Category: Field of Play

Field of Play

Finding Light in the Darkness

I know it has been a while, but with my beloved University under fire and my own personal misgivings about the situation it just hasn’t felt right. However, a recently published interview with UNC AD Bubba Cunningham has provided me with at least the hope that the athletic department has someone in charge who is up to the challenge. While, I understand there is a cynical view to be take here, you will get no such read from me. I am going to focus on the hope.

Bubba’s comments when asked about the planned renovations to the Tar Heel basketball cathedral should provide all Tar Heel fans with faith in his leadership:

I think we need to upgrade a number of our facilities, but I don’t think the timing is right. So it’s still there, it’s still on the back burner. And as soon as we feel like, as a University, that we’ve healed ourselves and we feel comfortable, then I think we’ll move forward.

I am most appreciative of the inward focus he shows here. The university community and family needs to come to grips with what we allowed to happen whether willingly or unwillingly. We all had a part to play in the compromise of the principals we said were so dear, and only when we as a Tar Heel community come together can we proceed.

But that’s when you have confidence and that’s when you have courage. And right now, we don’t. We’ve lost our own confidence; we’ve lost trust by our alumni, within the community, outside of the community…We have to get comfortable with who we are again and prove to people you can do both.

We have lost trust as a family just as the national academic and athletic community has lost faith in us. The University is too busy pointing fingers and plugging holes rather than focusing on the progress it has made to insure this will not occur again. We must focus on what needs to be done to prepare all who walk onto campus for the future whether they ever play a sport.

Some of it is time. And as Larry (Fedora) indicated when we hired him, I can say all of the right things, but we’ve got to do it. So we need to show that we’re going to admit students that can be successful. We need to provide them a great education while they’re here. They need to graduate. They need to get good jobs and go on and do things.

The University will not recover until it resolves to provide an education and opportunity to every student who sets foot on campus. That may seem like a sacrifice to some, but that is the place I fell in love with 25 years ago and the one to which I thought I belonged. Thank you Bubba, for allowing me to see that place once again.

“…but at some point, we can’t sit in neutral. We’ve got to move forward.”

Photo Credit: Zach Frailey via Flickr

Field of Play

What the Hess?

Being the casual NC state fan/observer that I am, my participation in tonight’s contest unfolded in much the same way it often does – I’m slightly aware that said contest is set to take place but I generally forget until sometime just before or after the contest starts when my Twitter timeline explodes with game time commentary. Tonight’s chatter was particularly loud because of the return of referee Karl Hess from a 3 year hiatus from Wolfpack competition. While I’m sure no one was surprised there would be D-R-A-M-A drama, I don’t know if Aaron Sorkin could have written a more tightly wound script than what unfolded in Reynolds Coliseum tonight. After setting the table brilliantly with an early technical foul against NC State head coach Mark Gottfried, Hess was handed the ultimate Wolfpack troll bait.

Down one after a reportedly brilliant set play from Wofford, State gets the ball back with two seconds left on the clock. Trevor Lacey takes the inbound pass, dribbles down the court and nails the game winning shot! Or does he?

Lacey’s shot dropped through the net after time expired so the burning question immediately following the quick celebration from the Wolfpack bench and Reynolds crowd – did Lacey’s shot leave his hands before time expired? Oh no, State fan, look who has the chance to redeem himself or just continue his lifelong troll of Pack fans everywhere.

In the end, Hess makes the right call, but I have to admit I got just a bit worried for him once I realized the call he had to make. Would the threat of a rabidly insane fan base be enough to tease him into making the wrong call? No way, he’s too much of a professional for that, isn’t he? What if he makes the wrong call? How would I feel about that, knowing that a redemption call played a part in ruining a well-earned victory for the Wofford players?

