Some things are clearly worth re-posting. As a general rule I try to shy away from both shameless girls-in-bikinis pandering and the recycling of content already posted elsewhere on the site, but sometimes certain exceptions have to be made:
That’s Audrey Moore, Auburn student and this year’s Miss Alabama USA, who finished in the top 10 of this past weekend’s Miss USA pageant. The real shame is that she landed in the Miss USA field rather than Miss America, where she could have shown off her true talent: air guitar. She says she’s also an accomplished Rock Band enthusiast.
To recap:
1. Auburn student/fan
2. Plays Rock Band and air guitar
3. Winner of genetic lottery
Commence swooning.
Speaking of Rock Band … there’s two developments worth noting in the announcement of the semifinalists in the great Auburn intro video vote-off (which, as a naked ploy to drive up traffic to the AUfficial site, has to have succeeded beyond its’ designers wildest dreams by now). One is that, as expected, the Orson-led effort to get Justin Bieber on the ballot failed to make it past the Auburn gatekeepers. Thanks for the pageviews, though, guys, srsly.
The other is that write-in favorite “Welcome Home” by Coheed and Cambria made the cut. I can’t say it’s a favorite, but at least I’ve got some late-night nostalgia for the song thanks to having played it more times than I could count back in those halcyon Rock Band I days of 2007. Not surprisingly, the blAUgosphere’s resident musician thinks Auburn could do better, and he’s right:
Sure, it’s paradise … if you’re not on a basketball court. Hey, remember when former Auburn commitment and JUCO point guard Anthony Salter asked for his release from his LOI? You’d expect that he’d have been able to land somewhere roughly equivalent to Auburn after backing out, right? Um, not quite:
The University of Hawai’i men’s basketball team added yet another new recruit to its roster today.
Anthony Salter, a coveted point guard at Iowa Western Community College, said today he is committed to playing for the Rainbow Warriors next season.
“Why not Hawai’i?” Salter said. “It’s beautiful here. What’s not to like? The campus, the facilities, the people, the coaches, the players. I saw all of that and it just felt like a good fit.”
Well, no doubt all of that stuff (particularly the setting) is all well and good, and if Salter feels like that’s his best fit, more power to him. But still … the ‘Bows have won a total of 34 games the past three seasons and haven’t been a factor in the WAC in ages, despite a substantial home-court advantage. Obviously Salter and Barbee didn’t hit it off or we wouldn’t be talking about this, and things may work out for the best for both parties. But I also have to wonder: if the Frankie Sullivan-at-the-point experiment doesn’t work out on our end, and Hawaii continues to flail on Salter’s end, will both parties eventually wish they had hit it off? (HT: BHGP.)
Bat-and-ball. Despite their disappointing opening-round loss to Florida at the SEC tournament and 10-17 league record, the Auburn softball team received an at-large invitation to the NCAA Tournament and will play Oregon this Friday in Atlanta. The Tigers are the No. 3 seed, with the Ducks No. 2 and hosts Georgia Tech the top seed.
That makes four Tournament berths in five years for Auburn, and though there’s still a lot of headway to make in the SEC standings, that’s still a big step forward from where the program was in the early part of the previous decade.
As for things on the men’s diamond, Bryan Matthews has some quality nuggets for you, including Auburn’s move up to No. 16 in the polls. Phillip Marshall was disappointed in the weekend’s attendance at Plainsman Park, and looking at attendances elsewhere in the SEC, I’m not sure I blame him.
Footbaw. Still not much happening on the gridiron front, but Phil Steele site-blogger “KoolBell” has leaked word that Steele has Auburn pegged for the second in this year’s SEC West and–this is the really stunning part–his preseason No. 15 team in the country. Steele’s struggled a bit the last couple of years but I’ll still take his approach based on actual, you know, facts over just about anyone else’s. If Steele’s on one side of a preseason argument and the mainstream folks are on the other–and that appears to be the case with this year’s SEC West–I’m much happier with him arguing on Auburn’s behalf rather than against. Can’t wait to see his reasoning. (Though I’m sure it will run along the lines of “Arkansas has no defense and is going to get slammed by turnovers; LSU was terrible yardage-wise and won’t be so lucky again.”)
