Turning Blue?

Following Obama’s electric oratory in Mile High Stadium, the best performance there since John Elway in 1998, the Democratic National Convention wound down and left pundits to pour over tracking polls and the electoral map. One state that has been long identified as a battleground is the usually red state of Virginia. Having elected Democratic governor Tim Kaine in 2005, then Democratic Senator Jim Webb in 2006, the DNC is hoping that former Governor Mark Warner can complete the trifecta in 2008 by filling the other senate seat. Obama did well in the primary there, and hopes to have it in the win column in November. Recent polls indicate that this is a distinct possibility, with the candidates running a dead heat.

With USC playing its opener against the University of Virginia, I had the opportunity to witness part of this newly “purple” state in person. I flew to Richmond where I stayed the night before the game. Looking around this former capital of the Confederacy, I was reminded that this state is below the Mason-Dixon line. And this part of it is way below the line! Pundits have described Virginia as being two states: Northern Virginia connected economically and culturally to Washington and Baltimore, and the rest of Virginia. Richmond, it seems, is in the “rest of Virginia.” Southern hospitality abounded. Grits accompanied my game-day pancakes. A local radio station described a party they were throwing as the “most fun you can have without turning left.” (NASCAR is big down here)

The game was held on the UVa campus in Charlottesville. As we drove the 50 miles between Richmond and Charlottesville, I saw a grand total of two Obama bumper stickers. Thomas Jefferson’s university is nestled the gorgeous foothills of the Appalachians. Shrouded in mid-Atlantic deciduous forest, the university that Jefferson founded and designed is designated as an UNESCO world heritage site. Interestingly, Jefferson created the school in 1819 as a secular institution, unlike other schools of that era. Most American universities that date back to the start of the 19th century or before were linked to a particular Christian sect, had a seminary as their first professional school, and arrayed the campus around a church at the center. Reflecting his own philosophy of an educated populace being essential to the stability of democracy, Jefferson placed his library at the center of Virginia’s campus (and blocked the study of Theology).

We climbed the hills traversing the campus up to the stadium and into the blazing hot August sun. The Cavalier’s home field is beautiful: set into one of the bigger hills on campus, a horseshoe capped on one end by a sloped lawn and wooden trellis. But apparently the only people that call students at Virginia “Cavaliers” are people from outside UVa. Virginians refer to themselves as “Hoos”, short for Wahoos. It comes from a school cheer dating back to 1890, “Wah-Hoo-Wah”. The stadium sings their school song (set to the tune of Auld Langsyne) after each touchdown, followed by the cheer. Of course, we only got to hear the song once, thanks to the brilliant play of the USC defense. But we did hear the Cavalier . . . er . . . the Hoo band plenty throughout the game. They actually mic the band and amplify them over the stadium loudspeakers.

Mic the band? Really?

With a final score of 52-7, the game mercifully ended, not soon enough for the Hoos. As we headed back to Richmond, I wondered what did I learn from my trip?

1. The University of Virginia campus is as beautiful as advertised.
2. A purple clad Cavalier on horseback is a much more impressive mascot than a Hoo.
3. Mark Sanchez is a smoking hot quarterback and the USC offense is better than expected.
4. The USC defense is as good as expected.
5. Obama may have a chance in Northern Virginia, but Richmond was the capital of the confederacy for a reason.
6. It’s a good year for the USC Song Girls.

Fight On,
Hans

PS: A Newsweek article earlier this year described Cindy McCain as a USC “Cheerleader” (not SongGirl). If that’s true it sets up an agonizing choice for November: Brilliant, inspiring leadership from an eloquent agent of change vs. having a USC Song Girl as a first lady. Hmmm . . . . Then again, I suppose that is just the kind of misogyny that is driving “life long Democrats” from Hillary over to Palin. Unfortunately, Newsweek’s assertion has yet to be confirmed and is in fact refuted by several university blogs, including by someone claiming to be her sorority sister.

