Author Archives: brent

Do You Trust Me With An iPhone??

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Today I joined the 21st century and activated my new iPhone. I have had my nifty device now for about thirteen hours and I can say that in that short amount of time I have come quite a long ways. It should probably be noted that if you are swamped at work, it is not a good idea to activate your iPhone.  Because I could not put my new piece of technology down, and because I am in the middle of a jam packed week,  I left work a little before 8pm (got there at 7:30am). So take my advice and activate your phone on a weekend so you can have all day  to become acquainted  with your new phone.
Luckily for me, my work bought me my iPhone. With my new position, it was just necessary that I have one. In order to keep up with the second-by-second crazy breaking news environment that our department must keep up on and be at the forefront of, it just made sense. I have downloaded the Twitter App and I know have access to all ten of our department accounts right on my phone…that is pretty sweet! I will also now have the ability to start initiatives with social media that I could not before because I did not have a smart phone. It is so nice to be able to immediately respond to e-mails while in a meeting or walking back from the gym however I do not know if I have warmed up yet to the idea of receiving them while at home watching football or while taking a girl out. A couple of people I work with today told me to simply not look at it but I must confess I don’t know if I will be able to do that. When I look at my phone and it tells me I have an e-mail I can’t resist, I have to know what it says.
Even though the reason why I have my iPhone is because of work, I want to get away from that for a second and just talk about my thoughts and reaction to the phone. First off, I love how it is half phone/half music device. I have never owned an iPod in my life and now I have one. I can’t wait to start downloading music to it and building up my library. How cool is it that you can sync everything through your computer using iTunes? Everything in that aspect is so easy and accommodating.
I love all the different apps you can get! I feel like I might go a little over board on this. A cool thing about my phone is that I set up my Apple ID using my own personal credit card so I have the freedom to add whatever I want to my phone knowing that I will not charge the department a cent. Apps dealing with sports, weather, social media, and country music are areas I see myself subscribing to.
Over the course of the day I really got to know my phone. When I first activated it this morning I was a little overwhelmed but I was also really excited. Right away I realized why everyone talks about the iPhone the way they do. The possibilities really are endless. It is crazy to think that such a small device has so much power. With such a small, sleek, powerful device though, you have to treat it right. The first thing my boss said to me when she saw that I had my iPhone was to buy a case for it. I admit it, I have had some bad luck with phones in the past and I have broken and/or lost my fair share.  For whatever reason, if you have a Blackberry in our department and you break it you get it replaced…not the case with the iPhone. I am going to hold myself to a high standard and make sure I take impeccable care of my device. I am a twenty-four year old guy who can take care of his things. There will be a case on my iPhone by the end of the week.
I do have to get used to the texting part of my iPhone. Even though by the end of today I was 100% better/quicker at texting on my new phone, I still have a long way to go. I need to lose a lot of weight in my fingers to get where I want to be texting wise. My fat fingers messed me up so many times today that I was very humbled. This is coming from a person who sends out around 6,000 text messages a month. I am used to texting with one hand with my eyes closed while juggling fire so to say that I felt like I took a step back today is an understatement. Even though my boss said she has still not gotten used to texting on her iPhone, I am going to become the best IPhone texter that I can possibly be. One thing that I am going to have to say goodbye to (and my mom is going to be so happy) is texting and driving. With my old phones, I would text with one hand and steer with the other. It made boring drives go by so much faster. With the way the iPhone is set up texting wise it would be plain suicide to even attempt that. My driving and texting days are over.
Tonight I  am going to devote a few hours to learning even more about my phone and becoming more efficient on it. I might just pull an all-nighter, that is how stoked I am about this phone. If you have any tips or stories for me regarding your experiences with the iPhone please let me know, I would love to hear. Until then, I will probably be playing Angry Birds. Don’t Blink.

Be A REAL Fan!!

