New Challenge

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I decided to scrap my 2011 Challenge and have a new one for 2011/2012. I am going to try to go to the Final Four in New Orleans! Right now, things are looking pretty good money wise as the ticket books are relatively cheap and my dad has promised to give me about half of what I need to get them. 

Plus, I will be getting money from day camp and other sources so I should be covered. The only thing is there is a chance that I may not get tickets. With the Final Four, you have to submit an application into a lottery pool of sorts and pay up front. They select applications and those people get tickets. On the bright side, if I don't get tickets, they will refund my money. I'm definitely going to give it a try and, if this doesn't work out, I may either try Stubhub or worst case, pick somewhere else to go and spend the money!

Three things ultimately got me on this kick: two of my friends went to this year's Final Four in Houston, UNC is already the favorite to win it all next year, and my love of college basketball in general. Plus, I've always wanted to go to New Orleans and what better way than to go where great Final Fours have been held before (including UNC's 1982 and 1993 NCAA title runs). Even if Carolina doesn't make it, I would still be excited to go and experience it all first hand. I'll keep you guys posted on what happens with my new challenge!

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Right For The Job?

NC State hired Mark Gottfried, former Alabama head coach and ESPN analyst, to lead their basketball team. But is he truly right for the job? Did Yow want someone else and just settled for Gottfried? I, for one, think so. I really didn't see this coming especially after AD Yow sent out a letter yesterday basically saying they were back at square one.

This is, in my opinion, not a good hire. Everyone keeps saying how great Gottfried is because he was an assistant on the 1995 UCLA Championship team and he took Alabama to a #1 ranking. This is true, but he was only an assistant on the team and that #1 ranking was reached during the '02-'03 season; not to mention they lost and did not win a national championship. They didn't even get into the Final Four. That stuff happened a long time ago. Not to bash Sidney Lowe but he was on a national championship team as a player and look what happened.

I'm also not very happy because Gottfried is, well, kind of old. State, in my opinion, needed a young coach with energy like Shaka Smart to lead. In additon, everyone seems to have forgotten the fact that Gottfried left Alabama under a "controversy" that he seemed to not want to come clean about during his press conference yesterday. In my opinion, if a coach has experienced "controversy" in their career, they should talk about it.

Now on to the way the search was conducted. I believe they should have kept the students in the loop of what was going on, especially when AD Yow sent out the letter. She sent it to all Wolfpack Club members but not to students? That was not professional at all. I even think that, given the situation they were in before this happened, they should have even surveyed students about what they wanted in a coach. It wouldn't have been hard to do that. The school sends out tons of surveys over the course of the year, what's one more? I'm not one to immediately bash something but this I can't help. I'm in complete disagreement with this hire. I personally don't think he has the "it" factor and is definitely not an A-list coach. As a commenter said on WRALSportsFan.com, " We certainly didn't hit the home run. We may have even hit a foul ball."

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Dwindling Hopes

When Sidney Lowe resigned as head coach at NC State, Wolfpack fans were excited about the possibility of getting a new coach to lead them. That excitement is dwindling by the second as Arizona's Sean Miller, Texas A&M's Mark Turgeon, Memphis's John Pastner, Texas's Rick Barnes, and now VCU's Shaka Smart have all turned down the job. And even though my pick, Brad Stevens, hasn't officially turned down any offers that we know of, you may as well mark him off the list as well.

Who's left? According to Sporting News, some of the only viable candidates left are Wichita State's Gregg Marshall and Cincinatti's Mick Cronin.* Wait what? You've got to be kidding! As one of my friends said on Twitter, "If NCSU hires Marshall/Cronin they will lose recruits and possibly some current guys." I agree. NCSU needs a coach who can attract fans to come out to the games, these two don't cut it. It looks like there may be more disappointment in NC State's future.

*UPDATE: Apparently, both Cronin and Marshall have turned down NCSU as well, according to media sources. Sources also said that NCSU pursued Ben Howland of UCLA but he, once again, turned them down.

