Believe it or not, there are forms of media other than weblogs and there are weblogs other than Dawg Sports. (It's a shocking revelation, I know.) That being the case, there are a few tidbits of interest of which you ought to be aware:
- As SportsBlogs Nation continues to grow, the field is expanding into other sports and areas of athletic interest. In that vein, I hope you will join me in welcoming Restrictor Plate This! and Male Pattern Fitness, which cover NASCAR and health/fitness, respectively.
- Is the Pacific Northwest cursed? Should Boise State be invited to join the Mountain West? Ladies and gentlemen, the long slow countdown to college football season is underway and the Silly Period is upon us!
- Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . Crimson Tide fans set a new N.C.A.A. record for attendance at a spring scrimmage. I'm more interested in the fact that Alabama's Monsters of Blog have set a new standard to which Bloggerpalooza '08 must aspire if we Georgia fans are to maintain our status as elite blogger spring tailgaters. Maybe next year, if the G-Day and A-Day games are not held on the same weekend, we could host the 'Bama bloggers in Athens for the Georgia spring scrimmage and the Crimson Tide bloggers could invite the denizens of the Dawgosphere over to Tuscaloosa for the Alabama spring game? Just a thought.
- Ordinarily, I wouldn't be inclined to follow the Anaheim Angels . . . or the California Angels . . . or whatever the heck they're calling themselves these days. However, my son's tee-ball team is the Angels and this has given me a renewed (or, really, new) interest in that particular Golden State American League squad. Accordingly, I recently paid a visit to Halos Heaven, where I was pleased to find a fellow weblogger's interview with a team executive. Who says webloggers can't provide actual news coverage?
I'm pretty sure Aerosmith wasn't singing about a baseball team, but it's relevant, nevertheless.
- I'm not a fan of National Public Radio. I have no objection to N.P.R.'s content; I just don't believe there's any way to justify its existence, as a matter either of Constitutional construction or of budgetary priority. (There's also the fact that, as someone who is happy to have been on the winning side of the Cold War, I cannot countenance the notion of government-operated media outlets. If the Russians no longer publish Pravda, surely we can no longer justify N.P.R.) My principled opposition to its existence having been noted, though, I should point out that N.P.R. did a story on sports weblogging in the wake of Colin Cowherd's recent repeat offense.
- Finally, I happened to catch Mark Richt's appearance on "Head Coach" on Saturday night. Although I was a Mark Richt fan already, I came away from the interview feeling better than ever about the caliber of Coach Richt . . . not just as a coach, but also as a man. No, Georgia isn't going to win an S.E.C. title every year, but our football program is going to demonstrate character and class, which counts for a great deal. Be sure to catch one of the repeat airings if you haven't seen the interview already.
That should get you caught up on all the news that's fit to blog. Leave your thoughts and comments on MaconDawg's look at coaching changes in the S.E.C. and let's make it a good week.
Go 'Dawgs!