A-Rod

Excerpt from today's press conference:

I screwed up big time, but I think, the only thing I ask from this group today and the American people is to judge me from this day forward.  And that’s all I can ask for.

I think this sounds like a great idea.

Only 763 more home runs until A-Rod passes Barry Bonds and saves the home run record!

Glasgow-Bound

In about 6 hours I'll be on a flight to the United Kingdom.  I'm studying abroad this semester at the University of Glasgow.  This means it'll be a lot harder to keep up with the MLB playoff races and the NFL, but it'll also put me right in the heart of the Old Firm.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make use of my BritRail pass to get down to EPL country as well.

What all this means, though, is that I'll probably be writing less frequently (not that I wrote all that frequently to begin with).  If I do write, expect it to be about British sports and sports anywhere else I manage to visit.  And if you know me, you know it won't just be the big-name sports and teams... I'm already looking forward to catching my first Scottish Rocks match in Kelvin Hall....

Cheers.  Thanks for reading.  If you have any suggestions on where to go, or advice on how to get tickets when I get there, please leave a comment or drop me an email (bcolbert at gmail dot com).

Thoughts on Gymnastics

I've been watching a lot of Olympics coverage. I got discouraged with Men's Soccer tournament after the highs and lows the US faced, but there's still women's soccer, Michael Phelps and the Redeem Team to get patriotic about, not to mention the novelty of watching niche sports that we only get to see once every four years, like kayaking, handball and racewalking. I even took to watching gymnastics for the first time. Watching the Chinese Men's team on the rings was vaguely similar to watching the 2007-08 New England Patriots in the sense that you got the feeling that you were watching the sport reach near perfection, and I enjoy watching anything that gets you thinking "this is something special, we may never see this done this well again."

The most controversial part of that last sentence wasn't saying I enjoyed gymnastics (it was an impressive feat of strength!), nor was it comparing great men's gymnastics to great football (I said vaguely similar), nor was it calling the 18-1 Patriots perfect (because those first few months of the season WERE football perfection... leave me alone). No, the controversial part was calling gymnastics a sport. The guys over at SportsLawBlog have been trying to define sport for a while now, and while I've always liked one-liners on the subject ("Sorry, Curling, but if you can play with a beer in one hand it's not a sport,") I admire the more academic approach. The sticking point against gymnastics, of course, is the "lack of objective scoring." But part of why I watched the gymnastics this year was the new scoring system, put into place because of controversial judging decisions at the last Olympiad.

Sure, I was mostly intrigued by the societal impact of sending the message to these little girls that there is no "perfect 10." But in addition to that, the experts were saying that this system was more objective than before. The judges are given access to instant replays, both slow motion and regular speed, and allegedly there's a scoring template and rubric that all the judges are following. I, Joe American Sports Fan, can't tell what should get a tenth of a point deducted or three-tenths deducted while I watch, but I was willing to accept that the scoring could be objective to a trained eye. At the end of the day all that comes up on the TV is the start value, one score from the judges called the execution score, and then the total of the two numbers. Start value? Objective. And just one judges' score? It sounds like an improvement...

SLB's most recent piece on the subject referenced the women's individual all-around finals, which I actually thought had acceptable judging... But at the individual event finals, the world stood still while the judges worked through multiple tiebreakers to determine the gold medalist. Both gymnasts had the same start value and received the same score from the judges. Since gymnastics isn't allowed to give multiple golds anymore (for whatever reason), we went to tiebreakers. The first tiebreaker involved dropping the highest and lowest scores and averaging the deductions; still tied. The second tiebreaker averaged the three lowest judges scores - and the youthful He Kexin's .933 was less than Nastia Liukin's .966. Gold to He, silver to Liukin.

Now of course, these tiebreakers are arbitrary, but all tiebreakers are arbitrary - soccer uses PKs, and the NFL effectively determines winners with a coin toss. The problem that the Olympic tiebreaker exposed is that this new judging system is just as reliant on biased judging as before. We still have a pack of judges from non-gymnastics countries giving their own individual scores - they're just not all shown on TV. Nastia's scores ranged from 9.3 to 8.8 - and at that range, either it's at least partially subjective, or somebody's got it wrong. Referees make mistakes (some more than others), but no self-respecting referees should differ that widely on a call. If we're going to have a panel of judges, they should work through the scoring as a panel. If one guy sees an error, they should discuss whether or not it's a deduction, and how big a deduction, and so forth. I like the idea of only one score showing up on screen, but that score shouldn't be an average of the same old biased individual scores. It should be one real consensus. I don't care if this takes longer, just like I don't care if instant replay slows down NFL games. What's important in sports is making the right call.

If gymnastics can prove that there is a right call - that the scoring can truly be objective and not simply a beauty contest of competing personal preferences - then it should do everything in its power to prove it. That means getting judges from countries who have gold-medal histories in the sport, and having them objectively agree on what the score should be. Until then, as far as I'm concerned, gymnastics will rejoin diving, equestrian and ice dancing on the list of non-sports at the Olympics that I'll watch in passing for amusement while I wait for the actual sports.

Swimming in the Morning - Should TV Dictate Sports Schedules?

My last day of work for the summer was last week, but I still woke up at 8 AM this morning. I wanted to watch Coach K's Redeem Team take on Australia live from Shanghai in their last exhibition before the Olympics. Thanks to ESPN2, I could, and the Americans won 87-76.

(One quick sidenote on Australia - their national basketball team's nickname is the Boomers. Apparently, it's slang for a large male kangaroo. Not bad, but I was really hoping for "Balleroos" or something. I guess I'll do with just the Socceroos and Olyroos.)

I love waking up at odd hours for sporting events like this. The 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan was great - I would go to sleep around 7 PM, wake up in time for a 2AM kick-off, and show up at school wide awake with a game and a half of soccer under my belt. In 2003, it was the America's Cup in New Zealand - I fell in love with sailing as I finished essays in the early hours of the morning. I found myself last year cheering on Team New Zealand (at 9 AM, from Valencia, Spain) to win the cup back from Alinghi so I could get my midnight sailing back.

Of course, these are instances when I've been able to drastically alter my internal clock and sleep schedule for sports. Also, with EURO 2008 kickoffs occuring at primetime Euro-time, they made for nice afternoon viewing for me here in the States. Globalism isn't too bad when you've got a college schedule, but one of these days, the real world will catch up to me and I won't be so lucky. I'll have to miss a sporting event because it's taking place on the other side of the world at some ungodly hour.

...but not if NBC has anything to say about it. NBC paid $3.55 billion dollars for exclusive rights to broadcast the 2000-2008 Olympics in the American market, they want to get their money's worth. This year, they're planning 3600 hours of coverage, but a couple of minute-long races are causing a bit of a ruckus.