Elsewhere, Chizik pays a visit to the U.S.S. Alabama and says Ben Tate apologized for the ridiculous goalpost-dunk that cost his team 15 yards against Northwestern (which, frankly, he’d better have); Tubby took a pay cut from both his former salary and Mike Leach’s to accept the Texas Tech job, but considering the Red Raiders are never going to be flush with cash, that’s not all that surprising; and the weekend visit from Kiehl Frazier didn’t produce any major fireworks, but it can’t have hurt anything, either.
Congrats. The Auburn track teams won eight titles at last weekend’s SEC championships, tying a school record. The men had their best finish since 2003. Sheniqua Ferguson was wrecking fools left and right, winning both the 100- and 200-meter dashes and spearheading the 4×100 relay. Not a surprise, then, she took home the Commisioner’s Trophy as the highest-scoring female athlete at the event.
Also worth a round of congratulations to the 45 Auburn athletes that graduated this spring. Notable names include Lucas Hargrove, Keke Carrier and Jordan Greenleaf from hoops, Mike Berry, Zach Clayton, Mike Goggans, Craig Stevens, and Aairon Savage from football, and Mr. Rhodes Scholar Jordan Anderson from swimming.
I swear to you, I will have my revenge, somehow, some way. Not Auburn-related, but I have to vent. I’m a subscriber to ESPN Insider, which means they also send me ESPN the Magazine as part of the deal, even though “the Mag” is just one notch above worthless at the best of the times and the worst–as in a story last winter on wild n’ wacky fan behavior that sincerely could not believe a fan would throw an octopus on the ice at a Red Wings game … even though they’ve only been doing it for 58 years–it’s just a total embarrassment. Every other issue goes into the garbage unread.
But being the committed U.S. Soccer fan I am, the May 17 issue’s fold-out cover had me intrigued …
… especially since I didn’t recognize the player, and thought I’d be able to identify everybody on the Yanks’ 30-man preliminary roster. Then I unfolded the cover, and found that “America’s Best Hope at the World Cup” is … Giuseppe [string of expletives deleted] Rossi. Who’s from New Jersey but not even playing for the U.S. Haha! Good one, ESPN!
FALSE. Not a good one. Rossi is, without question, the single most hated man in American soccer right now, and is probably my least favorite athlete alive. I know I’m not supposed to wish injury on anyone, but I hope both his ACLs are eaten by lions. I hope he falls in a vat of acid and the blue of his Italy jersey leaches into his skin so he looks like a real-life Blueberry Johnson and he’s unable to take off his shirt in the presence of a woman without her laughing uncontrollably for as long as he lives. I hope Olive Garden asks him for an endorsement, and in the middle of filming his big commercial, he chokes on his Neverending Pasta Bowl and dies.
But even more than all that, I would hope that the people at ESPN would understand this, and would have enough sense not the stick this traitorous snot-nosed jackass on its cover as an extended middle finger to everyone who actually gives a crap about our soccer team. “Cancel my subscription” doesn’t even begin to cover the hate. I hope the editors responsible get confused about which plane is taking them to South Africa and accidentally board the one bound for the sun … and if they’ve convinced Rossi to skip the team flight and join them for old times’ sake, so much the better.
LOL Listen to his perfectly American accent —
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?categoryid=4647237&id=5164918
And he’s a Yankees, Giants, and Knicks fan. And he calls his house his crib.
…. Yeah, we’ll see you in South Africa. Douchebag.
Jerry,
There is absolutely no reason to get that worked up over a 3rd world sport like soccer. Who cares if we win or lose in the 3rd World Cup? I’m just waiting for it to be over so those horrible Bono commercial will stop playing during SportsCenter.
Cue someone chiming in with “German and England play soccer.”
WDR, seriously, no offense, but shut up. Nothing sticks in my craw more than after 20 years of living and dying with my country’s team than to have someone–usually a college football fan–just blithely come along and say “Oh, it’s just soccer.” The overwhelming majority of the world would ask CFB fans why the hell they give a damn about an amateur team playing a boring sport. Are they right? Hell no. But that also means you’re not any more right for telling me I shouldn’t care about the teams I care about.
No offense take at all. In fact that sounds like sound advice.
I just cannot get excited over a game that can go for 90+ minutes and end in a 0-0 tie.
