People Say I’m From a Beautiful Place and They’re Right
May 18, 2010 at 11:00 am | Posted in Life | 1 CommentIt is no secret that I go out to various events and most of the time I tend to meet new and interesting people. What I have noticed in meeting new people is that my conversations with them seem quite scripted. The information exchanged is always the same and it seems to be the social norm for this to happen. I mean most of the time I meet a new person, it goes something like this:
- Me: Hey I’m Grant. How’s em?
- Person: Hi I’m <insert random name here>
- Me: cool where you from?
- Person: <insert random place here> how about you?
- Me: Hawaii
- Person: Oh cool I heard that place is beautiful! What island?
- Me: Kauai. Yeah it’s alright.
- Person: Oh sweet! But what are you doing here?
And that last comment is the one that usually gets me. Yes where I’m from is full of natural beauty and ideal climate. I mean look at the place in these youtube videos:
There hundreds if not thousands of aspects of Kauai that make it extraordinarily beautiful from the Kalalau Valley to the Waimea Canyon but where it excels at beauty, it severely lacks in potential. This potential covers many different aspects of life and can differ from person to person. For me, the potential my home is lacking comes in economic and social forms. To the majority of people reading this (BTW thanks to the 3-5 of you that willingly came to read this blog, you are the reason why I write on this thing) you know what I am talking about but for those of you who wondered into my page, Kauai is simply not a glamorous place to live. With the exception of 7/11 and the Wal-Mart, the island closes at 9 pm. With that said most of you now know why I enjoy myself so much here in Seattle because there are things to do well into the late hours of the night.
There are problems though with Seattle and the greatest of which being the weather. Yes this past winter was quite mild but it was still cold. I definitely do not want to live through another winter here or anywhere that considers a January temperature of 40 degrees to be warm. This is why for a while now I thought that moving to Honolulu would be an ideal place to move after graduating. A happy medium or compromise in which I give up certain amount of economic and social potential for some sweet Hawaiian weather. Also this works out great considering nearly all of my closest friends live in Honolulu as well. This plan seems to be my smartest option to take.
I was nearly 100% confident in my plan to move back to Honolulu until this past couple of days where I realized something that I had never realized before. Don’t get me wrong, the probability of my loosely permanent return back to Hawaii in August is still very solid but this recent realization definitely had some effect as to the decisions that affect my future. This realization stems from the last few outings I have had over the past several weeks where I have gone out to events and experienced a sense of persona non grata. Obviously not an extreme form of the sense, but a very minute feeling of displacement. These feelings are stemmed from going to events where I do not necessarily fulfill the norms in which the host is accustomed to. Examples of this comes in forms of parties in which everyone knows an Asian language but me or come from different social and cultural backgrounds from myself.
Do not get me wrong, I have a great time at these events and I am not criticizing these events and its respective hosts. I just been having a hard time fully fitting in and this feeling has plagued me nearly all my life. I was nearly never a part of the social norm of my current location. Probably the main cause of my social awkwardness is stemmed from moving all around the country. I am not saying that I ultimately regret moving because I still cherish the moments I had in all the places I called home but it also did not allow me to establish myself as a solid part of a social group.
I am also not saying that I was and am not apart of anything of significance because I were and am. I am apart of many different groups in which I feel that my social awkwardness has contributed to as I learned to adapt to different social norms. My social flexibility is among my greatest personal traits but it would still feel nice to be 100% a part of a social group.
Now you may be thinking what all of these feelings have to do with my plan to move to Honolulu and that if anything these feelings should strengthen my plan since it would seem that I associate myself with Hawaiian social norms. Yes it would seem that out of everywhere in the world, I could best fit into the social norms of Honolulu but not entirely. This realization that even in Honolulu I would have difficulty fitting in came to me when I went a few events with people from Hawaii. It is no secret that I am a literal outcast to those from Hawaii at the University of Washington as there is very little I have in common with them. This lack of common ground has made it difficult for those from Hawaii and myself to fully accept and even respect each other and this inability to interact with these people make me question my plan to move back.
Maybe I am asking for too much and I should just be grateful for what I already truly have. Maybe the vast majority of us feel the same social awkwardness and I’m either just preaching to the choir or bitching. But it is not what other people think about me is what I care about because this is a feeling that I have and it is stemmed from my own opinions. And like I said before, this feeling has not changed my plan. It has just made me realized that when I move back, I will still have to endure social awkwardness.
