -

1. Colorado University - Jane had to work one morning, so James & I walked around the University on a snowy morning and took lots of pics. It's a BEAUTIFUL campus

me with Ralphie the buffalo

2. Rock'n'Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon review - if you haven't read a million reviews already, I'm going to do one and this one will be a lot different than what others had to say. All I can say is people are crazy. 

3. Las Vegas, the Matts Style - 

I have better pics than this but they're on my camera & this was on my phone

 Depending on how detailed I get with details, I may dedicate a post to the different games we played as well as the different casinos we visited. It was SO MUCH FUN. Remember how I said I wasn't sure what I was going to do since I didn't drink or gamble? Well, I still didn't drink because I don't, but I gambled my face off. We did not leave the strip except to go to the old strip. 

4. My total RnR half marathon meltdown. 

Well, I didn't have a meltdown at all, but the time for my half was so bad that I don't even want to post it. I mean, it was bad. In my defense, I have bought and sold a house in the last month, gone to Richmond for a wedding and spent 4 days in CO before racing, even still... it's bad. 

So, as you can see, there is a lot to talk about and once I get my pics up and all of that, I can begin. In the meantime, in case you didn't know, the Clemson Tigers won the ACC Championship for the first time since 1991. Some people are saying rude things about it like that it's about time since we haven't won in 20 years or that the ACC is a weak conference so we shouldn't be proud of it. And what I have to say is this. Kiss it because I'm excited about it. Maybe we don't win every year or maybe our conference isn't the toughest (in football because that's about the only sport we're not one of the best) but that doesn't take away from the fact that the Clemson Tigers are 2011 ACC Champs and we get to go to a BCS bowl and our school gets a LOT of money which will only help our football program. So all I have to say is....

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Footbawww Fridie

That is pronounced Fry - die (heavy e). That's how southern people pronounce Friday. I had so many things I wanted to discuss today but I thought today would be a good day to talk about Football Traditions. The reason College Football is 1 million bajillion trablillion better than NFL is because of the traditions. Each school has some kind of song/cheer/entrance/animal that makes it unique. Here are my top 5 -

5. University of Georgia - UGA
Thanks to the Bleacher Report, I got a little information about how this tradition began. Apparently in 1943, an Georgia grad brought a bulldog to a game and they won. They adopted the English Bulldog as their mascot and officially became, - The Georgia Bulldogs. Since then, every UGA has been from the same bloodline as the original UGA.
According to Wiki, Russ is the current mascot and is only a fill in since UGA VII died of cancer earlier this year.

Original UGA - source

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4. University of Arkansas - Woo Pig Sooie

Arkansas's mascot is a Razorback, which, again, according to Wikipedia, is a feral pig. And evidently, a feral pig comes to "Woo Pig Sooie". This is something you have to see to believe. It. is. awesome. 

This is how you learn it

This is it in action

3. Colorado University - Ralphie the Buffalo

I'm very grateful that I have been able to witness this in person. Clemson played Colorado in the Champs Sports Bowl, 2005. 

In 1934, students rented a bison to be at the game. The idea stuck and over the years, we were introduced to Ralphie. My experience with Ralphie was a shock because I did not expect them to bring a Buffalo to Orlando, FL. All of the sudden, I looked up and there was a huge buffalo running across the field, dragging two people behind him. That was Ralphie. 

2. University of Alabama - Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer

I heart this cheer. The band plays "The Hey Song" and sends a message to their opponent. The crowd will say, Hey _____ (insert university name here). Then they say "We just beat the hell out of you. Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, Give 'em hell Alabamer"

One of my fav things ever....

and finally....

drrrruuummmm rrrrooollllllllll....

of course it's going to be Clemson - 

1. Clemson University - Howard's Rock 

Story is that a clemson alum brought part of the rock from the real Death Valley to Clemson's Death Valley. It sat in his office for several years until someone (not Howard) put it on a pedestal at the top of the hill. Clemson ran down the hill, touched the rock and beat University of Virginia that game. Howard then used that momentum and told the players, "Give me 110% or keep your filthy hands off of my rock". 

That was the beginning of what is described as the Most Exciting 25 Seconds in College Football. Now you've got some haters that like to run out of tunnel and say they're entrance is the best, but when multiple people do it, ahem university of miami, university of south carolina, ever high school team in the nation, ahem, it's not super special. But anywhos.... 

Foozbawww Friday - NCAA uniforms

It's that time of the week again and with the upcoming game against the turtles - I thought today would be a good time to discuss

UNIFORMS 

I picked that color combination because those are Maryland's colors. Yes, I know. Not good. 

