DBD 9.10.08 - A New Era Is Upon Us, So Mulch To Talk About!

Justin Forsett cut by the Seahawks. Fans rioting in Seattle. I wish.

Cal should build a little statue of hands holding feces and joints to honor the hippies dedication to disturbance.

Check out Ebay!! I saw the God Pod is up for auction bidding at $1000!

Made you look….hahaha!

Fuck, I had a really good idea for today’s dump. Oh well. Tomorrow, then.

Links:

Cal’s story on tree-sitters. Short, but the story contains a link to the press conference:

Men’s Golf wins again:

SAN FRANCISCO – The Cal men’s golf program has high hopes for the 2008-09 season for many reasons. In addition to five of the squad’s top six golfers returning and the arrival of a talented transfer, the Golden Bears are also welcoming back senior Michael Jensen, who redshirted the 2007-08 season. In the first meet of the campaign, Jensen reinforced those hopes, firing a three-round 213 to share top medalist honors and lead the Bears to an eight-stroke team title at the San Francisco Intercollegiate on Tuesday at the Olympic Club.

Cal won the event with a final score of 861 (9), eight strokes ahead of runner-up Colorado (869, +17). UAV took third place with an 873 (21) with Xavier (876, 24) in fourth place. Oregon State and San Diego tied for fifth place at 877 (25).

Women’s golf wins, too!:

For the second year in row the University of California women’s golf team opened its fall schedule with a victory at the Ptarmigan Fall Classic, and for the second year in a row Shannon Yocum was the individual champion. The Golden Bears seem to enjoy playing at the 6,207-yard, par-72 Ptarmigan Country Club in Fort Collins, Colo., finishing with an 18-under 846 (284-273-289), six strokes better than runner-up Colorado (283-279-290 – 852). Yocum came from behind to earn the medalist honors by shooting birdies in the last three holes, finishing with an eight-under 208 (71-67-70), edging Emily Childs of Colorado (71-67-71 – 209, – 7).

The Bears were also bolstered by the play of sophomore Pia Halbig, who finished fifth with a five-under 211 (69-70-72) and senior Allison Goodman, who tied for seventh with a three-under 213 (72-67-74). True freshman Angela Villela ended tied for 18th with a one-over 217 (73-69-75) and junior Roseanne Niven tied for 27th with a five-over 221 (72-76-73).

Cal women’s soccer is going to Moraga:

Bears Travel to Moraga for Saint Mary’s Fall Soccer Classic
The No. 20 California women’s soccer team brings a three-game winning streak into this weekend’s Saint Mary’s Fall Soccer Classic just down the road from Berkeley in Moraga, Calif. The Bears (4-1 overall) will play Northridge (4-0) on Friday at 2 p.m. and Boise State (3-1-0) at noon on Sunday. Cal has a 7-0-1 record in the Saint Mary’s Tournament over the past four years.

Bears Revenge ’07 Loss to Missouri
After dropping a 4-0 road decision to Missouri in 2007, Cal returned the favor by defeating the Tigers, 3-0, in Berkeley on Sept. 6. The Bears got on the board first with a goal from sophomore forward Lisa Kevorkian, senior midfielder Nikki Schrey and sophomore forward Alex Morgan each added a goal. The Bears outshot the Tigers, 13-10, while both teams had six shots on goal. Morgan paced Cal with five shots and a team-high three on goal. Cal keeper junior Gina Pellegrini grabbed six saves between the posts.

Quotes from Coach Tedford’s press conference:

On how complete the WSU win was:
It was [complete] but we still made a lot of mistakes. That was the major emphasis as we met as a team on Sunday were all the details we need to improve on if we expect to be a contender. We just didn’t play well enough. Sure the game turned out in our favor but there is a lot of detail we still need to pay attention to.

