Mr. Movember

As most of you already know, I'm currently sporting an absolutely-awful-looking moustache in support of Movember, a month-long crusade to raise money and awareness for men's health (prostate cancer in particular) by growing a funky 'stache.  From the Movember website:

Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month.  The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men. 

Before I head to the Shark Tank tonight to see the Islanders visit the San Jose Sharks, I wanted to praise the NHL for taking the lead in promoting Movember in the world of professional sports.  Movember has reported that over 150 NHL players across 14 teams are growing 'staches to raise money for the cause, lead by Anaheim Ducks enforcer and Princeton alum George Parros.  Since the month started, I've wondered why more athletes aren't participating in Movember and using their status to do some good.

Anaheim's George Parros is leading the NHL's support of Movember.

Normally, I'm not one to argue that athletes "owe it to their fans" to do good for society; at the end of the day, sports is a business and the employees (the athletes) have no more responsibility to donate time or money to charitable causes that you or I do.  But Movember is simultanously so easy and so amusing that I would have thought tons of athletes would be doing it.  Why isn't a fun-loving guy like Dwight Howard comically stroking his handlebar moustache after one of his monster blocked shots?  Couldn't LeBron James, a guy who was beloved last year for acting like a kid and having fun on the court, gain some good PR and show the world that he's the "same ole' LeBron" by growing a fu-man-chu for charity?  Could Eli Manning be the creepiest looking guy ever if he grew a hilarious pencil-thin 'stache?  These questions need to be addressed.

In the meantime, kudos to NHL players for not taking themselves too seriously and doing something good for their fellow man in the process.  While I can't force Superman, LeBron or Eli to grow a 'stache, I can and will keep mine growing strong (at least until Thanksgiving break).  If you'd like to donate to my Movember campaign, please feel free to do so here.  Thanks in advance for your support, and Happy Movember.

Week in Review

One of my favorite parts of the ESPN Scorecenter application (available for both iPhone and Android) is the "My Teams" menu.  Here, you can track the most recent results from all of your favorite professional and college teams, as well as take a look at their upcoming contests.  I was playing around with my phone earlier today, when I realized that starting this Thursday I have an absolutely amazing week (plus a few days) of sports ahead.  It's a beautiful and diverse combination of games that I hope to cover extensively here at Caught Looking, but I wanted to give you a little preview first.  While each event is individually exciting, collectively they make up a monumental week in my life as a sports fan.  In fact, I can't remember a ten-day span I've been this excited about sports-wise.  Without further ado, here's what I have between now and the start of Thanksgiving week:

• Thursday, 11/11: New York Islanders @ San Jose Sharks, HP Pavilion at San Jose.  I already have my tickets and will be there in person.
• Friday, 11/12: Rutgers @ Princeton, Jadwin Gymnasium.  Princeton hoops kicks off their season with a home game against their in-state rival.  Wish I could be there in person, but instead I'll be following online.
• Saturday, 11/13: Stanford @ Arizona State.  When your team is ranked #6 in the BCS, every game is huge.  Must-see-TV for Saturday late afternoon (evening on the East Coast).
• Sunday, 11/14: Dallas Cowboys @ New York Giants.  I'm heading up to a big Giants bar in San Francisco to watch the game with friends and fellow Bay Area Giants fans.  Cowboys games are always entertaining, but this experience should be particularly awesome.
• Sunday, 11/14: Princeton @ Duke.  While watching the Cowboys and Giants, I'll also try and find a TV showing ESPNU to catch some of Princeton basketball's nationally televised game against the defending national champions at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
• Monday, 11/15: San Diego @ Stanford, Maples Pavilion.  Stanford hoops kicks off the season with a home game, and I'll be there in person.  Maples is literally a two-minute walk from my room, so I hope to be there often this season.
• Friday, 11/19: New York Knicks @ Golden State Warriors, Oracle Arena.  I don't have tickets yet, but I'm hoping to grab some to see my new-look Knicks make their only trip to Oakland this season.
• Saturday, 11/20: Stanford @ Cal.  I've always wanted to experience "The Big Game," and I'm currently in the process of getting tickets with other Stanford fans.  Assuming Stanford wins this weekend, Cal will be extra-eager to burst Stanford's BCS bowl hopes.