And here’s the real rub. Regardless of who was making the call, what call they had to make or why, there’s no way it should have even come down to that call anyway. If State fan wants to be upset at anyone it should be the players, the coach or just the night – a potentially off night that wasn’t going to see us walking away with the win even if we had the most pro-Pack referee giving us all the calls. I didn’t watch the game (all details provided herein courtesy of Twitter, Vine, and YouTube), but it certainly doesn’t seem like we were the better team tonight and that to me is a much harder pill to swallow than coming out on the wrong end of a great catch, run and shoot that was just a hair too late.

Photo Credit: @PackPride on Twitter via SI

Field of Play

Projections

This year’s NC State football team feels miles away from the 2002 team that went 9–3 and defeated Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl. And yet, if the 2014 Wolfpack defeat the UCF Knights in the Bitcoin Bowl in St. Petersburg, FL on December 26th, they will finish the season 8–5, just two losses behind that highly touted Wolfpack squad. Further muddying the perspective, State fans were dismayed by the bowl selection process1, feeling like our 3–5 conference record earned us a spot in what? The Belk Bowl? Come on, State fan. Think about that.

We had a very nice season this year, but let’s not remove ourselves too far from reality. We looked good against our arch rival for 60 minutes and for 15 minutes against Florida State, a team that hasn’t shown up for a first quarter all season and a program that, somehow, we perennially match up well against for some reason or another. The rest of the season, we looked pedestrian and that probably serves as a clearer indication of where we actually stand as a football program – improving, but not quite good. Remember, our four non-conference wins did the most to make us bowl eligible and no one in their right minds is going to trot out that resumé as a justification for a better bowl game.

That said, we did what we needed to do. We won those early games, we competed in a few others, and we came away with victories in enough conference games to show some visible improvement over last year and we were rewarded with a trip to a bowl game. I personally would have loved a trip to the Belk Bowl, primarily because it’s closer and I might have considered attending, but the reality is we didn’t earn it and it’s time for State fans to take a step back and face reality2.

Photo Credit: stpetersburgbowl.com

  1. State fans weren’t alone among ACC faithful in decrying the committee’s selection process and motives.↩
  2. I have no idea how we’ll do against UCF, but I think reality would have settled in real quick against the Bulldogs.↩
Field of Play

Matters of State

I am the last person who should be writing anything that even closely resembles celebratory talk about the Wolfpack’s convincing 35–7 rout of the Tarheels yesterday. Why? Because I’ve barely laid an eye on the Pack all season. That said, I had a lot of fun watching the game, especially in the 4th quarter with about five minutes left when I finally let my guard down a bit, cautiously optimistic that the game was a bit out of reach even for the quick-strike Tarheels. I won’t lie, I even got a little greedy, practically begging the Pack’s defense to hold on for the shutout.

That was actually the most fun I’ve had watching Pack football in a long time. Games where we execute so consistently throughout the entire 60 minutes are few and far between, especially against our arch-rival1 Tarheels. Do I think UNC put their best foot forward yesterday? No way. To be honest, I was dreading this game after watching the performance the Tarheels put up against Duke two Thursdays ago. In fact, the optimistic spin that Tarheel fans might reasonably put on this is that this was a classic hangover/trap game after beating their real rivals, and of course the Pack would come out fired up with an extra week of preparation for their “Super Bowl”. Sour grapes for sure, but that’s to be expected from the wine and cheese crowd and, quite frankly, I’d much rather have this win than whatever’s next for the Pack. Calling it our Super Bowl is probably an apt observation.

Just a quick aside on the note of rivalry. The rise of Duke’s football program under David Cutcliffe certainly won’t do State fans any favors in the not-our-rival conversation. It certainly doesn’t help that Carolina and Duke are in the same division, with their match-ups having potential head-to-head implications if they can ever sync up their relative success. And on top of all of that, you have the Victory Bell – a tangible spoil for the victor.

What does it all mean about our respective programs? Not much more than what we’ve already seen all season. Carolina has shown glimpses of great football, but they still have a long way to go to get back to where they were headed a few years ago. The Pack’s glimpses have been more rare, but it’s nice to end the regular season on such a high note and so convincingly. Hopefully that victory gave the entire team a confidence boost that will propel them into their potential bowl game and on into next season. Don’t let up. Go Pack!