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College football kicked off this past weekend and I was in heaven as I caught as much of the action as possible. As I wrote in a previous post, I am passionate about the game. Once September hits my Saturdays are devoted to college football. I pretty much love everything about the game except of course when my favorite teams lose and one other thing that never fails to get on my nerves.
Now you might think I am sensitive to this issue because I work in an athletic department and I am around coaches pretty much six days a week from dawn until night. I get to witness firsthand the immense amount of pressure they are under, the stress they put themselves through, the lengths they go to give their team the best chance to win, and the ungodly hours they put into their job that you could never imagine.  However, having observed “the life of a coach” the two years I have worked in intercollegiate athletics it has not really shaped my view on the subject I am just about to get into but rather it has confirmed it. Because I grew up in a sports family with some of the most first class, knowledgeable fans I have ever known, I have lived my whole life following a certain code that so many others choose to break once adversity hits.
I can’t stand fair-weather armchair coaches. Let me say that again….I can’t stand fair-weather armchair coaches. For all of you out there who don’t really follow sports, an armchair coach is someone who has no affiliation with a given team other than for the fact that they call themselves a “fan” and feel that they know a thousand times more about football (or whatever sport it is) than the entire coaching staff combined. These armchair coaches are great at basking in the glory when things are going good for their team. Usually, when the ball is bouncing the way of their team and the wins seem to be piling up, their “coaching duties” are pretty minimal. They will just bitch about the fact that the coach went for it on 4th and 1 instead of attempting a 55 yard field goal on a rainy day into the wind. Of course, this precious coaching advice does not come until after the fourth down play was stuffed. What you really have to watch out for with these fair-weather armchair coaches is when a team runs into some adversity and starts to struggle a little bit. When the team of an armchair coach starts to lose, they take it very personally and feel like they must offer their expertise.  This is when I wish someone would save me and blow my ears off so I do not have to listen to their gibberish.
Call me old school, but I live under the adage that you support your team no matter what. I thank my dad so much for instilling this in my mind. He taught me to steer clear of all the negative crap that people love to shell out and to stay true to your team (coaches and players) through thick and thin. Growing up in Spokane and with my dad being a Washington State University alum, he would take me down to Pullman for all of the Cougar football games. These made up some of the best memories of my childhood. If you know much about Cougar Football, you know they are pretty bad so I witnessed a lot of losing. I still looked up to all of those coaches as if they were gods though partly because my dad never said a cross word about them and gave them nothing but respect. I took this example with me throughout the years as I followed other teams and as I ventured through my own athletic playing career.
So many of these armchair coaches feel that the two years they spent on their varsity high school football team makes them experts on the sport.  Give me a break. Playing a sport at a low level is much different from coaching it at a high level. I guess I should probably give these gridiron prepster all-stars some credit though because they actually have a wealth of experience compared to some of the people I hear sniffling about coaches and what they would do in their situation. Look, I would never think about critiquing a gymnastics coach. What right do I have to do that? The only gymnastics I ever participated in were the tumbling classes my mom enrolled me in when I was three years old. It is complete asinine to think that I could offer Bela Karolyi a couple pointers on how to get his gymnasts a couple more tenths of a point on the vault. Okay, let’s just make this general rule right now: If you have never competed at the level in which the coach you are criticizing is coaching at, just keep your mouth shut.  Without an iota of experience, you have absolutely no clue. And if you have not even played the sport in your whole life cause you were too lazy or did not have the guts to try out, don’t even think about criticizing in the first place.
Sometimes I don’t think these armchair coaches realize just how much knowledge and experience these coaches have. Let’s just start with assistant coaches at the college level on any Division I roster. If you read their bios you will quickly notice that many of these guys shined as collegiate players and a good majority of them had some professional experience. You will then notice that they have made numerous stops at other schools to finally arrive at their current spot. Take a look at their education too, many of them hold Master’s degrees.  Lots of these degrees are in areas such as Educational Leadership, Public Administration, Athletic Administration, etc. I mean their education is tailor-made for a career in coaching. If you read a biography of a head coach you will be amazed. You will go through a long list of prior coaching spots across the nation they once held, NFL stars they had coached, legendary coaches they had coached with, awards they have won, and degrees they hold. To think that some thirty year old dude with no college degree who never played football in his life feels he has the right to challenge the job performance of a coach is a joke.
Another thing that I have a problem with when it comes to these armchair coaches is they think they know more than a coach based on the three hours they invest on Saturdays to watch the game. They feel that by watching from the stands or from their couch while downing beers that they know how well a coach is doing based solely on whether the team wins or not. So many people are ignorant to the amount of time that coaches put in. They have no idea that coaches spend around 18-20 hours a day during the season preparing their team. They watch film, participate in coaches’ meetings, participate in players’ meetings, watch more film, deal with administrative issues pertaining to the team, conduct practice, deal with the media, fulfill community obligations, develop a game plan, create scouting reports, watch more film, and so much more. At the school I work at, the light is ALWAYS on in office of our head coach. There is absolutely no rest for these coaches. How can someone who only watches the game, a three hour event, believe they know more than a coach who spends close to 150 hours a week focusing solely on football and the given game that weekend?  Take a reality check and just don’t say a word.
Armchair coaches are the most impatient people in the world. They expect to win RIGHT NOW. They have absolutely no idea what it takes to make /maintain a winning program. They are clueless about why coaches do things the way they do. They know nothing about the challenges that will always occur when there is a coaching change. If you are a new coach at a program, watch out for the armchair coaches, especially if you are inheriting a traditional winning program. Armchair coaches have a tough time dealing with change. They are clueless on all the factors that go into the previous coaching staff leaving and believe that the transition should be seamless. They don’t think for one second that the previous coaching staff left because maybe they felt that the cupboard was a little more bare than usual. Don’t for one second think these armchair coaches will be fair human beings and give the new coaching staff a few years to implement their system with their players. It is just not in the WIN NOW nature of armchair coaches.
Earlier I made the point of saying that I would never critique a coach of a sport I did not play, especially when it came to anything game plan/technique related. Well let me close this post out by broadening this point a little more. Coaching is a profession. It is a very demanding and challenging profession. I would never try to say that I know more than someone who works in a profession that I have never had any education/experience in. Sorry, but  I am not going to pick on an electrical engineer and blast him in a bar or on a message board saying he has no idea how to do his job and then give pointers on what he could do to be halfway competent. Worry about your own job and your own career.
So as a new collegiate sports season is upon us, I ask all of you to be real sports fans. Support your team! If it is going to be a tough year, let your whole damn community know that you are going to support them through thick and thin and wear your team colors proudly. When some jerk disguised as a fan disses your team, find solace in the fact that you love your team no matter what and that your life is not so wrapped up in the final win-loss record that you must resort to insulting someone who has way more invested in that team than you ever will. Please, leave the coaching to the professionals. Stay classy everyone! Don’t Blink.

Naturally Dark

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I am one of those people who love to be outside. Living in Montana where the weather is pretty miserable for three quarters of the year, you learn to really savor the decent weather and the sunshine that comes from about the start of July through mid September. On the weekends during this time period, I take advantage of it to the max. I make it a point to hang outside as much as possible. I hike, float, swim, play sports, watch sports, go to festivals, and do my favorite things such as reading, blogging, and journaling outside. Because of my time outdoors, my skin darkens…a lot.
My mom is full Italian and she definitely passed along her darker skin complexion genes to me.  I could pretty much step outside the house and step back in during a 90 degree sunny day and gain some color. Lucky for me, I tan rather than burn except in rare circumstances. I guess you could say it is the one positive trait that I received in exchange for all the others I missed out on (good looks, naturally beautiful teeth, height, built body, pretty eyes, athleticism, good personality, smartness, skills with girls, etc. etc.).
When you combine the facts that I pretty much live outside during the summer weekends and that I tan incredibly easily, then you can probably imagine that I get pretty dark. This is definitely the case. During the summer, I probably receive ten comments a day on how tan I am. I get called black, Mexican, Arabian, Jamaican, and many more. When I was in Arizona this summer, there were several Mexican guests at my hotel. Numerous times these people would come up to me and start asking me questions in Spanish, believing that I was one of them. Three years in Spanish did teach me enough to remember “No hablo espanol.” People ask me what type of tropical vacation did I just get back from or they ask if I am keeping the sun all to myself. I don’t mind all these different types of comments. They do start to get old and I do look at myself in the mirror each day so I do know what I look like but I don’t mind them.
 What really bothers me is when people accuse me of fake tanning. This usually happens when I am out downtown and people who don’t know me, especially dumb dudes who don’t have lives and who have not one girl remotely close to them, decide to pop off at me. They might say something like “went a little too long in the tanning bed?” or “save some bronzer for the rest of the humanity.” When these losers say this to me I do defend myself. I should probably not give them the time of day and walk off but I don’t do that, especially not after a few drinks. I make sure it never gets physical but I do put them in their place. Ask me sometime how I do this.
The point of this post is that I just want to officially state to everyone that I have never fake tanned in my life. I have never set foot in a tanning bed, never bought an over the counter tanning product, never gotten sprayed. I hate the unnatural look that it produces and it just does not appeal to me to sit in some chamber or have someone cover my body in some weird mist. When I  think of fake tanning I think of bodybuilders who go absolutely over the top for their competitions and put so much artificial tanning garbage on themselves that they look disgusting. No thank you.
So please believe me when I say that I do not take measures to tan. I am simply a person who has a naturally darker skin complexion than most white people that is magnified during the summer.  Unless I commit some heinous crime and get locked up in solitary confinement in some hard nosed prison I will continue to look dark…this guido just loves the outdoors too much. Don’t Blink.