On if Jahvid Best’s performance on Saturday was a surprise:
Well, I’m not surprised. You see it every day in practice. Last year as a true freshman in camp you saw glimpses of him making huge plays. He was just getting acclimated to the offense last year when he got hurt. So now that he is an every down back, it doesn’t surprise me. He is the type of guy that can get in the open field and when he does, he can go the distance. I think one of the key things, that gets overlooked a little bit maybe, is the willingness and physicalness of our receivers [to block] downfield. Combined with Jahvid’s speed to break long runs, our secondary blocking that our receivers are providing [has allowed the big plays].

On Best improving as he gets more experience:
Yeah, you would think with every play. There are certain times when he gets tripped up in the hole where he could read his block a little differently. But I would say there is no question he is going to continue to improve.

Field hockey faces Albany:

This Week
The California field hockey team (4-1, 3-0 NorPac Conference) hosts No. 19 Albany (3-1) at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13, at Maxwell Family Field. Cal, which is riding a three-game winning streak, plays just one game this week after playing its first five games of the season over a nine-day span. The Bears played their last three games in four days on the road.

The Albany game kicks off a stretch of three-straight games in which Cal will play an opponent ranked in the Sept. 9 National Field Hockey Coaches Association poll, including No. 16 Michigan on Sept. 25 and No. 10 Michigan State on Sept. 27.

Cal received votes in the latest NFHCA poll.

Men’s tennis starts its season this weekend in Napa:

BERKELEY, Calif. – The California men’s tennis team gets the 2008 fall individual tournament season off to a start this weekend as it hosts the Land Rover Napa Valley Tennis Classic in St. Helena, Calif. Play opens at 9 a.m. and concludes at 5 p.m. on Friday (Sept. 12) and Saturday (Sept. 13). The round-robin tournament concludes on Sunday (Sept. 14) with matches taking place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Golden Bears welcome two-time defending NCAA champion Georgia, Harvard and Illinois to the state of California.

Partnering with Land Rover and Nike, the three-day competition takes place at the famed Meadowood Resort, the tournament’s major sponsor. The Napa Valley Tennis Classic was founded by current California head coach Peter Wright and Meadowood tennis director Doug King eight years ago. King was a standout player for the Bears from 1973-76. Since 2000, the three-day event has showcased many of the nation’s best teams and top players in collegiate men’s tennis.

There were tucked away in the over 100+ comments of the Thank You thread:

Merc article that says:

The protest’s final four tree-sitters say they finally surrendered after reaching a last-minute agreement with campus officials — a claim the university disputed.

Police booked Raul Colocho, 27; Armando Resendez, 20; Ernesto Trevino, 18; and Michael Schuck, 26, on misdemeanor charges of illegally lodging on campus property, violating a court order and trespassing.

None of the men were students or affiliated with the university.

They were among a group of dozens who had rotated over the months in a cat-and-mouse game with university officials that, in all, led to 45 to 50 arrests.

Tree-sitter spokesman Eric Eisenberwhen said UC-Berkeley agreed to create a committee that will give community members a larger role in discussions of future development. But UC-Berkeley Assistant Police Chief Mitch Celaya said there was no agreement, although the university may consider engaging the community in future discussions of development.

And a Daily Cal article:

“This doesn’t have to be like this,” said Janette Reid, a supporter who has been involved in the protest since the beginning. “This hurts one’s heart.”

In a flurry of activity after months of waiting, campus officials spent the weekend cutting down 40 trees and negotiating with the tree-sitters and their supporters.

But by Sunday night, both sides had reached an impasse and called off negotiations.

In a last-ditch effort yesterday, UCPD Chief Victoria Harrison spent much of the morning hanging from a crane in a metal basket, conducting negotiations with the tree-sitters.

As the scaffolding continued to rise toward their encampment in the tree, the sitters asked the police to step back and give them five minutes to consider their options.

“I think they realized that our ability to physically remove them if we needed to was now possible because of the scaffolding,” Harrison said later. “I talked a lot with them about coming down with some dignity.”

Eventually, the tree-sitters said they would agree to come down if Vice Chancellor of Administration Nathan Brostrom promised to issue a statement saying the campus will involve the community in future land-use decisions.