Coldest Winter

It is hard to not be inspired to write when I am sitting 31 stories into the sky at desk set before a panoramic view of San Francisco bay. I am watching the mighty Pacific marine layer slowly pull away its veil from the water and bridges of the bay. Each day, the ocean rolls tendrils of cool mist across the city and most afternoons it releases its icy grasp to give the citizens of San Francisco a few hours of sun-drenched relief. This cycle of cool morning fog and hot afternoon sun is a pain for city dwellers but a blessing to the grape vines in the valleys to the north. Without it, and we would never know the smooth buttery-oak flavor of a good Napa Chardonnay.

The biggest problem with San Francisco’s unusual weather patterns is that it actually gets colder in summer time. That can be quite a shock when you step off a plane from Iowa where it’s just above 80 during the day and just below 80 at night. Dressing for that weather is fairly straightforward: just grab a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and you’re good to go all day. But in a San Francisco summer your attire ranges from jeans and a fleece for your morning stroll to Starbucks to short sleeved shirt at the farmer’s market in the afternoon, and back to windbreaker in the evening when that bitter wind comes sweeping off the bay. No wonder Mark Twain wrote, “The coldest winter of my life was the summer I spent in San Francisco”

Just one problem: he never wrote that!

According to Snopes.com and a Mark Twain biography site, no evidence of that quote has ever been found among his works. However, in 1879, he did write that that last time “he could recall such a cold winter was last summer.” Unfortunately, he was referring to a summer in Paris, not San Francisco. With all due respect to America’s greatest humorist, I have been to Paris in summer and found it to be quite pleasant. Cool, yes, but pleasant. San Francisco is not.
Mr Twain (er . . . Mr Clemens) certainly would have known about the weather in San Francisco, where he worked as a newspaper correspondent starting in 1864 with the San Francisco Daily Morning Call. He gained national attention the next year when his story, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" was published in the New York Saturday Press. From there he went on to publish other travel-related stories in Newspapers and Magazines until his first book was released in 1867. The rest, as they say is . . . well, you know.

Mark Twain was in San Francisco for that city’s 1865 earthquake (not the “real” great one of 1906). Here’s how he described his experience:

“A month afterward I enjoyed my first earthquake. It was one which was long called the "great" earthquake, and is doubtless so distinguished till this day. It was just after noon, on a bright October day. I was coming down Third street. The only objects in motion anywhere in sight in that thickly built and populous quarter, were a man in a buggy behind me, and a street car wending slowly up the cross street. Otherwise, all was solitude and a Sabbath stillness. As I turned the corner, around a frame house, there was a great rattle and jar, and it occurred to me that here was an item!–no doubt a fight in that house.”

I am sure Twain rushed back to his desk to write his newspaper story, but I wonder what he had for a view to inspire him. I can be certain that he didn’t have the vantage I am enjoying from 31 floors up in my hotel. Yet back in Twain’s day there were some hotels with spectacular views.

One of these fabulous old hotels is the San Francisco Fairmont. Perched atop Nob Hill, a ridge straddling downtown and Chinatown, the Fairmont, along with its antique twin the Mark Hopkins, enjoys an ideal location, assuming you don’t have to walk up to them from far below in Union Square. My wife Kristi was fortunate enough to have a business dinner event in the Crown Room at the Fairmont, a room with by far the best view in the house. She sipped a flight of Napa wines as day turned to dusk and dusk turned to night. To her left, the Golden Gate Bridge was bathed in the rays of the setting sun as it valiantly held the icy marine layer at bay for a few more precious hours. Ahead, stood the Transamerica Pyramid, Coit Tower, and all the lights of downtown stirring to life as the sun faded from the sky. And to her right lay the Oakland Bay Bridge, the arts district of SoMa (South of Market) and Pacific Bell Park . . . er. . . AT&T Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants.

