2012 NBA Draft

This year’s draft is going to be a good one, with players of different skills and sizes. There is the top draft pick Anthony Davis that is sure to be an asset to any team. Thomas Robinson, Michael Kidd Gilchrist, Bradley Beal, and Andre Drummond are also potential top 5 draft picks this year. All of these players are destined to change the game as we know it in their future, but what about the other players in the draft? Everyone is always so focused on the top draft picks that the other players don’t get noticed. In basketball there are so many great players that some don’t even get a chance to showcase their talents on the big screen. For example, Jeremy Lin did not get a chance to play until injuries and personal issues kept starters on his team from playing. When he got on the court he did wonders for that team. In this years draft I see three players that are overlooked and will be the Jeremy Lins of the future. These players are Dion Waiters, Royce White, and Jae Crowder.

Dion Waiters is a sophomore guard for Syracuse that came off the bench, but once he came off the bench there is no doubt that he had a big impact on the court. His size, defense, and ability to handle the ball give him all of the assets to be a great point guard at the next level.

Royce White is a 6’8” sophomore for Iowa State with the ability of a point guard. White led his team in points, blocks, steals, assists, and rebounds. He is ultimately one of the best all-around players in the country. When given a chance to play, White will give his team everything he has in order to win.

There are few things that Marquette’s Jae Crowder can’t do. He can defend, get to the rim, and he has a decent shot from outside. He is a great leader and his solid size will help him have a successful career in the NBA.

These 3 players will definitely be people to watch in the future. Any team would be lucky to have them and I wish them luck in the draft.

Scandals

It seems that these days we see more and more scandals in college sports. Whether it is a sex scandal, or breaking the rules, over the years we have seen some of our beloved coaches and teams go down.

Earlier in April, it was announced that Bobby Petrino would no longer be the head football coach at the University of Arkansas. The 51-year-old man got in a lot of trouble when he got into a motorcycle accident on April 1st. It wasn’t until days later that the police report of the accident revealed that Petrino was with a girl. Unfortunately, Petrino was forced to admit that he had been in an inappropriate relationship with a girl named Jessica Dorrell. Dorrell is a 25-year-old former volleyball player at the University of Arkansas that had just been hired by Petrino to be the student-athlete development coordinator for the football team. Petrino’s hiring of Dorrell just made the situation worse. Not only did Petrino violate university policy by hiring Dorrell, but he also gave her twenty thousand dollars in cash. The athletic director at the University, Jeff Long, says that Petrino had a four day period that he could’ve come clean about being with Dorrell, but he chose not to, making the penalty worse for him. It all comes down to the fact that coach Petrino abused his authority when he hired a new member to the staff and jeopardized the integrity of the football team. When asked if Petrino should have been fired, Trenton Cundiff said, “Yes, he has had a rough past in coaching and in this case lied to the program and could no longer be trusted.”

This isn’t the first time Petrino has exited a football team. In 2007, he departed from the University of Louisville less than a year after signing a 10-year contract with the school. He also departed from the Atlanta Falcons in the year 2007. He left the Falcons with three games still left in the regular season.

Petrino may be known as one of the most prestigious coaches in school history. He led the University of Arkansas to the Sugar Bowl in 2010 and in 2011 he led them to win the Cotton Bowl after an 11-win season. Petrino exits Arkansas with a 75-26 record while coaching at the college level.

Arkansas just recently hired a new coach by the name of John L. Smith. Smith was the perfect man for the job because he had already been on the staff, he knew the players, he even recruited some of the players. He was there in the Sugar Bowl against Ohio State and made many of the special team calls possible. Lets not forget that Smith was replaced as the head coach of the University of Louisville by Bobby Petrino years ago. Coincidence? I think not, Smith is enjoying the sweet, sweet taste of revenge.

If you have watched the news lately you would know that a man named Josh Powell  killed both himself and his two kids in a fire during a supervised visit with his children on Feb. 6th.

Powell was the husband of Susan Powell, who went missing in 2009. As reported by many news outlets, the man claims to have taken his children and wife on a camping trip when the mother went missing, but the weird part was that they went in the middle of the winter.