College Football vs. NFL Football: Easy Decision!!

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You don’t have to tell me, I know very well that the National Football League reigns supreme in this country compared to all other televised sports. The NFL is a gold mine and it is just not the league’s outrageous TV ratings that proves this. All you have to do is  talk to your friends, look on social media, watch Sportscenter, or  listen to any sports talk radio show to get that the NFL is king. The sheer fanaticism that resulted when preseason games started earlier this month showcased the wild popularity that the NFL enjoys.
Acknowledging this, however, I must include myself in the minority and say I believe there is something better in the sporting world than the NFL. There is something that I find more entertaining and more gripping. In fact, it is not even a different sport. I would watch college football over the NFL any day.
This is probably the understatement of the year, but a major reason why the NFL is so popular is because of fantasy football. This phenomenon has brought in so many people to the sport. I can’t believe all of my friends who eat, sleep, and breathe fantasy football. Shout out to my roommates who spend 5x as much time managing their fantasy teams as they do studying.  However, even without FF, people still prefer the NFL to college football. In my book though, I always look more forward to Saturdays than I do Sundays. I have many reasons for this.When it comes to the actual play, college football is better than the NFL because the style of play is so unique throughout the country. The NFL is just so homogenized. With free agency and a coaching fraternity where pretty much everyone is connected to each other in some way, you don’t get contrasting styles of play. Rather, the NFL comes down more to who makes the most big plays and who has the best players. With college football, you are going to get something new each week. You could have a team that is built on running it up the gut going against a team with an option offense. You might have a team that goes from the gun each play and passes 80% of the time matching up against a team that utilizes the wildcat offense. You could have a no huddle offense against a team that waits until the last second of the play clock to snap the ball. Each game is completely different. While each game between two different opponents features contrasting styles, you can look at the broader picture and see that each conference has a different style. This is why I love the opening week of the season and the ending of the season so much….you get to see teams from different conferences and different geographic regions bring their totally different styles of play and clash over the course of sixty minutes. I eat this type of stuff up.
Even before the games start, the buildup for a college football Saturday carries with it so much more excitement and intrigue than the hype before a new NFL week kicks off. ESPN’s College Gameday might be the best sports show in the business. On the Saturdays where we have home Griz football games I always watch “Gameday” before heading off to work, it gets me so excited for the day. How can you not get pumped watching Fowler, Corso, Herbstreit, and Erin Andrews on site at the campus of the biggest game of the week surrounded by jacked up students? I love how they go 100 miles per hour covering all the significant games across the nation while Corso plays to the crowd. The various NFL pregame shows on about four or five different stations just don’t get me psyched for the upcoming games. They take place in studios and the excitement and atmosphere is just missing.
College football is much more interesting to me because of what it takes to succeed. College football is so much more dependent on leadership, hard work, and drive than the NFL. I respect the heart of a champion so much more than the god-given natural talent of a champion. I like seeing people such as Tim Tebow succeed. His leadership and charisma rubbed off on everyone on those Florida teams and it made them all better. These personality skills that Tebow possesses magnified his physical skills and probably motivated him an extra notch while at UF. In the National Football League, they could care less. Without the option to utilize his personality skills in  the NFL he just  has his physical skills to fall back on and unfortunately they are not enough to cut it. These NFL guys pretty much had their whole offseason and mini camp training sessions wiped out because of the NFL lockout. Many of them are saying it is of little impact to them. Could you imagine where college teams would be if they had spring ball, summer conditioning, and most of fall drills canceled? It would be a disaster. I love the fact that college teams can still hold two-a-days and still wear full pads to practice a couple times a week. I admire that college football players balance school and a social life with their athletics.
College football players play for so much more than NFL players do. They play for their school, they play for their fans,and they play for their passion for the game. NFL players play mostly for a paycheck and for that next big contract extension. Go ahead and insert all the jokes you want about the rough offseason college football endured with improper benefits, the fact of the matter is that this is the exception and not the rule. No, majority of these athletes do not have shady boosters offering them thousands of dollars and new cars. Most of the kids in college football are laying it out there each day based solely on their love of the game.  How can you not respect that?
Another thing I prefer over the college game to the NFL game is the spirit. Any given college football game is much more spirited than an NFL game. Please do not confuse someone’s spirit level with their craziness level. College football is based on spirit while the NFL is based on pure bedlam. When you go into a college stadium you are going to be surrounded by passionate fans who are motivated by tradition, pride, and love for their school. When you go to an NFL game you are going to be surrounded by die hard middle aged men in jerseys whose lives depend on whether or not their team wins that day. While student sections at college football games get rowdy, not even 110,000 fans packed into The Big House at Michigan can muster up half of the drunken chaos that defines NFL games. I am completely fine with this. Give me the marching band, the cheerleaders, and the quirky mascots over the canned music filled, scream-until-you-die, anarchy-ridden atmosphere of NFL games.
The way a college season plays out is much more suspenseful than an NFL season. In college football, every single week is extremely important. Mess up once and your school’s season could end in disappointment. While this is kind of a bummer of a deal to see your team lose once and then be disqualified from a possible national championship berth (talking BCS right now), for a college football fan in general I think it is awesome. The storylines from week to week never get old. The anticipation and then the reaction of when the polls are released always generate great debate. In the NFL you can clinch a playoff spot and then rest your starters for sometimes several games, what a joke! This is never an option in college ball.
Finally, watching college football as opposed to the NFL is just so much more aesthetically pleasing. Seeing unique stadiums with years of history packed with fans clad in school colors engaged in chants is so much better than watching an Indianapolis Colts game in a dome or a game played on a field that still has a baseball field cut into it. Especially on television, a college football venue screams personality while an NFL field gives off a cold corporate feel.
I am so excited for this Saturday. With no home Griz Football game, I will be glued in front of my TV all day long. Block me on twitter now if you do not want to receive numerous tweets regarding my reaction to the games throughout the day. College football is here! From now until January it is going to be very easy to follow the best advice in the world; Don’t Blink.