Back in 2006, the IOC announced, at NBC's behest, that some swimming finals would be held in the morning to better line up with American primetime programming schedules. Swimming finals are traditionally held at night, and swimmers are traditionally very careful and cognizant of their body clocks. The Australian swimmers are complaining that an American company could buy an Olympic final for Michael Phelps. I think that's a little extreme, considering Phelps will have to acclimate himself to all the time differences the same way the other swimmers will.

It brings back memories of this years European Champions League Final, which was between two English sides (Chelsea and Manchester United) but was played at a neutral site in Moscow. Kickoff was at 10:45PM local time in order to have a sensible broadcast time back in the UK, but the game went to PKs and it was nearly 2 in the morning by the time the cup was raised. Not that I think any of the fans minded (the Man U fans, at least).

In this day of on demand music and video, sports remain one of the last forms of entertainment where watching it live matters. The live broadcast of a big episode of a popular TV series is still a big deal, as is the premier of a movie, but neither is as time-sensitive as a sporting event - you'll probably go online to watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy that you missed, but rather than to watch a whole game, you'll probably just watch the highlights and check the box score. Tape delays just aren't a satisfactory option for broadcasters anymore - any timeshifting will be done at the user's discretion, thankyouverymuch. Airing the swimming finals 12 hours later during primetime? Will some people will watch? Of course, but it'll lose the magic; it won't be Must-See TV, because the other half of the world has already seen it.

So that leaves two options. One option is to air the event as it occurs and let people (like me) who want to watch it find a way to watch it. NBC chose the other option: rescheduling the event, to the detriment of the local market (and possibly to the competitors) but for the benefit of the larger TV market. Who should have to change their schedules - the athletes or the fans? And wouldn't the athletes competing at their top level be in everyone's best interest?

All I know for certain is that the Spain, Argentina, and Greece are going to try packing 5 defender's inside to take away Team USA's penetration game. I also know that the 24 points St. Mary's Aussie guard Patrick Mills scored against Miami in this years' NCAA Tournament wasn't the last we'll hear from him. And I know these things because I woke up early this morning. If you missed it, here are the highlights, and here's the box score.

Felt the Lightning, and Waited On The Thunder...

Reports were out as early as Sunday that the former Seattle Supersonics had chosen their new moniker - say hello to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Honestly, I don't think it's all that bad a name (this guy does, but anyone from Seattle will have a problem no matter what the name is), though my gut reaction was if they were going the extreme weather route, one would think that Cyclones would be a) more indicative of the region's climate, and b) more in keeping with the alliterative history of the franchise... whatever, anything's better than the Outlaws. Every time I heard that suggestion, I was horrified at the thought of what that logo might've looked like.

But if the consensus is that the name is finalized, why hasn't an official announcement made? It could be because T-shirts bearing the generic OKC NBA logo went on sale this week. That's right, the plain black jerseys the team debuted at a Summer League game in Orlando on July 7th, days after the team reached a settlement with the City of Seattle. The shirts are flying off the shelves - that report says it's because the shirts are a "collectors item," but I think it's more than that (more on that in a minute). The point is - why would you reveal the official name, logo and colors right now? You've got plenty of time to sell those jerseys and hats. People will only buy the generic t-shirts until they see the real logo. Clay Bennett and friends are showing once again that they know a thing or two about running a business. Whether you like him or not, Bennett proved in Seattle that he can talk the talk, and now there's no denying that these guys can walk the walk as well.

So that is why, to borrow from Bob Seger, we're waiting on the Thunder. Expect to see these shirts at OKC games for years to come - fans will wear them proudly as a symbol of being with the team since the very beginning. These, and the NO/OKC Hornets jerseys, and even old Sonics jerseys - every chapter of the city's NBA history will make its way into the seats of the Ford Center, regardless who the League and the courts think owns the franchise's history. I look over at my Beat LA t-shirt - I know I'm gonna be wearing that to Celtics events until it has wholes in it because of what it represents to me and to other fans. So sure, it's a business move for Bennett and friends - that $75 million for the City of Seattle has to come from somewhere - but I like the move from a fan standpoint as well. People of Oklahoma - go pick up one of those generic shirts while you can. In a couple of years, it'll be the ultimate throwback.

Year 1 of US Development Academy Comes to a Close

Why was this weekend so big for American soccer? It had nothing to do with next week's MLS All-Star Game, or anything else going on at the MLS. It had nothing to do with the fast-approaching Olympic Games. And it certainly had nothing to do with SuperLiga, the exhibition/tournament with nothing at stake except an inconclusive amount of prize money.

The big event of this past weekend was the finals of the inaugural year of the US Soccer Development Academy. Last summer, the United States Soccer Federation decided to create the Development Academy to try and change the face of youth soccer in this country, which for years consisted of independent "club teams" competing in as many leagues and holiday tournaments as possible.

Over in England (and other footballing nations), the norm is the "youth academy" - players to an academy run by a professional club as early as 8 years old. The young player gets to benefit from the professional clubs resources and coaching, and the club has first dibs on the kids when they’re ready for the big time. While they make headlines for the players they transfer in from other clubs, Liverpool and Manchester United always have a handful of homegrown players on the roster. They invest a great deal in training and coaching talented players from a very young age because they reap the benefits when a player has been trained in Man U football from Day 1.

I’m a huge fan of American soccer, but even I’ll admit that our version of the beautiful game is less beautiful than the version played in England, Spain, Brazil, etc. And the biggest reason for that is that our players are less technically sound – we’re athletic, but even at the NCAA level you’ll see a lot of “tunnel vision” and not a lot of passing around the field. USSF decided that this is because of the results-oriented scheduling of the country’s top “club soccer” teams. Until this year, those teams were playing in tournaments every holiday weekend on top of their usual schedules, and the kids often played for both a club team and a high school team – meaning year-round games. With this many games, practices were minimal. Maybe American sporting culture doesn’t think very highly of practice, but when competing at that top level, the big difference is made at the training facility. Not a game, not a game… not a game. We talkin’ ‘bout practice.

Until this year, there were very few options with that kind of training focus. USSF would pick out 20 players a year for the Olympic Residency program at the IMG Soccer Academy in Bradenton, FL. Then Brad Friedel started his Premier Soccer Academies in Ohio (with the hilariously pompous mailing address 2101 Brad Friedel's Avenue of Future Stars). Then MLS started to get into the act, with Chivas USA and Red Bull New York starting up Academy teams.

The US Soccer Development Academy invited the elite club teams from around the country to buy into the sort of system and regimen laid out by the IMG Academy. Approximately 30 games a year, minimum three days of practice and one day of rest every week. No extra tournaments – just the regularly-scheduled games and tournaments with the other Academy teams. Critics are bemoaning the death of high school soccer, but the level of play on the field this past weekend showed what a focus on practice can do. The Baltimore Bays took down the surprise-finalists LAFC 4-2 in extra time in Friday’s U-17/18 Final, and Baltimore’s Chris Agorsor is being called the next great American striker. Check out highlights of the various teams on USSoccer's YouTube Page.

