The Alabama football team went on the annual pilgrimage for national champions to the White House. Like the last time the Crimson Tide went to DC, the team was received by a first-term Democrat. Like we’ve said before, we blame George W. Bush for the recent travails (probation, probation again, losses to LSU and Auburn (2005), loss to Florida (2008). Is it any wonder Texas won its first national championship in years during the Bush era? (Conspiracy!)
President Barack Obama congratulated coach Nick Saban, Heisman Trophy-winning running back Mark Ingram and star linebacker Rolando McClain. The team presented him with a helmet featuring the number 13 (for the number of Bama national championships), a ceremonial football and the requisite custom jersey.
Also, Twitter.
Well, how about that. The new Wink hit the virtual newsstands this week, containing inside it all sorts of Spring fashions. For women. But, hey, all is not lost fellas. Like we did in the first issue, we went calling on Carolina athletics again for a good story.
This one is about Jack Easterby, head of the USC Fellowship of Christian Athletes and an advisor to the Gamecock men’s basketball team. It, eh, it ain’t bad. Check in on Page 22.
Everyone knows how hard Carolina coach Steve Spurrier is on his quarterbacks. Considering how mediocre many of them were after college (OK, we’re just talking about Florida here), it seems to lend credence to the idea that Spurrier’s unorthodox — perhaps even dickish — treatment of his signal callers worked when it was needed.
But like other championship coaches (Paul Dietzel, Lou Holtz) who arrived in Columbia, Spurrier isn’t happy with what’s going down on the field. Especially the play of ‘09 starter and presumed ‘10 starting quarterback Stephen Garcia. What, with quarterbacks transferring (one to play baseball at Alabama), The Head Ball Coach didn’t have much in the bullpen.
So, Spurrier let his opinion be known when asked about it at ESPN The Weekend.
(via EDSBS)
We’ve got one thing to ask for, for our upcoming birthday (that is, beside tickets to the Alabama-South Carolina game this fall and a case of Ketel One). Famed sports painter Daniel Moore did it. It’s out and available, like a debutant. It’s “Maximum Block,” the artist’s depiction of Terrence Cody putting his massive paw in the air and blocking another of Tennessee kicker Daniel Lincoln’s attempts, this time to win the game.
BIRMINGHAM — “Maximum Block,” the Daniel Moore painting that commemorates the game-saving play in the closest game of Alabama’s undefeated 2009 national championship season, was unveiled tonight during a reception at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
[...]
A steady stream of people stood in line to get free prints of the painting autographed by Moore, a Birmingham artist whose paintings have captured big moments in Alabama football history.
Ah, beating Tennessee at the last second. That never gets old. Or coronary-inducing.
I can has?
Wednesday night, the USC men’s basketball team upset Florida to try to set the team up for an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament. One person, who is not listed as an official coach for Carolina, is Jack Easterby. He’s the director of the South Carolina chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He also counsels the team, and has been doing so for several years. We were fortunate enough to be able to interview him for the latest edition of Wink, Columbia’s local Web-based magazine.
Unfortunately, not everything we talked to Easterby about could be in our story. It wasn’t about the content — Easterby seems to us like a really good guy who works hard to make sure the players develop their potential not just as players, but as people. There’s just not enough space sometimes.
We were interested in his opinion of former Carolina player Mike Boynton, the leader of the 2003-2004 team that was the last to make it to the Big Dance. Boynton never scored that much during the regular season, but was obviously the most valuable player because of his leadership. During the SEC Tournament, Boynton regularly led the team in scoring, because he had to. There was also the matter of Tré Kelley, who did an amazing job as a guard for the Gamecocks.
Talking about Boynton, who is now an assistant coach for the team, Easterby said:
Mike was almost born to coach.
[...]
That’s what’s so impressive to me about Mike Boynton. He just knows what kids need. He’s not trying to manipulate or do anything. He knows exactly what they need, when they need it, how they need it. He stays real patient.
[...]
Mike Boynton is truly going to be a great head coach very soon. He’s maybe a year or so, or even less, away from being a tremendous head coach. More so, just being a great people person.
As for Kelley, he’s playing ball in China these days. But, when he was still in Columbia, Easterby helped him out. You see, Kelley was a long way from his home in D.C. And that’s not the problem. Nineteen years ago, his uncle died in a murder related to drugs, and his aunt died in a drug overdose. Five years later, his mother was murdered by the man she had become involved with after separating from Kelley’s father.