2011 VMA’s: Great Start, Terrible Finish

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Last night, my roommates, Dan and Fawn, gathered into my room with me and we watched the 2011 Video Music Awards (VMAs) on MTV. This is always a must-see awards show for me. I like to watch it because first of all I am interested in the music and the artists themselves and second of all, I know the show is out there to be edgy and controversial and I like that. With that said, I thought the 2011 VMA’s really jumped the shark big time. Well, I want to give MTV some credit, I thought the first half of the show was pretty good but the second half was an absolute disaster. There are definitely improvements that need to be made.

This year the VMAs went without a host. I think a good host, someone who is really etched into pop culture at the time, helps with the appeal of the show. A talented and funny host for the VMA’s is a good thing because he/she can really let loose and provide outrageous monologues/jokes much more so than he/she could for any other awards show. Chelsea Handler hosted the show last year, Ben Stiller has done it in the past, same with Jack Black. I think someone like Daniel Tosh or maybe that really annoying actress from “Glee” (Susan Slyvester) could have been billed as the host. Did MTV not just have the budget to hire a team of writers for the show? Again, I think an awards show like the VMA’s calls for a host much more than other shows. However, I did enjoy the house artist concept. I thought Jessie J. did a great job singing going into the breaks/coming back to the show and she looked great doing it.

As I mentioned, the first half of the show was pretty good. Gaga opened the show which I hated (I will get to her later) but the other first half performances were not bad. I thought the Jay-Z and Kanye West performance was good. The Pitbull/Ne-Yo performance of “Give Me Everything” was expected but was pretty entertaining despite Pitbull’s ridiculous pants. I am not an Adele fan by any means but I do recognize a good voice when I hear one so she gets a pass from me. My favorite performance came from Chris Brown though. Yes, it was brutal on how obvious it was that he was lip-synching but his dance moves were out of this world. I am not a guy who gets too excited about flashy dance moves but some of the stuff Brown did last night in that opening sequence was down right crazy. I enjoyed watching him pretty much act out his whole performance while also flying in the air. I would definitely christen that a classic VMA performance.

I thought the award winners in the first half were pretty spot on as well. Once Nicki Minaj won best hip-hop video for “Super Bass” I was set though. As many of you know, I have a mild obsession with Minaj and “Super Bass” was by far my favorite song of the summer. It was a given that Katy Perry and Kanye West would win best collaboration and how can you argue with Britney Spears winning best pop video (“Till The World Ends”)? Speaking of Britney, I thought the tribute performance commemorating her lifetime achievement award was awesome. They had people dressed up as Brit from all her different videos as they played cuts from all of her major hits. I thought it was a cool concept and well executed. It sent the first half of the show out with a bang.

Unfortunately, once the second half of the show started, the wheels started to come off. So I know the VMA’s are voted on by the fans so it was a given that Justin Bieber was going to win best male video for “U Smile” but let’s take a moment to recognize the ridiculousness in this. First off, the award is for best VIDEO. How does the video of “U Smile” offer anything remotely interesting/flashy/cool/risky? The whole video is just Bieber playing the piano and singing in a hallway while he courts a girl. Totally basic and cheesy. Not only is the video lame, but the song is too. Bieber has way better songs than “U Smile.” Don’t think I ever took the time to listen to that song the whole way through…if I did I know I would have fallen asleep.

Speaking of winners that left me scratching my head, how about Tyler the Creator winning the award for best new artist? Excuse me, but who is Tyler the Creator? Did he really have a better year than Wiz Khalifa? Never mind the upset, I thought the award should have been taken away from him right after he gave that acceptance speech. Actually, I don’t even know if he delivered an acceptance speech because it was impossible to tell considering half of what he said was censored out. Have a clue dude and show a little bit of class up there. Sure it is the VMA’s but you could have at least used a couple of words in the English dictionary that expressed gratitude over winning the award. Maybe you could have dressed up a little too, the 1980’s called and they want their tye-dye back. But I guess who cares what you wear when you have all the friends that Tyler the Creator does. It seemed like he brought everyone up to the podium with him who lived on the same street he did growing up. I could have done without all the background noise and the flashing of signs, but I guess he wanted to make more of a statement considering the one he was verbally trying to make was pretty much completely blocked out.

Let me get to Lady Gaga real fast before I blast the second half performances. I don’t think I had ever been so annoyed and disturbed in my life as I was when I watched Gaga up on stage or the millions of times MTV cut to her in the seats. Dan, Fawn, and I could barely watch the screen when she was on. Okay, fine, if she wanted to dress/act like that for the opening segment I guess I could have stomached that but she took the whole Joey Caldrone thing way too far. I can’t stress it enough…it was just tough to watch. Gaga at the 2011 VMA’s is going to be one of those deals that will show up in five years on those TV shows that make fun of terrible pop culture moves.

The performances were bad. I am a Beyonce fan and I love “The Best Thing I Never Had” but I was bored by her performance. Didn’t like the song, didn’t get the normal Beyonce vibe that I usually do, and didn’t think she looked as good as usual. Of course that could have been because she was dressed pretty conservatively and because she is now pregnant. Am I the only one who was shocked to find out that when she revealed she was pregnant it broke Twitter records? More people tweeted per second during that moment than when Osama Bin Laden was killed.  That concerns me.

I could have cared less about Bruno Mars’ performance. The whole Amy Winehouse tribute just really did not resonate with me. What a mistake it was giving Russell Brand the opportunity to pay tribute to her. I mean, do people actually associate a shred of credibility/sensitivity with that guy? The whole time he was talking the three of us just talked about how much we hated him.

MTV saved the absolute worst for last though with Lil Wayne’s performance. It  bombed. I have  no idea why you would have someone perform at an awards show when the television audience is not going to have a chance to basically hear one lyric. Watching Lil Wayne strut aimlessly around the stage with his shirt off while all audio was cut for majority of the time was painful. And that was supposed to be the grand finale? I think “embarrassing” is the only way to describe that performance. Viewers deserve better than that. I could have had my TV on mute and gotten the same effect if I had the volume turned up.

MTV did not fully fail at the VMA’s this year. The first half of the show was good. Regrettably, the second half was pathetic. Next year, MTV needs to bring back a host, get performers who will be able to share their music with the television audience, maybe tweak their voting formula so fans (or teenage girls) do not get total control of who wins the awards, and concentrate on putting a full show together that meets basic standards. I am looking for a 2012 VMA’s show where Nicki Minaj cleans house. Don’t Blink.