Believe me, you and anyone else who doesn’t enjoy soccer is welcome to sleep through it and get sick of Bono. Soccer fans who go on and on about how anyone who doesn’t watch “the beautiful game” (usually as played by European club teams said fan has zero connection to other than the jersey he bought over the Internet) is an uncultured hick are just as bad. Just don’t rain on the parade for the rest of us, please. All I ask.
I’ll never understand why American sports fans have to automatically hate soccer, or why soccer fans have to automatically hate American sports.
I’m not a big time soccer guy, but I can dig it. I guess I could say it’s tied for my third favorite sport with tennis, all light years behind football and basketball. (Honestly, I think I just like tennis because of its format, but how can you not? Each major tournament is its own March Madness, and there’s four of these March Madnesses a year. And I’m pretty sure I just like soccer just because it’s not baseball. But that’s a story for another day.)
With my Cavs out of the playoffs and my poor little sports heart being pulled in every different compass direction over LeBronaggeddon, I honestly can’t wait for the World Cup to get here.
My God she’s smokin’. I ruined my keyboard drooling.
For the record, I would say most U.S. soccer fans–especially those who closely follow the Nats–are just fine with other sports. (Just look at how many CFB bloggers dabble in soccer: Braves and Birds, Orson, MGoBlog, Save the Shield, Nico @ RBR, yours truly, etc. That’s just off the top of my head.) It’s the Eurosnob contingent that take the knee-jerk approach towards football, hoops, etc.
Aw, man, Cavs fans. Doesn’t get any more sympathetic than that. Crazy stuff.
Re: tennis, I’m in whenever Fed or Rafa are playing (especially when they’re against each other … that Wimbledon final a couple years back is on the shortlist for greatest sporting event of the decade), but if they’re not I’m not going to be all that invested. Maybe I’ll have it on in the background.
I heard that about Rossi the other day (on SportsCenter, actually) and was surprised to hear it. Soccer doesn’t get our country’s best athletes (or, likely, even our 3rd or 4th ‘string’) so it’s disappointing to hear about native-born sons defecting to other countries.
I can’t wait for June 12, however and I look forward to your write-ups, Jerry.
As for the narrow-minded sports fans who dismiss soccer simply because it’s not football (or whatever), I just chalk it up to lack of experience. If you’ve seen the ‘beauty’, created the ‘beauty’, or even been a victim of the ‘beauty’, you never forget it and you’ll always want more.
I still play at 32 and plan to as long as my knees hold out.
WDE and GO USA!
If Miss Moore played good games like Mass Effect 2 or Left 4 Dead, then she’d be the catch of a lifetime. Rockband? Trashy…
Yeah, as nervous as I am from a distance, I can’t imagine what real, actual, season-ticket holding Clevelanders are going through.
The trick to getting into tennis tournaments is all in learning to read and comprehend those massive brackets, and knowing who all to follow. Everybody knows the big names, but you gotta find the right underdogs, too.
And of course, the main key is that there has to be absolutely nothing else going on at the time. I have a hard time caring much for the Australian Open in January. And I have a REAAAALLY hard time caring at all for the U.S. Open in September.
But with literally my four most hated teams in the NBA left, the French Open couldn’t come at a better time. It starts next week, and goes two weeks, which will lead me into the World Cup, which goes a month, which will lead me into mid-July, which will lead me into one swift August before glorious glorious September.
Jerry,
Here’s the link to order the magazine due out June 8th…
http://philsteele.com/index.html
One other item, exceptions of that nature(meaning Ms. Audrey Moore) can be excused over and over again.
If you didn’t know already, you could tell that WBE is awesome because 90% of the comments are actually about sports rather than about the hot girl in the bikini at the top of the post.
Go USA!
ESPN the Magazine is just a waste of paper. I canceled my Insider (and mag subscription) after that asinine, uninformed article of the A-11 offense a year or so ago.
Jerrry, I could not agree with you more about soccer bias. To this day I cannot stand Tony Kornheiser due to his stupid commentary about the National team at the last World Cup. His ignorance is astounding. He is probably an Bammer fan too!
Any idea what time the games are going to be played? The time diffference for the Korean World Cup was a killer, but I did not miss a single USA game.
