The Holster

So I read this Dr. Saturday article today. 

I personally thought it was pretty crappy and mean spirited, if not downright deceptive.  You can decide for yourself, I understand I'm biased with my burnt-orange-tinted-blog.

But....Here are some problems I have with the article:

1. Graham Watson's selective use of actual statements:

"'The horns down is disrespectful,' Brown said Monday. 'We ought to talk about that as a league.'"

In all actuality, the entirety of the statement was:

"I think that's something we ought to talk about as a league.  I think the Horns-down are disrespectful to the players on the field.  If Horns-down are OK, we ought to have guns- [sic] down be OK."


"....and also these koozies."

That's some good, fair journalism by Dr. Saturday, if you ask me. 

2.  You can't exactly blame Watson.  Mack's "comments" as quoted in the Dr. Saturday article, as well as EVERYWHERE ON THE INTERNET, which characterize Mack as whiny and cry-babyish, were first seen twatted (can I say twat on the Internets?) by Kirk Bohls of the Austin American Statement (below), where they soon went viral.

3.  Brown was answering a question. In a press conference.  HOW DARE HE?!   Of course, no one is talking about the question he was asked...because then he wouldn't be able to come off as sad and pathetically whiny....Mack was answering a question regarding the  penalty Mike Davis received when, after a touchdown (okay, after two touchdowns), he made the Texas Tech "Guns Up" hand sign, then proceeded to holster those guns.

The point Brown was making, was that the call was a bit inconsistent considering that NO PLAYER IN THE HISTORY OF TIME has been give a penalty for throwing Horns Down in a game.

Not these guys....

Or this coach...

Or this Sooner....

Or Geno Smith...

Not even Greg McElroy

4.  As Watson points out that Bohls points out, "no one complained when Texas wide receiver Mike Davis pretended to holster Texas Tech's two-gun hand gesture during the Longhorns' win over the Red Raiders last weekend."  Well...the refs kind of complained (you know, with the penalty and all) and Mack Brown complained "I still think Mike Davis should act like he's done that before and not talking to the Tech crowd...."  He went on to mention that it was disrespectful, and the game is about winning, "not being cute."

Having people throw Horns down at Texas fans is par for the course.  As I've mentioned in a few posts (like here) (and here) it's not that the Horns down sign makes me really mad, or offends me.  I think it's just so dumb, that I make fun of people making fun of Longhorns by throwing my Horns down right back at them*.  

I know Mack can seem a little crier-ey..."Oooh, rank us high in the polls so we can go to the BCS Rose Bowl" or "boo hoo, I don't like the three-way tie-breaker rules in the Big 12..." and "I'm sad that the LHN has given every team full access to our practices..."  But this is not one of those times.

It's hard to argue with the point Mack Brown is making. Of course, no one is bothering to argue the point because journalists like Graham Watson and Kirk Bohls would rather get twitter & blog traffic by presenting a whiny and sad Coach Brown - one who, as Watson put it, "would like you kids to get off his lawn."



* Okay, we love throwing Horns down back at rival fans.  It's so much fun, mostly because it just confuses the crap out of the offender...often causing anger, which we, in turn, find hysterical. 

Last season at the Texas A&M game (forever scoreboard!!), as the A&M fans were filing out of the stadium, many of them had to cross right in front of our Eyes-of-Texas-singing-celebrating-ecstatic asses.  I understand, this is not great for them.  We can't help where we were sitting (near the band), nor could we help the fact that this particular part of the stadium is prone to a bottleneck, as there's a lot of activity there after a game.  So not only did they have to cross in front of us, but they were stuck there for awhile, having to listen to our celebratory delirium. 

At one point, an Aggie walking by pointedly scowled in my general direction (I was, actually, for once, not being confrontational...this may be one one time I was an innocent) and so I kind of made a face back in his general direction, to convey the sentiment "Um, can I help you?  I was just cheering for my team..."  This slight facial gesture sent him into a rage, cursing at me, flipping me off and throwing a soda in my general direction.  I was very perplexed, because as I mentioned, this time I actually had done nothing to antagonize him.  Still, I was also very delirious and giddy, so I just kind of made a scrunched up face and looked away.

