Apropos of Nothing +Addendum

Travel

I travel a lot with my job. The good part is I get to see just about all of North Carolina. The down side is that a lot of the places I visit are not what you’d put on your ‘must see’ list. Things like prisons and mental hospitals.

I’ve always known I’m a homebody. I like traveling, but I like getting home as well. One thing I’ve noticed when I’m out of town for a week – by Thursdays, I’m really ready to get back home. Oddly, Fridays are usually good days because I know I’m going home at the end of the day. Wednesday evenings and Thursdays are the worst as far as my mood gets.

ACC Football

The University of Miami was involved in a bench clearing brawl at Saturday’s game against Florida International University. Miami originally suspended 9 players but after the ACC reviewed the video – the ACC bumped up the suspensions to 13.

Miami has always had a bit of a reputation along with Florida State and, to a lesser degree, NC State.

Overall though, the ACC prides itself on higher academic athletic requirements (always higher than NCAA requirements) and sportsman like conduct. I’ve traveled to many NC State games at other schools and have always been very courteously treated with the exception of Maryland.

A tough contact sport like Football always gets emotions running high and the occasional unsportsmanlike conduct is expected. And there’s always the casual, ah, small talk that goes on at the line of scrimmage.

But not what happened at Miami.

Larry Coker should have immediately benched the player who taunted the crowd by bowing to the FIU fans after his touchdown catch. If Coker had benched him right then and there – the rest of the Miami players would have wised up. The refs should have thrown a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct or excessive end zone celebration. Even though an FIU played ‘started’ the fight on the next play – he was taunted by the Miami player’s behavior in the end zone the previous play.

I picked this link because of the music. I have this CD by Drowning Pool - yikes! And, NC State used to play this music on the Video Board a couple years ago during player introductions.

Miami won the game; FIU won the brawl; France, of course, surrendered.

As an NC State alumnus, WolfPack Club member, and a member of the ACC – I apologize to the FIU community and all sports fans in general for what occurred at the ACC school Miami.

Movies

Watched a couple of DVD's this week.

Pump Up the Volume: Zero Stars. For a review, see the second definition of sophomoric.

Also watched Seabiscuit for the first time. Very good movie, 3.5 stars.

We also have United 93. Saw it at the theaters. Excellent movie. 5 stars. I don't think a film made about 9/11 could be done any better or with anymore dignity. But - it was terribly hard to watch and I'm not sure I want to do that again. I'm not even sure why I put it on my Netflix queue.