The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall: The Unfortunate Situation of Tiger Woods
February 19, 2010 at 6:36 pm | Posted in Sports | 1 CommentSo I think it has been nearly a year since I last submitted anything on this site but I felt that after watching Tiger Wood’s press statement today I feel like I need to get something off of my chest. I feel all the scrutiny that Tiger has endured these past several months, while merited, seems unfair and that just because of his high public status it has been blown out of proportion. Yes he did cheat on his wife on multiple occasions which of course is highly frowned upon but put at its extreme is still just an infidelity. This infidelity in my opinion is definitely not the most disastrous action that professional athletes had committed in the past several years. There are much more pertinent issues that face sports than an athlete’s infidelity to their spouse and just because Tiger is the world’s most famous athlete, he does not deserve to become a pariah.
Probably the event that caught the second most sports media attention in recent years is Michael Vick’s participation in dog fighting. Vick’s actions were much more wicked than that of Tiger’s as Vick participated in extremely inhumane entertainment. Likewise Vick endured a much more physical punishment for his wrong doings through imprisonment but unlike Tiger, he did not need endure nearly the same public humiliation. Vick’s family was not under constant attack by media and did not fall under the same scrutiny. What Vick did was inhumanely kill large amounts of dogs which is a felony where as Tiger just committed several infidelities but Tiger’s public humiliation was much greater.
Another instance, which is much more closely related to Tiger’s situation, of an athlete having a negative impact on society is the Kobe Bryant sex scandal. The similarities between Tiger and Bryant are numerous. Both are the top athletes in their respective sport, are prominent Black figures in our sports and society, and were accused of cheating on their wives. The similarities end with Bryant also being charged with sexual assault by his mistress where Tiger was not accused of such crime. Bryant’s media scrutiny for a much more serious matter was comparable to Tiger’s where he was on the main topic of gossip and tabloid media but Bryant’s professional experience does not seem to have had a the same negative downturn as Tiger’s. Bryant was still able to play in the NBA Finals that year and only lost a few major endorsements including McDonalds and Nutella. Tiger, on the other hand, may not return to golf this year which is very unfortunate as he was expected to do very well with the US Open being at Pebble Beach and the British Open being at St. Andrews; courses he performs very well at and could very well win the Grand Slam. Also with major sponsors like Accenture, Gatorade, Gillette, and Tag Heuer abandoning Tiger, he takes a major loss financially. All of this major professional consequence for someone with several infidelities where as an accused rapist seems to get off easy.
A much more controversial issue that has been moved to the back burner of sports is human growth hormones and steroids. This issue encompasses all sports and is an international matter. The use of HGH and steroids in competitive sports is unsafe and ultimately cheating. There have been numerous cases of undesired side effects and death through the use of these materials which is why they are banned by nearly all sports and governing bodies. The use of HGH and steroids do give its users huge physical gains and because of their illegality, give these users an unfair advantage in competition. This issue is most well known in the US through baseball and its steroid era with Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Roger Clemens as its poster child. Baseball’s steroid issue became a Congressional issue with the indictment of Bonds and Clemens who is believed to have lied under oath to Congress and their fates are pending an investigation by the FBI. HGH and steroid use on the international scale can be referenced to the American bicyclist Floyd Landis who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title due to unnatural testosterone levels. Also most recently more than 30 athletes were banned from participating in this year’s Winter Olympics and more than 70 athletes from the 2008 Summer Olympics for breaking the IOC’s Anti-Doping rules. The use of HGH and steroids is extremely unsafe, cheating, and ultimately illegal and this issue, which is an international problem, has not
nearly been taken as seriously in the general public’s eye as Tiger Wood’s recent disobedient behavior.
Athletes break the law all the time and sometimes their crimes are heinous enough for long periods of imprisonment. In recent years the names of Donte Stallworth, Plaxico Burress, Gilbert Arenas, Adam Jones, and many more athletic criminals can come to mind. I know those of you who follow sports know what crimes men like these committed and yet they did not receive nearly the same amount of media criticism as Tiger Woods. These men carry illegal weapons, are involved with domestic violence, and were involved with the deaths of human beings yet they did not have to endure the same amount of public humiliation as Tiger. Yes the perspective of these athletes differs as they do not encompass the same public sphere as Tiger but their crimes should blow perspective out of the picture. Ultimately the consequences of these athletes’ crimes should outweigh the consequences of Tiger’s infidelity and this is why Tiger has been treated unfairly these past few months.