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Gerry Broome

  1. That’s right, I said it.↩
Field of Play

Hair of the Dog

As many of us try to recover from the World Cup hangover there is no greater cure than the Premier League (EPL), which kicks off Saturday, August 16th. With the TV rights migrating to NBC Sports last year there is no reason to miss any of the action as every match is now broadcast on the NBC family of networks. Gone are the days of only seeing United or Arsenal on an early fall morning. You can now look up Leicester City on a map and become a Fox, or become a fan of the club no one knows is in London, Crystal Palace. I am of course a fan of the bandwagon express, Manchester United, due in large part to the fact that when I began watching the Champions League in the late 90’s they were the only team on ESPN. Enough defending my fandom, its time to move on to the season at hand. As you may or may not know, I hate prediction columns, even if I am better than average. There will be plenty of predictions columns out there so I will simply give you the top 4 and the bottom 3 (I’d recommend against selecting a team from the bottom 3)

Top 4

1. Chelsea – They have made some smart buys (Fabergas, Costa, and Luis) and some head scratchers (Drogba on a free), but they have the best manager and weren’t far off last year. The re-signing of Matic should give them some grit in the midfield which is always the fulcrum for the Special One’s special teams.

2. Manchester City – The noisy neighbors lifted the trophy last year and have done nothing to hint at a dip in form. They also have Yaya and as long as he is making his marauding runs through the midfield I will be scared, very scared. I just think Chelsea have done a little more.

3. Arsenal – They have made the most noise in the offseason adding Chile star Alexis Sanchez and Debuchy to provide cover. If they can find a way to sign Sami Khedira, I believe they can challenge for the top 2. Wenger is still a great manager and he always finds a way to play beautiful football.

4. Manchester United – After the unmitigated disaster that was David Moyes 10 month tenure, the crazy Louis Van Gaal takes the helm. He is a nut and will give Mourinho’s ego a run for its money (this guy claimed he was responsible for Argentina’s Sergio Romero making the key penalty saves in the World Cup Semi’s since he coached him in the Netherlands 10 years earlier), but he is quality. Rooney is at the top of his game and they have added Luke Shaw and the one that got away last year in Ander Herrera. These signings along with a couple more that are surely to follow should give United enough to sneak back into the top 4.

Just Missing Out – Liverpool (No Suarez), Tottenham (they are Tottenham), Everton ($45m for Lukaku?)

Bottom 3

While no one wants to be a part of the relegation fight, it often produces some of the year’s best matches. Generally, two of the promoted teams get sucked back down and one will survive to fight in the top flight one more year.

18. Southampton – This is the trickiest of the predictions as I am tipping QPR to stay up at the southern club’s expense. We still don’t know what they will do with the bags of cash they have received from their fire sale, but we know they will have to pay a premium for whatever they buy. It will take time for the team to gel and while the former Dutch star turned manager Ronald Koemen may be a star in the making, it may all be too late.

19. Leicester – Leicester have spent some money and after winning the Championship have the chops to win, but I am not sure it will be enough.

20. Burnley – It is going to be a long year for the Clarets

In order to enhance the experience and keep up with the action, I highly recommend you check out the Men in Blazers and their weekly pod on the Grantland Network as well as all the Guardian’s football coverage including Football Weekly.

The Premier League is a grind, but well worth the follow so pick a team and get the beers in.

Photo Credit: “Stretford End” by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PeeJay2K3 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stretford_End.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Field of Play

For the Birds

I love the Baltimore Orioles. You’d just never know it because I don’t really love baseball. But I do give the MLB scoreboard and standings more than a passing glance at least weekly. And for the past twenty years those passing glances have created more than their fair share of disappointment. The last three years have been a breath of fresh air in Baltimore, though, and it’s been fun to experience the resurrection of a once-proud franchise whose championship futility was not as long-suffering as Boston’s, but explored depths rivaled by only a handful of franchises.