On the car ride home, we were doing a de-briefing of the game, and I mentioned the hostile exchange to Kacie and Debra.  Kacie fessed up right away.  "Yeah, I saw that.  That was my fault.  We were singing and clapping and he threw Horns down at me, so I did this." 

Upon this declaration, she turned around and demonstrated an epic Horns down display:

And that is why I love my sister.

The Beginnings

Last night over a few Happy Hour Miller Lites, my sister Kacie reminded me of something strangely future telling that happened when I was a wee first grader at Newington Forest Elementary School (Home of the Knights). 

It was 1986, better known as: The Year I Learned that I Was Going to Be a Writer.  Well, okay, by writer I mean "this blog on the side of my glamorous career as a commercial property manager".  But whatevs.  You don't become "DFW's Most Valuable Sports Blogger" by being a crappy writer.


Yeah, these guys.

Two significant memory-making-writing-related-things happened while in Mrs. Hammond's first grade class.  The first involved cicadas.  Magicicadas, to be precise.

Say whaa?

In 1986, the Magiciadas, which are cicadas (locusts) that run a 17 year life cycle, emerged in Northern Virginia.  They were everywhere.  It was kind of apocalyptic, walking out to your car and crunching hundreds of these red-eyed beasts under your feet.  Of course, based on the two-week life cycle chart below, I'm guessing were were probably just stepping on cicada shells.  The shells in themselves were disturbing. Little cicada skins, frozen in time. But I digress.



The emergence of the 17 year Magicicadas produced quite the little to do in Fairfax County, VA.  We learned all about them in school, and at the end of their tiny little life cycle, we were tasked to write little articles about what our lives would be like in 17 years when the Magicicadas came back.

Mine was as follows:

In 17 years, I will have a job.

In 17 years, I will be 23.

In 17 years, the cicadas will come.

In 17 years, I will be married.

God Bless Mrs. Hammond.  She must have seen the writing on the wall for me, even at such an early age...."That's very good Beth!  But let's just make one little change!"

In 17 years, I will have a job.

In 17 years, I will be 23.

In 17 years, the cicadas will come.

In 17 years, I will be married - hopefully.

And I'll be damned.  17 years later I had a job, I was 23, and the cicadas came.  And that is all.

It was just a few weeks later and Arbor Day was upon us. Each student at Newington Forest Elementary School - and it turns out, every school in the Fairfax County School District - was given the assignment to design a piece of Arbor Day Art.  It could be a picture or a story, or in my case, a poem.



My little six-year-old-brain popped out the most six-year-old brain poem you could think of:

I Am A Tree

 

I am a tree

My roots are my feet

My branches are my arms

My leaves are my hands.

 

Birds sit on me,

Squirrels live in me,

Blossoms burst on me.

 

But just "Y" can't I walk?
My roots won't come up,

And I can't go anywhere.

AND WHERE IS MY HAIR?!"

Yes, that's right.  I wrote that.  When I was six.

Don't hate.

Turns out it was just so darn cute that I won the Arbor Day contest for not just the 1st grade, but for the entire elementary school...K-6

And I won the prize of all prizes:  A Slurpee. 

Plus the admiration of peers....Well, some of them. They made the announcement one morning, after the Pledge of Allegiance, when my class had already begun our morning journals.  I was thrilled, and immediately scratched out my diary entry, and it ended up looking like this:

Today some kids threw rocks

at our bus.  My poem won the Arber Day

contest!  I am happy I won for the hole

skool.  I am a tree!

During my turn at sharing time, a classmate groaned loudly "I KNEW SHE WOULD TALK ABOUT THAT."  He was clearly irritated by my bragging jealous.

Before you max out on being impressed by my skills, take this in:  I Am A Tree won the Arbor Day contest for all of Fairfax County Schools.   

So here I am in a frilly dress...accepting my awesome award for
being the awesomest writer in Fairfax County.

The public admiration, certificate and tiny tree that I won that day, and every prize since...were nowhere near as cool as that initial Slurpee.

