giggle pop

I guess it all started around when I was 8 years old, even though I did not know it yet. I have watched NCAA basketball most of my life, and at that time was also into the NBA. My favorite player was John Stockton. I was young and knew relatively little about the game, but I knew he made a lot of assists and that I kind of liked his hair.

Fast forward about Seven years, it is a usual Mid-March Thursday in Minnesota. By the time I was in middle school I had figured out that if I pretend to be sick the first few days of the NCAA tournament my mom would let me stay home from school, and I could spend the day watching basketball. This year was like no other, I got my mysterious march fever and stayed home, little did I know this day would end up influence where my life would go. My favorite part of the tournament has always been the Cinderella teams, random schools with names I could not pronounce and seeing the fans going crazy for them. This year, I think it was my sophomore year of high school, I watched one of those teams with weird names and crazy fans pull off an upset and eventually make their way to the elite eight. On that day I became a fan of Gonzaga.

About a year later I was watching the tourney again, and applying for colleges, so I of course checked out Gonzaga, and just fell in love with the school and ended up going there. Met some great people, had so some great times and miss it. Now here I am almost four years after graduation and still a die-hard Zag, if anything more of one than I have ever been. It is not always easy being a Zags fan. Over the years I have seen 1 Elite Eight, Four Sweet 16’s, two second round exits and two first round exists. Some I have seen my team go down just watching the scores flash as they were showing other games, some tourney losses early on did not effect me much and some felt soul crushing. I will never forget Blake Stepp missing a buzzer shot against an unstoppable looking Arizona in 2ot. When I close my eyes I am back in my room and can picture it perfectly. There was one other loss that stands out to me that strongly, UCLA in 2006. We were minutes away from the Elite Eight, The ‘Stache was the best in the country, JP Batista was amazing, and so on, that was supposed to be our year. But in the last 90 seconds of the game we blew a huge lead and lost by two, the ‘stache was on the floor crying. I too was crying as I saw the seconds ticking away, and friend was literally holding me up in the bar I was at.

This year we once again went out in the 16, but I did not cry, I just felt proud of my boys, as I always will. A lot of them will be back next year, and I know one of these years it is all going to gel and a final four run will happen. But until then I will keep on my with obsessive cheering and wearing my Zags shirts with pride. I have some pretty serious obsessions with other sporting teams (see Chelsea, Real Madrid, England and US national teams, Minnesota Twins) but no team could ever begin to rival my love of Gonzaga basketball. So until next year, GO GONZAGA G-O-N-Z-A-G-A.

Just for fun here is my Zags dream team.with no accounting for positions etc, just my five all-time favorite zags. STOCKTON, BATISTA, THE STACHE, DICKAU, and BOULDIN on the bench I would have STEPP, TURRIAF, VIOLET, PARGO, and magic shirt MALLON (don’t know why just always loved him).

March 22, 2009
This Weekend in Sports (with pictures!)
Football
YAAYY Real Madrid won today, lots of great Dutchie goals and one from Marcello as well. My dear Gago did not play until later, and I don’t think Higuain played at all, meaning there was a serious lack of hot argentines out there, but oh well Iker, Canna and el Ramos held down the hotness and the defensive line (another shut out!!). And Mr. mmmmm mmmm Metzelder played!!! Unfortunately barca won yet again. Surprise, Sur-frickin-prise. Someone needs to lock up Messi until after the season, seriously. Some of us Kickettes had a great chat during the game today. (had a good one for Chelsea game too yesterday)

*on a slightly related note. The chat today has inspired me and I think I may turn my large wooded yard into a sanctuary for injured or retired footballers. Also may bring in the types of Messi and Xavi who are adorable but need to stop scoring goals for teams I don’t want to win *cough* barca *cough* and worry not, I am sure I will develop this brilliant plan more soon.

Golf
There is a tournament going on this weekend, have not really watched. There is a lack of Camilo and Sergio, and too much football and basketball so I will catch up next week for the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Oh well here is some Camilo looking hotty-boombastic anyways. Mmmmm Bendy bend little lawn crawler.


Annnd those arms!!!


Sweeeet 16!!!

The Zags are in the sweet 16…helll yeah!!! Jesu-whattt! Get out the clear stripper heels espn because Cinderella is in the house this year!!! If you cannot tell I get slightly excited (and usually cry) if the Zags make it to the Sweet 16, I am hoping this is the year we make our return back to the elite 8 as well. We play UNC next. I won’t lie it will be a tough game, but a good game for us. UNC is not a huge team in size, does not bully and plays a running game. Basically don’t hit any of our weaknesses, so we have a fighting chance. And we beat them a few years back!! So bring it on Tar Heels my boys are coming!!