The view from the Fairmont is certainly wonderful now. But it was not so pleasant when it first opened. It just so happens that the hotel opened in 1906, only a couple of weeks before the “real” great San Francisco earthquake (and two years after Twain’s death). The structure survived the quake but was damaged by the fire. Her grand opening was to be delayed one full year, when the gala event featured 300 lbs of turtle, 13,000 oysters, and fireworks over the bay. Why did they serve turtle? I have no idea- I’m sure it made sense to them at the time. Kristi was not served turtle- she enjoyed grilled vegetable risotto and a white chocolate tulip with fresh raspberries. But she says she would have been happy to try the turtle and oysters.

Where was I during this enchanting spectacle? Her dinner was not open to spouses, so I was on my own for those couple of hours. In case she decided to leave the dinner early, I chose to make myself available at a moment’s notice by taking up a perch on a barstool in the same building. I hurried through the night up Nob Hill from Union Square (when I say up, I really mean up- see “crappy location of Fairmont”, above). I had expected to wait in the lobby bar- an opulent yet sterile and predictable ambiance of neo-classical extravagance. But when I arrived at the hotel I was intrigued by the name of another bar, this one in the basement: the Tonga Room.

At a glance, I knew the Tonga room was my kind of cheesy. Tiki figures, bamboo walls, thatch roofs over the tables, a pool with floating boat, and even a simulated thunderstorm with flashing lights and rain from overhead sprinklers every 30 minutes. The dance floor is decorated like the deck of a sailing ship- complete with rigging and part of a sail. What is kind of cool is that the rigging and wood railing is actually from a real ship: the SS Forrester. The Forester was one of the last tall ships to make regular trips between San Francisco and the South Pacific. She would carry California lumber and other products to exotic Pacific ports and return with coral, crafts, and tropical hardwoods. And now its gutted remains sit mostly unrecognized in this tourist trap of a bar.

I settled into a corner barstool, ordered a daiquiri, and amusingly took in the wonderfully cliché surroundings. I about fell off my barstool laughing when my drink came- complete with one of those tiny paper umbrellas! The extreme irony that I would find such a wonderfully cheesy place in the heart of San Francisco’s most prestigious hotel kept me smiling all night. To continue the tropical drink theme, I next ordered a Mai-Tai.

Oops.

A word of caution to those seeking to imitate this travelogue: don’t order the Mai-Tai unless your single goal of the evening is to become intimate with the underside of your table.

Kristi found me an hour later curled up on a couch in the lobby. No, I am not quite sure how I got there. But I do remember purring contently as I nestled into the 400 thread count throw pillows while listening to the antics of three teenagers from France on the next couch over. Kristi rescued me from my stupor and poured me into a cab for our ride back to our own hotel. Next time, we should stay at the Fairmont- I gotta try another one of those Mai-Tai’s!

Fight On,

Hans

PS: The Underdog Pool starts in one month- get ready. If you are now ready for a trip to the Fairmont and the Tonga Room, USC plays at Stanford November 11th. Mai-Tai's go great with the sweet taste of revenge.

What to do when it's 0 degrees

Tonight, much of country watched the Frozen Tundra of Lambeax Field with a voyeuristic, ghoulish fascination at playing football in below freezing weather. "Ice Bowl II!" "Isn't great how Brett Favre plays in lousy weather" "Those Packer fans are just amazing" What is easy to forget in the midst of this spectacle that we are enjoying from 70 degree living rooms is that we expect these professional football players to entertain us despite the ridiculous conditions. As an Emergency Physician who has treated more than enough cases of frostbite and hypothermia, I can confidently state that there is simply nothing fun about being outdoors in below freezing weather. Football in 30 degrees and 6 inches of snow? That's pretty darn close to heaven. Football in -25 wind chill? Dangerous. And please tell me who the genius was that put the kickoff after sunset. Boneheads. What would you do if your employer expected you to work outside in conditions that cause tissue injury in a matter of minutes?