So, I hate to start off with the best, but since I've already brought it up, I feel like I have to. There are two dueling uniform companies for the NCAA - Under Armour (we must protect this house) and Nike. In my opinion, under armour does a sub par job on unis, and nike is the OBVIOUS choice, but maybe I am biased. (USC has under armour unis - so terrible and they will not be featured today). 

Maryland's new unis -

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I'm torn. When I first saw them, I was in shock and thought NNNNNOOOOOO, but the more I look at them, the more they grow on me. I'm not a fan of the Maryland state flag anyway, but at least they're representing, right? Am I right? 

p.s. these are the old Maryland uniforms -

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A step up in my opinion. 

Some of my fav unis - 

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These are so under armour-like that I thought they were Nike uniforms. My colleague at work, Drew, mentioned they were Under Armour so I thought I'd give them props. Whatever you're doing here UA, apply it everywhere else because these look great. I think we've got a combination of good colors with traditional stripes and it makes for a good uniform. 

Ours (my ours, I mean Clemson), is a good example of a traditional uniform as well. 

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Dabo made the Tiger Paw bigger and it looks a lot nicer

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Non - Traditional 

Nike loves to pick a couple of school and makes non traditional uniforms. They are so controversial and I love talking about it. Here are some examples -

UGA - the gloves are cool

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the helmets are not

ugh, that red strip down the middle is terrible. Too big. bleh - source

Boise State

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I straight up love this uniform and everything that goes along with it

source - these helmets are awesome

and last but not least, the team that's Nike's love interest -

THE OREGON DUCKS

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I love a matte helmet

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What do y'all think?? 

I would like to give honorable mention to Cincinnati because I LOVE their helmets

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6-0

We are 6-0. Yes sir...

Keys to the Game -

Dj Howard, Running Back, Redshirt Freshman

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Andre Ellington, Running Back, Junior

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Sammy Watkins, Wide Receiver, True Freshman

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Jonathan Meeks, Safety, Junior

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Malliciah Goodman, Defensive End, Junior

We're on our way... Acc baby - see you in Charlotte...

Footbawwwwwww Friday

It's that time again and I have been trying to decide what would the best thing to discuss. There is so much to talk about when it comes to football, it makes it tough to pick just one. I think today would be a good day to follow up from our offense discussion. Now let's talk about

as much as I despise using a Raiders pic, I can't find another one so boo

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That's defense for people that can't read signs. 

I thought this sign was clever although it doesn't really look like a fence

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I'd like to focus on hot guys again because that honestly is a lot of fun but when I think of the defense, not many hot guys come to mind. I think the beauty is normally in the QB, RB, WR positions. So here we go... 

I've also decided to break it up into segments vs each position because there are a LOT of defensive positions

1. Defensive line - the line has several jobs, one of them being to plug up the middle so that a running back can not make it through any gaps. They are also trying to get to the quarterback (remember Mark Sanchez). If they see a running back, full back, quarterback, maybe even a receiver coming through with the ball, they try to grab them before getting past the line of scrimmage. The line consists of the following positions -

Ndamukong Suh, University of Nebraska & the Detroit Lions

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Defensive Tackle - because Wiki can say it better than me, here you go -

"The defensive tackle typically lines up opposite one of the offensive guards. Depending on a team's individual defensive scheme, a defensive tackle may be called upon to fill several different roles. These roles may include merely holding the point of attack by refusing to be moved, or penetrating a certain gap between offensive linemen to break up a play in the opponent's backfield. If a defensive tackle reads a pass play, his primary responsibility is to pursue the quarterback, or simply knock the pass down at the line if it's within arm's reach. Other responsibilities of the defensive tackle may be to pursue the screen pass or drop into coverage in a zone blitz scheme. In a traditional 4-3 defensive set, there is no nose tackle. Instead there is a left and right defensive tackle.^[3]"

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another thing I can mention is that sometimes there is just one tackle and it's the nose tackle, but most defenses, especially in the NFL, use 2 defensive tackles. A team in the NCAA that only uses 1, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

Julius Peppers, University of North Carolina, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears (current)

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Defensive Ends - Used to block but also known to get at the QB - Clemson has had some very good ones including Gaines Adams who passed away due to a heart condition while playing for the Bears. 

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2. Linebackers - these tend to be my favorite players on the defense. You HAVE to have strong linebackers. If not, the line can't play well and the secondary (which will come later) can't play well. There can be between 2-4 linebackers in any defensive scheme and they can perform many functions. I won't go into all those details because honestly, I don't think anyone reading this cares THAT much and I don't want to throw too much to you at once, so we'll just say... linebackers, they're in the middle. 

Jon Beason, University of Miami, Carolina Panthers

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This was kind of easy because I LOVE Jon Beason. So glad he is a Carolina Panther even though he gets injured all the time. 

