Yearly Archives: 2012

Today, in advance of the Great Podcast Trivia Challenge, Ben takes on my 15-year-old sister in a rematch of her last trivia victory, and Jim Young from ACCSports.com joins the fun. Who will win in this three-person war of honor? After the trivia, Ben and I go on the latest walkabout, touching on all the big stories in sports including Duke’s improving offseason. Easter egg (bonus track) after the concluding song.

0:00: Intro, Ben and I chat movies, male crying, and the upcomingPodcast Trivia Championship. To prepare, Ben will spar against my sister and Jim Young in a 10-question challenge.
9:45: Shannon, my 15-year-old sister, goes first..
18:09: Jim Young’s turn!
32:16: Ben’s turn!
44:20: The walkabout, hitting lots of topics in sports. Duke bball, Euro soccer, baseball, Wimbledon tennis, Olympics
68:40: The end
73:25: Bonus Track. What could it be??

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My friend Spike and have started a tumblr called “Costas’ People: A Month of Forgotten Olympic Heroes.” Every weekday from now until the Olympic Games begin on July 27, we’ll be profiling two Olympians from the fictional past. It’s funny, it’s historical, and it will waste 2-5 minutes of your boring or exciting day, depending on how fast your read. Click this here link to check it out:

COSTAS’ PEOPLE: A MONTH OF FORGOTTEN OLYMPIC HEROES

Thanks!

An exciting week in Walk-Ons studios, as ongoing tech issues foil another interview. This time the internet went down at the wrong moment, forcing us to delay a chat with Jim Young of ACCSports.com. Finally we went lo-fi indie and just put him on speaker phone, but he was not pleased with our amateurism and we had to edit it out. What remains is a musical intro to the interview that I’m very proud of, and also our reactions after we hang up. Ben and I do get into chatting, though, and it turned to be a fun episode. Some of the topics we hit:

1:00 – Is there a difference between anarchy and libertarianism?
5:30 – French stereotypes
5:45 – Bachelor weekend! Woooo!
8:28 –  Wild Ben’s weekend
9:00 – Pirlo’s penalty kick: awesome or dick move? Also, eephus pitches? Yay? Nay? Hay?
15:45 – LeBron James!
21:00 – Moralizing in college sports
22:00 – This is our State! And UNC’s reaction, plus how it’s like an Edgar Allen Poe story
28:30 – Jim Young not pleased via text with our internet situation
30:15 – Movie/TV round-up. We talk Sorkin, Kevin Smith, Wes Anderson, N.C. Pro-Am
38:00 – Hey, why not call Jim, put it on speaker, and hold it up to the mic?
38:25 – SINGING MUSICAL INTRO TO JIM YOUNG
39:05 – It didn’t go well with Jim Young, + our reaction
41:00 – Talkin’ bout sports media, do players actually “want” things more than other players?
54:30 – Conclusion – what have we done?

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You can also access our podcast RSS feed. No idea what this is.

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*Russell Westbrook plays a style 180 degrees from typical NBA players, with an attitude to match. Watching this previous season’s emotionless Duke team, apart from a legendary Duke-UNC game, makes Westbrook’s fiery demeanor stand out even more*

Stars are taught to play at an even keel. Basketball is typically a game of runs, so a player who gets too excited after a quality stretch is generally thought to be in danger of letting his guard down or tiring out as the game goes on. Emotional basketball players are usually glue guys, which means that they get the honor of doing all of the dirty work that no one else on the team enjoys like rebounding and setting screens. Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls and Anderson Varejao of the Cleveland Cavaliers immediately come to mind (maybe their power comes from their hair). In recent Duke memory, Lance Thomas and David McClure were great glue guys.

Stars used to be much more emotional, and it was fantastic. Reggie Miller, Charles Barkley, Kevin Garnett and Gary Payton were the kings, trying to do whatever it took to psych themselves up or get inside an opponent’s head. Now a big shot in a game is followed by an emotionless stare. Garnett is getting close to the end of the road, so is the NBA going to turn into a scene from Office Space? “No, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Ginobili has not seen your stapler.”