I don’t know any one who decides to randomly go camping in the cold, it is just suspicious. As his two sons are starting to get older, their grandparents said that they started to talk about what really happened that night in 2009. One of the kids had drawn a picture of him, his brother, and his father in the car, when the grandfather asked where his mom was; the kid said she was in the trunk. In my opinion, the fact that the kids were starting to remember what happened and were starting to talk about it could have been Powell’s motive for taking not only his life, but his innocent children’s as well. The police are now investigating and are finding things such as emails that Powell had sent to attorneys, pastors, or family members, telling them what to do with his money and other things he owned. The day of his suicide/murder Powell sent an email to his attorney saying only 3 words, “I’m sorry, goodbye”. The attorney did not receive this email until the damage had already been done. The child services lady that was supervising the visit with the children’s father said that the kids ran ahead and that Powell locked the door before she got to the door. She started to smell gas and called for help after the house caught on fire. Investigators later came to find that before Powell caught the house on fire, he had attacked his kids with a hatchet but was unable to kill them before the fire engulfed them.

I find it sad that someone would be so messed up in the head that they would actually be able to hurt their family and innocent children like that. I couldn’t even imagine how the rest of the Powell family feels or the pain that they are going through because of their losses.

Facebook is one of the largest online social networks ever. Everyone knows what it is and almost everyone has one. Although Facebook has its ups, it also has its downs. I hate getting on Facebook and seeing all these pointless posts that know one cares about. I have done this, everyone does it at some point, but there are those certain people that you have to delete because of how annoying they are on Facebook. The people that get on Facebook and just complain about their life all day need to keep these desperate cries for attention to themselves. Facebook is also a place for the many girls out there that decide to post some of the most revealing pictures ever. Most of the time they make me want to throw up. Put some dang clothes on. Please don’t make the caption to your picture “I look awful!!!” expecting someone to go and comment saying you look “good”, I would be more than happy to agree with you that you look awful. The thing I hate the most about Facebook, is all of the stupid stuff people post on your wall saying you won something or someone answered a question about you or some game notification. If you use Facebook for games, get a life and stop sending me notifications because I can promise no one wants to play Farmville with you! If one hundred people have already posted that if you post this on a bunch of peoples walls you can get a free laptop and no one has gotten one, chances are you won’t get one either, so don’t post that crap on my wall. Lately the biggest thing on Facebook has been all these inappropriate and disgusting pictures that random people nobody knows keep on posting, and it’s hard to get away from it because if one of your friends likes it then it shows up on your news feed. So you can simply be scrolling down and see some naked indian grandma just siting there, I mean what has Facebook come to? Twitter is so much better than Facebook will ever be.

Every year I look forward to the fall season; playing soccer, perfect weather, Halloween and Thanksgiving. However, in addition to all the things I love, there is always something that ruins it. In this case leaves always ruin the fall for me.

They fall from their little trees looking red or dead. They begin to group up in your yard until your parents can’t take it anymore and force you against your will to go rake up the leaves until there isn’t a leaf in sight in your yard. For me, this occurs pretty much every week and I absolutely hate it. It takes me almost a whole day to finish the job, maybe even two depending on how hard I work (which usually isn’t all that hard due to the many distractions and other things that I would much rather be doing than raking up leaves.)

The process of leaf raking always begins with making huge obnoxious piles of leaves all over your yard. After that you spend awhile trying to bag the leaves by yourself, which is the hardest task because it is hard to keep the bag open while putting the leaves into the bag. Half the time the some of the leaves don’t even make it into the bag, which elongates the time it takes to bag the leaves. So in order to touch each leaf the least amount of times possible, rake the leaves onto a tarp to make moving them easier. It is also important to wear gloves. This prevents you from getting blisters from raking so long and getting bug bites or cuts when reaching into the leaves. Whatever you do, do not, I repeat do not, rake wet leaves. They stick everywhere and tend to make the job last longer and more difficult. Therefore you should wait to do the job on a day when the leaves are dry. Another tip is to not rake the leaves on a windy day, the leaves will blow away from the pile you put them in and frustrate you to the point of no return. The most important step in leaf raking, and the one I always do is ordering all the neighborhood kids to do all of the hard stuff.  Being the “supervisor” makes the job a lot easier then what it should be.