Summer 2011

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As I write this, I am very mindful that I am living out the last few hours of Summer 2011. Tomorrow, classes start back up again at The University of Montana. Even though I am not a student, when school starts back up at campus it really signifies to me that the party is over. Campus is no longer the low key, ghost town type atmosphere that it had been over the past few months. Besides the fact that classes start tomorrow, September will also arrive this week, yet another sign  that my favorite season of the year has passed by. My workload will increase and increase over the days. I do like the fall but I am really going to miss the summer, especially Summer 2011.

This summer was one of the best of my life, I had an absolute blast. I traveled, met great people, hung with family/good friends, saw some great entertainment, basked in the sun, and really just lived it up.

Over the course of the past few months, I traveled over 15,000 miles. I visited places such as Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Vegas, Seattle, and Los Angeles. I made it to my hometown, Spokane, a few times over the summer. I got over to Kalispell a couple times and I got to visit beautiful Coeur d’Alene for cheer camp. I became well acquainted with airports and the full body scan security measure they just implemented. I got to see some amazing sites, eat some incredible food, visit some awesome bars/clubs, and experience the different ways that people live across the country. It was very enlightening.

While traveling and just being out and about this Summer, I had the opportunity to meet some really cool people. During the summer I have more time to invest in relationships and I made sure to really take advantage of this. During my trips, I made sure to make friends with as many people as possible. Because of this, I now have friends across the country who I still talk to on a regular basis all because of Summer 2011. I also met people local to me too. The way I met some of these people was absolutely crazy and I am going to need a whole blog post to tell you about it so stay tuned.

Although I met and got to hang out with a lot of new friends, I also got to spend considerable time with my family and good friends. My sister got married this summer and that proved an excellent opportunity for me to reconnect with relatives and friends who I had not seen in years. My brother and I got to do a lot with each other this summer and we really had some amazing times. Some of the situations we found ourselves in were crazy and we will remember them for the rest of our lives, unfortunately, I will not be blogging about those J . He accompanied me on three of my big trips, making me feel very fortunate that he was able to do so. I also got to travel to Vegas with my good friend, Dan. Once again, one word describes that experience: Memories.

I had no shortage of entertainment this summer. I got to see eight Major League Baseball games (two games at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, three games at Safeco Field in Seattle, and three games at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles) and four concerts (Sara Bareilles, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, and Toby Keith). Watching these games/performances as a true spectator was so refreshing because for a living I help put on sporting events and have very little time to truly enjoy them. The main highlights for me were watching the Dodgers-Nationals series in Dodger Stadium with my brother and then getting to see Toby Keith live in concert.

Basically, I just lived life to the fullest these past few months. June was definitely one of the most crazy months of my life. I lived like a rock star and actually felt like one too. July was a more low key month that was highlighted by my new job at work, my trip to Los Angeles, lots of Osprey games, and a couple of special people. August was the month marked by amazing concerts and lots of outdoor activities. Combined together, those three months added up to a memorable summer.

Now I look ahead to the fall and must leave behind all of the “Party Rocking,” “Super Bassing,” and “Blue Jean Nights”  that kept me rocking all summer long. If I make Fall 2011 half as good as Summer 2011, it will surely be a very good next few months. Let’s do it. Don’t Blink,

An Amazing Olive Garden Experience

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If you read my blog posts and think that I am a little too negative, I am sorry. As I looked back at some of my past work I definitely noticed I wrote more negative posts than positive ones. I am definitely a positive person by nature and I want my posts to reflect that more. I will make a better effort to do so (case in point, this post).
I am not an Olive Garden fan. I think it is the most overrated, hyped up restaurant in the United States. Maybe it is because I live in Missoula where there is no Olive Garden and everyone here hails it as God’s gift to the world. Maybe it is because I dated a girl who worked at the Olive Garden. Or maybe it is just because the food is not very good and the breadsticks are bland as hell. I actually think it is all three of those reasons why I detest it so much. I would take Johnny Carino’s over Olive Garden any day in a heartbeat. Stay with me, I do promise this post will turn positive.
Last week when cheer camp ended, we headed off to the Coeur d’Alene Olive Garden for lunch before we set back to Missoula. Of course most of the team was psyched for pasta and unlimited salad and breadsticks…my excitement was more for the fact that the meal was free. Little did I know that we were going to have one of the best servers I had ever had at a restaurant.
We rolled up to the Olive Garden with a party of 31. If a group of 31 people in the 18-24 age demographic does not piss off waiters/waitresses to begin with, you know you have a special crew working at your restaurant. We tried to make it easy for the restaurant by saying that we did not need to be seated together. Thus, we were seated in groups of around five or six in pretty close proximity to each other.
At my table we  had my two mascots and then two cheerleaders plus myself. Although we were a very well behaved table with good manners, there was really no reason why our server (wish I would have made note of her name) had to treat us like absolute gods and goddesses…but she did. Despite already having the 18% gratuity locked down with no chance to receive less of a tip or more of a tip, she served us as if we had the power to leave her with a million dollars. I always feel awful, and I can always kind of sense the frustration of the server, when he/she comes over to take your order and someone asks for a couple more minutes to order. We definitely did that and she just smiled and said of course. She then came back over for the second time and after the third person in our party had ordered, she realized that everyone was ordering pasta so she took the initiative to show us on one of the hidden menus that the restaurant was currently offering their famous “never ending bowl of pasta.” Well, obviously all of us wanted to order that and this of course made it so that she had to scratch our initial orders and once again give us more time to decide on what combination of pasta/sauce we wanted. Not only did it delay the chances of her putting our order in once again, she also now knew that we were all getting something on the menu that was cheap and that would involve a lot of additional work for her (going back and forth getting more pasta for us).
When we finally put in our order and had asked a thousand different questions on the shape/type/texture of the various pastas, she still had her same positive attitude and said “I will bring out your bread and salad/soup as soon as possible so we can get you caught up with the rest of your group.” We had been the last five to get seated so we were behind the rest of our party in the order we were getting our food. This effort by our server impressed me. Our two mascots were drinking their raspberry lemonades like they were going out of style but never once were they without the red stuff for more than one minute as our server was busting her ass back and forth to make sure they had their refills. Our bread and soup/salad was delivered promptly to us and I am not kidding when I say the breadsticks, for once in my life at Olive Garden, were amazing. Our food came at the perfect time, right when we finished with our salad/soup. Upon presenting our food to us, taking special care to make sure no one touched a hot plate, she ran back to the kitchen and brought us out more breadsticks.
Now usually not too many people who get the never ending bowl of pasta end up getting a second plate just because you really do get stuffed after the first one, no matter how noble your intentions were going in. Well, we all pretty much felt this way but one of my mascots had the idea of asking the waitress if he could order a second plate just to be boxed up so he could take it home with him. I told him it defeated the whole purpose of the deal, that it was a cheap move, and that she would probably say it was against the restaurant’s policy. But then I told him the answer is always NO unless you ask so he might as well give it a shot. He asked our waitress if she could do this for him and she thought about it for a second and said “I am really not supposed to do that but if I bring out a plate for you, you can take one bite out of it to show that you had intent to eat it and then I will box it up for you.” She then asked everyone else at the table if we wanted to do the same thing as well! Amazing.
Our server brought out my mascot his plate and then boxed it up right on the spot for him, even allowing him to bypass the whole “take one bite to make it official” ordeal. She then went on to ask us if we would like any soft drinks/lemonade in to-go cups for us to take on our trip back to Missoula. Our two cheerleaders both got Diet Cokes. I had never seen a server go so out of her way to make it so that a group of kids who could be of no benefit to her had the dining experience fit for five star restaurant customers.
As we were getting ready to go, she talked to us about the camp and how we did. She showed genuine interest. She then offered us the famous Olive Garden mints that come with the bill even though we did not have a bill. Lastly, she wished us a safe trip and thanked us for coming in. No, thank you!!
For that one day, I was an Olive Garden fan. There are people out there who do their job to the best of their ability no matter what the circumstances are, who is watching them, or how they can benefit. Our radio play-by-play man here at the University signs off with the slogan “be at your best when your best is needed.” This lady who served us at the Olive Garden on Friday is one of those people who is always at their best, no matter if it is needed or not. We all need to be more like that. Don’t Blink.