Enter Russell Westbrook, the human ball of emotion. Westbrook plays the game like a scorned John Rambo; constantly in attack mode, with an on/off switch that only goes one way. Westbrook starts the game looking angry, and that anger flows for the entire game. Once the horn sounds, he lets his guard down (and wears some interesting postgame outfits that only his mother could love) but until that moment, he is all business. It boggles the mind to consider how tough it must be to maintain a consistent level of anger for an entire basketball game.  When I get angry, it is likely after around a half hour that I can’t even remember what I was angry about in the first place.

Westbrook’s emotion causes some bad individual decisions, but his fire and tenacity fuels Oklahoma City. Media pundits love to negatively talk about him, saying he is not a true point guard and calling for the ball to be in the hands of Kevin Durant more often, but the statistics do not lie. When the ball is in Westbrook’s hands, he makes the correct basketball decision more often than not, and the Thunder are a better team. Adding a pull-up mid-range jumper at the elbow has made him even more lethal this season.

I love watching Westbrook play because his emotion is genuine. He plays every part of the game with a passion that seems real. Many players use fake emotion, play fake defense (flopping) and make fake comments. Westbrook’s best friend Khelcey Barrs died when he was 15 years old, and he wears two rubber bracelets on his wrists each game to commemorate his fallen friend. He has been overlooked his entire life, from high school to college. Some even considered the Thunder drafting him with the 4^th pick a reach in the 2008 NBA Draft, but any critique is just adding fuel to his already blazing fire within. His rise has been meteoric if you consider that he barely received a scholarship to UCLA just a few years ago.

Last year’s Duke team would have loved some of Westbrook’s emotion. Losing Nolan Smith and Kyrie Irving as vocal leaders, as well as Kyle Singler as a “lead by example” kind of guy, left the team thin. With only one senior, Miles Plumlee, they needed emotion from all around. Freshman Austin Rivers was the only player on the team who reminded me of Duke guys from year’s past who don’t want to win; they HAVE to win. In the coming years, hopefully Quinn Cook can become that guy, or that one of the Seniors will step up this year. The key is to combine the Senior leadership with the raw emotion of underclassmen.  Coach K provided much of the emotion and vocal leadership last year that needs to be picked up by the players this upcoming season.

Many in the media, as well as fans, love to box players in by saying how they should play their position and how they should act. Russell Westbrook is fun to watch because of his rawness. What you see is what you get. He plays at 100 mph because that is what he needs to do to help his team win. He is emotional during the game because that helps him play better. This again helps the team. Even with the supreme aggressiveness he plays with, he has missed a grand total of zero games in his career. When asked if a big individual game 4 of the NBA finals was a sort of vindication for Westbrook against the criticism of the media despite the loss of the game, he answered the question as it deserved.

“Lemme get this straight. What you guys [media] say doesn’t make me happy or make me sad, it doesn’t do anything. It’s all about my team and us winning the game. I don’t have a personal challenge against you guys. It’s not me against the world, it’s not the world against me. It’s me and my teammates trying to win.”

Russell Westbrook is not an angry young man. He just plays the game like it. And for that, NBA fans should be very thankful, because it’s damn fun to watch.

This is the one where we did a great 50-minute interview with Mac McCaughan from Superchunk (and owner of Merge Records), and the whole f*%$ing thing got deleted. Instead, we talked for 20 minutes about the Triangle Media Ryder Cup.

Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Just click “view in iTunes” once you reach that link, and then ‘subscribe for free.’ Voila. If you’re feeling really like a million bucks, you could also rate the podcast and write a positive review.

You can also access our podcast RSS feed. No idea what this is.

If you need to download the file directly, this’ll do it. Time stamps below. Enjoy!

The first annual Triangle Media Ryder Cup is in the books, and Team Traditional scored a runaway victory, beating Team Internet 10.5-5.5 with a strong performance in singles. I’ll write more about the day and the money we raised for charity later, but here are the results.