Things To Do Before I Turn 30
May 13, 2009 at 11:48 am | Posted in Life | 2 CommentsI just took some Tylenol PM to help me fall asleep with a beer so hopefully this sucker kicks in as I am trying to fall asleep. Too bad I need to stay awake just a little bit longer as my bathroom sink is clogged so i dumped some Draino into it. The instructions say I need to check on it in 15 minutes and to flush it with water so here I am. I was just watching a Scrubs episode and saw the one where JD was participating in a triathlon because it was on his list of things to do before he turned 30. He found that he hadn’t done anything on the list and being that it was the day before his birthday thought the the triathlon was the easiest to achieve. So before my drugged up ass knocks out I decided to start making such a list.
1. Bang an import model
2. Get an international driver’s license
3. Go to bartenders school
4. Become a doctor
5. Learn another language
6. Go to Japan, Korea, China, Italy, Amsterdam, and Paris
7. Win the Megabucks
8. Get Kelcie wasted
9. Write my first book
10. Meet at least 10 pornstars.
April Fools
April 1, 2009 at 10:06 am | Posted in 1 | Leave a commentI haven’t really participated in April Fools Day but think It’s a very hilarious day and while on craigslist I found some very cranking stuff. Take a lookie:
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cas/1101818691.html
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cas/1101820689.html
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cas/1101822232.html
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cas/1101823729.html
Anyways enjoy and for those of you in these listings I hope you find what you’re looking for!
Cruisers Guide To Cruising Part Dos (again…)
March 7, 2009 at 3:10 am | Posted in Cruising | Leave a commentBeing sick sucks a monkey’s boto. But anyways I have some time on my hands so I decided to add to my cruisers guide. It has come to my attention by a very reliable source that I forgot guideline two and went on to guideline three. So lets back track a bit and do the second one!
But first some thoughts that I have from the past couple of days:
Thought #1: I just found out about this group of Asians called Wong Fu Productions and instantly became a fan. No don’t harrass me for being gay cuz they’re all dudes. Actually it doesn’t really matter because the people that would harass me for being a fan of dudes would harass me anyways and I’ll just have to endure. But anyways I like their vids because they’re creative, mostly funny, and usually have very mean chicks in their videos. They do crank you with their serious love stories, but those are good too. Fuckas gonna harass me for saying that too. Anyways check them out at: http://www.youtube.com/user/wongfuproductions?blend=1&ob=4
Thought #2: My psych prof is one might fine cougar. I say that because today we got the sex lecture and man was it enjoyable. I didn’t learn anything because we all know why we have sex; because it is fucking mean! But what made it classic was when she was explaining to us how some author wrote a childrens book telling little kiddies what an orgasm feels like (meanest childrens book ever!) by saying it was like the feeling before you sneeze. She goes on by saying “if that were the case, I would always carry a tin of pepper with me at all times.” FUCKING MEAN!
Thought #3: After watching those videos by those Wong Fu guys and observing some things over the years, I find myself in an interesting void. I feel like if I want to charge the chicks that are in their videos I must change the way I live. Obviously the grass is greener in Cali, but there are other things too (no offense to my chick friends in Seattle, Hawaii, or anywhere but Cali). One of these questions is should I charge fobbies or local chicks. ABC’s,J’s,T’s,K’s, and all the other American born greatness our country has to offer are included in the fobbies category because they’re pretty much the same when it comes to what they want in men. They want dudes that have money, who will spend that money on them, and who will do a bunch of shit for them. This may offend some of you American born greatnesses that read my blog, but don’t worry its only my opinion and what does that amount to? Almost nothing (but deep down, you know I’m right). If I wanted to charge some of these ABwatevers then I would need to spend an assload of money and be like those pansies on those Asian shows. No thank you. So that leaves me with the local girls from Hawaii. See these chicks are so used to ticknesses back home and when they come up here and see nothing but scrawny Asian dudes like me, there’s a void for them. They probably don’t want to downgrade to some puss in college just because he’s convenient. Unlike dudes, chicks can resist the need to charge the other sex for long periods of time. It’s like those nuclear submarines that can stay underwater for about a month before coming back up for air. So with all of that said, what do I do? Do I spend it up and get me a fobbie or do I bulk it up for a local chick? Both take a lot of work and not cruising so I’m going to have to take some time to think about this.
