Mr2Bits
Gator Fan
Typing away at the laptop while taking a lunch break.....
Hard to believe the Winter Olympics are already over; aside from the pre-opening ceremonies tragedy involving the luger from Georgia (Nodar Kumaritashvili) being killed on a training run, Vancouver deserves to be highly commended on a job well done. Based on the fact that the United States and Canada brought in the lion's share of the total medals as well as staged impressive championship hockey games, albeit with Team USA settling for silver medals in both the men's and women's finals, they could very well be called "North America's Games". Though Canada was on a mission to "own the podium" and came away with the most gold medals (14 total) the USA prevailed in the overall total medal count with a record and best-ever 37. We won't see another Winter Games take place until 2014 when they'll be in Sochi, Russia; I hope that the immature behavior of Russian athletes Evgeni Plushenko and Alex Ovechkin at these games aren't a sign of things to come. If anything, the Russians should aim for a "coming-out party" on the same scale China did when they successfully hosted the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. All said, congrats to Team USA for a performance well beyond expectations - and a special congrats and Gator Chomp to former UF decathlete Steve Mesler for being part of the USA1 "Night Train" crew piloted by Steve Holcomb that won gold in the 4-man bobsled competition and ended an American drought in the event that went all the way back to 1948!!
Sounds like Tim Tebow's making quite the impression at the NFL Scouting Combine going on right now up in Indianapolis; maybe now the critics will finally give credit where credit is due as far as his potential to succeed in the pros goes as well as get off Urban Meyer's back about his supposedly "not having prepared him for the next level" (which IMO is an absurd statement as it is; Coach Meyer's primary responsibility as Florida's head coach is to have his <strong>team</strong> as a whole - not individual players - prepared for gameday, to win games and ultimately win championships.) Based on what I've read today, Joe Haden is attracting interest from the Cleveland Browns as well. Compared to recent years, Florida's NFL draft class should be much stronger this year and we'll likely see one or maybe two of our Gator alums off the boards in the first round.
(On a side note, it's good to hear that Urban and Shelley Meyer were all right after being evacuated from where they were staying in Hawai'i during their recent vacation; it was a precaution taken due to fears of a possible tsunami hitting the islands following the recent earthquake in Chile. Can't wait to see Urban back on the sidelines for the start of spring football coming up in two weeks!)
It's been like a roller-coaster for Billy Ball lately; we achieved a "signature" win, for lack of a better word, over Bruce Pearl's Tennessee Vol team but blew it in Athens against Georgia; the aftermath of which some Gator fans were calling for Dan Werner's head due to a costly last-minute error he made. At first I didn't think they had a chance of being invited to the Big Dance, but if they can beat Vandy and do well in the SEC tourney they still have a chance. If anything, Billy Donovan's squad is composed of late-bloomers, especially with the likes of Vernon Macklin proving it was worth his transferring to UF from Georgetown, and they seem to be saving their best performances for when it really counts. An invite to the NCAA tourney this year instead of another consecutive NIT appearance will be an accomplishment in itself for this team.
Now that the Olympics have come and gone until the 2012 Summer Games in London, I can get back to just focusing on Gator sports....and how is YOUR week going so far?
Hard to believe the Winter Olympics are already over; aside from the pre-opening ceremonies tragedy involving the luger from Georgia (Nodar Kumaritashvili) being killed on a training run, Vancouver deserves to be highly commended on a job well done. Based on the fact that the United States and Canada brought in the lion's share of the total medals as well as staged impressive championship hockey games, albeit with Team USA settling for silver medals in both the men's and women's finals, they could very well be called "North America's Games". Though Canada was on a mission to "own the podium" and came away with the most gold medals (14 total) the USA prevailed in the overall total medal count with a record and best-ever 37. We won't see another Winter Games take place until 2014 when they'll be in Sochi, Russia; I hope that the immature behavior of Russian athletes Evgeni Plushenko and Alex Ovechkin at these games aren't a sign of things to come. If anything, the Russians should aim for a "coming-out party" on the same scale China did when they successfully hosted the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. All said, congrats to Team USA for a performance well beyond expectations - and a special congrats and Gator Chomp to former UF decathlete Steve Mesler for being part of the USA1 "Night Train" crew piloted by Steve Holcomb that won gold in the 4-man bobsled competition and ended an American drought in the event that went all the way back to 1948!!
Sounds like Tim Tebow's making quite the impression at the NFL Scouting Combine going on right now up in Indianapolis; maybe now the critics will finally give credit where credit is due as far as his potential to succeed in the pros goes as well as get off Urban Meyer's back about his supposedly "not having prepared him for the next level" (which IMO is an absurd statement as it is; Coach Meyer's primary responsibility as Florida's head coach is to have his <strong>team</strong> as a whole - not individual players - prepared for gameday, to win games and ultimately win championships.) Based on what I've read today, Joe Haden is attracting interest from the Cleveland Browns as well. Compared to recent years, Florida's NFL draft class should be much stronger this year and we'll likely see one or maybe two of our Gator alums off the boards in the first round.
(On a side note, it's good to hear that Urban and Shelley Meyer were all right after being evacuated from where they were staying in Hawai'i during their recent vacation; it was a precaution taken due to fears of a possible tsunami hitting the islands following the recent earthquake in Chile. Can't wait to see Urban back on the sidelines for the start of spring football coming up in two weeks!)
It's been like a roller-coaster for Billy Ball lately; we achieved a "signature" win, for lack of a better word, over Bruce Pearl's Tennessee Vol team but blew it in Athens against Georgia; the aftermath of which some Gator fans were calling for Dan Werner's head due to a costly last-minute error he made. At first I didn't think they had a chance of being invited to the Big Dance, but if they can beat Vandy and do well in the SEC tourney they still have a chance. If anything, Billy Donovan's squad is composed of late-bloomers, especially with the likes of Vernon Macklin proving it was worth his transferring to UF from Georgetown, and they seem to be saving their best performances for when it really counts. An invite to the NCAA tourney this year instead of another consecutive NIT appearance will be an accomplishment in itself for this team.
Now that the Olympics have come and gone until the 2012 Summer Games in London, I can get back to just focusing on Gator sports....and how is YOUR week going so far?