Georgetown vs. China BasketBrawl

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While I was at cheerleading camp last week I kind of fell behind in the sporting world. While I was tucked away from the real world and in a land where beautiful girls roamed seemingly every square inch around me and instead of speaking in the English language you spoke in cheers, quite a bit happened. On Sunday night I had a little time to catch up on my passion and beyond all of the NFL preseason hype, the college football previews, and the escalating baseball pennant races, one thing jumped ahead of them all and grabbed my attention…
Could you believe the Georgetown-China basketball exhibition brawl on Thursday night? I only have one word to describe that scene: Scary. I love how Georgetown was trying to do something to give their athletes some culture, an exposure to a different kind of high level basketball, and an experience of a lifetime but come on, you had to do it in China?
Going to a foreign country where relations are icy with your home country is risky in itself. But did Georgetown do any research on the opponents they were going to play once they got to China? Georgetown was playing a professional Chinese basketball team, the Bayi Rockets. The professional league the Rockets play in is characterized by on-court fighting and skirmishes. When you take your team to the other side of the world into a vastly different culture and into the middle of a league that functions more like a fight club than a basketball association, don’t you think there is the potential for problems?
Okay, so maybe it was not a bright move by Georgetown but there is still absolutely no excuse for the bizarre conditions that the game was played  under. The various articles I read when researching this story said there were a half dozen altercations before the main brawl in the fourth quarter. A half dozen altercations? In a league that is known for fighting, any single altercation that happens should result in an ejection (s). If this was the case, at least one of the teams would have been hurting to continue the game because they would be so low on players and the youtube sensation would never have happened. Well, it became obvious that Georgetown had their work cut out for them to begin with. Forget the team of hooligans they were playing against and forget the hostile crowd, their main opponent might well have been the referees. I still laugh at this stat because of its complete absurdity: The Bayi Rockets outshot Georgetown on free throws by the count of 57 to 15. Enter as many synonyms for ridiculous that you can think of and mash them altogether and that phrase will only do about half way justice to that free throw disparity line. That is a complete joke.
So on Thursday night when a Bayi player mobbed a Georgetown player on a rare foul that was actually called, of course the Georgetown player was going to tell the Bayi player what he thought about it. However, there was no need for two of the Chinese players to pummel him for doing so. This of course set off the brawl. If you have not watched this video yet, you got to take look. Karate kicks and defenseless blows were what the Chinese team resulted to. After they had thrown enough of those in,  they decided to throw something else: chairs. You can’t get more bush league than using chairs in a fight. The way they were swinging those things was crazy. Yes, I do realize that one Georgetown player ended up  with a chair in his hands as well but that was after he was hit with one. The poor freshman player had to have thought his life was in danger. And you know, the sad thing is, it very well could have been. The security was more non-existent than Kevin Durant at Rucker Park. There was no one but the Georgetown coaches to restore any order in that situation. Several members of the crowd which was full of idiots were down on the floor throwing chairs as well. One fan was even swinging around a stanchion. That situation could have gotten a lot uglier if Georgetown did not have the presence of mind to quickly get off the court and to say the hell with the rest of the game.
So Georgetown was dumb to play the game in the first place and smart to end it when they did but they still had one more decision to make: Finish their tour with a game against the Shandong Flaming Bulls or cancel the rest of the tour and go home. If it was me, I would have gotten the hell out of that country that night. But Georgetown stayed and the game went on without incident. You can say Georgetown either had guts or stupidity, you make the call.
I admit it, sometimes I like seeing teams brawl in sports. However, I like the kind where it is in a controlled atmosphere with professional game officials and a strong security force that has a firm handle on everything. I don’t like seeing two different cultures battling it out in an out of control, chair throwing, one sided nightmare. Next time, Georgetown might just want to stay home during the offseason. Don’t Blink.

Meeting Toby Keith

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On Thursday night, I had the opportunity to go see Toby Keith live in concert at Northern Quest Casino in Spokane. Prior to seeing him, my bucket list of people I needed to see in concert were Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith. This was a huge deal to me. A couple years ago Toby came to the Spokane Arena but I was in New York and missed it. Even though I was watching Yankees games and Mets games in the Big Apple, I felt terrible that I missed a chance to see one of my all-time favorite artists perform.
I almost thought I was going to miss Toby again this time around. As I blogged about last night, I was in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, for a cheerleading  camp. I thought I would be locked in at the hotel with our squad on Thursday night. However, on Monday of last week I learned that I would be able to skip out for a few hours and attend the concert. Immediately upon hearing this news I jumped on stubhub (read my blog about stubhub) and bought a couple tickets. No price was going to make me miss this show.
On Thursday night, my brother was nice enough to come down from Spokane and pick my boss (Christie) and I up at the hotel we were staying at during the camp. We then made the drive out to Northern Quest Casino. If you remember my Reba concert experience from last week, you know that Northern Quest Casino was the venue that she performed in as well. Not a bad couple weeks for concerts at Quest. Just like for the Reba show, the weather was perfect. Comfortable temperature, light wind, little humidity. Christie and I were ready to rock.
The first opening act was J.T. Hodges, a relatively new face on the country music scene. Before going in, I knew of one song of his, “Hunt You Down,” as it has received quite a bit of air time on CMT. During his set he also sang a song about small towns that both Christie and I liked. He probably only played about six songs, which is custom for the first opening act in a show where there are multiple opening acts. He seemed cool and definitely had a good voice. I will look for him as more of his stuff comes out.