Given the extreme conditions common in the upper Midwest in January, many of you probably wonder what we do to survive in the deepest, darkest, coldest days of winter. First of all, outdoor activities are steeply curtailed. Nordic skiing with appropriately expensive designer base layers and high-tech space age athletic apparel can be done, but only on bright, sunny days with minimal wind. Second, all that fat we've been building up since RAGBRAI ended last summer finally is put to good use. Third, we hold winter parties (in lieu of Christmas Parties in December) to enjoy the company of co-workers and neighbors and also get really smashed. Fourth, vacations to Florida, Texas, Arizona, Mexico, and the Caribbean are really popular. Fifth, and most importantly, we justify our newly reclusive never-be-seen-outside lifestyle as "a chance to spend quality time with the family." The volume of quality family time increases exponentially with dropping temperatures.

As we enjoy our quality time with the family, also known as huddling under blankets on the couch while watching TV, we can marvel at Brett Favre's moderate talent but ridiculously brilliant karma. I think we may have enjoyed his gritty determination and youthful spirit for the last time tonight. Mourn not the passing of this legend. All good things must come to an end, including Brett Favre, the cozy comfort of Autumn, and this year's unbelievable year in college football.

The 2007 football season will go down in history as the Year of the Dog. A season made for the Underdog Pool. A season so chaotic that a team won the national championship with 2 losses for the first time ever. A season so bizarre, the record for largest upset in history was broken . . . twice. A season so turbulent that the number 2 team had a 2 - 6 record for the final 8 weeks.

The bard writes that every dog will have his day. There were so many dogs having their day, that even Division I-AA teams pulled off upsets over the top division. North Dakota State managed it twice. And then there was Appalachian State . . .

I want to take this moment to send out a thank you to some of the colleges that made this madness possible. Do you remember theses wonderful upsets? Utah, Iowa State, South Florida, Colorado, Auburn, Kansas State, Iowa, Oregon State, Vanderbilt, UCLA, Rutgers, Alabama, Mississippi State, UConn , Florida State , Illinois, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Texas A and M, and, of course, Pittsburgh.

Finally, special mention needs to made of the three ultimate underdogs. The bronze goes to Syracuse, pulling off a then-record 36-pointer over Louisville. The silver goes to Appalachian State: although it was a mere 28-point upset by the 1-AA national champion, their stunning win over Michigan set the tone for the year and became a buzzword for shocking wins. The gold, reluctantly I might add, goes to Stanford, for the single greatest upset in the history of college football: a 41 point baffler that changed the course of the season, keeping the Trojans out of the national title game and allowing a 2 loss team to win it all.

There is one more thing midwesterners do to survive the bitterly cold winter: shuffle through the darkness to the local basketball arena to enjoy that other greatest sport in the world: college basketball. The Dogs of March starts in 2 months. Get ready.

Fight On,
Hans

Bowl Daze

Does anyone out there really care about Mississippi State vs Central Florida?  Or Wake Forest vs UConn?  Any given year, Alabama vs Colorado might be a good game.  But this year they both finished 6-6.  And they met in a Bowl Game?  No one outside of Fresno or Atlanta knew that the Bulldogs and the Yellowjackets played in a bowl this year.  And no one in Boise showed up in the 25 degree weather to watch them play on the smurf turf.  

Put simply, no one would disagree that there are too many bowl games.  Somehow, the system that legitimately rewarded worthy teams of a post-season bonus has ballooned into a travesty of unrealistic expectations.  When leagues are getting 7 or 8 teams into the post season, something is wrong.  When 7-5 teams are considered to have a decent record  and 6-6 qualifies, something is wrong.  When two 6-6 teams play each other, something is seriously wrong!

I blame ESPN and the Capitol One Financial Group for enabling this atrocity.  ESPN provides the broadcast media and Capitol One provides the money for their "Bowl Week": seven miserable days of really bad bowl games.  The growth in cable television has created this monster.  The games are put on for the television audience, not for the local residents and vacationing fans.  Don't believe me?  Did you see the stands at the Papjohns.com bowl?  Or the Autozone Liberty bowl? (remember when that was actually a respectable bowl?)  Or the aforementioned Humanitarian Bowl?  What a joke!