Congratulations are in order for all the teams who participated, and let’s look forward to big things out of Agorsor and all his teammates. I look forward to the Development Academy continuing into the future – I think it can only be positive for MLS. Even the NCAA should benefit, as many of these well-trained players may still look for a college education. Besides, college athletics will always continue to play a prominent role in our national sporting landscape… won’t they?

Time to Rethink Tagging Music

I try to take pretty good care of my music collection. I've got 7,220 files in my iTunes library, which is just barely too much for my 30 gig iPod. No "Unknown Artist - Track 1" for me; I do a pretty good job tagging my songs. I may be a little lax on album titles (or take some liberties with Greatest Hits albums for the sake of organization), but I'll usually hit up MusicBrainz to double check track number, song titles and artist, etc.

I'm not the best or most thorough, nor do I have the biggest collection out there, but I like what I have, and I like being able to find songs in a way that makes sense to me and hopefully makes sense to whoever's controlling my iPod in the passenger seat of my car. It's imperfect, though; my biggest complaint is that I can only file songs under one artists' name. Usually, I'll defer to MusicBrainz, but consider the "Sum 41 Rock Remix" of Ludacris' "Get Back." I want that song to come up alongside my other Sum 41 songs, so it's filed with Sum 41 as the artist instead of Ludacris. And I think of "Under Pressure" as being by "Queen & David Bowie," not one or the other (and for once MusicBrainz agrees), so I have an Artist listing for "Queen & David Bowie" that contains only that song.

When looking for a solution to this problem, the closest I could find was over at the excellent site LifeHacker. A few months back there was a discussion of tag-cloud-style music tags, but specifically in the sense of sorting songs by the moods and emotions they evoke. The best solution offered for that problem was what I do anyway - I make a lot of playlists, and they're usually several hundred songs long. I use playlists to function as a "controlled random" - making sure I don't get any Dropkick Murphys when I'm trying to sleep, or any Mozart while I'm driving. Effectively, I'm tagging my music almost like I tag my emails in Gmail, with playlists serving the same purpose as labels. The only thing I took away from the discussion at LifeHacker was the idea of adding codewords to the "Comment" field of the ID3 tag, so that the playlist sorting would stay with the song.

For those who've never really looked into it, ID3 tags are a bit of information (actually, up to 256MB of information) contained in the MP3 file. According to Wikipedia, the concept of ID3 was born in 1996, a year after the first MP3 encoding software went public (the letters .mp3 were chosen to be the file extension 13 years ago today (July 14, 1995)). The first version of the tags, ID3v1, used a limited character set and couldn't even handle some songs' full titles if they were too long or used certain punctuation marks or foreign characters. ID3v2 tags have increased character limits, as well as new fields to hold album art, bitrate, and other pieces of information about the song. A lot of music organizers advertise themselves as "ID3v3" but according to ID3.org, there hasn't been a new standard since ID3v2.4 was proposed in November of 2000 (and even that hasn't fully taken hold due to "some disagreements on some of the revisions and the tremendous inertia present in the software and hardware marketplace.").

But I think it's time for a new version of ID3. ID3 is still stuck in a "Windows 98"-era mindset of folder-organization. That era has passed, and Flickr/del.icio.us/Gmail-style tagging is the way we now need to sort our information. I shouldn't have to attribute a song to one artist when 3 or 4 artists contribute to the track. I should be able to select an artist from the Artists list and see every song they've performed on, as a headliner or in a featuring role. And a playlist should be a list of songs to be played in order, not a workaround for music sorting.

Of course, I don't know if that's feasible practically. And I don't know how to program it. My plea to those who are better with computers than I am - give us an ID3v3 for the Web 2.0 crowd and a media player that can read it. Don't do it for me; do it for Lil Wayne and the 77 tracks he appeared on in 2007.

...and while we're at it, who else thinks that alphabetical order might be obsolete in a digital world?

Club vs. Country - Basketball Edition

Marc Cuban, the eccentric billionaire owner/superfan of the Dallas Mavericks, runs an excellent blog over at blogmaverick.com that I check every week. Whether he's talking about basketball or technology, it's great to see what one of the guys on the inside thinks, especially one as knowledgeable and straight-shooting as Mr. Cuban.

This week, it was basketball - Mr. Cuban reposted an oldie-but-a-goodie from the last Olympiad, arguing why he doesn't support NBA players playing in the Olympics. It's of note, though, that if Cuban thinks a tournament every four years is a problem, he should be glad he doesn't own a soccer team. It's known as the "club vs. country" debate in Europe, and it's in the news nearly every other week, especially when tournaments like the current Euro 2008 take place. In one corner, you've got national teams who get big money from TV deals and advertisers; and in the other corner, you've got team owners who pay the players the rest of the year and want a cut (or at least don't want to see their players get hurt). The issue is even greater in the soccer community because of more frequent tournaments and more nationalities and national leagues sharing the main stage. FIBA Americas and the World Basketball championship are only just beginning to cause the kind of problems the EPL, La Liga, Serie A and the like have long faced with EURO, the African Cup of Nations, the CONCACAF Gold Cup (not to mention the much more frequent friendlies between national teams in the soccer world).

The scheduling and cash flow become infinitely more complex because soccer is truly the world's game. Basketball is not, although the NBA is working on it. You can still describe international basketball issues (as Mr. Cuban does) as America vs. the World, or the NBA vs. the World, or in cases like this, America vs. the NBA. Even though the EPL wishes it did, nobody has the same monopoly of soccer talent that the NBA has on basketball talent. The closest thing was the G-14, a coalition of the rishest soccer clubs in Europe, and that group disbanded in February as part of an uneasy truce over national teams compensating teams for injured stars.

And as far as "And1-ing" goes, Euro 2008 is another good place to look, where a half-dozen Brazilians are playing for Poland, Turkey, and even talent-rich Spain and Portugal. If there are legitimately two countries that you identify with, I can understand the crisis, but mercenaries choosing new citizenship based on roster openings do more to cheapen the international game than a thousand endorsements ever could. The more interesting issue is coaches crossing borders. How does the equation change when your national team commitment is your full-time job? How much is representing a country and how much is just paying the bills? It can certainly be a point of pride to have a homegrown coach, but if you're paying the man, business sense and what's best for the team on the field have to factor in alongside emotions. Case in point: Russia's manager Guus Hiddink, who's passion could arguably make his fellow Dutchmen proud during the 3-1 defeat his adopted team handed the Netherlands, but I think most people in Holland are more likely to call him traitor of the year.