I came to follow the Birds by way of my grandfather, who watched their games from his Hagerstown, MD home near-religiously. Until this summer, I’d never attended a game at Camden Yards1, but I felt a sense of pride any time I saw the almost 25 year old ballpark show up in ranking after indomitable ranking as one of the best ballparks to catch a baseball game. It goes without saying that Cal Ripken, Jr carries hero status in my realm of influence.

The Orioles aren’t a storied franchise like their division brethren Yankees or Red Sox but they do have some tradition and three World Series Championships. They haven’t really been good since 1997; and while most define their downfall as the post-Ripken era, in my mind it began with the Jeffrey Maier drop-catch in the 1996 ALCS2.

Today, however, they’re on the upswing. Going into the All Star break, they’re at the top of the AL East. Three of their key starters are homegrown talents3 and their common practice of attracting aging talent4 with golden parachutes appears to be a thing of the past. Buck Showalter came in and installed, at the very least, a new culture that, while certainly not earth-shattering, has provided plenty of unfamiliar and noteworthy results.

Who knows where this season will end up, but it’s nice to have the luxury of cautious optimism at the All Star break. If nothing else, it’s at least fun to watch the O’s again and it’s nice when I can raise a glass, take a drink and mean it when I say, “This one’s for the Birds!”.

  1. I attended a game or two when I was younger and the O’s played in the much less heralded Memorial Stadium.↩
  2. If Maier doesn’t interfere – and it was interference – I think the O’s win that game and that puts them up 2-0 on the Yankees and going home for the next two games. I still contend they would have won that series if the Maier interference is called differently.↩
  3. Notably Nick Markakis, Matt Wieters, and Manny Machado.↩
  4. It seems a little unfair to call Tejada aging talent during his first stint as an Oriole. Remember, however, that Tejada was supposedly 27 at the time – he was really 29.↩
Field of Play

The Next Greatest

When I first read Bill Simmons’ Book of Basketball a couple of years ago, the surprise of the book was Tim Duncan’s appearance in the Top 10 all-time players list1. It’s not that I don’t have mad respect for Tim Duncan. I was fortunate to know what every other ACC fan knew before Duncan ever stepped on an NBA court – Tim Duncan is crazy good. He’s just so quietly good it’s easy for the superlatives to escape you when his name pops up.

In his post-Finals wrap up over on Grantland, Simmons sums Duncan up perfectly:

Kareem’s A-game was better — that’s undeniable. His first 11 seasons were as great as LeBron’s first 11 seasons. Duncan was never THAT good for THAT long. But Kareem was more of a loner, a tortured genius, a once-in-a-generation talent who motivated teammates mostly by being outstanding at his job. Duncan’s most underrated “skill”? He’s one of the greatest and most unselfish teammates of all time. The Spurs realized early on that they could build a franchise around his personality, his competitiveness and his work ethic, so that’s exactly what San Antonio did. Everyone from Duncan’s generation was jealous of the players who got to play with Tim Duncan. It’s one of many reasons why he’s had the second-greatest career of all time.

The thing that makes Duncan the best player of the post-MJ generation according to Simmons is primarily his character, a trait that no stat sheet or box score can accurately portray. Duncan didn’t need this year’s championship to define his legacy, it just provided the exclamation point.

  1. Duncan comes in at #7.↩
Field of Play

Out With the Old

In breathtaking fashion, Jurgen’s USMNT set its mark on this year’s World Cup in record time, netting a goal faster than any other American side in history. So much was said leading up to this US team’s World Cup campaign – out with the old, in with the new – how fitting that it was a member of the old guard, Clint Dempsey, finding the back of the net at the 34 second mark of the match. It is the third different World Cup that Dempsey has scored and represents so much about what he has meant for American soccer (football), especially with his success abroad.