Session 1: Four-Ball

1. Jack Daly and Mark Armstrong, Traditional, def. James Curle and Brian Barbour, Internet, 2 & 1
2. Ben Swain and Shane Ryan, Internet, def. Joe Giglio and Andrew Carter, Traditional, 1-up
3. Matt Purdy and Lauren Brownlow, Internet, def. Hayes Permar and Mike Maniscalco, 1-up
4. Larry Stogner and Penn Holderness, Traditional, def. Austin Johnson and Will Brinson, Internet, 2 & 1

Score after session: Internet 2, Traditional 2

Session 2: Foursomes

1. Joe Giglio and Jack Daly, Traditional, def. Matt Purdy and Austin Johnson, Internet, 4 & 2
2. Shane Ryan and James Curle, Internet, vs. Larry Stogner and Mike Maniscalco, Traditional, Halved
3. Ben Swain and Will Brinson, Internet, def. Hayes Permar and Penn Holderness, Traditional, 1-up
4. Mark Armstrong and Andrew Carter, Traditonal, def. Brian Barbour and Lauren Brownlow, Internet, 2 & 1

Score after session: Traditional 4.5, Internet 3.5

Session 3: Singles

1. Larry Stogner, Traditional, def. Ben Swain, Internet, 3 & 2
2. Matt Purdy, Internet, def. Joe Giglio, Traditional, 1-up
3. Andrew Carter, Traditional, def. Shane Ryan, Internet, 1-up
4. Will Brinson, Internet, def. Penn Holderness, Traditional, 2 & 1
5. Hayes Permar, Traditional, def. Lauren Brownlow, Internet, 4 & 3
6. Jack Daly, Traditional, def. James Curle, Internet, 5 & 3
7. Mark Armstrong, Traditional, def. Brian Barbour, Internet, 2-up
8. Mike Maniscalco, Traditional, def. Austin Johnson, Internet, 4 & 3

Score after session: Traditional 10.5, Internet 5.5

Point Leaders

Traditional

Jack Daly – 3
Mark Armstrong – 3
Larry Stogner – 2.5
Andrew Carter – 2

Internet

Ben Swain – 2
Will Brinson – 2
Matt Purdy – 2

The Sundered Wedge Award (MVP) – Jack Daly, Traditional

Good Job, Good Effort Award – Shane Ryan, Internet

Today’s episode is a complete humdinger. Ben is out of town, so I took it upon myself to interview all seven members of Team Internet competing this weekend in the Triangle Media Ryder Cup. For more information on that, see the linked post. What I think is really cool about this episode is that it shows how seven different people are hacking it in the (insecure) world of online sports journalism. How did they start? What was their big, lucky break? What motivates them, and where are they going from here? It’s a neat, small oral history of a world that just didn’t exist 15 years ago.

Also, I finish each interview by asking them questions James Lipton uses at the end of “Inside the Actor’s Studio.” Things like, ‘what’s your favorite word?’ and ‘If heaven exists, what would you like God to say to you when you enter the Pearly Gates?’

Definitely one of my sneaky-favorite Walk-Ons posts. And we even got in touch with Ben from Florida!

In this episode more than others, you might want to use the time stamps below to navigate from interview to interview, and consume a few at a time. It starts with me all by lonesome, telling you about a great Durham charity we’re trying to raise money for. Hear me out (or don’t), and then it gets good.

Time Stamps:

0:00 – Intro, information about the Cup and Communities in Schools of Durham
7:58 – Austin Johnson – Pack Pride
15:21 –  James Curle – Riddick and Reynolds
25:40 –  Matt Purdy – Captain’s Pick
35:14 –  Lauren Brownlow – SanfordHerald.com, FoxSports.com, TarHeelBlue.com
47:09 –  Brian Barbour – Tar Heel Blog
62:57 – Ben Swain – Oxford Public-Ledger Online, ACCSports.com
75:27 – Will Brinson – CBS Sports ‘Eye on NFL’ blog