About the situation, he said to a sports and faith Web site, “I saw a lot of negativity around me with friends. Once I grew up, I saw my friends go in other directions that wouldn’t make me a good person, that wouldn’t make me a successful person. At age 11, basketball was beginning to be what I did best. I met a lot of people who really helped me get along. They didn’t help me get over it — I’ll probably never get over it — but they helped me move in the right direction.”
At the time, Kelley’s grandmother stepped in and provided him with a safe home and the love and support he needed. He was still dealing with his problems when after his freshman year with the Gamecocks, Kelley went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic that changed his life.
While his time in the NBA didn’t go as expected, he’s doing some amazing things in the Chinese Basketball Association.
“I talked to him this morning,” Easterby said of Kelley on Wednesday. “It’s a 13-hour time difference, so it’s a little different. Tré’s been one of my projects that I’ve been incredibly proud of. Because, he is really dedicated to the Lord. Tré is an interesting situation. His home life was really poor growing up, and he’s really overcome a lot of great things. He is a really, really strong Christian guy. He’s playing over there, actually, against Stephon Marbury the other night. He had 36 points, so he’s doing well. There’s some really good things going for Tré, and I’m excited about watching him grow and see him continue – he hit 53 on Wednesday, so he’s getting it done over there.”
There’s a lot of stories out there about the corruptive influence of Division I athletics, but it’s good to know that it doesn’t have to be this way, and that people like Easterby, Boynton and Kelley are providing good examples to USC.
Roundly recognized as the best Alabama sports blog, Roll Bama Roll, is committed to providing solid coverage of the 2010 Crimson Tide softball season. Not everybody out there is a fan of collegiate softball, or knowledgeable about the sport. That’s where we come in. After covering Carolina softball and consistently covering two high school softball squads in Texas — including a 4A state champion — and three teams in Virginia, we’re ready to step into the void.
That’s why we’ve decided to do our best David Addison impression and agreed to take on the responsibility of covering the Tide for this season for RBR. It should be fun. Last year, Bama made a run at the national championship, and should be set up to do it again this season. The team is preseason No. 2 in the USA Today/NFCA and ESPN.com/USA Softball polls. Alabama’s the odds-on favorite to win the Southeastern Conference and challenge for the Women’s College World Series title again.
That’s not to say it’ll be easy. There are five SEC teams that are ranked, with Florida and Georgia perceived to be the biggest challenges to the Tide in conference. Also, Bama is leading off the season with a series against Missouri, another Top 10 team.
Washington, which won it all last year, starts out the season at No. 1.
We told you we were going to milk this bastard. For Carolina fans — try a 10-win season, you might like it. For Clemson fans — try getting into the national championship hunt in an era when white belts weren’t in style. In the words of the best of the Southeastern Conference (winners of the last four national championships), “Don’t worry. We got this.”
We were most aware of Tre Kelley when we were covering him while he was the freshman phenom from DC leading the Carolina men’s basketball team to one of its best seasons in recent years. He was a part of the back-to-back NIT champion teams, and was signed by a Croatian team out of college.
After that, Kelley made his way to a short stint in the NBA. And now, surprise, he’s showing up former New York Knick Stephon Marbury in China.
Marbury was outplayed by his counterpart, Tre Kelley, who finished with 34 points on 12-for-19 shooting. On an identical play with less than 30 seconds to go, Kelley would use Simmons’s screen to drive past Marbury for a layup that put Dongguan ahead 100-99. After his team’s loss, Marbury wrote on his Chinese Twitter-like site: “im sorry about the game last night. i wish we would have won for you guys. i will get better every game, i promise.”
Hey, it’s much better than hearing about Ro Howell beating up some soccer player in Italy.
The U.S. House passed H.R. 1007, congratulating Alabama on winning the national championship. We don’t know exactly how this went down, but U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus was joined in speaking on the resolution by Mazie Hirono of Hawai’i and Brett Guthrie of Kentucky. We’re imagining there’s some sort of informal college football roundtable going on among the representatives. Or they could just have been roped in because of membership on the House Education and Labor Committee.
Also, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby collected on his turkey from fellow senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson.