As the bowl system began to blossom a few years back, I had faith in the free market system.  A lack of local support and a lack of TV ratings for a useless bowl would kill it.  But then ESPN stepped in, found the deep pockets of Capitol One, and has thrown endless stacks of money at the Meineke Car Care Bowl, Texas Bowl, Emerald Bowl, etc.  So this begs the question: what bowls are worth keeping?  Which are ones that you watch year to year?

Obviously the BCS bowls.  And the Cotton Bowl is often good (except this year).  Why is this bowl with a much longer tradition than the Fiesta Bowl not part of the BCS?  Becuase Dallas is a miserable place to be on New Years Day!  I find myself frequently watching the Citrus Bowl . . er . . . Capitol One Bowl (why can't they be satisfied with just sponsoring that one bowl?)  I also enjoy the Alamo and Holday Bowls, even though they are played during the dreaded Capitol Bowl Week.  What do all these bowls have in common?  They involve the 2nd or 3rd place team in their respective tied-in leagues.  This translates to higher-ranked match-ups, higher profile teams, and a higher quality of play.  In short, the games we want to watch.

And speaking of good match-ups, the Rose Bowl committee really blew it by inviting Illinois.  Sure, the Illini's first Rose Bowl in 25 years generated epic buzz in Champaign and Chicago, but we all knew they had no chance against the Trojans.  USC proved that they are one of the best teams in the country by blowing the Illini out of the Arroyo.  Georgia ended Colt Brennan's fairy tale later that night by destroying the Warriors in the Sugar Bowl.  But the Rose Bowl could have had USC play Georgia.  What a game that would have been!  And, after Oklahoma got blown out by West Virginia, the Rose Bowl winner would have a had a shot at the AP national championship and a split title with LSU (that would have really pissed off the Tiger fans!)

Oh well.  Woulda', Coulda', Shoulda'. . . 

Fight On,

Hans

PS: I ran into Rick Neuheisel outside the Rose Bowl before the game and wished him luck in the upcoming season.  Its  a good hire for UCLA with one really big IF: If he can stay clean and not get the program into trouble.  With the Reggie Bush NCAA investigation looming soon, USC may

 face sanctions.  So which LA program will face a scandal first?  The race is on . . . 

The Ice Storm

There was a nasty ice storm in Iowa today. Like a harbinger of the chaos to come in the world of the BCS, a snarling, drenching maelstrom descended upon the farms and fields of the prairie. Raindrops turned to ice before they landed on the frozen earth. Within minutes, everything was coated in a thick patina of glistening crystal. Sidewalks become skating rinks, roads become toboggan runs, and driveways are mortal hazards. Basically, it’s the kind of day that you are just better off staying inside and watching football.

Fortunately, that’s exactly what I wanted to do! Championship Saturday offered one of the most intriguing smorgasbord of contests all year: Army-Navy, USC-UCLA, The Civil War, The Big Game, The Desert Skirmish, Hawaii-Washington, and the championship games of the SEC, ACC, and Big-12. (The MAC and Conference USA championships don’t count). Best of all, they were all televised sequentially with no more than three going on at the same time, so by having two screens set up I could watch the whole thing! I invited some residents and students brave enough to trek through the storm, whipped up a batch of fresh guacamole, and put together the BCS centerpiece for decoration. Then I sat back and took one wild day of football.

How fitting that the year of the dog, where the top five has lost to an unranked opponent a whopping 12 times, ends with the number 1 and number 2 teams both losing on the same night! Sure, we all expected Oklahoma to repeat its performance against Missouri, but no one saw the Pitt –WVU upset coming. I just checked the picker website- no had the guts to take that one. The loss of one team put Ohio State into the finals. The loss of the other team sends the BCS system crashing into swirling winds of the maelstrom.

