Cupcake Alert!

Ha! You didn't think that this post would be about football, did you?

Happily, college football starts this week (although ND starts the next Saturday). In particular, this is the time of the year when powerhouse football programs shell out big bucks to "cupcake" schools so that the cupcake can come to the powerhouse's school and get trampled. Every school is obligated to play a number of games, usually 8 or 9, within it's conference, and these matchups are somewhat fairly determined, but the remaining 3 or 4 games are pretty much up to each individual school. The cupcake games usually go as planned, but we did have the Appalachian State - Michigan game last year. Notre Dame, on the other hand, is not part of any conference (for football). Thus they have full control of their schedule, but they still play a decent number of tough opponents. I'm still irked by the guy at the Michigan - Ohio State game two years ago that observed my ND attire and made some comment about the pansies ND was playing that year (like Navy, Army, etc). I compared ND's schedule to OSU's sometime later and decided that ND's was slightly tougher (but it was way too late to make a point).

Also, I'm going to tattle on some of the big schools that play 12 regular season games but have either 7 or 8 (!) games at home. Also, most of these teams play at least one cupcake team:

7: Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Texas, West Virginia, Texas Tech, and Kansas

8: LSU, Clemson, Florida State, Missouri, Louisville

As much as I hate USC (and I do), they are using their three non-conference games to play Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Virginia this year, which is pretty respectable. Still, I hope they go 0-12.

I didn't do the research for this, I got it from an ESPN writer who produces lengthy but somewhat interesting missives on football each week during the season.

Finally: I bought and was actually able to setup a wireless router today, so I got to type this while sitting on the couch. Hike!

Michael Phelps Burnout

OK, so Michael Phelps won 8 golds in Beijing, and if you want to call him the greatest Olympic swimmer of all-time, I'll probably agree with you. But all the claims about how he's the "greatest Olympian ever," or how his Beijing performance is the "greatest athletic achievement of all time" are starting to drive me crazy, and it's all based on the fact that he won 8 golds, which is more than winning 7 or 6.

Basically, I think he's benefited from two things:

1. Coming from a country that has a lot of good swimmers, so he could win gold in 3 relays

2. The fact that the Olympics recognizes four different ways to swim!

If each race was just about swimming as fast as possible and not based on what stroke was used, there wouldn't be nearly as many races. Take away everything but the freestyle, and Michael Phelps would have only won three (3!) gold medals, since there'd be no medley races or relays, and no butterfly events. Even if you allow him the butterfly races, he'd only have 5. For comparison's sake, if you throw out the medley races, Mark Spitz wins six golds in 1972, so I guess he'd still be "the greatest swimmer ever."

Of everything I've seen of the Olympics so far, Usain Bolt's 100m final was the most amazing thing I've seen. If you haven't seen or heard, he basically quit running with 15 meters left, stopped pumping his arms, slapped his chest, and still set a world record, with the biggest margin of victory in the 100m in 40 years. Even if he wins the 200m and Jamaica wins the 4 x 100m relay, he'd only have 3 golds, and won't be nearly as celebrated as Michael Phelps, but there's only one kind of "stroke" when it comes to track and field - plain old running. Maybe they should four running formats too: forward, backward, gallop, and side-shuffle. Then there would be many more track races and medley races and maybe someone would have a chance to win 8 golds. Carl Lewis won 9 golds over his career, but I guess he can't be the greatest Olympian ever, based on the way Michael Phelps is being judged. Heck, those beach volleyball players, for example, play 7 matches or so throughout the two weeks, for one measly medal.

An ESPN online writer actually started calling Michael Phelps' Beijing performance the "greatest athletic achievement of all time" and gave readers the opportunity to rank it with 14 other performances, like Tiger Woods winning four consecutive major championships, Wayne Gretzky's amazing hockey season in the early 80's, a really good game Bill Walton had in the NCAA championship, and some woman swimming the English channel a long time ago. That feels like you're comparing something more than apples and oranges - more like apples and shrimp.

Anyway, Michael Phelps is a great swimmer. I'm sure I'll soon see him on the cover of Sports Illustrated, for the third time in about six weeks. But spare the ridiculous superlatives. They bother me.

26 Days Until School

Well, I utterly missed July, so here's my attempt to post something before Jake wakes up.

I went to MathFest 2008 in Madison, Wisconsin last week, which is a really cool city. I had never been there, but for four days the weather was great, my hotel was across from the state capital, and downtown was (and is) located between two huge lakes: Mendota and Monona. You immediately notice all the bikers when you hit the city, as well. If I was forced at gunpoint to pick a place to live other than Michigan, Madison might not be a bad choice. I'm sure the snow is no less than what we see here, however.

Lisa heads to San Antonio today, so I'll be a single parent until Monday morning. As a result, our current Netflix movies are Mike-oriented. On deck: Shaun of the Dead, and Grindhouse: Planet Terror. I'm sure the girls would love to watch them with me (of COURSE, I'm kidding).

The Tigers are fading from the playoff race, so I'll probably be reduced to hoping that the Yankees miss the playoffs, something interesting happens with the Cubs, and the playoffs in general are exciting. If all of that disappoints me, four days after school starts, Notre Dame football starts, so there are things to look forward to.

While I'll miss the summer, the thought of doing math and teaching does sound appealing, too. I could pass on the commuting, but with some well-planned carpooling, that should be OK too.

It's 9:15am, and Jake's still sleeping!