The Sporting Life

Atticus

He's one of my favorite literary characters. He's Southern. He's single (OK, a widower). He's mild-mannered and even-tempered.

So Ifigured it would be a good name for a new blog.

Almost ready

I'm almost ready to begin the new blog.

I'll be e-mailing those of you who were on my blogroll as well as the five or six other people I know who read The Sporting Life. If, however, you don't receive an e-mail from me and wish to know where to find me now, e-mail me.

Scratch that

I think I'm going to stop posting here at The Sporting Life and begin a new blog.

From the start, I meant for this spot on the Web to be more of a journal of thoughts and observations of someone who happens to spend a lot of time watching sports. As a result of that fact, along with the name I chose, I got labeled a "sports blogger." That was never my intention. I even somehow got picked up by SI on Campus and collegefootballnews.com as an "Auburn sports blogger."

So I'm going to start anew. The archives here will remain, but I'm pretty certain this will be my last posting at The Sporting Life. Stay tuned.

Remembering The Rifleman

Chuck Person and his younger brother, Wesley, will be honored in a jersey-retiring ceremony when Auburn takes on LSU tomorrow night at Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum.

Despite playing prior to the era of the three-pointer, Chuck is Auburn's all-time leading scorer and helped carry the Tigers to their only appearance in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Basketball Tournament in 1986. Auburn's first trip to the Sweet Sixteen had occurred the previous year when Person and the Tigers lost to North Carolina.

  ·  Full story on al.com

Changes afoot

I've decided to follow my friend Ben's lead and split my content into two blogs. This one will remain devoted to sports — focusing primarily on Auburn athletics. I hope to have the other, personal one up and running before the end of Presidents Day weekend.

As I was saying ...

It's been three weeks since I posted about the Thrashers. Since that time, they've gone 3-6 — including six straight losses after tonight's game vs. the Sabres wraps up. (It was 5-2 Buffalo in the third period with about three minutes to go, when I last checked.)

Remain calm: It's only Jan. 10
Plenty of season to go before Thrashers
can finally say they're playoff-bound

There's a reason Atlanta fans are hesitant to get their hopes up about the prospect of postseason hockey: Dec. 26, 2003.

On that day, the Thrashers welcomed Dany Heatley back to the ice for the first time since the wreck that left teammate Dan Snyder dead; defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning; and sat atop the Southeast Division Standings. In its fifth season, Atlanta looked like a legitimate playoff contender and had fans in a frenzy.

No one had any idea what would follow. During the next six weeks, the Thrashers won two of their 21 games. The team fought back to finish the year in second place in the division — behind eventual Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay — but sat in 10th place in the Eastern Conference, out of the playoffs.

This year, I'm pointing to another date: March 4. It will mark the team's first home game in a month and put us only 22 games from the end of the regular season. If we're anywhere from six to (a close) 10 in the standings, I'll admit I'm going to be hopeful that postseason hockey could finally be played in Philips Arena.

Lone star

Vince Young was unbelievable. Congratulations, Texas. You gave me reason to think I should watch the second half, and now I can hit the hay knowing it was worth it.

Change of heart

I got home tonight and couldn't help but remember: The eyes of Texas are upon me. Texan by birth, Southern by the grace of God. I'll be rooting for the 'Horns. Hook 'em!

Bowl me over

It's the new year, but college football is rumblin', stumblin' on

Late-night sports are gonna be the death of me. Today I had to practically pull myself up a staircase at work as a result of yet another post-midnight finish to a ballgame. Early in the fall, it was the baseball playoffs. Now, college bowls are to blame. Whether a chemical imbalance or the efforts of some tiny outpost in my mind, something won't allow me to give up on a good game and simply go to bed.

As the Orange Bowl entered the fourth quarter last night, I knew I was most likely in it until Paterno and Bowden shook hands at midfield. I was right.

Not all the bowls have been nail-biters, however.

Sometime late in the first quarter of the Capital One Bowl on Monday, I text-messaged a cousin of mine to find out which station was carrying the game. I thought I'd been watching it, but I began to think I'd clicked over to a replay of Auburn-Georgia Tech from the first of the season.

It had to be, right? DBs occasionally nowhere near receivers, costly turnovers, dropped passes, overthrown balls — I know the Tech game when I see it. But, strangely, the opposing team wore red and white.

A top-five finish and another 10-win season would've been nice, but Auburn fans shouldn't let the dismal performance vs. the Badgers destroy their enthusiasm about the 2005 season or hopes for 2006. As for me, I can't wait. No matter how it pans out, it's a great schedule, including home games vs. Washington State, Arkansas, Florida, LSU and Georgia.

But as a friend of mine said, it's over, and there's no sense in analyzing and bemoaning it. Our season is done, and it's time to turn to basketball and baseball.

As for that game tonight, I'm at a point where I no longer care. Sportswriters and analysts have slobbered so much over these two teams and this Rose Bowl that it's robbed the event of something for me.

I'm going to bed at the half. I mean it. Really. Leave me alone!

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Fair and balanced: To Lynnette Ruby, the woman who spoke with CNN's Anderson Cooper about the awful revelation that the report of 12 survivors of the West Virginia mining disaster was false: Thanks.

Thanks for talking with a reporter. Thanks also to the three or four unnamed people I've seen who likewise gave good interviews. Rural folks with (as my mom would put it) walking-around sense usually steer clear of somebody with a microphone or a camera, which means the face of smalltown America — and particularly the smalltown South — is often left to the it-sounded-like-a-train, still-on-probation bystanders without whom Fox's Cops probably wouldn't exist. Your appearances on camera were the only positive moments in a story of absolute anguish.

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Your source for Auburn football? Hardly: This blog has to be a helluva big disappointment for the football-rabid visitors who arrive here from the list of blogs at CNNsi and at fanblogs.com. I'm not exactly sure how I made their lists since Auburn football is just one of many random things I ramble on about. My apologies.

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Countdown to first pitch now in days rather than months: No matter how it pans out, somebody please assure me the No. 4-ranked Cornhuskers won't return to Omaha. Their appearance last year was the only blemish on an other wise awesome trip to the College World Series, and I already have a hotel lined up for 2006. With Nebraska fans making it especially competitive to get seats, I think I used enough sunscreen for four people while standing in lines that turned back and forth outside the outfield like a queue at Six Flags.

Only one SEC team in the Top 10 and barely two in the Top 15? And why in the world is North Carolina overrated year after year after year? At least Georgia Tech has a more realistic ranking for a change. How many times have they started out Nos. 1, 2 or 3 and (as usual) not made it out of their own regional? Peruse all 40 of the teams in Collegiate Baseball's preseason poll and judge it for yourself.