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G_D Update

As you recall, my last post was on the use of "G_D" in an Cultural Anthropology class presentation. At first glance, one would take it as censorship of God but one commenter cleared things up for me and I want to post it here so things can be cleared up. The commenter said:

"I believe the reason God was spelled like that is because in Jewish tradition, I think, people revered God's name so much that they wouldn't even spell it out because it is so holy. Also, there are no vowels in Hebrew. So it is also a way to hold true to the Hebrew language while writing in English by leaving out the O. I had a Jewish friend like God like that, I never asked her why though but I believe that might have something to do with it. Also, David Crowder writes God like that too."

Thanks for clearing that up! I was kind of confused as to why this was used because I had never seen it before!

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G_D?

Okay, you probably don't have any idea what this post is titled. I am in a Cultural Anthropology class and we started a religion unit today. We talked about different religions and beliefs, but then we came across a slide in the presentation that had different names people gave God. There were names like Yahweh and Allah but the one that struck me was "G_D" which was the first listed. I thought to myself "why is God censored when the others are not?" 

I'm sure if I said something, my professor would tell me that she was afraid of insulting others in the classroom. I could say to her that seeing God spelled "G_D" upsets me. I was just shocked and confused as to why people are so insulted by the name God and not the other names for God. It doesn't make sense to me.

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Tarheel For Life

I wanted to take a minute and thank the Carolina men's basketball team for an outstanding season. Although it didn't end the way we wanted it to, they still did a tremendous job! I wasn't sure how this year's team would be considering last year's debacle; but they pulled it out. This team, in my opinion, has worked harder than any other team in the nation. Working hard is not just about winning championships, it's about how you persevere through adversity to achieve a goal. This team has displayed that day in and day out.

I honestly have never felt this bad for a Carolina team before in my life. I just feel so bad for them because of all the hard work and determination they've put in throughout the season. I'll tell you right now the ACC and the NCAA better watch out for this team next year, especially if everyone comes back. Congrats once again Tarheels! I know I'm speaking for everyone when I say I'm proud of you guys.

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Not Just Northern

I was shocked to hear about a stabbing that ocurred Thursday at my old high school, Northern. When I was there, we had fights and bomb threats but no stabbings. However, I was even more shocked by the WRAL story about the incident. Here is the gist of the story: a fight broke out between students at NHS before school started.

One was stabbed and taken to the hospital while the other was arrested. WRAL then goes on to report the number of crimes at Northern and takes it upon themselves to mention how many were drug and firearm-related incidents and how many were sexual assault incidents.

I am upset that this ocurred but I am even more upset at WRAL for creating this story that did not represent the school well at all. In my opinion, this is the poorest showing of journalism I have ever seen from WRAL. They included statistics about Northern but failed to compare them to other schools in the system. For instance, they said that Northern "accounted for nearly 1/5th of the 284 crimes and acts of violence reported in Durham schools in the 2009-10 school year." They go on to say that, "42 of the 56 incidents reported at Northern High were drug-related, while nine involved possession of firearms or other weapons, a sexual assault, and three other assaults." The stats may be true but the parts about drug-related and sexual assault crimes are irrelevant to the case presented.

The bottom line here is that Northern should not be singled out everytime something happens. It was important that the public knew of this incident, but why not do the same for other schools in the district? I decided to do my own digging and found that, according to the State Department of Public Instruction, Riverside High School had the second highest number of crimes in the 2009-2010 school year (40 total). You didn't hear about that did you? If I had written the story for WRAL, I would use it as a warning to all parents at all high schools and not just pick out Northern or DPS. I would have included a distribution of the crime reports and address this as a problem in all schools, not just Northern. I think WRAL showed poor professionalism and poor judgement when writing this story. I have always trusted them for their news but, after seeing this story, I may not have that much of a favorable opinion for them anymore.

To read the full story, click here

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