Football

Along with discussing the Western Michigan debacle, the Buchtelite guys assess Luke Getsy's chances in the pros.

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• Dan Kadar wrote a good feature about defensive back John Mackey. With what the Walsh Jesuit grad has gone through this season, it's no wonder he'll be a leader in 2007.

Men's basketball

The AK-Rowdies held a meeting tonight. If you didn't attend (like I didn't), I think you are SOL.

Here are some notes from UofAZips.com about the event. The Rowdies have some really good ideas for this season.

Women's basketball

Coach Jodi Kest told the Buchtelite's Matt Kane about the Zips' late-game losses.

She also talks a little about the big home game against Pittsburgh on Wednesday. We'll have game-day coverage of that contest.

Rifle

The Buchtelite's Josh Volchko wrote about the Zips' hot streak, which continued this weekend against Morehead State and IUP.

You won't read this story in the newspaper. It's a Web exclusive.

Miscellaneous

I hate cliches. Really. That's what my column is about. For your convenience, I'll put all cliches in italics…

Pardon me, but I have happy feet.

For the longest time, I've wanted to write a column using nothing but sports cliches - which I hate more than fighting tooth and nail only to lose a golf match.

The last few weeks, some people say my columns have lost a step. Before, I might have been, pound-for-pound, the Buchtelite's best writer. Now I'm not sure. Other scribes, perhaps still wet behind the ears, are climbing the ranks. I'll quickly get back on track and silence my critics.

Maybe you aren't up with sports cliches. That's because they are woven into sports language. They ooze out of coaches' and players' mouths. You can set your watch to them.

If a squad wins, it's because "We brought our A-game," and "It was a total team effort." Lose and "It was a hard-fought contest," but "You have to live with a loss."

Gag me.

Most disturbing, you can't listen to a single basketball announcer without hearing "He teed up a deep J."

Deep J? Is that Nike's answer to Titleist's Pro-V1?

Cliches put a damper on any creative juices left in sports journalism. If there's one rule you should know about writing, it's to avoid cliches like the plague.

If you haven't noticed, I've got about a 1.2 cliche-per-line average, which is pretty good for being so green. As far as winning all the marbles and reclaiming my status as best writer at the newspaper, however, I'm on the bubble.

I can improve through hard work and sacrifice. This column isn't over until it's over. Never say die. Right? Oops, I just did.

But the pressure is on. The clock is my enemy. And the tying run is just 90 feet away. If only I can put aside my nerves.

I'll get through this struggle by talking about the Browns and Zips. You want to say there is no quit in either, but the results were lacking this weekend.

The opponents lit up the scoreboard because the weary defenses were on the field too long. The offensive lines were porous, and the teams could not stop the bleeding.

When all was said and done, neither team notched a win in its own building.

I'm really throwing my support behind Charlie Frye, too. He's a dark horse candidate to become a Cinderella story. With awful blocking, however, he doesn't have a snowball's chance.

Oh, boy. It's crunch time. This has been a real barnburner, but I only have a few lines left to really show you what I've got. Where is my Mariano Rivera of cliches to slam the door shut?

Oh, no! The buzzer sounded.

Hopefully, the committee will survey my whole body of work.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.