Or, on the other hand, you could look at Sweden's finest, Sven-Göran Eriksson, getting ready to begin his tenure as Mexico's head coach. Seriously, just look at him. It looks like there's a decent chance he didn't understand most of what was said at that press conference.

Seattle SuperSonics Trial Underway

Sonics owner Clay Bennett is due on the stand today in Day 2 of the Sonics vs. the City of Seattle. Follow along at the Seattle Times' excellent blog coverage of the trial.

For those who haven't been following the case, Bennett and a couple of other Oklahoma City businessmen partnered up to purchase the Sonics from Howard "Starbucks" Schultz. Schultz was fed up with trying to get a stadium deal done in the city (the city has financed new stadiums for the Seahawks and Mariners and even extensively renovated the Sonics' own KeyArena, all in the last 15 years). Bennett and friends claimed to be acting in good faith to get a deal done to keep the team in the city, but as more and more evidence comes out, it seems that that was never the plan.

Now the city of Seattle is suing the Sonics to force them to play out the last two years of their lease in KeyArena. Honestly, I don't think it looks good for Seattle at this point; the Sonics owners really slammed the city in their opening court brief, and I can't see two more "lame duck" years in Seattle as good for anyone - the city doesn't want to support these owners anymore, and I can't say I blame them.

While the Donaghy allegations have been the crisis stealing the most headlines from this amazing NBA Finals (really? Dick Bavetta is officiating in the Finals this year after he was a person of interest in the Donaghy investigation? Seriously?), I honestly think the situation out in Seattle should be the year's biggest embarrassment for the league. Just look at the emails that went back and forth between Bennett and Stern. Stern was

1. not very professional, typing in lowercase and scattered punctuation (though I guess that REDACTED could be a "Sent from my Blackberry" notice), and
2. completely buttered up by Bennett's smooth talking. He had the wool pulled over his eyes, and now he's trying to defend himself and his owners.

Now speaking of Blackberrys, it's worth mentioning that I was really strongly opposed to the way Gary Bettman kept the Predators in Nashville (or at least America) and out of a better situation in Hamilton (that's a post I still need to write). But the difference between that situation and this one is this: I don't think that a team with 40 years of history, a team that has won a Championship, should be forced out of town because they won't pay for the owner's new toy. That's what's happening now, and I don't think there's anything the court can do (especially when the Sonics effectively closed their brief with "If you make us stay, we'll make you wish we left,"). As J.A. Adande put it, there were a number of reasons to keep the Sonics in Seattle, and a number of other ways to work with the OKC market; but in all likelihood, there's nothing that can be done now. Now we're just waiting on the courts.

But while we wait, I'll be watching the Celtics go for Green 17 tonight. And before that, it's time for France-Italy in this amazing Euro 2008.

Just wanted to throw out there, fun fact, I wrote about this subject for my Microeconomics in Policy Decisions class. I never thought I could cite Bill Simmons in a paper for my major and get an A.

Brian McBride Back to the MLS... but where?

Brian McBride has said goodbye to Fulham who, after cutting Carlos Bocanegra last week, may have to get on with only three Americans next year. Nothing is final yet (still) but reports keep coming out that McBride wants to come back to the MLS to close out his career. In the words of his brother/agent Matthew McBride (I wish my brother and I worked that well together), "He's a Chicago guy." He wants the Fire - and the Fire want him - but what does the league want?

For a refresher, the way the MLS is set up, player contracts for every team are handled by the league and have to fit under precise salary cap and allocation rules (except when, you know, they change the rules instead). Right now, Toronto FC is at the top of the allocation list, and they would have the first crack at McBride. TFC famously had trouble finding the back of the net last year... imagine McBride running alongside fan favorite Danny Dichio at the top? Imagine how loud the 20,000 at BMO Field would be if they actually had something to cheer about? And interest of course extends beyond Chicago and Toronto - notably, McBride's former team, the league-leading Columbus Crew, have also expressed interest in a reunion.

But as Soccernet's Steve Davis writes, Chicago is the obvious best fit for McBride, and a deal needs to happen to get him there. Davis even suggests that MLS could step in and make sure he lands there (and there is a precedent for such an intervention). Time will tell where he lands, but a Chicago Fire team with Blanco and McBride would be a highlight reel waiting to happen every time they take the field from here up to the MLS Cup, even if he's aged a little bit from his depiction as a 10 year old in Backyard Soccer: MLS Edition.

We Ain't Ready to See a White Power Forward?

Wow, it's been a long time. This semester's been rough. Once school gets out, I can get back to writing a little more.

For now, I just wanted to throw up a link and my two cents on LZ Granderson's piece Who Says White Men Can't Jump? over at ESPN.com's Page 2. Normally I skip the obviously-racially-charged columns on Page 2 because they're usually written by Jemele Hill and Scoop Jackson, and their commentary on society is about as insightful as "Play That Funky Music, White Boy." I was suckered into reading this one because of my love of Woody Harrelson and my hatred of Tyler Hansbrough.

I'm really glad I read it - it was one of the first race-based Page 2 columns I've ever agreed with. I remember watching the NFL draft last year and hearing all my buddies comparing JaMarcus Russell to Mike Vick, and I was like, "Guys, I mean, come on, he's more like a Ben Roethlisburger, isn't he? Tall, enough speed to do damage on a scramble but his arm is his first weapon?" loooong pause. "I mean, I know it's breaking that rule about comparing white guys and black guys, but come on."

Of course, what's not mentioned here nor anywhere else nearly enough is that Hansbrough isn't "a 19-year-old kid" as LZ says; he did junior college before UNC and he turns 23 in November. What you see is what you're gonna get with Hansbrough - he's peaking as a player right now and not going to get a whole lot better than this - and what you see right now is not NBA caliber. Also, Tyler travels. Every time.

While you're at it, if you haven't already, go ahead and listen to Barack's A More Perfect Union speech - that shit is marvelous. I had forgotten what a hypnotizingly good speaker that man is - I still have his 2004 DNC speech on my iPod. After that speech, I had said to myself, "Wow. That man is going to be President in 2016. Maybe even 2012." Never did I think he'd be running at this point, and his inexperience is still a bit of a concern... blah blah politics rabble rabble rabble.

GTHC

An excellent win by the Blue Devils last night in Chapel Hill. Here's an AP column courtesy of GoDuke.com (quite the headline, that) and here's the ESPN postgame report with highlights.

More importantly, here's a video of the impromptu bonfire on the quad. The Chronicle details the story here, but here's basically what went down. The school had obtained a bonfire permit for Monday night, in the event that the women's team beat UNC at home (which was not even close to happening). We traditionally have bonfires for national championships or for HOME wins over UNC, so there was no permit for Wednesday night. But, because it had been so long since the last men's win over UNC, there was a lot of pent up excitement.