                                   JT Hodges performing on Thursday night.

Christie and I watched J.T. Hodges from afar but after he finished we moved right up to the front of the stage where my brother and I were for Reba. Once again, no one said a word to us as we  got a better view than most people who were shelling out major dollars to have seats close to the stage.
One of my favorite young country singers, Eric Church, was the second (and final) opening act. I saw Church once before in a small venue a few years ago and even though his only big hit at the time was “Guys Like Me,” I really enjoyed his show. Fast forward three years and about five hits later and I was psyched to see Eric Church perform again. This guy was great. He came out on stage drinking beer and shooting water into the crowd and he kept a high level of energy throughout the whole show. He has a cockiness to him that reminds me a lot of Jack Ingram which I liked. I went nuts when he sang “Hell on the Heart,” my favorite Eric Church song. I thought his performance of it in concert was better than on his album. Church has a large contingent of female fans who are obsessed with him. I think every single one of them showed up for the Spokane concert. At the end of his set, Church chugged two Busch Light beers on stage and then exited. Graceful.

                               Eric Church during his set. Great performer.

Toby Keith has a reputation for doing everything big. His concerts are not just concerts, they are major productions. Pyrotechnics, large video screens, and crazy lights are all characteristics of his shows. On Thursday night, all of these things were present. Before he came out a video played on the large screen in the back of the stage with a bunch of talking dogs setting the tone for Toby’s performance. Once the video ended, Toby stormed the stage singing “Bullets in the Gun.” He then transitioned right into “Made in America” and the show was on. Toby himself is larger than life. While he was up on stage I got to see how it is no lie that he is 6 feet 4 inches. I would guess he is around 250 pounds. As I mentioned with Reba, when you are such an established star with so many hits, your concert is going to be exciting the whole way through. Toby spread out his best songs perfectly throughout the show.

                             Toby’s opening video before he took the stage.

One person asked me on Friday if the crowd at the show was crazy. You know, I would not say it was too out of control. To be honest, when it comes to our little area by the stage, I would say Christie and I were the ones having the most fun. We were dancing and yelling while other people kind of just looked on. Yes, we were those annoying people at the concert who were belting out the lyrics with Toby instead of letting him just take it away himself. Who cares, we were having fun.
                               We were pretty close to Toby!!
Toby sang one of my all-time favorite country songs of all time, “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” towards the end of his set, and I would say it was my fondest memory of the concert. He played to the audience when he sang his bar song classics such as “Get Drunk And Be Somebody,” “Good As I Once Was,” and “I Love This Bar.” Toby also sang a song called “Get Out of My Car” which I had never heard before but was hilarious! Believe me, google it and read the lyrics. He sang Elvis’ “Little Less Conversation” which was a nice surprise. For his encore he sang his patriotic songs, “American Soldier” and “Angry American.” For “Angry American” his passion and heart was delivered in every single lyric and the fireworks were shooting up in the air. It was a great moment.

                                            Our view of Toby…no zoom!!

I left the outdoor concert venue at Northern Quest thinking I had been about ten feet away from Toby Keith and that was the closest I was ever going to get to the Big Daddy in my life. Little did I know that during that night, the ten feet was going to change to about ten inches.
After the concert, my brother, Christie, and I ate dinner at The Q, a restaurant inside Quest. After dinner we hit the tables for a little gaming. Christie and I played Spanish 21 while Glen played Blackjack. After we had had enough, we started to walk out when suddenly I saw something strange. I looked to the other side of the Quest casino floor and I saw two large men standing behind a chair at one of the Three Card Poker tables. This immediately looked out of place to me so I looked down to who they were standing above…it was Toby Keith.
There was absolutely no mistaking that it was Toby Keith. As I have said in previous posts, I do not get star struck but if there is anyone who I have deep celebrity admiration for, it is Toby Keith. I excitedly told Glen and Christie that we were going to go over to the table. We crossed over and I had Glen sit down a couple seats from Toby and had him buy-in so that he could say he gambled with Toby Keith! We watched them gamble for a couple minutes before I got the nerve to speak up.
I used the exact same line I used on Sunny Sweeney the week before: “Hey Toby, that was a great show!”
Toby Keith looked over his right shoulder, realized it was me who said that to him, and then he stretched out his clenched fist and gave me a pound! He then moved his fist in Christie’s direction and gave her a pound and asked us how we were doing! I then told him that we had come all the way from Missoula to see him in concert (which was a lie because we were already in Coeur d’Alene for cheer camp but I thought it sounded good). He then responded that he and his band flew into Missoula so they could go vacation in Big Sky! He then asked us how far Missoula was from where he was at right now. I personally could not imagine how draining it must be on tour, going from place to place. After a while everything all has to blur together and you completely lose your sense of direction/geography. We then asked him about where he was going to go next (it was Portland, Oregon). After a little more small talk he thanked us for coming out and returned to his gambling.
A couple observations about Toby from our encounter with him:
*He is an extremely nice guy who takes the time to acknowledge his fans even when he is trying to relax after a long show.
*When we got up close to him, his facial features were pretty much just the same as anyone else. Sometimes celebrities go through plastic surgery/botox/etc. that really distinguish themselves from average joes but not Toby.
*Toby’s real distinguishing feature is his voice!!! When he talked, it was vintage Toby Keith. His voice does not change when he is on stage, when is doing interviews, or when he is talking to his fans. I will always remember for the rest of my life him addressing Christie and I in his signature deep, southern drawl.
*His drink of choice: Michelob Ultra
*Toby was gambling $100 on his main bet. He also had $100 on the bonus bet. In Three Card Poker after you see your hand you have to match your initial bet if you feel that you are going to beat the dealer before the dealer turns over his/her cards. Toby bet it regardless of what his hand was every single time. Obviously, this meant that each hand Toby was betting $300.
*At one point, Toby re-bought for $2,000. He gave the dealer twenty $100 bills. It was cool watching the dealer sprawl the twenty bills all across the table (yes, Floor was called).
*Believe it or not, Toby stiffed the dealer when they changed out while members of his band tipped him. Toby very well could have set up something with Quest where they were tipped in a less public fashion.
The three of us were the first people to spot Toby. However, more and more people started to catch on and they started to crowd around the table. Christie was having a great time chatting up Toby’s big and bald body guard. He gave her some very interesting information about the tour. As the crowd started to grow and grow and with Glen at about even on his gambling at the table, we decided to head out. We said our goodbyes and went back to Coeur d’Alene. The whole experience reaffirmed to me the advice I live by: Don’t Blink.