Hirono:
The extraordinary achievement of this year’s team is a tribute to the skill and dedication of all the players, as well as coaches, students, alumni, families, and fans that have helped to make the University of Alabama a premier football program. Winning the national championship, finishing the season with a 14-0 overall record, and leading the Southeastern Conference to another championship has brought national acclaim to the University of Alabama and great pride to those that care for the school. I know the fans of the university will revel in this great triumph as they look forward to the 2010 season.
Guthrie:
I congratulate the University of Alabama, the team, and Head Coach Nick Saban on winning this BCS championship. And I congratulate Mark Ingram and the team for winning the 2009 Heisman Trophy. After Alabama won the 1978 national championship in a very famous and legendary college game against Penn State in the Sugar Bowl on December 31, 1978, just the previous spring the University of Kentucky had won the national championship in basketball; so immediately the next weekend or so they played each other in basketball, and I will never forget the University of Kentucky fans unfolding a banner that said “Congratulations from one champion to another.’”
It showed a lot of class for my fellow Kentuckians to do that to another school. But it showed a lot of spirit in the SEC and the pride we have in each other. And of course after last night, and we expect this weekend, the University of Kentucky’s basketball team will be ranked number one. So hopefully, after this spring, the University of Alabama fans, like my friend from Birmingham here with me today, will be able to congratulate our team, the University of Kentucky, on winning the national championship following Alabama this year. That is our hope. And I endorse this resolution. I urge my colleagues to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Bachus:
The game itself had inspiring personal stories. The quarterback for Texas, Colt McCoy, is a fine young man. When he was injured, his team took from his example and never gave up, fighting until the end. Alabama’s quarterback, Greg McElroy, quietly played with two broken ribs. Alabama running back Mark Ingram, the MVP of the game and the first Heisman Trophy winner in school history, is a student-athlete of outstanding character and spirit. But it was a team effort. In the end, Alabama came out on top, and finished the season with a perfect 14-0 record, and its first national championship season since 1992, under Coach Gene Stallings.
There was another undefeated team, and that was Boise State University. And I congratulate coach Chris Peterson of Boise State. When someone said they should be invited to the White House together with the University of Alabama, he graciously said there is only one national champion, that is the University of Alabama, and they should be invited. So I congratulate Boise State University on their successful undefeated year, as do all citizens of Alabama.
Whereas, on January 7, 2010, the University of Alabama Crimson Tide defeated the University of Texas Longhorns, 37-21, in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship Game in Pasadena, California;
Whereas the University of Alabama located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has become one of the premier athletic and academic institutions in the country;
Whereas the University of Alabama has been the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Football Champion a record-setting 22 times;
Whereas the University of Alabama has made an NCAA-record 57 bowl appearances;
Whereas the Crimson Tide players won many individual accomplishments throughout the season including, Mark Ingram as the first player from the University of Alabama to win the Heisman Trophy, Rolando McClain as the Butkus Award Winner, and 6 players selected as Associated Press First Team All Americans;
Whereas Mark Ingram rushed for 116 yards and 2 touchdowns to be named the Offensive Most Valuable Player of the BCS National Championship Game;
Whereas Marcell Dareus returned an interception for a touchdown and was named the Defensive Most Valuable Player of the BCS National Championship Game;
Whereas the Crimson Tide defense held the University of Texas to 276 offensive yards and forced 5 turnovers during the BCS National Championship Game;
Whereas Nick Saban in his third year as head coach led the University of Alabama to its first National Championship since 1992; and
Whereas residents of Alabama and Crimson Tide fans worldwide are to be commended for their longstanding support, perseverance, and pride in the team: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives–
(1) commends the University of Alabama for winning the Bowl Championship Series National Championship;
(2) recognizes the achievements of the players, coaches, students, and support staff who were instrumental in the victory; and
(3) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to transmit a copy of this resolution to University of Alabama President Dr. Robert E. Witt and head coach Nick Saban for appropriate display.
If you’ve thought we’ve moved on from Alabama winning the national championship, you’ve got another thing coming. After 17 years in the wilderness, we’re enjoying the hell out of this one, and will milk it for as long as possible. Hopefully, that will only be until next year’s BCS National Championship Game, considering that the Crimson Tide has a wealth of talent returning.