So the game ends and everybody rushes to the quad, where you can still see the painted circle where Monday's fire would have been. People start celebrating for the TV cameras... and there's a helicopter circling too, and we cheer for the helicopter (somebody told me the local post-game show said that "we're receiving word Duke doesn't have a permit for a bonfire tonight, but we're keeping an eye out for further developments." They were WAITING for us to do it.) After cheering gets old, everybody's just standing around complaining about the lack of a fire (very similar to the crowd this fall gathering and waiting in Wally Wade for 20 minutes before we mustered up the courage to tear down the goalposts).

Then somebody lights a Coors Light box on fire and walks it through the crowd.

Then somebody starts a fire with a stack of newspaper. Then a group of about thirty people place the Few Quad bench on top of the little fire and it starts to become a big fire.

I saw two standing nearby, a Durham cop and a Duke cop, and the Durham cop made a motion to yell at the students, but ultimately he just shook his head and muttered "stupid kids." Later, about thirty people dragged the only other "independent bench," which used to be Beta Theta Pi's bench back when they could get people to join their frat.

And then they turn the firehose on us. Here's a YouTube video that condenses the festivities into 2 minutes. Some people took to mudwrestling in response to the fire department's actions, but for the most part students lost interest and went to the parking lot to greet the players getting off the team bus. Hero worship is less destructive than arson.

It sounds like right now, The Man is only looking to bring down the ones who started this fire. Hopefully, The Man won't bring us all down, and we can do it up right on March 8th after round two, on our court. Larry Moneta makes it sound like that party is still a go.

GTHC! Let's Go Duke!

Super Bowl Sunday and Toboggans

Tonight is the Big Game! (Thank goodness that phrase isn't trademarked) The Pats are on the verge of completing the perfect season. There's more than enough words on the internet written about the Super Bowl because everyone in sports feels its their duty to write about it. So I'll be quick with my predictions - Giants score first, Pats dominate but never pull away, and somebody not named Eli makes a bonehead mistake in the third quarter that makes Giants fans scream obscenities but follow it up with "that's okay, but there's still time left." (My guess is it'll be Amani Toomer - I want it to be Plexiglass Burress, but he's won a Super Bowl before and I'm not expecting mistakes out of him... of course, it could still be Eli. It could always be Eli. Hide your heart, girls.) The Pats will win but won't cover - and that's the stance I took in the bet with my Jersey roommate - he wins if the Giants win OR if the Pats blow them out... I need the Pats to win by 12 or less. I still think I got the best window.

My favorite soccer blog site threw up a post today with XI Reasons Football (with the feet) is Better Than Football (with the hands). A couple good zingers in there, but I love both sports. I love the strategy and specialized athleticism of gridiron football, and I love the action, the style, and the spirit of soccer. I don't expect the world's soccer fans to embrace the NFL - despite the shared name, the two games are fundamentally different from a spectator level. An NFL game is an event - a 3 hour chunk of your day, and often a lot longer if you include the pregame show and tailgating. And there isn't a whole lot of action - theres a lot of downtime which leads to more conversation, either about the game or just general discussion. A lot like going to a baseball game - and that's why the pigskin is the new American Pastime. Soccer, meanwhile, is non-stop action (the untrained American eye will say that nothing's going on, but nobody will deny that the clock is always running). In this way, soccer flows more like a basketball game, and that (as well as the smartest global marketing team in sports) is why the NBA is catching on overseas. The NHL could translate, too, but it needs to focus on keeping an audience here before grabbing fans in London.

But naturally, TheOffside's post lead to a debate in the comments over the word "soccer." Sammy wrote:

I think the term “soccer” should be eliminated from this website. When I think of “soccer” I think of kids doing laps around a park district and eating oranges. When I think of “football” I think of the beautiful game. We won’t offend any American Football fans here.

I want to share a little anecdote about this - I'm from Massachusetts, and the first winter that I was down here in North Carolina, as soon as it started getting cold one of my Southern friends started looking for his "toboggan". I said, "What on earth do you need a toboggan for? There's no snow on the ground, so we can't very well go sledding." He didn't know what on earth I was talking about, so as usual we let Wikipedia settle our dispute.

Up north, "toboggan" means a sled. In "Southern American English," it apparently means what I would call a ski cap (or, if I was making a joke about Canada or talking about hockey, what I would call a tuque). My gut reaction was that he must be wrong - that the South must be wrong! How can they take a word that doesn't belong to them and apply it to the wrong thing? Surely North Carolinians shouldn't get to decide names for wintery things! But when you settle down, you realize that it's just another part of southern culture that's different from the culture I come from - just like calling a rotary a "traffic circle," listening to country music or deep frying an Oreo.

And this toboggan incident led me to be a lot more neutral in the "football v. soccer" debate. What's in a name? Often the Americans who demand that we call the beautiful game "football" are the Eurosnob fans who don't give the MLS a chance in the first place. For starters, here's a quick history lesson on the term "soccer." We're not the only society who uses the word this way - and even if we were, would that be so wrong? Once you get to the World Cup, most of the time, the players aren't speaking the same language anyway! I think the community of American soccer fans would do well to drop this debate and accept the fact that, over here, we call it soccer. That's just our culture. It's no less right than football.

One last Super Bowl point - the media has been so focused on revamping the SpyGate investigation that nobody has highlighted the biggest surprise of the AFC Championship - Belichick didn't keep trying to score in the fourth quarter! Why stop now? What happened to playing 60 minutes of football? The only mention I saw of this was one little paragraph in Tuesday Morning Quarterback the week after the game, and Easterbrook left it at a "What's up with that?" (Probably because he hasn't acknowledged the Pat's relentless 4th quarter effort as a source of their wins in close games this year.)

MLS v. Twellman... to Transfer or Not to Transfer?

So we've reached February, and for better or for worse, Taylor Twellman is still a Rev.

For better or for worse?, you say. How could it possibly be worse?

Well, a couple of ways. First, he'd arguably develop better as a player overseas. While the MLS continues to improve, and the Revs have some of the best staff in the States, conventional wisdom is that the big fish in this pond needs to head over to the Big Leagues (even Big League Championship) to grow as a player, which is good for the National Team.

Secondly, Twellman wants to go. Badly. That means he doesn't want to keep playing here (espcially now that his boy Noonan is gone). Yes, Twellman is an exceptional player - but that's when he's happy. Now he's not happy. How will Twellman respond - by raising his play to the next echelon to draw an offer the league can't refuse? or by becoming a cancer in the locker room for the whole year?

But we know these reasons aren't what the MLS is listening to... with the MLS, the bottom line is always the bottom line. Money. The league has been ultra-conservative since day one to build a firm base that wouldn't repeat the NASL's failures, and in this goal it has succeeded admirably. The league has built local followings in most of its cities, only having to contract two teams and expanding from 8 to 14 with 2 more on the way (DuNord says Bigsoccer.com says MLS registered the domain "mlsinphilly.com"...). Thanks to the league-owned salaries and the low salary cap, teams are losing less money every year and some teams are even profitable now. More people want teams than the league can support, and the expansion fee keeps rising.