Without a doubt, this is Jurgen’s team, and the quick score echoes that sentiment louder than any roster omission or foreign-born recruit. It was Dempsey that sent America into a frenzy early, but it was Klinsmann’s dogged determination in John Brooks who delivered the deciding goal, fed beautifully by America’s final substitution, Graham Zusi – the only sub Jurgen was able to make of his own volition due to injury or threat of injury. One has to wonder if that ball might have been fed by … well never mind, I won’t say it.

There were definitely moments where it looked like we were still the same America – content to try to ride out the last 45 minutes of the match with the one goal lead, resigning themselves to settle for a draw. But they didn’t. They fought and they took advantage of their chances. For once, America were the opportunistic side, ceding control to the Black Stars for most of the second half but mostly surviving the onslaught. If resilience is what Klinsmann brings, it showed in this first match. It was tenuous for much of the match, but I liked what I saw. I hope they can keep it up.

Field of Play

Another Pointless Prediction Thread

Knowing full well I wouldn’t get a full post out of him, I asked my football frenzied co-editor who he thought would win this year’s World Cup. His response, recut and paraphrased in paragraph form:

I started something last night, but from a different angle because the last thing we need is another pointless prediction thread — why it’s fun to watch and be part of the world community. That said, gun to my head I’d go with Germany.

So there you have it. The official World Cup 2014 prediction from Notably Worthless is Germany. For a more in-depth, statistically influenced prediction, check out FiveThirtyEight’s prediction model.

Photo Credit: edmarmoreira via Flickr

Field of Play

Leaving Landon

In January 2010, the stars aligned1 and I attended Landon Donovan’s debut at Goodison Park during his first stint with EPL’s Everton FC. Back in Europe after a less than fruitful early-career stint in Germany and six months before the shot heard ’round the world, Landon Donovan was on his way back. Donovan’s successful winter in Liverpool and his heroics in the World Cup set the stage and expectations for the next four years into high gear. And then, halfway through, burnout.

Fast forward to May 21st, 2014. Landon Donovan has returned to soccer, has returned to the US Men’s National Team and has re-emerged triumphant on the pitch. Grantland’s Noah Davis offers a prospectus on the future of American soccer, a prospectus that includes Landon Donovan even if only as a bridge from America’s mediocre football past to its seemingly bright future.

Bridges, oh how they burn.

On May 22nd, 2014, Jurgen Klinsmann’s 2014 World Cup roster is announced, and one name is notably missing. In an instant, the man who has scored more World Cup goals than Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, and Robin van Persie combined, more international goals than any US player in history, and more MLS goals than any other player in the league’s relatively young history is left to watch the World Cup at home like the rest of us.

I won’t pretend that I follow US Soccer with any more than passing glances at box scores and occasional forays into soccer blog rabbit holes. I love watching World Cup soccer, though, and for all of my adult life that has meant watching Landon Donovan. I have to admit, I took the news of Donovan’s exclusion from the roster like a punch in the stomach. I think we all did. The idea, the opportunity for one last hurrah; a farewell, of sorts, for Donovan on football’s biggest stage was just too good to ignore.

Donovan deserves his farewell, as much as anyone deserves such a thing, and I still believe he earned a place on this roster. But as much as Donovan deserves our respect and adoration, so too does Klinsmann deserve the right to build his team his way. I don’t have to agree with every Klinsmann decision to love what he’s doing and how he’s shaping the future of American soccer. This one stings, but I know this decision can’t take away what Landon has given us and I’m excited about what is still yet to come.

  1. A close friend graduating from Durham University, his dad a lifelong Everton fan, and serendipitous timing.↩

Additional Reading

SBNation: Why Landon Donovan’s Legacy Couldn’t Carry Him to the World Cup

Grantland: The Landon Donovan Decision

Slate: Why Jurgen Klinsmann Never Trusted Landon Donovan

Raleigh & Co.: Thank You, Landon