And now for the part that I know one of you look forward to reading:
Cruisers Guideline #2: Refrain From Showing Off
Every single time I’ve seen someone show off before it looked lame. There are many negative things people say about people showing off. I hear people say “how’s that douche?” or “fucking lame!”. I mean for all the effort it takes to show off and make yourself look like an asshole, you’re really gaining nothing. That is obviously not cruising. Even at the clubs where there’s a “dance off” (if you’ve never witnessed these things, it’s basically a few Asians at a club that try to do their best ABDC impressions. In my experiences they’ve been lame) and the guys doing their crawling and popping shit on that gross ass dance floor almost always go home empty handed. Why go through all that trouble to dance in the circle (showing off), roll around on that gross ass floor, and make yourself look like an idiot? Now I’m sure, since my blog is reaching an astounding 35+ viewers that maybe .3 of you are those that do these “dance offs” and will rebuttal by stating that it makes them look cool and you love it when the crowds cheer for you, but in the end dude ultimately what has the dancing done for you? I mean if I wanted to go see some mean acrobatic shit I could just go up to the housings in Hanapepe where there’s 20 buks living in one house and I guarantee you I will find a better dancer than you.
Now ofcourse there are going to be exceptions (as expected). When you get broken off your ass you can show off because everything you do and say when you are broken off your ass is never put on record. When you are broken off your ass and you do something stupid, it’s not your fault. No one is at fault. It’s just funny as shit. Also if by doing so will guarrantee you hot ass puss by the end of the night, then it is permissable to show off. Just as long as you can tolerate the eventual consequences that come with letting yourself look like a dumbass and potentially give your hommies ammunition for future harrassings. But other than these two exceptions, and maybe more, showing off is completely unmean and not cruising.
Glossary:
I noticed I use some lingo that may be unclear to my overrall audience so here’s vocabulary words to add to your dictionary:
Mean: good; good looking; something positive. “Ho that girl is mean!” trans. “that girl is pretty”
Unmean: not good; ugly; something negative
Fucking Mean: Ultimately positive usage of the word mean. Very few things could be meaner that things that are fucking mean.
Fobbie: FOB (fresh off the boat); person not from America. mostly targeting Asians
Tickness: very muscular; Joseph Mecham
Monkey’s Boto: Monkey’s penis.
Gay: Unmean (not homophobic. I don’t hate on gay’s)
Cougar: lady who is in her 40′s-50′s of age but still fuckable
Hanapepe: Town on the island of Kauai in Hawaii
Buks: filipinos
Cruisers Guide To Cruising Guideline Dos
March 2, 2009 at 9:23 am | Posted in Cruising | Leave a commentOk guys since my insomnia is acting up again, I decided to throw in the second guideline in my cruisers guide. But before I do that I have some thoughts on my mind that I think I should get off of my head.
Thought #1: When you post pictures on Facebook, take the extra time to make sure the pictures are not sideways. I’m sick and tired of looking at pictures where I have to turn my head on the side because the pictures are 90°s sideways. Why the fuck should I have to take the extra effort and strain my neck to view your damn pictures? If you’re computer illiterate than I can tolerate this but if you are a repeat offender or are computer literate than I can no longer tolerate your dumbassity. For those of you who don’t know how to edit images with photoshop or any other program, you can still rotate the damn pictures in Facebook. The reason why I decided to write about this is because in my news feed today someone posted sideways pictures and it pissed me off so much that I deleted them as a friend. So if you want to retain our friendship status on Facebook, rotate your pictures so that they’re not sideways!
Thought #2: Life is expensive. I owe about $530 to my roomate for rent, utilities, and random shit we buy at Costco, $55 for parking, and about $150 in traffic tickets. Man this sucks but fuck it because it is reality it must be paid. The reason why I brought this to your attention is because in the fairly near future I plan on doing something for spring break. I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to two outcomes: go to Vegas, or put in a bombdigity stereo in my car and go on a road trip. I’ll leave it up to the no more than 10 of you that read this thing to help me decide on what to do.
