Hey Gabbers and welcome to the half-way point of the week. After a good run through the south, I’ve made it back to Michigan on Sunday. No thanks to storms over Chicago. I got delayed a few hours and had to change gates about three times. I got back just in time to start the football season off. We had a midnight practice to kick the season off, which was awesome aside from the fact that I pulled filming duty. That’s coaching dues I suppose. Tomorrow is the first day we’ll have pads, so I hope those boys are ready.

Heard this song over the radio a lot. I'm not normally a country fan, but I like this one and it speaks to the driving I did with my girlfriend.

My girlfriend has been geeked up about the Olympics since she got back from Brazil. I may have mentioned she came back a soccer fan. She got to go to see a game in Rio. She saw Flamengo RJ, which is apparently the working man’s team there. The atmosphere was crazy and the fans were up and moving through the whole game. I can’t blame her much for this, but she also attributes her new love of soccer on seeing pics of a lot of the players. I suppose the ladies need their eye candy too. Still, I’m going to need her to stop calling it football since I get immediately excited and then crash when she says she means soccer.

My favorite watch of the games so far has got to be water polo. I think it's vastly underrated as an Olympic sport. Has anyone else been watching? This sport is nuts. Men and women have to continuously tread water in a pool at a minimum depth of 6 feet. The game is plaid a lot like handball. You have a goalie and the rest of the players have to throw the ball into the net. None of the players are allowed to punch the ball into the net.

What’s even crazier is that while all of this is going on, the men and women are beating the shit out of each other. They really get after each other. If a player is found to be getting too rough, they have a penalty box and the offending team plays short-handed. The biggest offense is taking off another player’s cap, which they wear to protect their ears. It’d sting like crazy to get pegged in the ear. It’s pretty common to see them dunking each other though. Apparently one of the women’s matches even had a wardrobe problem due to the fighting for position.

Just today, our women’s team beat out Australia 11-9 to move onto the gold medal game. The women take on Spain for gold this Thursday at 3 EST. The men’s team takes on Croatia in the quarterfinals round today.
 

I kinda fell out of following the Tigers while I was on the road, but saw that the White Sox have gotten back in it. I was also assed out to see that the Twins basically gave the White Sox Francisco Liriano. Granted Liriano isn’t what he used to be, but that guy can give the Tigers fits. Really, it’s a shame that Liriano caught that shoulder problem. When Liriano and JV both came out in 2006, I figured we’d be treated to some amazing pitcher’s duels down the line. Verlander could have easily lost his Rookie of the Year award had Liriano stayed healthy. Their stat lines in 2006 were eerily similar:
Verlander: 30 games, 17-9, 3.63 ERA, 124 SO
 

Liriano: 28 games, 12-3, 2.16 ERA, 144 SO

Still, both sides of the MLB have so much to decide still that the MLB has my attention more than the NFL at the time. The NL West is bound to give some fans a coronary. I figure Harvey’s hoping his boys can pull a winning streak out of somewhere. The Wild Card is doing what the commish thought it would. We might even see the Pirates make the playoffs. The A’s could break a lot of hearts here in Detroit. This is going to be a great finish, even if it was more engineered this season.

Lastly, while we notice that Penn State is making waves about fighting their sanctions (though they may just make things worse), it seems that a group of former PSU players are looking to fight to bring back the vacated wins. Lead by former QB Michael Robinson, the 8 man group filed an appeals letter yesterday. The group is challenging the consent decree signed by the university’s president as well as the findings of the Freeh Report. The players’ main complaint with the Freeh Report is that the findings mention of a “culture” that enabled unlawful acts against children seems to indicate that players contributed to those heinous acts committed by Jerry Sandusky. I agree with these players. The language could easily be changed to reflect that the actions of the coaching staff and administration created an environment that enabled such acts. Changing a few words around simply places the blame more squarely on those who need to shoulder it.
 

I believe that restoring these wins also shifts some of the blame. The mistakes of Sandusky and Paterno shouldn’t weigh on any former players. Put the wins back on the record, but leave Paterno where he is on the wins list. Feel free to place a huge asterisk next to his name with a vivid description of the depths he sunk to in an attempt to compile so many wins. Heck, he was up in the booth for a good number of them anyway. The young men that played, however, should be able to show their kids what their work got them.
 

That’s about all I have for this week. I’m pretty pumped to get my squad in their pads. It’s hard to see what kind of linemen I have without pads. I hope they’re just as ready to get popping. I’ll also be glued to Olympic coverage and MLB standings the rest of the week. I hope you all have exciting weeks of sport as well. Thanks as always for reading. I leave you with your word of the week.
 

Chik-Fil-Atheist, noun

A person who loves Chik-Fil-A, but not God, and is therefore pissed that Chik-Fil-A is closed on Sundays.
Even though I'm an avowed Chik-Fil-Atheist, I tried to go to Chik-Fil-A on Sunday again. Goddamn it!