Okay, so now the league is established. That was Phase One. Sadly, Phase Two for the league seems to be a period of export. The MLS has been building its talent pool for a decade, and the world has noticed and wants a piece. And because the leagues overseas are so much more profitable (and free-market), they can offer big money to cherrypick our talent. And the Revs have been getting the worst of it.

Like a certain other New England team, the Revs have been the best in the league at assembling a team of stars. It may never have felt that way at the Revs like it did with this year's Pats, but consider Dempsey and Dorman's transfer fees and the ongoing interest in Joseph and Twellman. Who's next, Parkhurst? SuperDraft selection Michael Videira? It's going to get worse before it gets better. It's funny because, for as much as it looks like the Revs have been changing this winter, a lot of the Rev's practices have stayed the same.

Frank Dell'Apa, the Boston Globe staff writer who wrote the Twellman piece above, also wrote this analysis of the MLS's current status in the world transfer market. Here are the key facts - since the league owns the contracts with all the players, they are involved in all transfer negotiations and take a cut of every transfer fee and distribute it among the other teams. The team losing the player gets 2/3 of the fee, and can only use $500,000 on an allocation for a player's salary. The market values Twellman at a $1 million salary and will pay us $3 million for him, but the Revs would get $2 million from the transfer and be able to hire a replacement for $500,000 a year. And this is why the Revs say no - they can't justify letting Twellman go because $2 million (not $3 million) isn't worth getting a striker who's worth half what Twellman is worth.

Teams are effectively punished for developing good players, caught in a cycle of cultivating talent and shipping it out. But because teams get a raw deal in the transfer market, they block transfers, and the players play out their contracts and jump overseas on a free transfer. Then everybody misses out. Clearly there's a problem with this system.

I don't think the transfer fee split is the issue - maybe its the NFL fan in me, but I like the small market teams getting a cut. The issue here, as it always is, is the salary cap. The allocation needs to be a closer to the value of the player departing. Also, I'm not entirely clear on how allocations work - do they alleviate salary cap pressure at all, or is it just money to be used for the salary/transfer fee of the new player?

Of course, if the cap went up a bit, maybe we could pay Twellman the salary he's earned anyway. Or we could give the developmental players a respectable salary so they don't have to work second jobs at WalMart. Maybe that's the most important thing and the soccer-specific stadiums can wait?

Two More Blue Devils to the MLS (Maybe)

Last week's MLS Supplemental Draft, the less-than-Super cousin of the SuperDraft, doesn't get a glitzy page on MLSnet because it tends to be an afterthought. Instead of having an 8-round draft, MLS effectively splits it in two - the teams are given an additional 4 rounds a few days later to fill out their developmental rosters with more college talent. Considering that many 4th round picks don't pan out on the pro roster, there's not a lot of chance these guys will make an impact next year. Still, you never know unless you give them a shot - which begs the question, why didn't Toronto give anyone a shot?

The Blue Devils once again made a strong showing, with Zach Pope and Tim Jepson being selected 40th and 43rd, respectively, by Chicago and San Jose, respectively. I guess they can't all be Revs. Here's the Duke Athletics release, and the campus newspaper report.

Zach Pope was always a fan favorite. Blistering speed on the outside wing. Fun to watch. He kicks a pretty nice cross and got a fair number of assists at Duke but he'll need to make some big plays for the developmental side to impress his way into the big time.

Tim Jepson missed a lot of this year with a muscle pull which could be why he fell this low. He'll be a rookie on his next team, but this four year senior captain is a leader through and through. He's a tall-ish central defender who doesn't make mistakes. I have higher hopes for him than for Pope - a lot can happen on an expansion team, so there's a shot Jepson could get some minutes for the Quakes next year. That pulled muscle kept taking longer than announced to heal, and I felt like he was a half-step slow the whole rest of the year even once he was back - he'll need to get back to where he was before plus a little more, but if he can make the leap skillwise then I'm confident his leadership will translate.

So that makes 5 Dukies in this year's draft... throw in Joshua Medcalf (grad student from Vanderbilt who's eligibility is up), Paul Dudley (imagine Peter Crouch with less ballskill - tall guy who was intimidating and a scorer but unfortunately inexplicably bad on the headers), Justin Papadakis (excellent goaltender), Tomek Charowski (took the corners, and what a fun name to say!), the backup keeper and three depth midfielders. Those are the 13 seniors leaving the team. Throw in a new coach and you've got the definition of a "rebuilding year." Upside - we've still got Mike Grella and last year's #1 recruiting class... we'll have to see but for now I'm gonna say that a winning ACC season next year would transcend even the Ewing Theory.

Stealing from Wal-Mart Makes You a Target

Time for a break from soccer - on Monday night, the #2 Tennessee Lady Volunteers take on the #10 Duke Blue Devils (we, unlike the cutesy Lady Vols, don't need a diminutive form of our nickname to denote gender - we are all Blue Devils) in the never-friendly confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium. Cameron is sold out, and I will be among the Cameron Crazies welcoming Tennessee into our house the only way we know how - jumping and screaming the entire game. The Crazies are the best and most creative college basketball fans in the country, and the closest thing in America to the soccer hooligans abroad. We've earned a reputation over the years as the most creative have earned their reputation primarily at Men's basketball games, but we pack the house for the big Women's games, too.

Pat Summitt, the coach of the Lady Vols, knows how loud we are, and she's afraid that somebody's feelings are going to be hurt. She's threatening to pull the series with the Blue Devils if the fans aren't nicer to her players. Backstory - Alexis Hornbuckle, now a senior at Tennessee, was arrested for shoplifting from Walmart back when she was in highschool. Two years ago, when Tennessee last played in Cameron, the Crazies came equipped with WalMart shopping bags, and chanted "WAAAAAL-MAAAART" while she was at the free throw line. A little heckling to try and rattle the other team's point guard, and it worked - she went 0-4 from the free throw line, and then-#2 Duke beat then-#1 Tennessee handily, holding the Lady Vols to a season-low 53 points.

Duke has won the last three meetings and leads the all-time series 5-4... what does Pat Summitt think of the series?

"This series has been a great series," Summitt said, "but I was very disappointed the last time I was there with the behavior, in particular of the students toward Alexis. They stepped way over the line on that one. Hopefully we’ve moved on... I wouldn’t be in favor of continuing the series if we’re going to go in a gym and they’re going to take personal shots at one of our players... Why would you subject a student-athlete to that type of harassment?"

