Posts Tagged ‘Mea Culpa’

Yes, my students, Professor Lawvol is sad to say that these are the times that try our souls…

Now that basketball season is officially over — at least for the college players — we have reached the terrible sports lull that precedes the beauty of football season.

Sucks, don’t it?

Yeah, yeah, I know — there’s baseball. Baseball, however, is my least favorite of the major sports (despite the fact it was the only one for which I ever had any degree of skill), and — unless someone wants to come on board as a writer here at Gate 21 and help to cover it — it is not my intention to try and give any semblance of legitimate treatment to baseball, aside from the occasional side note or observation. I will continue to post regularly throughout the summer. That said, unless something important is going on, weekends are out until the fall gets closer.

Still, we must persevere and press forward with our studies of all there is to learn. Thus, this “off season” period of the year is the time during which I really plan on delving into that “Life, the Universe … ” part of this trash rag blog’s byline. I am going to try and roll out a few new features here in the coming month, and may try a few “off-message” postings. So, be prepared for some seemingly absurd and inane things around here for a while — such as this:

Intelligent Design?

** Note the completely inappropriate and inexplicably off-topic use of scurrilous images to improve readership, and (perhaps) distract readers from the lack of substance in this post

I am hoping to get the old stream-of consciousness brain-barf (see informative graphic for example) going here shortly and start pontificating on subjects so ridiculously above my pay grade that it would make Larry Flynt blush (well, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but you get the idea …).

Either way, I will do my best to find things to help bide the time, until football season gets close. I can’t promise any of them will be worthwhile, but they are a useful substitute for the usual drivel I pour out during Football and Basketball season for the sole purpose of occupying myself when I really should be doing something more productive.

So, there, I have spent several paragraphs writing a rather pointless introduction for the rather pointless things I am going to write later, but which I haven’t yet thought up. This off-season thing is off to a wonderful start!

15 minutes down, 4 months to go, that wasn’t so hard…

– Go Figure …

Image Courtesy of: The Fail Blog

As my post yesterday made clear, I am a fan of the Lady Vols. This is hardly a new thing for me. I have been following the Lady Vols for almost 20 years now.

Of course, if you read Gate 21 this past season, you might not realize that.

I was a student at the University of Tennessee during one of the most legendary periods in Lady Vols history: 1994-1998. (Actually, when it comes to the Lady Vols pretty much any time during the program’s history is “legendary.”) During my 4 years at as a student at Tennessee, the Lady Vols went to 4 Final Fours, and won 3 National Championships. I was lucky enough to be present at almost all of their games during this time period, including 2 of their National Championships.

That is one of the benefits of being a member of the Pride of the Southland Band…

Since we Pep Band “weirdos” were always at the games — including the tournament games — we had the opportunity to interact with the team on a regular basis. In the overall pecking order, the Pep Band is fairly low. We were never the reason why people came to the games, and if we didn’t show up, people would notice but the game would go on without a hitch. We were the wrapping paper on the package — sure, we make it look a little nicer, but we really did not substantively change things. The thing that amazed me most about those teams was that — in the end — it was the team that reached out to us. The Lady Vols always took steps to reach out to us and get to know us. I was, admittedly, somewhat surprised that the Lady Vols were so very humble off the court. They were amazingly appreciative of the fact that the Pep Band was always there, and always supported them. What’s more, Coach Pat Summitt and the rest of the coaching staff also reached out to us — just to show that they appreciated our efforts. I sincerely appreciated that.

Those interactions with the Lady Vols and the coaching staff are some of my dearest memories as a Tennessee fan. I can honestly say that, by the time I left Tennessee, I considered several of the members of the team to be personal friends, and one a dear friend. Thus, it is fair to say that I am a huge fan of the Lady Vols.

Again, if you looked at Gate 21 over the past few months that would be hard to tell…

I have always supported the BasketVols but, let’s be honest, for a long time there hasn’t been much to cheer about. This year that changed. This year, I was completely overcome with my enthusiasm for the BasketVols. Bruce Pearl — in one fell swoop — made me a huge fan of men’s basketball once again. I gave 100% of my support to the BasketVols, and in the process became a card-carrying booster of the men’s basketball program at Tennessee.

I make no apology for that.

What I do want to publicly apologize for is the fact that, in the process of supporting the BasketVols, I completely neglected the Lady Vols. Prior to the National Championship game, I think I wrote a grand total of 2 articles discussing the fortunes of the women’s program during the season. That just plain stinks.

When you are running a blog like Gate 21 on your own (while still trying to maintain your life, family, and day job), just getting one good … halfway-decent … semi-crappy … new post up everyday can be a challenge at times. While I would love to be able to write non-stop, that’s just not feasible (unless some kind benefactor would like to start funding my efforts…). As a result of my limited time, resources, and complete lack of skill, I focused almost exclusively on the BasketVols throughout the season.

I do not believe that there is any reason whatsoever why any member of the Orange Nation cannot — and in fact should not — be an unqualified fan of both the BasketVols and the Lady Vols. In this case, “Fandom” is not mutually exclusive. That said, next year (God, I sound like a Bama fan) I plan on spreading the wealth a bit more. Adding another writer to Gate 21 would, of course, help (wink, wink, nudge, nudge to all of you out there in the Blogosphere who ever wanted to publicly speak your piece). Either way, my goal is to do a better job of being loyal to both of the basketball teams at Tennessee.

The future is so very bright for both of these programs, and that is immensely gratifying to me, as a Tennessee fan and alum. I intend to support both of these programs with reckless abandon.

I hope the rest of Orange Nation will do the same…

– Go Figure …

Just an FYI…

Gate 21 is undergoing updates and upgrades today, as Lawvol tries to shift to the newest and fanciest version of Wordpress — Wordpress 2.5.

Thus, it is possible that things might look a bit out of place or generally messed-up during the process. Please bear with us while the “brain trust” tries to work out the issues. If you notice anything that looks odd, or is not functioning properly, please leave a comment on that page and let us know what’s broken.

– Go Figure …