What's Going on in My Life?

I guess that everyone can figure out now what really gets me motivated to the point that I update my blog on a regular basis (perhaps to regular for someone with a real life). It must be the NFL draft. In continuing with my constant babbling and bragging of how UVA made out in the draft I have this tidbit for you:

According to Charles Robinson at Yahoo Sports in a post-draft report card, the Dallas Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, and Miami Dolphins all received the highest grade of A+ for their draft. What do all these teams have in common? I'll leave you to decipher the Miami Dolphins and Minnesota Vikings connection, but as for the Cardinals and Cowboys; both took a Virginia player mid to high in the draft (Arizona even felt compelled to draft two!!!). That's 50% of the top draft teams with at least one Virginia player drafted. Maybe it's just a coincidence and has nothing to do with our players, but as a die-hard wahoo, I prefer to think that it is a display of the excellence that Al Groh has brought to our beloved institution of great academia. I'll leave you guys to form your own opinions.

Until next time,
Geoff

Thanks to the constant sports tracking of my good friend DV, I now have a few updates on the UVA football situation. DV just reminded me that today:

1) Marquis Weeks - S - signed as free agent with Seattle Seahawks
2) Dennis Haley - LB - signed as free agent with New York Jets

In addition, The Sabre also reports that:

-Isaiah Ekejiuba (LB) and Jermaine Hardy (S) have joined Elton Brown and Darryl Blackstock at the Arizona Cardinals. I will also say that Arizona has been ranked in the top five as far as overall draft quality in almost every post-draft ranking, many of which have them as #1 overall. This includes taking a Virginia player with their 3rd and 4th pick. Coincidence, I think not.

Finally, Mel Kiper of ESPN has pre-ranked Tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson as a top five prospect in next year's draft.

This is all I have as off now. I will try to keep everyone updated.

Have a good night,
Geoff

Round 1 - 30th overall - Heath Miller - TE - Pittsburgh Steelers (yeah baby!!!)
Round 3 - 95th overall - Daryll Blackstock - OLB - Arizona Cardinals
Round 4 - 111th overall - Elton Brown - OG - Arizona Cardinals (again!)
Round 4 - 127th overall - Alvin Pearman - RB - Jacksonville Jaguars
Round 4 - 132nd overall - Chris Canty - DE - Dalla Cowboys (why God, why???)
Round 6 - 203rd overall - Andrew Hoffman - DT - Cleveland
Round 7 - 248th overall - Patrick Estes - TE - San Francisco

Overall, I don't think we did half bad in this years draft. I'm especially looking forward to seeing Heath Miller tear it up with my Pittsburgh Steelers. However, I wish the best of luck to all of our players that got drafted over the last two days. May they have a long and successful career.

These are just a few of my frustrations with the NCAA Tourney Bracket. While I deeply enjoy March/ April Madness, I can't help but be disheartened that my bracket that was filled out was less a final four team (Syracuse) and an elite Eight team (Kansas) by the end of the first round of the tournament. But that wasn't all the NCAA Gods had in store for me!! On Saturday, I had the great pleasure of watching UConn and Oklahoma lose as well and then got to experience Wake (another final four team) lose to West VA in double OT to a bunch of white boys. At that point a nuclear bomb exploded, shattering my bracket to pieces. Needless to say, it's definitely madness out there. With only half of the pre-seeded sweet 16 teams actually in the sweet 16, this has surely been a great tournament thus far. I have completely lost faith in the ranking system. What is this madness with a 14 over a 3, 13 over 4, and 12 over 5? It's sheer craziness!! While I will surely enjoy the next two weekends as I watch the number of teams gradually shrink, I will also be haunted by those two dark horse final four picks that were not meant to be.

Good night ladies and gents

Last night, while I was coming back from a group meeting at Clemons, I bumped into our very own Will Coley. We just sort of stood around for just a few minutes (no more than five) and talked to catch up on what was going on, what we were up to and the like. Nothing serious, just light conversation. This was an especially pleasing occurance seeing as how Will never seems to be around and I never really get to talk to him all that much. That conversation, while short, made me realize something that I will miss dearly next year as the Community turns over: The light, no topic in particular conversations that I can have with anyone at any time when I just happen to bump into them. It's really something that until last night I had taken for granted but as the end of the year grows near and people graduate and move on I realize that I most likely won't have many more of these sorts of conversations with the graduating members. It seems to me that light conversation can sometimes be some of the most fulfilling. My conversation with Will was by no means a deep intellectual conversation, yet it left me filling more complete than many of the conversations that I have with people that leave my brain straining to process ideas. I know that on the surface, this seems rather odd, and it still doesn't make sense to me, but I know that next year as I walk about the community and the Foundation, what I will remember most are the impromptu conversations that I had with people who just happened to be in the same place as me at the same time.