There are three important points here, and the first one is that making fun of somebody's high school shoplifting charge is certainly not "crossing the line." Last year, the week before the Duke men's team played BC, two of their players were kicked out of school for marijuana, and we certainly could have heckled them to death for that, but you didn't hear so much as a "WHERE'S SEAN" chant. For the last two years, the men's team has opened the season against our neighbors NC Central University (the stripper who filed the false rape accusations in a big court case you may or may not of heard of... she was an NCCU student), and we are always on our best behavior (screaming loud, but leaving out the stripper jokes). Some things are too serious. Shoplifting is not too serious. If you want a lesson in crossing the line, follow the Duke lacrosse team on the road. Especially to the University of Maryland, where class and tact go to die.

The second point is that as college students, these girls are adults and can handle themselves - they don't need Mama Pat looking out for them. That's a message that someone needs to pass along to Ms Summitt, who earlier this season benched Candice Parker for missing curfew before a game in her hometown. Parker, who was the first and so far only girl to win the slam dunk contest at the McDonalds High School All-American game (and is probably one of the top five women's basketball players in terms of name recognition because of that feat alone), had 60 friends and family members in attendance. Mama Pat is opposed to other people embarrassing her players, but has no problem doing it herself. We were teaching Alexis a lesson too, Pat - don't steal from WalMart! Set a good example for all the young girls watching you! You're a public figure now, being on a nationally-ranked basketball team - and that means that sportswriters, talk radio, and fans of both your team and the other team are going to talk about you. Get used to it.

The third point is that Pat Summitt would be making a huge mistake for her team and her school by canceling the Duke series. Earlier in the year, she made a similar stink with UConn and mysteriously canceled her series with the Huskies. Duke and UConn, of course, are two of the only schools with winning records against Pat Summitt, and she appears determined to find any excuse to not have to play these teams in the future. Say goodbye to your RPI and strength of schedule, Tennessee! And say goodbye to your recruits - for the best players in the country, the chance to prove themselves against the other best players in the country will outweigh the draw of the best coach in the nation. I'm not denying that she's a great coach (though it's never really noted that she inherited a 25-2 team back in '74...), but her recent antics have to make you wonder how much longer she'll be on top.

As a final note, you don't see any men's teams complaining about the Crazies not being nice to their players. Pat Summitt's complaint is one giant leap against Title IX. The girls can take it. Let them play. Way to go, Pat.

The Exciting Thing About Soccer Is...

...that sometimes it's not exciting at all. Sydney-Queensland was a 0-0 draw. The teams take Australia Day off and the first game of the Major Semi is Sunday night (their night, our morning) in the brilliantly named EnergyAustralia Stadium.

Here's a recap, box score, and highlight reel from the game.

Probably the Most Important Australian Sporting Event This Weekend

Okay, I know I said Super Bowl coming up, but with the Super Bowl still over a week away, and with Australia Day right around the corner, I decided to focus on the most important Australian sporting event this weekend - the first round of the A-League playoffs! ...oh yeah, and I guess they're playing some "major" tennis tournament this weekend too... but back to the A-League Finals Series. We are now less than two hours away from Sydney-Queensland getting underway. Honestly, I think this is one of the coolest tournaments in sports.

The A-League is the top soccer league in Australia, currently in its 3rd year of existence. And you thought the MLS had no history! (More on A-League History in a moment.) Going into last week, the final week of the season, the top four teams all had the same number of points - all had clinched the four playoff spots, but they were all fighting for seeding. Drama. The Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners came out with wins earning the top two spots, with Sydney FC tying their way into 3rd and the Queensland Roar limping into 4th with a loss.

But the playoff format is what makes the A-League so interesting. Instead of your standard American bracket, with #1 v #4 and #2 v #3, the A-League's first round has a "Major Semifinal" with the top two teams, and a "Minor Semifinal" with teams #3 and #4. Two games, home-and-home aggregate goals, yadda yadda yadda... And then the loser of the Major Semifinal gets to face the winner of the Minor Semifinal in the "Preliminary Final." The winner of the Preliminary Final and the winner of the Major Semifinal then face off in the "Grand Final" in Sydney.

I love this playoff format - imagine if we used that over here in the NFL? This year, we would've had a Major Semifinal of Pats-Colts and a Minor Semifinal of Packers-Cowboys... there's so much epicism there I don't even know where to start... the potential for 2 Pats-Colts playoff games, where each team had just seen the others' tricks! Who would you pick in that Grand Super Bowl - the winner of the first fresh from a week off, or the loser of the first with a chip on their shoulder? Imagine if the Pats lost the Semifinal - would they be able to salvage a Super Bowl win? Sure, a first-round bye is a nice treat for a good season - but imagine a second chance in the playoffs. I'm sure Peyton would've stayed on the field in Week 17 if that were at stake.

I'm really excited to see how this goes, because this is my first A-League playoffs - I got my first exposure to the league this summer (our summer, their winter) when there were talks of Robbie Fowler signing with Sydney FC, and my first reaction was "There's a pro soccer league in Australia?" So naturally I read up on it and I was hooked - the league's story is pretty fascinating when you sit down and look at it. In 2003, there was a complete overhaul of the governing body Soccer Australia after an independent review (if only the same would happen in Canada...). The new league began in 2005 and after just three seasons, it's made many strides that took the MLS eight or nine years. Several Socceroos (gotta love those kooky Aussies) returned home, and the league's overall average attendance in the first year was over 12,000 - and more impressively, that number went up in Year Two (MLS averaged about 17,500 in the first year; the number fell each of the next 4 seasons and still hasn't reached that high since).

Like the MLS, the A-League has a salary cap to keep costs down, but the A-League was way ahead of MLS in allowing each team one "Marquee Player" who doesn't count under the cap - that rule's been in place since day one. The cap is only $1.8 million Australian (about $1.56 million US), which limits salaries even more than MLS does (I don't know if the MLS cap number is actually out there anywhere - I've heard anywhere between $2 mil and $2.5 mil). Actually, there was a big controversy this summer when DC United and MLS stole Player of the Year Fred away from champions Melbourne Victory by offering to pay him three times as much. Even if the Socceroos' coach isn't a big fan of the A-League as it is, the league was included in FIFA 08, so that gives it some legitimacy (I would argue that the boys at EA Sports' opinion means more than that of a coach who made 39 call-ups for a Qualifier, but that's just me).

In last year's Grand Final, 55,000 fans watched Archie Tompson scored 5 goals in Melbourne's 6-0 thrashing of Adelaide United, and somehow the New Zealander is still toiling away in the A-League... Sadly, Melbourne won't have a chance to repeat, but apparently the Aussie advertisers are thrilled to get a Sydney-Queensland semifinal... If I'm making a prediction, it's Sydney all the way. Despite their hideous sky blue jerseys that remind me a little too much of UNC, Sydney FC are my team in the A-League. After following them in the Robbie Fowler saga, and then in the build-up to their match with the David Beckham Roadshow, I can't get behind another Australian team.

