Well, I finally did it. Against all odds, and in desperate need of a better excuse for not writing on my blog, I got a job. Starting Monday April 13, I’m going to be a reporter for the Norwood Record, located in the town of Norwood, just south of Boston. This has clearly been a long time coming, and, depending on my workload, it may mean that I’ll be spending less time on the blog, and more time getting paid. It’s an okay deal, in my mind.

Aside from the workload, I’m not sure what this actually means for the future of the site. I don’t want to consciously change my content to any extent, but I really don’t want to lose my job because of anything I write on this site. In all likelihood, this will probably be one of, if not the, only times I’m actually going to write about my work, unless something epic happens that absolutely must be related.

But I’m not starting the job until next Monday, so why is it going to be quiet this week? Well, two reasons. I’m flying home tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to get my car, and I’m going to spend all of Wednesday bombing up the east coast to Washington, DC, because this weekend is the NCAA Frozen Four at the Verizon Center. I’ve got my ticket, got a couch to crash on, and I’m hungry for a national championship.

On a related note, the Hobey Baker (College Hockey’s Heisman) finalists were named on Friday. The three finalists include BU’s own Matt Gilroy and Colin Wilson, as well as former-Northeastern (he just jumped ship for the Penguins) goalie Brad Thiessen. I’m a little worried that vote splitting between the two terriers might work in Thiessen’s favor, but Gilroy absolutely deserves this award. Dude’s been the heart and soul of the team, and the fact that we’re in D.C. while Northeastern is back in Roxbury can only help us.

Some form of post-game recap will surely be forthcoming, most likely to be written in an unintelligle string of vowels.

This is Matt Gilroy. He’s the Senior co-captain of the Boston University Men’s Hockey Team. He’s the only player to named an All-American in the last two seasons, and is well on his way to the third. He’s currently one of ten finalists for the Hobey Baker Award (along with fellow Terrier Colin Wilson), awarded to the best player in the country. He was profiled in the New York Times earlier this year (the source of the above photo).

Tomorrow, he will be leading the Terriers into the first game of the 2009 NCAA tournament against Ohio State in Machester, New Hampshire. As of right now, BU is the number one overall seed in the tournament, after winning three regular season tournaments (including the Beanpot), claiming the regular season championship, Hockey East regular season championship, and the Hockey East Championship.

I’m going to be there.

The last time we were in this position was my freshman year. We had claimed all the same honors and were playing in Worcester, Mass. We took the bus out to the first game, where we destroyed the University of Nebraska-Omaha in a 9-2 victory. That became a night of infamy for the BU program, because when we got on the bus for the second game the next night, against Boston College (possibly the biggest rivalry in college hockey) we were informed that any swearing at the game could result in a bench minor penalty for the team. Turns out that cheering “Fuck ‘em up, Fuck ‘em up, BC Sucks” for every goal (cumulatively, so we cheered it nine times on the ninth goal) and for every power play can get you into trouble with the NCAA. That was the end of “the cheer” for BU, which became the subject of Rick Reilly column in Sports Illustrated.

We then lost 2-1 to BC. That was the longest bus ride home I’ve ever taken.

This year, we’ve been absolutely dominant all season. We’ve won every game that we needed to win, and I have so much faith in this team to bring home the National Championship. If that happens, that will give my two teams (the other being UF) five national championships, in three sports, over the last four years. Additionally, three of those would have come at the expense of Ohio State.

This is going to be a long weekend, but it will be worth it.

But before I start talking about this article, I just want to say a little bit about the recent redesign. I was never all that wild about their old look, but I love the way that they’ve standardized the all-around look of the magazine. I think there’s a little nod to blogs in that all the features and articles use roughly the same spread, and the covers have an awesomely straightforward look that, personally, I’d like to see more magazines adopt.

But enough rambling. The January/February 2009 issue, their “State of the Union” issue, has Barack Obama on the cover and a lot of discussion about the incredibly relevant issues of race in America. There’s a really interesting piece about “The End of White America” and a profile of Michelle Obama that drastically recasts our national debate in a newly compelling light.

But I want to talk about Football, so I’m going to talk about the article “Football’s Hardest Job.”