Pretty good, huh?  I'll be sure to keep you all posted as I make my way through this crazy ten-day stretch.  Wish me luck!

Where's the Love?

Since I started passionately following Stanford University football last season, I've always felt the team is continually underappreciated and underecognized.  While I admit I'm somewhat biased, I still think there's a lot of truth here; I look around the country and size up the SEC or Big Ten or Big XII schools that are considered among the best in the nation, and can't help but think that the Cardinal could defeat the majority of them.  This season, where 8-1 (5-1 in the PAC-10) Stanford is currently ranked #13 in the BCS (and likely to rise when the new rankings come out tonight), will the Cardinal go to a BCS bowl game?  If not, the Stanford fans can blame themselves.

The Cardinal resume is pretty solid -- they've defeated #15 Arizona and USC at home (the former quite convincingly last night), beat Notre Dame badly on the road (the Irish haven't been good this year, but you always get some style points for beating up on Notre Dame in South Bend), and have two road shutouts in the conference (at UCLA and at Washington).  They're among the highest scoring teams in the country (they've topped 35 points in every game but one), their defense has been strong and their only loss came on the road against the #1 team in the country, Oregon (and that game was close, despite the fairly-lopsided final score).  Despite the impressive credentials, Stanford may be on the outside looking in when BCS bowl bids are awarded.

At the game versus Arizona last night, I was very disappointed by the crowd.  While there was a lot of buzz about the game floating around campus and while the tailgating atmosphere before the contest was, as usual, lively and fun, the stadium was at least 40% empty when I found my seat just prior to kickoff.  As the first quarter started the fans did continue to file in from their tailgates, but there were still parts of entire sections in the upper deck that were completely empty the entire game.  Not only was the crowd somewhat sparse, but the fans who were there weren't very loud; at times, the small Arizona fan section in the quarter of the stadium overpowered the Stanford fans with their passionate chants.  And this isn't exactly a national football powerhouse we're talking about - the Cardinal fans were outclassed by a bunch of laid-back retirees from Tucson.  I expected a lot more from the home crowd -- it was a nationally televised night game matching the #13 and #15 ranked teams in the nation, after all -- and came away disappointed by the fans, despite being ecstatic about the 42-17 final score.

Undoubtedly, a lot of NCAA polsters who don't get to see PAC-10 football every week were watching the Stanford-Arizona game on ABC last night.  When they look back on the game this week in filling out their rankings, what will they remember more: the dominating Stanford victory or the underwhelming Stanford crowd?  While the big win will earn Stanford some respect, concerns about their fans and their ability to "travel well" could drastically hurt their BCS hopes.  Let's just hope that Stanford plays well in their next two games at Arizona State and at Cal, and then urge the fans to come out in droves for the last home game of the year versus Oregon State.  Assuming Stanford wins their last three games, the performance of the fans may impact the odds of a BCS bid more than the performance of the team.

NOTE: Found some interesting commentary on the underwhelming turnout here, via ESPN's PAC-10 blog.

A Quirkier NBA Experience

I've been to a bunch of NBA games over the past few seasons.  Most of them have been Knicks contests at Madison Square Garden, but I've also sprinkled in some New Jersey Nets games and Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers games in there.  This Wednesday I made my first ever trip to Oakland's Oracle Arena to see the Golden State Warriors take on the Memphis Grizzlies, and the one word I'd use to sum up the experience is "quirky."  Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised; this is Northern California after all.

The oddities started before I even got into the arena.  Parking cost a relatively steep $18; when I paid with a $20 bill, I got a $2 bill as change.  While I''ve seen $2 bills before, this was the first time I had even given or received one as part of a legitimate business transaction.  More efficient than giving everyone two $1 bills?  Yes.  Extremely weird?  Also yes.

