Baseball, College Football, Hockey...what more could a girl want?

IT IS TIME!!!

These arrived at my house today, and I can't really articulate in words how excited I am for the hockey season to start. We were bitterly disappointed again last season, even though we did get further than the several years prior. We wanted more. Now, with new goalies, maybe we can get it. It feels like the Sharks are everywhere in the community these days...for some reason I think this is a sign of good things to come. I realize it makes no sense. I don't care. Seeing Sharks is good. All good.

Recent Sightings:

• Joe Pavelski in the Sharks store during the playoff run
• Patrick Marleau at dinner in Los Gatos in July
• Ryane Clowe at the same hair place a friend goes to (also in Los Gatos I believe)

And as if that weren't enough, college football kicked off last week and I was 3 for 4 on the first full Saturday of play. And honestly, I don't really feel too bad about the team that lost because they were playing the #1 ranked team in the country. Way to get 3 points SJSU!! More games are on tap this weekend and in the near future I'll get to see some of the boys play in person.

And oh by the way, way to bring it Boise State!!

There's just really nothing like college football for me. There is so much emotion tied up in it, especially when my two alma maters take the field. They can give me more heartache and joy than pretty much anything else. Let's Go Devils! Mountaineers! Cowboys! Spartans!

And lest you forget, we're in the final days of the major league baseball season and I'm finding myself hanging on every pitch on two different coasts. The Giants, as usual, are so close I can almost taste the playoff home run dog, but the gap just doesn't seem to be getting any smaller. And the Yankees never cease to cause me agita. While they are more likely to be in the playoffs than the Giants, there are no guarantees today. They don't have a magic number listed yet, and until they do, I take nothing for granted. It's fun though, and I look forward to seeing what happens in the next few weeks.

I know you thought all I did was go to concerts...well, there was only ONE of those in September, so I have to find some other way to spend my time and money. :-)

Remembering another Butler game from years ago...

So, as I was watching the NCAA championship game tonight, and cheering for Butler, I remembered that a long time ago, 19 years to be exact, I actually sang the national anthem for an NIT game at the University of Wyoming where I worked at the time in the athletic department. Our opponent? Butler. And we beat them. By two points.

I found an old LA Times article with a summary of the game...kinda funny that the other game summary in the article is about WVU. I don't think I'd made my final decision about going to WVU when we played our game against Butler. It's all very interesting to me now.

I actually have two banners from that game that I might someday hang in a sports room in a house I may own. For now, they reside in a storage bin. One is an ESPN banner, you know the heavy duty papery ones they used to hang around arenas when they televised a game...yeah, I have that. I'm not even sure they do that anymore since so many people have more permanent signage options. These were the old days! The other is a nice cloth NIT banner which I really did try to give back to the NIT representative, but he told me that I did such a nice job singing the anthem that I should keep it. Nice.

Wyoming lost its next game that year to Colorado, a game played in Boulder, and our long season was over. I remember that we hosted the WAC tournaments that year for both men and women, and I'm not sure I've ever been busier in my life. So many games, so many things to coordinate...so much fun!!

There are a lot of days when I miss working in athletics. Days like today when I remember nights like that one in 1991. There's really nothing like a full arena cheering for the home team and rejoicing in their victory. It was fun to think back on that tonight. Fun to remember some of the players from those days and how much fun Cowboy basketball was. There's nothing quite like a college basketball game, and I'm glad I got to be a part of so many of them up close and personal. Now I mostly just watch on TV, but every now and then, when I venture to a game, the excitement returns almost instantly.

Maybe my Mountaineers will get back to the Final Four next year. Maybe ASU can be just a little bit better. And maybe those Wyoming Cowboys will once again give me something to smile about. But for now, it's time for baseball and post-season hockey.

It's already a long season...

Sigh.

Week 3 of college football, and I'm on the verge of throwing in multiple towels. I follow five teams:

1. Arizona State (alma mater #1)
2. West Virginia (alma mater #2)
3. San Jose State (current employer and the town near which I live)
4. University of Wyoming (team I grew up with...and former employer)
5. Northern Illinois (former employer)

I was pretty jazzed in the first full week of the season when I went 4 for 5. But that joy was fleeting. INow? I'm just hoping they all don't lose the rest of their games. This weekend, which began in the football world on Thursday, was just awful. I went 1 for 5. Thank you, NIU, for not making it a total wash.

It was sheer torture two weeks ago to watch WVU self-destruct against East Carolina. Adding insult to that still throbbing injury was ASU's OT loss last week to unranked UNLV. While nursing that wound, I then had to endure WVU losing in OT this week to unranked Colorado. OY! Needless to say, both ASU and WVU are no longer ranked. And ASU just made it worse tonight with it's less-than-stellar showing (at home no less!) against Georgia. UGH. Not UGA. UGH. To add insult to today's injury, SJSU lost to Stanford...never a pretty sight, and Wyoming got destroyed by BYU...who apparently just doesn't let anyone score anymore.

So, for ASU, they are still 1-0 in the PAC 10, which I GUESS should make me happy, but I've been burned too many times before. My Sun Devil pride is wounded and I fear the conference play that ensues very soon. I mean, USC is still in the PAC 10 last time I checked, and oh joy! we play them in SoCal. I restate my earlier sigh...

WVU hasn't played a single conference game yet, so yeah, there's still some hope there. But they were poised to win it all last year and faltered at the end, so the Mountaineer part of me doesn't have a lot to hold onto.

Wyoming is likely done as they've now had two huge conference losses, but that is not really a surprise. I don't think anyone expected them to do a lot this year.

Poor NIU has only won one game, and one of their two losses was in conference, so they're not really on an uphill swing either.

SJSU losing to Nebraska was not surprising, and while it's a total bummer to lose to Stanford, I guess I wasn't that surprised. At least we've won both of our home games. We'll see what happens going forward. At least I know the national anthem at the Boise State game will be good. :-)

I hope your teams are having more success than mine. Please don't rub it in if they are. That's just mean. If your teams are in a state of ick like mine, I'm happy to commiserate with you. Say it with me now: Sigh. Take comfort in knowing that basketball starts in a month, and the NHL drops the pre-season puck this week. Go Sharks!

I'm out.