Author: kassienette

The Weekender

On By kassienetteIn Baseball, Basketball, Entertainment, Football, Hockey, NASCAR, Sports, Tennis, Wolfpack4 Comments

Hello all!! I hope you are having a great holiday weekend. Here is a quick rekap of all the big and not so big sports stories…

Pia Sundhage resigned as coach of the US Women’s Soccer team. 2 snaps and a job well done.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will finally get his statue in Star Plaza outside of the Staples Center. Oh Kareem, if only you had not complained.

Jake Skelton was named the starting QB for the Arizona Cardinals. And just like that, Kevin Kolb becomes the highest paid backup QB EVER.

Eureka College QB, Sam Durley, passed for 736 yards in a win against Knox. Seven hundred and thirty six yards.

Alabama laid the smackdown on Michigan in Texas. I guess everything really is bigger there.

Dwight Howard took out an ad in the Orlando Sentinel expressing his loooooove for the city. Mickey and nem were not impressed.

Maurice Jones-Drew ended his holdout WITHOUT signing a new contract. Did I miss something?

After becoming an overnight, inspirational sensation at the London Olympics, Oscar  Pistorious finished second in the 200m final at the Paralympics. He then complained the winner had an unfair advantage. *crickets*

My Wolfpack failed to show up against Tennessee. Maybe they were looking ahead to the UConn game.

Denny Hamlin won his second race in a row, claiming the checkered flag in Atlanta. Vroom vroom.

Stepping up to the plate with two outs in the ninth inning, the Atlanta Braves Chipper Jones, put one over the wall to give his a team an 8-7 win. Chipper’s chip shot keeps the Braves in the lead for the NL Wild Card spot.

The NFL & NFL Referees Association failed to reach a deal and no new meetings are scheduled. I have a good feeling a few replacement refs will appear in the C’Mon Man segment on Monday Night Countdown next week.

Andy Roddick announced he will retire after the US Open. Kool.

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said, “I think Timmy, with all due respect, is better than Joe Montana.” Laughs out loud very loudly.

Labor talks between the NHL and the NHL Players Association have stalled, likely signaling a lockout.  New soap opera coming soon, “As The Ice Melteth.”

Cheyenne Woods, niece of Tiger, won her first LPGA tourney. I wonder if her new slogan is “Tiger, Tiger, he’s the man, if he can not do it, I can!!”

 

Until next time…TOODELLS.

Ladies, klass is in session…Football 101, Lesson 1

On By kassienetteIn Football21 Comments

First, I have to give a big old THANK YOU to all my family, friends and strangers who have shown me so much love and support since I launched my blog. I am having a blast!!

Now, lets get started. I had not planned to post again until Friday but I have quickly learned that in the blogging world you just go with the flow. Since my last post, I have gotten a lot of feedback from women who are anxious to learn more about sports. With the college football season starting tonight and NFL starting next week, I think it is only right that I help my ladies out a bit. So here it is, your first football lesson. Make sure you have your pen and paper ready :-}.

Uno) NEVER, EVER talk during the game unless you are talking about the game….
Uno A)…but you can not ask questions. No one really wants to explain to you, during the game, what a safety is. Questions are only allowed during commercials and they should be very limited. Maybe three a game. Seriously.
Uno B)…if you are going to talk about the game, please, please, pleeeeeeeeease know what you are talking about. If the quarterback(QB) gets sacked(tackled and brought down to the ground while he still has the ball), DO NOT yell out offsides! If you do not know what you are talking about, please refer back to uno A.

Dos) The offense is the team with the ball. The defense is the team without. Easy, right?

Tres) There are 10 yards in a down. The offense gets four chances to gain the 10 yards. If the offense does not gain 10 yards, the other team gets the ball back. I already know I am going to have to revisit this topic.

Cuatro) A touchdown(TD) is worth six points. Always and forever.

Cinco) Typically after a touchdown, the kicker comes out to, yeah you guessed it, kick the ball through the uprights(the bars in the endzone that looks like an H). This is called a Point After Touchdown bka PAT and it is worth one point. It is NOT a field goal which is worth three points.

Seis) The person who throws the ball is the QB. Well, nine times out of 10 it is the QB. Just confused you, huh?

Siete) A football game typically lasts three hours. Give or take 15-30 minutes.

Ocho) If a game is tied at the end of regulation, the game goes into overtime(OT). We will get into that during another class.

Nueve) There are 11 offensive and 11 defensive players on the field at all times. If you count more than that on the field, somebody can not count.

Diez) A football field is 100 yards long and 53.5 yards wide. You can really impress a man if you drop that tidbit on ’em. Please do it in a casual manner.

Once) The endzone is the 10 yard area at the end of the field. The goal is to get the ball into the endzone thus resulting in a TD. The endzone typically has the home team’s mascot name spray painted in it.

Doce) Gridiron is another name for the football field. While we are at it, if someone yells out paydirt that means touchdown.

Want more knowledge until the next lesson? Watch SportsCenter!! It literally comes on like 12 times a day. Oh and SportsCenter is ESPN’s flagship program for those of you who do not know. If you happen to not know what ESPN is, then forget everything you read and go back to watching Lifetime.

Until next time…TOODELLS.