The Coaches Poll

This week I happened across Sports Illustrated's Designated Reads: Sorry, Everybody.  While I'm not sure if the apology was because Holly Anderson assumed Texas was going to lose when she published the tweet, or if she is taking responsibilty for Texas moving up in the Coaches Poll. 

Either way, it gave me a moment of pause.  I used that moment to evaluate the Coaches' Poll Top 25 after Week Eight's Games.

  1. Alabama:  8-0  Reigning BCS Champions Alabama have beaten two ranked teams. (#'s 8 & 11).
  2. Oregon:  8-0   The Ducks have taken down two top 25's (#'s 22 & 23)
  3. Kansas State:  8-0  The Wildcats have taken down three ranked opponents, all in the top 15 (#'s 6, 13 & 14)
  4. Notre Dame:  8-0  The Irish have taken down FOUR ranked teams! (#'s 8, 10, 17 & 18).
   5. LSU:  7-1  The Tigers' only loss was to a ranked (#10) team and they have defeated two ranked opponents (#'s 3 & 18.)
  6. Georgia:  7-1  The bulldogs took down the #2 team, their only win against a ranked team, but their only loss came at the hands of #6. 
  7. Florida State:  7-1  After taking down one ranked team (#10) this season, the Seminoles gave up their one loss to an unranked opponent.
  8. Florida:  7-1   The Gators have taken down three ranked teams (#'s 4, 7 & 23) and their one loss is to #10.
  9. Clemson:  7-1  With only one loss, to a #4 ranked team, the Tigers have no wins against ranked opponenents.
10. Louisville: 8-0  The undefeated Cardinals have yet to play a ranked team.
11. South Carolina: 7-2  The GameCocks' 2 losses were to top ten (#'s 2 & 9) teams. In the W column, they have taken down one ranked team (#5).
12. Oklahoma:  5-2  The Sooners, having plain one game less than most teams so far, have only beaten one ranked team (#15) and their two losses are both to ranked opponents (#'s 15 & 5).
13. Oregon State:  6-1 The Beavers have beaten two ranked teams (#'s 13 & 19), but their only loss is to an unranked opponent)
14. Boise State:  7-1  The Bronco's only loss comes against the only ranked team they have faced (#13)
15. Stanford:  6-2  The Cardinal took down the #2 team, but they've lost twice, once to an unranked team and then to #7
16. Texas A&M: 6-2  The Aggies have beaten one ranked team (#23) and their two losses both come from ranked opponents (#'s 6 & 24)
17. USC: 6-2  The Trojans have not beaten a ranked team.  Their two losses come from their only ranked opponent (#21) and one unranked foe.
18. Mississippi State:  7-1 The Bulldogs have only one loss, to the #1 team - the only ranked team they have played thus far.
19. West Virginia:  5-2  Also one game behind the pack, the Mountaineers have beaten two ranked teams (#'s 11 & 25) and have losses to one unranked opponent and one top five (#4)
20. Texas Tech:  6-2  Tech's Red Raiders have beaten two ranked opponents (#'s 5 & 23) and have only lost to ranked teams (#'s 3 & 17)
21. Nebraska: 6-2  The Cornhuskers have beaten one ranked team (#22) and lost to one ranked (#12) and one unranked opponent.
22. Texas:  6-2  While the Longhorns have not beaten a ranked opponent, both of their losses come at the hands of ranked (#'s 8 & 13) teams.
23. Louisianna Tech: 7-1  These Bulldogs, while they haven't beaten a ranked team, have their only loss at the hands of one (#22)
24. Oklahoma State: 5-2 While the Cowboys have only played seven games, they have beaten one ranked opponent (#24) and lost to one ranked team  (#12) and one unranked. 
25. Rutgers:  7-1  The Scarlet Knights have yet to face off against a ranked opponent.

So there you go...a little peeksie at who has beaten who this season, ranking wise, in the Coaches' Poll.  I think Texas is lucky to be ranked at all, but whatever the reasoning for Holly's Twitter comment, the real joke is that 1) USC is still ranked 17th and 2) USC is still ranked.