As the games ended Saturday night (I fell asleep before the end of Hawaii-Washington, which is too bad because I really wanted to see that one and Brennan’s latest comeback was one for the record books), we had no idea who would play in the national championship game. What kind of a totally screwed up system is that? That is completely pathetic and unacceptable. Reece Davis and Chris Fowler on ESPN appropriately pointed out how ridiculous it is. After the LSU-Ohio State matchup was announced on Sunday night, Kirk Herbstreit had the audacity to say that “the system worked’.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE INSANE.

I will concede that given the bedlam among the top 5 this year and being forced to choose the two most deserving teams, LSU and Ohio State are correct. Ohio State is a conference champion with one loss and LSU’s losses were both in triple OT. But when asked who are the two best teams in the country right now, the voters on ESPN.com picked, in order, LSU, USC, and Georgia. And what about Hawaii? They do everything they can and finish undefeated and they are not allowed to compete for the title because they’ve “never been good before” and they “just run a system, not a real offense”? A two-loss team gets to play for the title in the one-round playoff we have and the nation’s only undefeated team gets left out?

DOES THIS MAKE SENSE TO ANYONE OUT THERE?

What if Hawaii actually beats Georgia? They can’t? OK- tell that to Pitt. Tell that to Stanford. Tell that to Notre Dame. Tell that to Syracuse. Tell that to Appalachian State. And, most importantly, tell that to the Boise State Broncos with their hook and ladder, statue of liberty, drop to a knee and propose Ian Johnson. And oh yeah- Hawaii beat Boise State this year to stay undefeated.

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN”T GET IT?
Kansas has one loss. To Missouri. Kansas gets to go to the BCS. Missouri doesn’t . Kansas has one of the weakest schedules in the country (109th). Missouri played the 25th most difficult schedule. Missouri’s two losses were to the same team. That does not sound fair to me.

Missouri was the number 1 team. Oklahoma beat them soundly. Let me repeat that. Oklahoma beat the number 1 team in the country on Saturday night on national television on a neutral field and pretty much thumped them. And Oklahoma is does not get to play for the national title.

USC and Georgia are the hottest teams in the country right now. Each of them have early unforgivable losses that are keeping them out of the BCS championship (Stanford and South Carolina, respectively). Georgia didn’t even win their division. But the general media consensus is that these are two teams that you would not want to face in a playoff. Why? Because they are playing the best football right now! The polls are supposed to vote for the best team in the country. In the old system, we played out the year and then sat around and voted for the winner. In the old system, which is even more of a joke than the BCS, USC and Georgia would have reasonable chances at being picked champs. But this year they must accept that they weren’t the best teams in September and they need to play a more complete schedule next year.

The BCS has not worked more often than the “system working.” In the history of the BCS there have only been two years without controversy (Ohio State over Miami and Texas over USC). Other years, undefeated teams were left out (Auburn, Utah, Boise State), conference champions were bypassed for those not finishing first in the Big-12 (Oregon, USC). And the many times the “system” had to pick a 1-loss team to play the only undefeated team. Now it has to pick from among the two loss teams! We really need a playoff.

If we actually had a real playoff this year and you were on the selection committee (because this kind of thing is too important to leave to an artificial points formula and an amalgam of computers), which 8 teams would you pick? (8 teams was the top choice by the fans vote on ESPN.com. It beat out systems with less and more team). I think I have made reasonable arguments for LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, USC, Hawaii, and Georgia. I suppose I would add Virginia Tech and then let the committee squabble over West Virginia or Missouri (not Kansas) for the last spot.

Thank you all for letting me vent my cold fury. I have to go outside now- time to scrape ice off the front porch.

Fight On,

Hans

PS: Illinois? The Rose Bowl gets the first choice of the at-large teams and they pick the number 13 team that barely qualified for the BCS? The folks in Champaign will be happy, but the country as a whole is not going to care or tune into that one. Lawrence Jackson, Sedrick Ellis, and the rest of the USC defense will be happy to show Juice Williams the same hospitality enjoyed by Rudy Carpenter and Patrick Cowan in the last 2 weeks.