For the love of the pig….skin

On By kassienetteIn 49ers, Food, Football, Olympics, Panthers, Sports, Wolfpack14 Comments

The best pig skins can be found in my hometown of Lexington, NC, sandwiched in between a hamburger bun with extra dip on top, fries or hushpuppies to accompany it and a sweet tea to wash it down. *wipes away drool* Ok, wait. That is not the pigskin I am suppose to be talking about. Sorry. I love food. At any time my mind can wander off and begin to think of something decadent to partake of. And if you have to ask what dip is, then you have NEVER had real que.

Anyway, moving right along. Do you smell that? Do you? Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Now do you smell it? You do? Smells great right? Aaaaaaaaaah, the smell of pigskin, the non-sandwich kind. IT’S FOOTBALL SEASON YA’LL!! HAPPY HAPPY, JOY JOY!! I can admit that I am something like an addict when it comes to football. Ok, ok, I am addicted.  Pee Wee. Pop Warner. Little League. Middle School. High School. College. Professional. Flag. Fantasy. You name it, I love it!!! I can talk to you about Cover 2, the wishbone, slot receivers, nickelbacks, 3-4 defense, offsides and blitzing. I can do the Ray Lewis intro dance, the Deion Sanders skip, Aaron Rodgers Discount Doublecheck move and I still Ickey Shuffle from time to time. I know when to yell RED during the National Anthem at Carter-Finley aka The Carter. I know that if Florida State is playing, I will hear the Seminole chant at least 20 times a quarter. I know the University of Maryland has one of the non-prettiest stadiums in the country.

I inherited my love for the game from my mother. As a child growing up in Lexington, Fridays were one of my favorite days of the week. During the late summer, early fall months my Fridays consisted of school, fried croaker(one of my grandma Margie’s specialties) and cheering on the Jackets, home or away. JACKET PRIDE!! My other favorite day was Sunday, of course. If you were at our house on Sunday afternoons, you had two tv choices: the game on CBS or the game on FOX. Unfortunately for me, if the dreaded cowgirlies were playing there was no choice. My mama and aunt are both die hard cowgirlie fans.  I refused to make such a mistake and rebelled early. My team of choice? THE SAN FRANCISO 49ERS!! They were soooooo kool. Their qb was kool. The WR was smoove. And their coach had a full head of white hair. It love at first snap.

The game of football gets me giddy, like first day of school I can not wait to show all my friends my new Trapper Keeper giddy. Most men understand the feeling. Some women do not. The women give me that horrified look when I tell them football over Lifetime any day. Their mouths drop open when they find out I enjoy watching Cam Newton play because I know at any moment he can change the whole momentum of the game with his feet. The fact that he is handsome is just an added bonus.

Tomorrow, the college football season begins. OH BOY!! Friday night, my beloved WOLFPACK take the field to show Tennessee who’s boss. Since I am a blogger, this would be a great time to make a prediction huh? Let me see. USC(with the pound cake schedule they have, they better make it) and LSU for the championship. LSU redeems itself. Now back to my regularly scheduled thoughts…next Wednesday night, I will be plastered in front of the TV for the start of the NFL season. HAPPY HAPPY, JOY JOY!! Unfortunately, I have to be subjected to watching the team who “beat” my team to go to the Super Bowl last year and quote unquote “America’s Team.” Regardless, I am ecstatic that football is back. I was struggling during the off months, like I always do. Thank God for the Olympics. If it were not for them, I may have been tempted to watch Lifetime.

Until next time….TOODELLS.

She knows the game? Yes! She knows the game.

On By kassienetteIn Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, NASCAR, Olympics, Sports, Tennis5 Comments

The picture speaks for itself. Kassie is a sports fanatic.

I love attending games. I love watching games. I love keeping up with stats. I love debating sports. I love seeing records being set and records being broken. I love cheering my team on to victory. I am addicted to ESPN. I even have an ESPN banner hanging in my living room. I love everything about sports. Well, almost everything. I can do without the lying, cheating and deception but hey that is the world we live in.

For years, I have gotten compliments on my vast knowledge of sports. Just a few of weeks ago a schoolmate of mine, Larry, said to me, ” girl you need to get a job covering/writing for some sort of sports network or paper. I think it’s your calling to bring the facts while at the same time getting under the skin of the opposition! It’s what you’re great at!” I’ve heard that plenty of times before but for some reason, on that particular day the wheels started churning. And churning. And churning. Until a solution was churned out….this blog :-}.

My love and knowledge of sports classifies me as rare. It is not often you will find a lady that wears 5.5 inch heels who can name all the members of the Dream Team, knows all the words to the Chicago Bears Fight Song, Bear Down, can quote famous rants by Allen Iverson, Jim Mora, Dennis Green & Herm Edwards or can get into a car and show you how Dale Earnhardt, Sr. celebrated his one and only Dayotona 500 win. Don’t worry Ma, I have never done that ;-}. I have dreams of sitting at the debate desk on ESPN’s First Take. I have dreams of providing coverage of the SuperBowl from the sideline. I have dreams of being in Rio in 2016 for the Olympics as not only a fan but a commentator. I want to sit down one day and have a talk with Jerry Rice. I want to meet Josh Hamilton one day and tell him how much he inspires me. I want to play catch one day with Peyton Manning. I want to have some kool stories to tell my future children so they can tell all their friends and I’ll be deemed the “Kool Mama.” Today is the day I begin turning those dreams into reality.

As the years have passed by, I have come to the realization that my love for sports is part of who I am. Always have. Always will be. The fact that I am a woman, just helps me stand out in the crowd.