What to do during the long hot days of summer?

Sigh. Summer. And by sigh, I mean, I love summer, I do. I love the beach, not having to wear a jacket, not having to help the Football Children with homework, sitting outside in the evening with a beverage, fireworks, cookouts and all that other small town America stuff.

What I do not love, however, is that the college football season is still so very far away. I can be doing any of my usual summer activities and things just pop into my head, like, “Will Logan Thomas be any good this year, Cam Newton like hype notwithstanding?” Or, “Will David Wilson injure himself trying to do more than 10 backflips in a row and therefore be unable to be awesome this season?” Or, “Who decided that THIS was a good idea? Have the scheduling geniuses not learned from the last two losing efforts?” And I have no answers. I just have to wait. Wait, wait, wait.

But then, something awesome has happened to balance out the waiting. The Football Boy (my son) discovered You Tube this year, and began searching for Virginia Tech highlight videos, amongst other inappropriate things. (Happy Tree Friends? Really? And not quite as inappropriate, but equally as stupid, Nerf gun wars. They’re everywhere. Who films these?) His favorite?

Although I’m partial to this one, bad video quality and all:

Best part of this new obsession? I can now waste hours on You Tube looking at VT football stuff because, hey, it’s for my kid, right? We’re bonding. Spending time together. Yeah.

Remember.

We are Virginia Tech

Never, ever forget. 

Whoever did this should be taken out and shot

Um, WTF is this?  Surely, someone could not have been trying to make a gloriously beautiful VT cake and frick it up that much, could they?  Go team?  Seriously?  No Go Hokies?  No Hokie Hokie Hokie Hi?  Go team?  Really?

There.  That’s all better.   

 

Hokies still alive in the NIT

Yeah, it’s the NIT, but so what?  The Hokies pulled out a very impressive win last night against Connecticut.  Dorenzo Hudson was freaking on fire.  And you know what?  The NCAA tourney sucks this year anyway. 

Next up for the Hokies is Rhode Island, another school I know absolutely nothing about, so I won’t even pretend.  I just hope for another win.

In other news, everyone who picked Kansas to win it all got a nasty surprise on Saturday when this guy

and his Northern Iowa buddies pulled off the upset.  (I don’t actually know what he did in the game.  He is just the goofiest looking white guy I have ever seen, hence the photo).  I didn’t pick the Jayhawks to win the tourney though, cause I still hate them for our Orange Bowl debacle of a few years ago. 

So how is everyone else faring with their brackets?

If I were a football player, I’d be an offensive tackle

And not because I’m that big……

I just finished taking the Wonderlic test, the test given to NFL draft prospects at the Combine, and I scored a 32.  According to ESPN.com, average scores by player stack up like this:

Offensive tackles: 26
Centers: 25
Quarterbacks: 24
Guards: 23
Tight Ends: 22
Safeties: 19
Middle linebackers: 19
Cornerbacks: 18
Wide receivers: 17
Fullbacks: 17
Halfbacks: 16

Average scores in other professions are as follows:

Chemist: 31
Programmer: 29
Newswriter: 26
Sales: 24
Bank teller: 22
Clerical Worker: 21
Security Guard: 17
Warehouse: 15

I’m not a chemist, either.  I guess I’m just really, really smart.  (Actually, I’m pretty surprised I scored as well as I did.)

And, just because I had that kind of time on my hands today, I poked around a little and found out some scores of former Hokies:

• Marcus Vick-11
• Bryan Randall-19
• Michael Vick-20
• Kevin Jones-15
• Ernest Wilford-19
• DeAngelo Hall-23
• Josh Morgan-19/26 (the site I found these said these were ones who took it twice)
• Duane Brown-29/32
• Chris Ellis-14/22
• Xavier Adibi-13/20
• Vince Hall-14/23
• Orion Martin-23/47

(Meh.  It was a way to pass some time.)

Oh, and just in case you don’t have enough bracket groups to enter, here’s another one.  This one is pretty cool, though, cause you can win a Virginia Tech t-shirt.  I know I’ll be entering.  I won’t win, of course, but it’s good to dream.

Oooh, hostesses.

Oops.  Guess you’re not supposed to do this.  Just adds to the douchieness factor of Lane Kiffin and the Vols. 

This bowl game is going to be all kinds of AWESOME.