3. Secondary - these are also called defensive backs. The secondary is used to protect against the pass and sometimes, the run. 

Troy Polamalu, University of Southern California, Pittsburgh Steelers

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Everyone should know this guy from the shampoo commercials!

Safety - This is a position that can be used for anything. Sometimes, they stop a run that's broken through the line, sometimes they sack the quarterback, sometimes they stop short yardarge passes, etc etc. They can be used in a lot of different ways. And they have a lot of names, I won't go into them because it gets super complicated. 

Marcus Gilchrist, Clemson Tigers, San Diego Chargers

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Marcus is nominated for NFL player of the week so go vote for him!

Go Vote - Marcus Gilchrist

Cornerbacks - their basic function is to defend against the pass. Simple... when a wide receiver goes out, they go with them and try to deflect the ball or if caught, tackle the receiver before they score. 

And that concludes our discussion about the defense. Fun fun fun 

Football Friday & some other things...

Clemson plays Virginia Tech this weekend. I'm wondering who is going to win. What do you think? 

vs

I'm going tigers!!!

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I started making progress towards choosing the program to go to Africa. I started to apply to the Kenya Voluntary & Community Development Project, but I needed my passport number and didn't have it. I also emailed a group that does Yoga in Kenya, Africa Yoga Project, but never heard anything back. This morning, I applied for a program with Global Volunteer Network but instead of choosing Kenya, I chose Rwanda. This whole time, I've been thinking Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, but I remember the very first time I ever even thought about Africa, was in sociology class when we read the book Hotel Rwanda. I also made my husband watch that movie and that's the first time I realized how different Africa is from my world. The program is working in an orphanage and spending time with the children. The children are orphans either from the genocide that occurred between the Hutu's and the Tutsi's as well as parents that have died from Aids/HIV. The program is a little more expensive at $1500 but I think it'll be okay. 

You can read more about it here

Info on Rwanda

I don't know where I'll actually be in Rwanda

such a beautiful country

image #1 was from wikipedia (link is included above)

image #2 source

image #3 source

And just to reiterate the issues Rwanda has had in the past, when looking for pictures to put in this blog, I had to sift through images of dead bodies and militia with large machine guns. If you have not read or seen Hotel Rwanda, you need to. It happened and it was awful but no one recognizes it. 

So... have a good weekend!! Sorry I got a little sad but this is why I want to go help!!!

have you ever voluteered abroad before? 

have you ever been to Africa? 

Football Friday

Today is ffffffooooooootttttbbbbbbbaaaaallllllll ffffffrrrrrriiiiiiiiddddddaaaaayyyyyy!!!!!

So I thought since Clemson has a BIG GAME tomorrow, I'd talk about basic things that one needs to know in order to watch. And also because FSU has a really good defense and that's what scares me, I'd focus on Offense.

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yeah, not that kind of offense because 1) I do not know anything about that and 2) I seriously doubt any of you come to my blog to read about the inverted wishbone or whatever other offensive plays. (p.s. I'm not saying that's an inverted wishbone, i'm just using that as an example)

Nope.... we're going to talk about this -

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That's Mark Sanchez and he is the really hot starting Quarterback for the New York Jets. He played college football for the University of Southern CA. He is super hot, right? 

Quarterback - the QB is responsible for managing the offense. He has to read the defense, makes changes to whatever play they may have initially called, communicate that change to the others and execute. He will either pass the ball to a Wide Receiver or Tight End, OR he will give the ball to a tailback. There are other options but we're not going to go into that for the sake of today. Let's just keep it simple. 

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That's Greg Olsen, the tight end for the Carolina Panthers (I don't have him in a panthers jersey, sorry). He played college at the University of Miami and was part of the 7th Floor Crew. He's also pretty hot but you can't see as much through his helmet. I am only using hot guys to illustrate my points :)

Tight End - The tight end is used for blocking and sometimes as a receiver. It depends on the style of offense how much they will be catching the ball vs just blocking. 

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Miles Austin, some of you may know because he was dating Kim Kardashian at one point. Miles is a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys and played college football at Monmouth. That is not normally a producer of NFL players, but that happens every once in a while. 

Wide Receiver - A wide receiver is used in a similar way to a tight end although the tight end normally stays closer to the line of scrimmage while a receiver can be anywhere. They can be used in a short route (maybe to the side of the QB or maybe only 5 yards past the line of scrimmage) or they can run out 20 yards. There are a MILLION ways that receivers are used but just know, this is the main guy that the QB throws to. There are usually multiple receivers in any given offensive formation. 