I know this is a little premature since it's not technically the end of our basketball season but barring a miracle of an ACC tournament win or using unethical methods to sway the selection committee, it looks like our season is over. While the outcome of our season hasn't changed from last year as we haven't made the NCAA tournament either year, this season was especially frustrating. It looked like we had everything together in December when we came out and beat Arizona, a #10 pre-rank and still a top 10 team, handily. But once we entered conference play it all spiralled downward. Sure, I can make excuses about how we are a school that puts a high bar on academics which hinders recruting or that we have three ACC teams in the top 6 in the country, or that the referees wouldn't know consistency if it clothes-lined them, but I'm not here to make excuses or to talk about how horrible our season has been. What I would like to do is point out something that became readily apparent two weeks ago as I watched us drop a hard double OT game to Maryland at U-Hall. OUR GUYS PLAY WITH HEART!!! The look on Gary Forbes' and Sean Singletary's face as they fouled out in the second OT said it all. They were devestated that they could not be on the court helping their team. I saw this same emotion in our loss to NC State on Wednesday as Sean continuosly drove the lane to put up shots that none of us could believe went in, but there was one thing that I not only believed in but knew for certain - HE WANTED TO WIN and he gave all he had for it. I also cannot even begin to count the number of times that I have seen J.R. Reynolds, T.J. Bannister, and Sean Singletary (our three smallest players) on the floor of the court, either on their own accord diving after a loose ball or because they weren't afraid to challenge someone who was 6 inches taller than them and probably weighed all or 60 pounds more. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT THEY DIDN'T WANT TO WIN.

I know that there is already rumors circulating about the futher of Coach Pete Gillen. With the comes the uncertain futures of his recruits, who hold and deep and close respect for him. Will they transfer and leave with Gillen? This remains to be seen. I have to say that I hope that none of our players leave because I believe in our guys. I believe in them because I know that they want to win and that everytime they step on the court they give all they have, sometimes even risking their own bodies in the process. Talent is but one building block of a good team; Character and dedication are others. And I think that we have plenty of character and dedication on our team. I frequently hear fans yelling at the players to try hard, that they are playing lazy and without passion. That's complete b***s***. These are the same fans who rush to buy tickets when we beat Arizona and then try to give them away when we lose to Clemson. They don't know our team, they only know statistics. There's only a select few of us who truly know our basketball team. We are the people who go to almost every game, who show up when the gates open regardless of who we are playing, who will still cheer our team off the court even when they have lost handily.

In general, I try to refrain from booing, either my team or the opposition, but I especially refreain from doing it to these guys because I can see from what they put on the court that they play with all they have physically and emotionally. As a die-hard fan, while frustrating, you can't ask for more than that. If I had to choose which games this season impressed me most, Arizona would not be at the top. It wouldn't even be a win. The games against Maryland and NC State by far left the biggest impression on me. In those two games, our players showed what they were all about; that while they weren't the dominant team and may not have been the better team, they still gave everything they had for those two games. They put it all on the line.

While I don't know what the next 6+ months will bring, I do honestly hope that I will again get to go to U-Hall to watch Sean Singletary and the rest of our team for another season of basketball. I would take our team over Duke, UNC, and Wake anyday. Our team has the deep passion and heart that it takes to win and I still believe in them.

I know that this blog is just one statement against probably hundreds or thousands of condemnations for the way our players played this season, but I felt that it needed to be said. I feel like our players need to have something that they can be proud of and also know that they have fans that our proud of them. I also realize that the only people reading this probably already agree with me, so I'm not going to be changing anyone's opinions on this topic. I just hope that we as a university can accept our basketball team for what it is, 10 or 12 players who work their a** off and then give everything that they have in them each and every time that they walk on the court all while being criticized by the majority of our fans when we lose. As hard as it may seem, these players want to win even more than we want them to win.

No team, no player, no coach, regardless of talent, ever one anything without emotion, passion, and laying it all on the line and believe me, our guys qualify in everyone of those categories. So when the game is said and done, win or lose, I will still stand up and cheer our team out because when a player has given everything he has, well, that's all I can do.

Well, as it seems that it has been over 3 months since I last posted to this blog, I feel that I should send a very deep apology to all of my die-hard blog readers. I'm sure exactly how many of you there are that still read my blog but thanks for putting your faith in me and trusting that I would once again return to the world of the blog. As part of a Spanish exchange program with the University of Florida, I have been writing regular blog posts(in Spanish of course) on a separate blog for that class. Here's the link if you want to check it out: Spanish Blog. As it has been three whole months, I feel that I should give people a little run-down of what's happened:

1) Thanksgiving came and went
2) Exams came and went (thankfully)
3) Christmas came and went (are you seeing a pattern here?)
4) Spent Jan. 1st - 5th in CA with Kristen's family. That was tons of fun. One difficulty I found however was living with 5 women for a whole week. I had to hold it down for the testosterone in the house. And I come from a family where most of my cousins are guys. Needless to say, this took some getting used to. But it was fun anyways.
5) Came back to the big U of VA to start another fun-filled semester with Wesley Folks
6) January 24, 2005 - One year with the greatest girl in the world!!!
7) The Steelers didn't win the Super Bowl
8) The Eagles didn't win the Super Bowl (This was followed by a severe depression of the Moosetrap Residents)

That's been the basic run-down of the last 3 months of my life. Nothing real great or interesting. Perhaps that is why I haven't posted in a while. On the other hand, it could just be because I got out of the habit of it, got too busy with end of the semester work, and just became plain lazy. I'll let you decide. And with that, I'll leave you with quote courtesy of our own Brian Lee:

I know that I have been on this kick of short posts, but here is another one. This is one that I heard from George Lopez during Monday Night Football. This was his response when one of the commentators asked him what he thought of the success of his show (The George Lopez Show, of course). It's really funny, but oh so true.

Watch out for the stairwell next to the Wes Mem childcare Center.