First, to my surprise, this article was about neither the Detroit Lions nor the BCS, arguably the two most pressing jobs in Football today. No, instead it’s about Bob “Fish” Fishman, one of CBS’s directors for NFL coverage. Most of the story is written from the perspective of a prouction trailer outside The Meadowlands during a game between the Bengals and the Giants, as the writer details what goes into putting an NFL game on TV.

Now, I wasn’t surprised by the amount of work that goes into this process. I suppose it’s kind of like putting together a daily newspaper, except you have to do it all live.  But one of the most interesting observations is that TV is really what made the NFL the powerhouse of American Professional Sports that it is today. I’d go a little further though, and say that TV is why Hockey and Soccer are not more popular in America.

Neither sport translates well to TV, because both generally use the high-from-the-middle camera shot for the the majority of the action. The camera rarely does more than pan side to side, so you have to actively watch to find the action. Football, as this article points out, has an entire team of people whose sole job it is to make sure you never have to wonder where the action is going to be. They have cameras trained on all the likely possibilities for the play, and enough angles that you can see every moment from all different sides. Football–and possibly to a larger extent baseball–come across on TV like a well made movie. Hockey and Soccer come across more like, well, live sporting events.

It probably says something about America that we have trouble sitting through sporting events that aren’t well directed. But I really don’t care. I love football. I watch NFL games that have no meaning, simply because it’s football (and because I wanted to–and did–win my Fantasy League). Football is such a perfect TV product to veg out to because anything you miss will be replayed, and there are more than enough breaks that you can go get a beer, get food, or reach the inevitable conclusion of those two and go to the bathroom. Of course, the Superbowl actually makes you want to watch commercials, or the halftime show (BRUUUCE!), but the focus is still the football. Everything else is decoration.

Canada loves its hockey, and the rest of the world loves its soccer. They’re dedicated fans, so they put up with the nuisances of the broadcast media. But I guarantee that you could attract many more casual fans to either sport by pouring money into the TV coverage. I don’t know how much they could do with hockey, because it’s so fast paced and unpredictable, but there’s gotta be something. I want to see the NHL somewhere besides Versus and NBC’s off days.

But back to the article. One reason I enjoyed it was that the writer, Mark Bowden, captured the excitement of the football match as it was pieced together. Interestingly though, it was so gripping because he wasn’t describing the game itself, he was literally transcribing the way it was coming across on TV.

There were some kind of awkward bracketed moments, where Bowden described what was on the cameras, and one very Atlantic-y explanation of Eli Manning’s heritage, but other than that it was a great article that explained football without actually describing football. I’d recommend it.

My parents met at the University of Florida. They got married there. I was born on campus while my dad was finishing up his residency. I love Gator football with the kind of mindless passion that you only get with College sports. I love the fact that Tebow’s coming back for another year, and I certainly think he’s got a definite shot at being considered the best player in UF history, if not one of the best in all of college football.

But Frias and everyone else who covers the sport needs to relax a little bit. It’s fun to talk about him as if he actually is superman, but there’s a point where it gets to be too much, and a headline like Superman Tebow is human after all is definitely too much (Frias isn’t the only one guilty of this kind of thing, and probably had nothing to do with the headline, but this article just happened to be the most obvious). It’s ridiculous to put this kind of praise on any athlete, but especially on one at the college level. He’s a great player. He sounds like a great person. The fans (and sportswriters) love him, but he’s still a kid (hell, he’s younger than I am) and while he seems like he’s pretty well-grounded, at some point he might start to believe too much in his own legend.

Remember Josh Hamilton? Sometimes people break under pressure, and not everyone gets the happy ending.

All that aside, I can’t wait for next season.

This is a Stanley Fat Max Xtreme Functional Utility Bar, also known as a Fubar. It’s 18″ long and weighs between 4-5 lbs. They market it as a demolition tool. My parents bought me one for Christmas because it’s badass and they love me. I have no pressing need for this tool, but I like to keep it on my dresser.  It’s like a security blanket.

This is Oklahoma Sooners Quarterback Sam Bradford. He won the Heisman trophy, despite getting fewer first place votes than previous Heisman winner–and College Football Demi-God–Tim Tebow. The Sooners will be playing the Gators tonight for the National Championship. I will be wearing my Florida shirt and drinking lots of beer.

So, what’s the connection between these two images? I’m hoping for somewhere around the kneecap, but we’ll see what happens in the game…