Brostrom agreed, but said in a press conference later that the idea was nothing new.

“It is, of course, in our interest to avoid these long and protracted delays so we, of course, are interested in looking at new and innovative ways to work with the community moving forward,” he said.

The four sitters, whose real names are Michael “Shem” Schuck, 26; Armando “Mando” Resendez, 20; Ernesto Trevino, 18; and Raul “Huck” Colocho, 27; were booked into Santa Rita County Jail in connection with a variety of misdemeanors, including trespassing and violation of a court order.

Schuck, who occupied an oak near Wheeler Hall under the pseudonym “Fresh” last spring, also had $22,000 in misdemeanor warrants relating to his time in the trees.

This doesnt hurt my heart at all!

Deadspin has a post on the tree-sitting, which is remarkable in its varied ignorance on the situation and also lack of linking to us. Lame!

Pretty funny comments, though.

It also links to this NYT article:

SFGate article on player reactions to the end of the protest and preparations for Maryland.

Cal isn’t going to College Park, Md., until Friday, because Tedford believes the players can get acclimated to the time change while in Berkeley. The players’ curfews and wake-up calls will be switched to East Coast time this week, and the practices are on the rugby field because Maryland’s Byrd Stadium has natural grass.
“I don’t think I’ve played a game this early since junior high, so that’s going to be our biggest challenge,” Follett said. “I think talent-wise, we’re the better team, but we have to be mature enough to go across the country and show up to play.”

Despite the Terps’ underwhelming performances the last two games, The Fridge isn’t making any notable changes in the depth chart.

Coach Ralph Friedgen is refraining from making wholesale changes following Maryland’s stunning 24-14 loss to Middle Tennessee State.
Not that he didn’t consider it. The coach indicated today that he talked to a few players who underperformed but opted against rewriting the depth chart.
“I’ve actually had a few kids in and felt like maybe now isn’t the right time to do it,” Friedgen said. “I thought at the meeting yesterday it was very important to be very positive with the players.”
Friedgen seems to be going on instinct. His gut told him that now, after two games, it isn’t the time to rip up a team that he still believes has character, talent and speed.

Boateng is performing well, earning Tedford’s praise.

Coach Jeff Tedford had some words of praise for Nyan Boateng during Tuesday’s media luncheon, citing the 6-foot-2 wideout’s ability to block in the secondary.
“He’s blocking great,” Tedford said. “He got hit of the week against Michigan State, he had two huge blocks. He had another one on Kevin Riley’s broken play against Washington State. Kevin would’ve never scored if it wasn’t for Nyan blocking downfield, doing a great job of blocking.”

But he made me sound stupid :(

If only I had 250K!

Big-time sporting events are getting so expensive that some fans joke about the need to take out a second mortgage to renew their season tickets.

It’s no joke anymore. The University of California, Berkeley, is betting some its wealthier alums will do just such a thing—sort of. The school is taking a stab at raising $1 billion for its athletic department over the next 30 years with a first-of-its-kind plan for premium season football ticket holders. Instead of renewing season tickets each year, fans will be asked to effectively lock in for life. Their pitch: Commit now, coughing up as much as a quarter-million dollars in the process, and own your seats for up to 50 years, with full rights to pass them down to the kids or sell them in the secondary market.

http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d80a8dea0

… she kinda knows what she’s talking about… and she gives a shout out to Aaron Rodgers.

In a Deadspin article about the Mets getting rid of their hilariously random “Home Run Apple” which is a giant apple that comes out of a top hat when a home run is hit, the following comment was made:

We will save you glorious apple!

Here comes another 21 months of Shem, Mando, Ernesto and Huck saving the planet.

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/football/archives/148419.asp

Here.

California 41, Maryland 21 — Considering Maryland kicker Obi Egekeze hasn’t made a field goal yet, I’m not factoring one into their score. The Terps should show improvement but will have a tough time matching Cal’s speed.

Poor Obi is 0-4 in 08, but hit about 75% last year.