                                     Christie and I had a great time!

This One Time, At Cheer Camp…

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The past three days I was in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, accompanying our spirit squad to Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) camp. It was definitely an interesting experience but absolutely worth it. First, let me give some background.
When I refer to the spirit squad, I am talking about The University of Montana Spirit Squad which consists of our cheer team, dance team, and mascot program. As many of you know, I work in the athletic department at UM as the Director of New Media. One of the duties that I brought over from my old position as assistant marketing director to this new position is the role of mascot coordinator. This was a year where we decided to take our two performers who play Monte to camp so naturally I went along with them. UCA is the best cheerleading organization in the nation. They hold camps, workshops, and competitions around the country that are wildly popular. If you ever turn on ESPN and you see the cheerleading competitions in Disneyworld, that’s UCA. Also under its umbrella, UCA has the Universal Dancers Association (UDA).
On Wednesday morning, our group of around 40 (cheer squad, dance team, two mascots, and four coaches), piled into five suburbans and made the drive to Coeur d’Alene. I drove one of the suburbans and I am one of those drivers who never stops for anything on any drive that is under five hours. Well, when you are transporting lots of females you better be ready to stop for numerous bathroom breaks. We arrived in Coeur d’Alene and after lunch we went to North Idaho College, the host campus for the camp. We went into the gym for the welcome and we were introduced to the staff instructors. The staff consisted of elite cheerleaders, dancers, and a mascot who competed (or are still competing) at the college level. Anyway, they welcomed us by performing a routine that was loaded with cuts from “Party Rock Anthem,” “Give Me Everything Tonight,” and “Yeah 3X”…you know, everything you pretty much expected. After that, we broke into our individual sessions.

                             At the hotel getting ready to go to the North Idaho campus.

Before I talk about our individual sessions though, let me communicate how out of place I felt initially at the camp. When you go to a cheerleading camp, you are in a different world. You are around hundreds of collegiate cheerleaders who are passionate about cheerleading. You are around a staff that is obsessed with every little thing about cheerleading. You are around cheerleading coaches who eat, breathe, and sleep cheerleading. If you attend a camp like this and you are not a cheerleading fanatic, you are going to feel a little awkward. I knew what to expect a little because I attended UCA National in Orlando this past January but I still felt weird. I felt like I had absolutely nothing to offer. I watched as all these people worked their asses off and I kind of just watched. As time went on though I felt a little more comfortable. Being with such a great squad really helped with that.

                                        Our Cheer Squad working hard.

As I mentioned, I was at camp for the mascots so I attended their sessions. Besides Montana, we were joined by Butch from Washington State and then two students from the University of Idaho who play the role of Joe Vandal. Instructing the mascot campers was a dude named Kendall, a guy with an outrageous personality who performed as the mascot of the Baylor Bears during his collegiate career. This dude was one of those people with a “who cares?” attitude who does anything on his mind. He was a great dancer and a great storyteller, I laughed throughout the whole time he was instructing us. During our sessions with Kendall, the mascots were given verbal instruction/lectures/advice from Kendall, they performed on campus in random spots, and they practiced a skit they performed on the last day of camp. I was able to pull some cool stuff out of what Kendall said and I hope to use it to make our mascot program even better.

                                  The mascots huddling up with Kendall

While we were doing our mascot thing, the cheerleaders and dancers were hard at work in their individual sessions learning dances/cheers and being evaluated by the UCA staff. Each day they were stressed to the max because they were having so many different routines thrown at them that they had to learn. When sessions were not going on, the dancers, cheerleaders, coaches, and mascots were together. We stayed at the Best Western and we ate meals together, carpooled to the campus together, and got to know each other better. This was so valuable to me because I see these people every single day coming in and out of my boss’ office (she is the director of the Spirit Squad), work with them when it comes to music at basketball games, and see them at our many offsite non-athletic appearances Grizzly Athletics participates in during the season but I don’t really get to spend time really getting to know them. This trip I got to do that. Throw out any personality stereotypes you have of collegiate dancers and cheerleaders when it comes to the UM Spirit Squad. Let me tell you, they are some of the nicest and sweetest people you will meet. They very easily could have rolled their eyes at me because A. I was with the mascots and B. I did not really do much at all but they didn’t.
I also got to know our cheer coach and our new dance coach better. I also got to spend time with my boss in a different type of setting which was good. The first night we were there, the four of us coaches hung out in the hotel lounge with the coaches from other schools and people on the UCA staff. We then moved onto an Irish bar called Paddy’s. It is definitely an experience drinking with cheer coaches. They start busting out routines from their glory days and make sure the entire place is focused on them. It is pretty hilarious. I felt out of place at first but I continued to drink and then it seemed as if I just fit right in!! Continuing my theme on bonding experiences, my boss and I went to the Toby Keith concert on the last night but that is an entirely different blog post for tomorrow…stay tuned, it will be great!

   From left to right: Christie (Asst. AD/Spirit Squad Director/My boss), Megan (Dance Coach), Jenny (Cheer Coach)

So how did our squad do? I could not have been prouder of our mascots as they were awarded CAMP CHAMP and the Leadership Award. They cleaned up and were by far and away the best mascots there. Our dance team took home the First Place Superior Award and First Place Fight Song Award. Our cheerleaders received Third Place Game Planning Award. It was a very successful camp and I felt so lucky to be associated with The University of Montana Spirit Squad.

                                     Our Montes with their trophies

                                     Some of our dancers with their hardware

Did I come back to Missoula with a cheerleading obsession? Did I decide to watch “Bring It On” to relive camp memories? Did I look up cheerleading stunts on youtube? No, no, and no. But what I did come back with was a newfound respect for all of the hard work that our spirit squad puts forth to be as good as they are and a stronger relationship with the young adults that make up that squad. Not bad for a few days. Don’t Blink.

                                  Our wonderful UM Spirit Squad