HAPPY WORLD CUP OPENING DAY, EVERYBODY!!!!!!!
I started getting into the World Cup in college. Of course, I got into professional wrestling in college, too, but I digress. See, I grew up in Alabama where we used to make jokes about the soccer players. Football, the American kind, better be your sport of choice. You could roll with baseball if you were so inclined with little worry. Maybe even basketball. Hockey made an acceptable inroad in the sports fan echelon. All were societally acceptable.
Not so much with soccer, though. My crowd frowned heavily on it...although my high school had an excellent student foreign exchange program and had a pretty decent soccer team because of that if memory serves.
Well, I roomed with a guy my first semester who was on that soccer team and he would explain the nuances of soccer to me...and sometime in there the World Cup came on. ESPN apparently had nothing better to do so they showed pretty much as many games as possible. Greg and I apparently had nothing better to do and clipped out a set of pools and brackets from the USA today and put it on our refrigerator. We'd come in from class and hand-write the updates and all that.
I was hooked. I was drawn to the pace of the game, it's much like baseball in that regard, and the passion of the players and fans was something I'd experienced at Auburn so I was drawn to that, too. It seemed so cerebral and passionate at the same time--a rare mix.
And, I gotta say it: If I were making a list of the generally most exciting moments in sports, a World Cup goal would top it. There'd be a game-winning home run in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded or an interception return for a touchdown in the last moments or an overtime goal late in the hockey playoffs, too. But, those are more because of the flow of the series or importance of the moment. But, in the World Cup, every goal within the ebb and flow of the game matters and every one of them draws adrenaline.
So, I'm pretty excited about one of the few tournaments that takes two years to play and will truly crown a "world champion." Starts at 11AM today if you're interested.
Mavs win.
I don't really care, but the Mavericks won in game #1 of the NBA Finals. I watched it last night out of generic interest because my city is involved as well as the reality there was nothing else on. I maintain there's no more boring playoffs in the world than the NBA's--and everybody's talking about how exciting these particular playoffs have been. I went to bed early.
WAR EAGLE!!!!!!
I'm in Alabama. It's June.
That's right.
The pre-season college football magazines are out on the shelves!
I picked up two: Athlon's SEC issue and The Sporting News national issue.
I haven't even looked at them yet to see where Auburn is ranked or who they have picked for number one. The anticipation is half the fun...and I have two flights tomorrow to read them both cover to cover (I'll be able to make it back to perform the wedding ceremony for my friends and then get right back here--once again, props to American Airlines on that deal).
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