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Reggie Bush, another Kardashian ex, plays for the Miami Dolphins and played college for University of Southern CA. I wonder if i could've done a post using all of Kim Kardashian's exes. She's moved on to the NBA. 

Running Back - this is one type of tailback. He carries the ball. He too can be used as a receiver. It always depends on the offensive scheme and that will probably not be discussed on this blog because I still don't know much about offensive schemes. They are complicated. 

Offensive positions we did not cover - half back, full back, and offensive linemen. The offensive line is responsible for protecting the QB and making wholes for the RB. They are usually not very attractive but an integral part of the offense. Clemson has a terrible offensive line. That has been the case for a while. 

Here we go again...

Training this week -

Monday & Tuesday - rest from my long run Sunday
Wednesday - 6 minute intervals with a 4 minute rest - 4 times - 5.4 miles
Thursday - I'm going to swim tonight - and actually, since I haven't swam in forever, I'm just going to swim 25's
Friday - Run - run 2 minutes fast, jog 2 minutes, repeat 8-10 times
Saturday - this is game day. I do not know what I will be doing since I will be in Clemson by 9 am
Sunday - 8-10 miles non stop

*Wednesday's run was really nice. I'm not sure what my splits were because I haven't reviewed the history in my Garmin, but it felt nice to have a longer interval. Those are harder for me and really help me develop speed.
*I'm nervous about swimming tonight because it's been several weeks. That means I'm going to be flailing around like a crazy person but that's what happens when you don't swim. It's not like riding a bike.

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I would show you my outfit today for my fashion thing but I'm too lazy to get someone to take my pic. 

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So one thing that really makes me mad is when the media villianizes (my spell check doesn't even recognize this so I have no idea how to spell it) athletes. I've written about it before in another blog and I heard it again today. People are dogging out Chad Ochocinco because he didn't do well in his first game with the Patriots. They are saying he should stop tweeting and start focusing on football. 

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It REALLY bothers me that the media/football fan base loves to ridicule athletes. They blame them for games being won/lost, they blame them for not being focused enough, they blame them for being too obnoxious, etc etc etc. 

Barefoot Contessa turned down a child twice from the make a wish foundation. A little boy had leukemia, he asked to cook with Barefoot Contessa, and she said no. Twice. Is she getting blasted in the media for that? No. But Ochocinco is getting blasted for tweeting that he likes the team he's playing for. Ridiculous. 

Most of these guys are in their twenties, they have a lot of money and fame, WHICH YOU ARE GIVING TO THEM BY GOING TO GAMES, WEARING THEIR JERSEYS, DISCUSSING THEIR STATS, BLAH BLAH BLAH, and then you get mad when they aren't the perfect picture of obedience and discipline. No, people. No No. 

What were you like at 23? If you were perfect and NEVER did anything wrong, then congrats. I'm glad that you are awesome. But most people are not. And I am truly grateful that I didn't have the spot light put on me when I was 23 and had everyone and their mother discussing the mistakes I made. Because I will tell you, it wouldn't be pretty. 

So anyway, i'm off of my soapbox. Thanks

Clemson vs Troy 2011

Today's workout - 10 sets of 2 minute repeats with a 1 minute recovery - we did about 4 miles

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Today, I thought I would put up some pics I took this weekend. Many of you have been to Clemson games and have seen everything, but some of you haven't, so I thought I'd show you some fun things!!

These are my game day buddies. We have been getting season tickets together for the past 6 years, not to mention all of the games we went to during school. Blair, on the left, was my roommate on my first ever football road trip. Jen, to the right, well.... there's a lot I can say :)

Neither one of them wanted me to take this pic - it was 95 degrees and hot hot hot

the view from our seats. If I had a better camera, you could see Lake Hartwell and the Blue Ridge Mountains

the view of the campus and the infamous hill

our stadium about 30 minutes before kickoff 

you can see the balloons to the left. When I was in college, I was in charge of Pep Rallies and Balloons - yes... yes I was

people walking to campus. It looked better when I took the pic vs how it looks now

script Tigers

my dream - to one day, dot the i

To break down the game, we sucked in the first half and redeemed ourselves in the second half. Clemson has a new Offensive Coordinator, Defensive Ends Coach, Running backs coach and offensive line coach. We have freshman starting at all key positions, minus QB although this is his first year as well. I expected the game to look sloppy and it did take a while to get into a rhythm. 

Here is my one concern: our offensive line is full of juniors and seniors. They should not be getting pushed around by Troy's defensive line. I think that they have years of bad coaching to get through, but I certainly hope they can get it together. The only people that were outstanding for this game were the freshman - which is exciting and also discouraging. Rashard Hall got hurt which is not good since he's our leader in the secondary. What I'm hoping is that they continue to improve just as they did in the game, and they get tough.