The game was fun -- the Warriors are an exciting, high-scoring team and are playing extremely well right now -- but something about the experience was a tad "off."  It's tough to put my finger on it, but I think the fact that a company called "The Solar Company" was prominently featured on the courtside rotational signage at numerous points throughout a game (only in the Bay Area . . .) had something to do with it.  I literally laughed out loud when, with over 11 minutes left in the second quarter, Golden State forward Vladimir Radmonovic was awarded the "Bug Zappers Pest Control Swat of the Game" after a block on Memphis center Hasheem Thabeet.  The whole thing was so absurd that I took a picutre of it (see below).  Even the Warriors new uniforms are pretty quirky.  In particular, it's weird that the numbers on the front of the Golden State jerseys are contained inside the logo, as opposed to below it (to be fair, the old Warriors jerseys also shared this unique feature).  Weird stuff.

See?  I couldn't make this stuff up.

The Warriors fans are a very passionate bunch, I must admit.  I know the Warriors' faithful has a good reputation and, although the stadium wasn't completely full, I did find the crowd to be enthusiastic, knowledgable and entertaining.  I loved the "M-V-P!" chants that echoed throughout the arena every time Monta Ellis shot free throws - that's serious dedication to your local candidate for the fourth game of the season.  The fans love their players, and the players seem to feed off of the energy and produce some highly entertaining basketball.  Anyone who complains about the chippy, drawn-out nature of NBA games certainly isn't watching the Warriors play very often.

The Golden State basketball experience was odd.  But, sometimes odd can be good.  Overall the game was well worth the ~45 minute drive from Palo Alto to Oakland, and I'm looking forward to getting another $2 bill some time later this season.

Rooting for the Little Guy

Halloween went extremely well this year.  My Little Mac costume was met with largely favorable results; as predicted, a lot of people (all of them men) got the Punch Out! reference and everyone else just figured I was a boxer, which was fine with me.  One guy asked me "which Klitschko brother are you supposed to be?" and someone else told me he loved "the De La Hoya costume," but overall it was a good night.  Much better than a few years ago when I went as Marty McFly from Back to the Future and everyone thought I was Tony Hawk (because of my skateboard prop).

Little Mac is one of my favorite childhood characters not only because he was the star of my favorite Nintendo game, but also because it was fun to root for the little guy.  I was always one of the smallest guys in my grade (and, height-wise, I still am), so I could always relate to the undersized athletes trying to do battle with opponents twice their size.  This got me thinking: who are my favorite little guys in sports?

Football: I'm a huge Wes Welker (5'9", 185 lbs.) fan, and respect the hell out of the guy.  The way he can run a route across the middle, take a hit from a linebacker that outweighs him by 60 pounds and manage to hold on to the ball is impressive.  The fact that he does it week in and week out and teams have yet to figure out a way to stop him is fascinating.  I'm not normally a big fan of anything even remotely Boston-related, but Welker gets a lot of respect for me.  The fact that he sports my number 83 is just icing on the cake.

Hockey: Richard Park is a fascinating NHL player not only because he's pretty small, but also because he's one of the few Asian-born hockey players ever to reach the NHL (he moved to Southern California from Korea when he was three).  As a member of the Islanders from 2006-2010, I saw Park take his share of hits, slashes and blocked shots.  While he was never the most talented player on the ice, he hustled as much as anyone else on the team and consistently produced despite his relatively-small size (5'10, 190 lbs.).  Unfortunately Park left the NHL this offseason to sign a contract with a team in Switzerland.  He'll be missed.

Basketball: Though he's moved on to the Boston Celtics, no one lit up Madison Square Garden in recent memory like Nate Robinson.  While he's best known for his show-stopping slams at the NBA All Star Weekend's Slam Dunk Contest (and in particular his dunks over Dwight Howard), Robinson is actually a very talented basketball player when his head's on straight.  He has the potential to be one of the better scoring guards in the league, and his athleticism gives him the potential to be a solid defender and rebounding guard, too.  Though it's been in a drawer for a while now, I'll never get rid of my green number 4 "KRYPTO-NATE" t-shirt.

Long live the little guys!