Thought #3: So I fell asleep while watching some shit on the History Channel about the world ending in 2012. All I can say is that sucks and that for the next three years left in this world I plan to cruise the shit out of it; thus bringing me to:
Guideline #3: Smile
To begin I must stress that cruising isn’t an established quality of life. There are no experts on cruising as cruising is not a closely studied subject. The reason why I am writing these guidelines is because I feel everyone should exhibit some qualities of cruising and I use famous people who do exhibit these qualities as a form of reinforcement to illsutrate the positive outcomes that can occur when cruising. No one successful, not even myself, can be considered true cruisers as true cruising is not an adequately productive form of living. There are instances when one must drop the cruising mentality and actually put hard work in order to ensure the accomplishment of important acts. With that said, I am just writing this to teach the masses how to incorporate cruising into their everyday life and hopefully help them to live more enjoyable and stress-free lives (and this is a great form of procrastination and time waste management).
So back to the guideline. Smiling is important for every lifestyle. I’ve heard, as I’m sure you have as well, that it takes less muscles in the face to smile rather than to frown. So already physically your body is cruising more. Also when you smile you feel better, even if you are forcing yourself to smile. It makes your heart fell a little bit lighter and stress seems to just melt away. Although smiling doesn’t make things any easier than they actually are, watching someone do a task while smiling always produces an aura that makes this person seem like an expert at accomplishing this task. So by smiling, even if the task is extremely difficult, it will make you look like you are doing the task easily and enjoyably.
Now, like in almost all of my guidelines, it shouldn’t be used all the time. Obviously. You wouldn’t walk into a funeral or after witnessing a very emotionally scarring moment like watching your team commit a bunch of errors and being swept in the ALDS with a fat smile. So don’t smile all the time but smile as much as possible. Here are a few famous people that I consider very influential in the creation of my cruising guidelines that smile and can be considered followers of cruising.
Cruisers Guid To Cruising Rule One
February 27, 2009 at 12:10 pm | Posted in Cruising | Leave a commentTime to dust the dust off of this thing and write something. I’ve been meaning to make guidelines for certain activities that I enjoy in life. Such activities as strip clubs, reviewing pornos, and sleeping but nothing is more important to me than the activity of cruising. So I present to you the rules – no wait thats rules aren’t cruising – the guidelines of cruising!
First I must tell you what cruising is. It is the act of doing things the most relaxed as possible. It is not taking the easiest route or slacking because that constitutes poor or lacking outcomes. Instead, cruising is more doing things but making them look easy, or make it look like you are exerting the least amount of energy as possible. I guess you could say cruising is doing something and making it look like you are taking the easiest route or slacking, but in reality it isn’t. A good example and someone who is one of my heroes as he is one of the kings of cruising is Carmelo. He’s cruising because he still gets shit done like show up to a game and score 20 points but he looks like he isn’t even trying when he’s on the court and importantly he does it with a smile. He’s scoring 20 points, which isn’t easy, but he’s making it look easy and he looks like he’s slacking. Now you may say that because he makes it look easy, he could score more and be one of the league’s top scorers like Dwayne or Kobe, but that wouldn’t be cruising. Cruising is doing work with the minimum amount of energy and Carmelo is only exerting the the minimum amount of energy to do work, which is to make the team, coaches, and fans happy and this is done by winning and he wins on the court, and at life. Oh and BTW, cruising got Melo the 12th best scorer in the NBA.

If you like physics shit, work = force times displacement. So if we incorporate cruising, cruising = minimal work = minimal force times required displacement and can be defined with the equation below:
C = Wmin = Fmin x dreq
So there you have it, a basic explanation of cruising and here are some basic guidelines you should follow if you want to pursue this persona. If any of you have any questions, please feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to answer them for you.
Guideline #1: Always be down to go out as much as possible
If you don’t do anything, you wont accomplish anything. When you go out and do things you do work. It’s pretty simple. Whenever someone asks you if you want to go out say yes. The only times you should say no is if it will have detrimental effects on future cruising. An example of saying no to going out would be studying for an important exam that you are sure to fail if you don’t study for it. This will cause you to prevent yourself from graduating, causing you to have no money, causing you to not be able to pay for anything when you go out in the future.
This also doesn’t mean doing everything possible. This only pertains to doing things that are fun to you. So if some douche asks you to do some lame ass progress report or to do someone else’s work, don’t do it. Only do things you like to do like parties, clubbing, or sex.
Even though going out means going out to some lame ass party, bar, or event, you still have the potential of having something awesome happen. I’ve gone to some parties, thinking it’ll be awful and coming out meetin some cool people or doing something super awesome due to the party’s guests diging from the awful party. The sky’s the limit and you’re not going to reach the sky if you don’t start jumping.