Two points:
1) Looney touched on it, but I’ll reiterate: USA soccor will NEVER be competitive with the rest of the world because our best athletes are busy with other sports. If we could go back in time and convince today’s NFL backup DBs and sub 6’6″ college hoops players to drop those sports and focus on soccer from childhood, this country would dominate the sport.
Can you imagine a team made up of guys like Walt McFadden and Javier Arenas in the world cup?
2) Tennis is entertaining as long as long as the participants are female and attractive.
I don’t care what song but can we please play this on the Jumbotron before games/third downs?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hikLjcwFdD8
I’m not a soccer fan. So what? I bet close to a billion people on this Good Earth are.
Including my son, so you guys who are fans have got that going for you. 🙂
You should get Sporting News magazine. It sticks to the its main sports–NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, College Football and College Basketball and is flat out better than ESPN the Mag and yes, SI. Plus, you can get it for $20 or less a year. I know, shameless plug, but it’s bigger and better than it’s ever been.
wde
I second your opinion on Rossi! Just seeing a picture of the guy makes my blood boil. With that, I can’t really say that I don’t blame him. Even so…
I’ll disagree with those who say USMNT won’t compete because of athletes. One could actually argue that a lot of the games the US wins is due to superior athletic ability. What they lack is skill. Soccer looks natural when you’re watching the best teams in the world. Everything is just…fluid, yet technical at the same time. With the US, that’s not the case. Unless you grow up living and breathing the game, you aren’t going to have a feel for the game. Soccer is a game that’s driven on instinct. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.
Most of the people I hear dismissing soccer are the ones who will turn around and say, “Now baseball, that’s a real sport.” To me, that’s just laughable.
as a huge soccer fan, go usa! that said, for all soccer fans, manchester city plays club america at the georgia dome on july 28. advance tickets are only $25!
FINALLY some World Cup love – ever since that perfect goal he scored against us in Confed I have wanted to see this man spoon fed scorpions
I’m not saying soccer isn’t a real sport. I just don’t find it entertaining.
It’s all about what you are used too. I never played or watched soccer growing up, so I can’t appreciate the intracacies that make a 1-0 match anything but a snoozer.
I’ll bet Eros would have a hard time maintaining interest in the big American sports too. No way would anyone but big baseball fan get a kick out of a 9-inning pitcher’s duel.
Wow, lots of soccer fans in the woodwork. A big U-S-A! to you all.
I think regarding athletes, the answer is somewhere between the “it doesn’t matter” and “we have to have them” camps. I think it would help, and help a lot, if we had more true top-of-the-line athletes; the ones we’ve got now (Howard, Altidore, Onyewu, Bradley) are a major part of the team. I’ve always thought Barry Sanders would have been unstoppable. But we don’t have to have some huge wave of newcomers; the sports pie in the U.S. is split sooooooo wide that there’s enough for the U.S. to compete with anyone if we can just produce a little more top-end talent and a little more depth. This is why Rossi’s defection is so maddening–he’s quite possibly the best pure striker we’ve produced since Wynalda, and the little bastard turns us down on a whim because he thinks he’s too good for us.
Re: the Magazine, I’ll reiterate that I don’t even want the thing–they just send it to me because I subscribe to Insider, and unfortunately I can’t cancel THAT because between the hoops coverage, the krootin’, and a couple of other things I actually need that. But I’m thinking I’ll subscribe to something else–SI again, or TSN–just so I can get one sports mag I don’t feel like wiping my ass with twice a month.
They don’t have a Knittin’ Kittens Monthly (or something of that ilk) option in the list of free mags, Jerry? Shame…
ESPN the magazine really is complete garbage. I used to get it a couple years ago. It’s awful, right down to the paper it’s printed on. (Literally. I hate that oversized newspaper feeling crap.)
It’s crazy, because everything else ESPN does is so legit. I don’t understand how their name could be put on something so bad.
SI has been good lately. They still have that tendency to preview and predict about something, and then send you the issue like a day before said event, rendering half the issue useless once it happens. And I still can’t stand Selena Roberts for whatever reason. But other than that, it’s been good.
I hear you on Rossi. But I would love to have him. I am heading to Vegas to watch the first four days of WC 2010. I am big time pumped for US vs England. That use to be as big a rivalry as US vs Mexico.