Hokie Photoshop Expo

My good friend, The Miz over at FFODC.com, is launching a Hokie Photoshop Expo to help all the Hokie fans out there unleash their creative Photoshoppiness.  I have no mad photoshopping skills to speak of, but think the concept is awesome and the cause, Untrim-a-Tree, very worthy.  You can read all about the contest here, but the gist of it is:  Create some awesome photoshops of Virginia Tech 2009 football season pictures.  Be creative, don’t be overly graphic (remember the kids!) and have fun.  Entries can be sent to The Miz at the e-mail listed on his site.  The winner will have a gift in their name donated to Untrim-a-Tree. 

Go.  Be creative.  Make me proud.  Then I can say I knew you when….

Can’t take any credit for these, but you get the idea, right?

So girls don’t know football, huh?

Had an interesting experience while grocery shopping yesterday afternoon, and I thought I would share it with you guys. 

Not only am I chock full of football knowledge, but I also worry quite a bit about the environment, and do my part by taking my own bags to the grocery store.  One of my bags happens to be a Virginia Tech bag.  My bagger, a guy who apparently thought he could impress me with his football talk, tried to engage me in football conversation.  The exchange went something like this:

Idiot Bagger:  Viginia Tech, huh?  Guess since you’re a girl you don’t really know much about football, though. 

Me (Otherwise known as Football Girl):  Um, well, actually I do.

Idiot Bagger:  So do you know who Michael Vick is?

(And yeah, he asked that.  And I answered with the straightest face I could manage.)

Me:  Yeah.

Idiot Bagger:  Did you know he got picked up by another team?

Me:  Yes, the Philadelphia Eagles.

Idiot Bagger:  Oh, right.  He is probably going to be playing soon.

Me:  Yes, under the terms of his reinstatement, he is eligible to play after sitting out the first two preseason games.  (And I know his terms were a little more complicated than that, but this guy didn’t seem like he would know anyway, so I left it at that.)

Idiot Bagger:  Oh, have they already played two games?

Me:  Yes.

Me:  (Just because I was feeling a little evil.)   Did you know that Macho Harris was also drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles?

Idiot Bagger:  Really?  I wonder which one will end up as the backup quarterback?

Me:  I actually just said nothing here.  There was clearly nothing else to say.

And that’s why, folks, that I hate getting into football conversations with people who clearly don’t know crap about the game.  Don’t go there with me if that’s all you’ve got. 

Maybe I should get some Football Girl cards made up…..then when someone starts talking to me about football when they don’t know enough to carry their end of the conversation, I could just hand them a card.  Enough said.

What’s Your Legacy?

I love sports.  I do.  I especially love football.  I love the game, the athleticism, the traditions, everything.  I love football players.  I think they are extremely dedicated, hard working, and athletic in a way that I will never even be able to fathom.  Willie Nelson sang a song that said “my heroes have always been cowboys”, but my heroes were always football players.  Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swan, Rod Woodson, Bruce Smith, and later, people like Michael Vick and Steve McNair. 

Steve McNair was an incredible talent.  He came from a little heard of school in Alcorn State, was chosen I believe third in the draft, and performed week in and week out, through the pain and through the injuries.  That toughness has always appealed to me.  Doing what you have to do, even when it hurts.  That was what I thought it was all about. 

And now he’s dead, and that is an incredible tragedy.  I am sorry for him, for his family, for his children, for everyone who idolized him, but I just can’t admire him anymore.  What he did on the field has not changed.  He was still tough as nails, and gave everything he had to whatever team he played for.  But what he did off the field, to me at least, somehow taints his legacy. 

I’ve read a lot of takes on this, and I know a lot of people say that what he did in his private life affected no one but him.  Well, that’s just wrong.  It affected a lot more people.  It affected his wife, his four children, and the family of his very young girlfriend.  Do I care that she was young?  No.  But I do care that he was carrying on with her while still married to someone else.  I don’t know what their private arrangement may have been.  I do know that it is disrespectful to your family to put yourself in that situation.  Regardless of what “deal” I may or may not have with my husband, it’s not okay for me to take another man on a vacation with me.  It’s especially not okay when I am a public figure and know that my every move is recorded by someone. 

Your legacy is not just what you do on the field, or at your job.  Your legacy is who you were.  Your legacy is how you behaved in every situation, regardless of who was watching.  Your legacy is how you are remembered in death.  And Steve McNair, while remembered as an exceptional athlete, will also be remembered as someone whose personal actions didn’t match his professional persona.  That’s what I want my legacy to be.  Not just a good business person, but a good person.  Not just good sometimes, in certain situations.  Good.  And that’s it.