So when someone asks you if you want to go someplace, you know what to say.
Rain Rain Go Away!
December 19, 2008 at 11:06 am | Posted in Life | 1 CommentThe occasional rain is nice since it cools the air and washes away unwanted debris on the ground. But what I’ve been dealing with for the past week and a half it quite different. It has been raining ridiculously, causing myself great unhappiness. So I’m in Hawaii with no sun which means no beach and no tan. What sucks even more is that I’m on Kauai where there is nothing to do but the beach. There are no clubs, bars, or anything that would make my stay here eventful. So what would I do now under these circumstances? Well I would go hang at some friend’s house or have people come over to my place. Not happening cuz everyone is not here! UH is still in their finals week meaning everyone wont come home until next week! Gah this is dreadful! If anybody has any suggestions as to what I should to please get back to me ASAP!
I leave u now with a picture of the root of my misery
Why Are People Stupid: A Multiple Part Rant on USC
December 15, 2008 at 3:35 am | Posted in Life | 1 CommentI was on Facebook and noticed that someone had joined a rediculously stupid group down in Southern California. The group is titled “Petition for Student Safety – Fight for Your Rights Trojans!” This group is ultimately retarded because it provides insight and information that is totally useless and trivial. I know I am in and created several Facebook groups that are useless and trivial but the problem I have with this group is that it is trying to promote a legitimately proposterous protest. This group was created to increase awareness of violence and to promote greater safety on the USC campus. USC is in probably the top five ghettoest places in the US since it is a hub for gangs, violence, and drugs. So ghetto that a great percentage of our greatest rap artists call it home. I am of course talking about Compton. Everytime I go to a ghetto area I am prepared to get shot, stabbed, and/or raped. This is why every single rich snobby poser that goes to the school should expect to get shot, stabbed, and/or raped but after I found this Facebook group, I guess I was wrong.
The greatest quote from the group’s Recent News section is this one “In the past semester, USC students have been robbed, raped, stabbed, shot, and killed around our campus. As I struggle to make sense of this situation, only one point is certain: We are not safe.” NO SHIT SHERLOCK! Good god how stupid do you have to be to know you are not safe where you are! You’re not in the safety of your suburban home where mommy and daddy brought you up to be completely ignorant of the rest of the world! And whats worse is that he goes on to blame campus administration for allowing the violence to escalade by stating that it is the school’s responsibility to care for its students outside of campus property and into the local community. At first I ginuinely thought that was complete horse shit as I beleive that once you step off of campus, tough shit, you’re on your own. But then I thought about it and realized that students are a valuable resource to the institution. Especially at USC as you guys pay $50,000 a year on a mediocre education. So yes, it is somewhat the university’s responsibility to protect its students. This is why almost every school in the country has put into place programs that tries ensure students’ safety. But these programs can only do so much, especially if you live in Compton where no matter what kind of safety provisions you install, someone is going to get shot, stabbed, and/or raped.
The bastard goes on saying that he feels that the university lied to him about the his safety at USC. Hahaha you actually believed that you were going to beat this school! Hahaha dude seriously! Since cops aren’t even safe in the area, how the hell do you expect your allergic throat swelling ass is going be safe!
The douche concludes his obsured rant by criticising USC’s spending on great building projects and lack of spending on student safety. Dude you go to a douchebag school, expect your school to spend money in douchebag ways. He also believes student’s should have a right to know when their lives are in danger. I believe that a student’s life at USC is always in danger. So now you know.
Now don’t get me wrong, safety is very important. Even at UW our lives are in danger with increased muggings and attacks of late. But to complain about our safety would be obsured as the crime rate in our area of Seattle is quite low and the programs put into place by the university is, in my opinion, top notch. I feel that because Jonathan Willbanks, the creator of the Facebook group, feels that he is unsafe at USC is ludacris. This is why I felt that I had to write this entry. Not because safety is not paramount, but because safety at USC is oxymoronic.
If you want to see this Facebook group, here it is. Enjoy! http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=501780033&ref=nf#/group.php?gid=37254886750&ref=nf
The New Coach
December 11, 2008 at 1:51 pm | Posted in Sports | Leave a commentOne of my most loved means of entertainment is sports. I love to play sports, I love to watch sports, and I love to talk about sports. This is pretty much the core basis of my life. Admittedly I am no where near the most knowledgeable in the area of sports as most of my friends. I have some friends, if they combine their brains; they could give even the Schwab a run for his money. But none the less, I love sports and this is the topic of my first real blog entry.