The Zags played Western Kentucky last night, looked like a thrilling game, I of course could not watch any of it because damn CBS would not show it here. So I watched Duke/Texas and slammed wine as I watched the Zags score. I did see the last minute and Goodson’s wonderful last minute shot to win the game. I was so proud. And thought to myself…he could teach Blake Stepp a few things about making a lay up under pressure. If any of you remember that game (I believe it was 2003) against Arizona, I will never get that image out of my head and will forever despise the University of Arizona.

I still am madly loving on Matt Bouldin…especially his pretty pretty arms my oh my, those things are beautiful. He has crazy eyes, yes, but also great hair and as I said the arms of a god. Not to mention his mad ass playing skills. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite Zags of all time, and is nipping on the heels of JP Batista. So here is some barely legal zaggy manmeat.



Oh and I hit a new low yesterday when I noticed a really hot player for UCONN (#33 I think) and felt the urge to say “that’s the best thing about college basketball players. I keep getting older, and they stay the same age”

Tennis
Indian wells is going on this weekend. I could not find anywhere showing it. But the Semi’s were Roger/Murray and Nadal/Roddick. Roger lost, I was sad so did Roddick…that also made me sad. So it is Nadal and Murray in the final and I am of course cheering for the Spaniard. Now I said I was going to not cheer for Nadal until he went sleeveless again, but I don’t like Murray so here I am. Not sure if final has been played yet or who won. Anyways VAMOS RAFA!!

I am sitting here with a perma-smile on my face after an absolutely fabulous weekend in sports for my teams. I enjoy sports a lot, mainly football (soccer), ncaa basketball, tennis, and am getting into golf as well. I just kind of write what I think, and it will often have more to do with the hottness of the athletes as opposed to anything really insightful into the games.

NCAA Basketball

Yay the Zags once again went undefeated in the WCC conference (which we had already clinched a week or so ago). I have been a die hard Gonzaga fan for about 10 years now, which is making me feel quite old. Even with some questionable performances this season I am still remaining optimistic for a good tourney performance by the boys this year, and yes I am aware it is more often than not a futile task. But hey it is March and the begininngs of March Madness are sweeping through me...counting down the days until the tourney!!!

On a related note…I just cannot get enough of Matt Bouldin and his arms. Mmmmmm.

Football

Yes I watch far too much football, it is a bit of an obsession for me. My teams are Chelsea for the EPL and Real Madrid in La Liga.

Let’s start off with the Chelsea game, which I sadly could not watch, but that did not stop me from yelling out in excitement in the bar I was in at 11am (long story) while checking the score on my phone. First off our fearless captain John Terry gets his first goal in a long time, then other team equalizes, and then in true dramatic fashion Super Frankie Lampard scores a last minute goal to win. This puts the blues back at #2 in the league still trailing the ever pestilent Manchester United. Oh I was a happy happy girl. I still have not been able to watch a game since Guus (who I like to call “Goose” because it reminds me of Top Gun) took over a few weeks ago. This win coupled with a win in the first leg of the Champions League game against Juventus and Liverpool losing to Middlesbrough HAHAHAHAHA (sorry ‘pool fans) including an own goal it was a good day in the Premier League.

Moving on over to espana for some La Liga fun. My beloved Real Madrid won 2-0 over Espanyol on Saturday, another game I had to miss but was yelling with excitement upon seeing scores come up. That is about a million league wins in a row for the boys in white and Captain Raul scored his bazilionth goal or something like that. Then today Barcelona lost in an absolutely wonderful game against Atletico. I spend about 90+ minutes a week being an avid fan for whatever team is playing Barca. Now, I have respect for Barca and a bit of a crush on Little Leo Messi and Xavi, but I want nothing more than to see Los Blancos win the league yet again, and that involves the once invincible looking Barcelona loooosing, which they are doing a wonderful job of doing lately. A few weeks ago, all you would hear about is how Barca had La Liga locked up, but now that Real Madrid is only FOUR yes FOUR points off the lead things are getting exciting.

Last but not least, watched a great draw between Inter Milan and Roma over in Italy. I still can’t decide what team I am going to support in Serie A. Right now I am cheering for Inter, but pretty much only because Jose Mourinho is the manager. I am still telling myself everyday that once he takes the trophy in Italy the special one will be packing his bags and coming back to Chelsea where he belongs!!! However, this still leaves me with a need of a team in Serie A to cheer for, maybe I will stick with Inter maybe not….any suggestions?

Ray Hudsonism
Anyone who watches games on gol tv in the states gets to experience the colorful commentary of Ray Hudson. I would give just about anything to have this man narrate everything because he cracks me up. Today he had a particularly great line about his man crush Little Lionel Messi. “He’s got the swivel hips, like a Turkish stripper.” BTW the goal that prompted that comment was beautiful.