I like Fox Sports AU's coverage of the A-League better than ESPN's (which still listed last years stats 3 weeks into the season, though they expanded their coverage as the year went on). The best columnist out there writing on Australian soccer is Jesse Fink, who's blog Half Time Orange used to be at Fox Sports AU and now runs at The World Game.

And as far as the Australian Open, I guess I'm pulling for Federer? Honestly I lost interest when John Isner lost in the first round. Gotta pull for the guys who went to college.

The End of an Era

I mentioned the possibility two days ago, but now it's true - Pat Noonan has left the Revs for greener pastures in Norway. The Rev's didn't pick up the option on his contract, hoping they could start talks lower than the $225,000 salary he earned last year, but instead lost him to Norwegian Premier League side Aaeslund Fotballklubb (or AaFK for the abbrv'sters). I would find it hard to find a reason not to go to sunny Åeslund, which sits about 4º South of the Arctic Circle. But though Åeslund may not have much sunlight in the winter, they apparently get NESN - after the 2004 MLS season, which saw Matt Reis earn the starting job in New England, the former Revs goalkeeper Adin Brown joined AaFK.

From the Revs perspective, it's always disappointing to see one of your starters going, especially when it leaves us with only two forwards with game experience on the roster. And he and Twellman were buddies, so Noonan's departure won't help keep Twellman here... but if I'm being completely honest, I'm not too upset to that Noonan's leaving.

I always found Noonan remarkably frustrating to watch. He scored goals, yes, but he had a terrible tendency to miss wide open opportunities. My frustration always prompted me and my brother to yell "NOONAN" in the middle of Revs games... you remember Newman from Seinfeld? I'm not saying that Noonan is the embodiment of all that is evil, but it was that sort of a yell. Alas, love him or hate him, it's the end of an era. He played for the Revs for 5 years... runner-up Rookie of the Year... and just as Superman had his Lex Luthor and Jerry Seinfeld had Newman, I'm sad to see Twellman and Noonan splitting up.

MLS.com had an interesting piece on all the changes the Revs are making this offseason... and I thought it seemed like a lot, but this fleshes it out a bit more clearly. Again, it's out of necessity, and we knew this was coming - last year was always going to be the last chance that group had to win something, as it became clear early on that Twellman/Ralston/Parkhurst/Joseph were going to keep getting interest from abroad. And to their credit, they did win something - the much-maligned but much-loved-in-my-book Lamar Hunt US Open Cup - but the MLS Cup once again eluded them. Reading this article, though, I realized that a lot of these moves - the draft picks, Albright - could fill in the missing pieces better than I had anticipated. Maybe last year wasn't the last chance after all.

Best of luck to Noonan and his fellow ex-Rev and expatriate (ex-Patriot?) Adin Brown. I'm glad I now have a team to follow in the NPL, or Tippeligaen in Norwegian (which is impossible to read). Last year, AaFK just barely escaped relegation, finishing 11th out of 14. But at least the skiing's good? Maybe Aqua will come through town on their reunion tour?

Oh, and PS - This doesn't scare me. Patriots opinions coming.

The New England Blue Devils?!?

It's been a busy weekend in the sports world, and I just started writing, so it'll take me a little time to catch up with all the stories, but I wanted to start with the most important story from the weekend - the MLS SuperDraft. Hundreds of tens of people watched in awe on ESPN2 as 56 youngsters were selected for the opportunity to earn $15,000 a year playing professional soccer in a league ridiculed in its own country and abroad...

But as both an MLS fan and an NCAA Soccer fan, I was interested in the results. A lot of the UC system players went in the first round - Duke didn't play anybody west of Valparaiso this year, so I don't know much about those guys. I mostly just cared about a) where the Duke players went, and b) who my New England Revolution took.

Lo and behold, the three Blue Devils taken in the draft all wound up going to the Revolution. Michael Videira and Joe Germanese went in the second round, and Spencer Wadsworth was taken in the fourth. There are two other Dukies on the Revolution roster - Jay Heaps, who walked on to Coach K's basketball team back in '95-'96 as a freshman and now starts at right back for the Revs; and Kyle Helton, a graduate of the USMNT's Bradenton Academy who was drafted in the fourth round last year but spent all year in the reserves. Not mentioned in the GoDuke article is that Chris Loftus was on the Revolution roster last year as well, despite going undrafted until the third round of the less super "Supplemental Draft" last year. He made one appearance during the US Open Cup for the Revs but was apparently cut at the end of the season. Even without Loftus, that's still 5 Dukies on the Revolution's roster, for now earning them the name New England Blue Devils.

As for this year's players, Videira is a solid, smart player and a great playmaker. He had 34 career assists at Duke, sixth best in school history. Germanese was always scrappy but a little underwhelming. The Revs definitely needed more depth at midfield - Andy Dorman's gone, and long term contract or not, I still get nervous about Shalrie Joseph going to Celtic every time the transfer window opens. I could see Videira working his way into the starting line-up. Germanese might spell Ralston occasionally but I don't think he'll be getting too much playing time.

The wildcard of the Dukies is Wadsworth - and I guess second to last pick of the draft is the perfect chance to take a flier on a wildcard. Videira and Germanese could blend into the field and be anonymous at times, but you always knew when Wadsworth was out there. Think of back when you played U-12's or U-14's and there was that one cocky kid who was a bit of a showboat and had a tendency to try and dribble around one too many defenders - and now imagine that player being selected in the MLS SuperDraft. Wadsworth has flashes of brilliance, but in general I just always found him frustrating to watch. I guess you expect a fourth round pick to be inconsequential, but when you look at the Rev's roster, knowing that Noonan's free to head to Europe if he can find a club, who is going to back Twellman and Christman up at forward? Youth Developmental Player Abdoulie Mansally? Does Khano Smith move up to Forward? When the season gets underway, there may just be a spot for Wadsworth. (Truth be told, I'd love to see Smith and Wadsworth try to play together - their play styles would either clash horrendously and become a me-first pissing contest or they would mesh brilliantly...)

As for the two non-Duke players drafted, I don't know much about them... two defenders, one from San Francisco and one from Brown. We lost Riley in the Expansion Draft, and Avery John hasn't resigned yet, and Parkhurst may still get interest from abroad, so these two and Chris Albright (who we received in a draft-day deal with LA) will work their way in somehow.

At the end of the fall, I had been really down on both of my teams - the Revs just lost another MLS Cup and stood to lose a lot of talent overseas, and the Blue Devils underperformed all year, graduated 13 seniors and lost their coach to retirement - but now, I'll get to root for both teams AT THE SAME TIME. Excellent. Now I just hope this trend continues and the New England Blue Devils can get the amazing Mike Grella in SuperDraft 2009.