Shall we start this bastard off by talking about the hiring of a new head football coach for the University of Washington! His name is Steve Sarkisian and he hails from the University of Southern California! Fuck! If you know me, you probably already know that USC is by far and away my most hated institution of all time. I hate the school, the academics, the sports program; I hate everything about this little rich kid’s school in the middle of Compton. Perhaps my hatred to the condoms can be better expressed in a latter, less objective blog, but for now I must focus my attention on our new coach.
Lets start shall we with our current lame duck coach, Tyrone Willingham. This man has good pedigree in college football. He ran a decent club from 1995-2001 at Stanford bringing them a Pac-10 championship and several bowl games. Then he found himself at Notre Dame, a great football school where he had pretty decent run bringing them to two bowl games in three seasons. Willingham’s down fall at Notre Dame was losing both bowl games and more importantly losing all three times to rival USC, causing his eventual firing in 2004. The next stop for Willingham was UW where he was hired to recover the football program’s reputation after the Rick Neuhisel scandal and more importantly to bring the Huskies back to their glory years. This, however, was not achieved as Willingham produced a dreadful 11-37 record and currently a 0-12 record for the 2008 season. These horrid numbers eventually led to Willingham’s firing in October, 2008.
Willingham’s firing did not come as much of a surprise as an 11-37 record would get any football coach in the Division I Subdivision fired. What makes Willingham’s situation worse is that he competes in a Bowl College Series conference, the Pac-10. So how did a coach with such a successful background produce such dismal results? Personally I do not know how his career faired at his previous schools beyond the numbers, but I can tell you what I think about his current term at Washington. I believe Coach Willingham’s greatest downfall is his inability to develop talent. Yes he coaches in a market where most prospects would rather play for dreaded USC, but he was still able to snag talent like Jake Locker and numerous other talented men. But it isn’t just about recruiting. In fact the most important skill a college football coach can have is the ability to develop players to the pro football level. This development is perhaps more significant than any of the other four major sports in the US. Baseball has their “farm” system, most of basketball’s future talent will only spend a year in college, and I don’t know diddly squat about hockey. I do know though that Alexander Ovechkin and Sydney Crosby never played at the college level (gotta love Wikipedia).
One way of determining whether a coach is good at developing his players is to see how many of them get drafted to the National Football League. If I look back and I try to count the number of UW players who played for Coach Willingham, I can only come up with Isaiah Stanback off the top of my head.
Wow, that is pretty bad, but now let’s look at our new coach. He coaches for USC so admittedly that makes him a winner no matter what kind of negative light I can put on the guy. And I’m not going to because after some research I think he is actually a very good fit for this football team. He’s from a conference opponent, got NFL coaching experience, and most importantly he is an excellent quarterbacks coach. Oh my goodness I believe Dr. Mark Emmert has chosen a diamond in the rough! I heard of many names in the search for the next coach. Names like Leech, Kiffin, Peterson, and Hill but never did I hear the name Sarkisian. What a great hire though as he is very very very good at his job! His strength obviously is quaterbacks and we have a very talented and young quarterback that he can improve. Now I strongly believe that Locker will win a Maxwell, will be a multiple Heisman finalist, and most definitely will be an extremely high draft pick in the NFL draft. How can you not predict this as you look at the last two quarterbacks Sarkisian has coached at the college level. Let’s start with their names because maybe you’ve heard of them before. Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart. Both are Heisman winners, both drafted in the first round of their respective drafts, and most importantly both are not at the top of my most hated USC personnel list.
So he can coach quaterbacks, but can he coach anything else? Since the 2005 season, he was the offensive coordinator at USC so shall we take a brief gander at the talent he has produced since then on the offensive side of the ball. Off the top of my head I can think of names like Reggie Bush, Lendale White, Steve Smith (the shittier one on the Giants), and Dwayne Jarrett. That is a pretty good list of players even though they’re Trojans.
Things are looking really good for the Huskies and I think that we can do work with our new coach. The administration at the University of Washington has done a great job at identifying a great coaching prospect and allowing him the opportunity to bring back an absolutely dismal team from the bottom of the Division I Subdivision to a near future Rose Bowl. He has a history of success and hopefully he can continue that success as a Dawg.
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