DBD 8.14.2009 How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Did the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

Learned seven parts, performed in front of 15,000+ people. Made new friends, met huge challenges, learned a lot about myself, and had a ton of fun in the process.

Arguably the best summer of my life.

SydQuan named to Bednarik Award Watch List:

SOUTHAMPTON, PA – California’s Syd’Quan Thompson was named Thursday to the watch list for the 2009 Chuck Bednarik Award honoring the nation’s top defensive player. The watch list is comprised of 55 players who were selected by the Maxwell Football Club’s selection committee based on their performance during the 2008 season. The Chuck Bednarik Award has been presented annually since 1995 and is named in honor of Chuck Bednarik, a former University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Eagles great.

Thompson’s stellar career at Cal began as a true freshman in 2006 as the senior cornerback has played in and started all 39 games possible over his first three campaigns. He is the Golden Bears’ active career leader in tackles (208), interceptions (6), passes defended (32), pass breakups (26), punt returns (28) and punt return yardage (344).

Thompson is also on the watch list for this year’s Lott Trophy and Jim Thorpe Award, as well as a 2009 first-team pre-season All-American.

Last year, Thompson earned first-team All-Pac-10 honors after recording 70 tackles, 7.5 TFL, a team-high four interceptions that he returned for 128 yards and a school record-tying 18 passes defended. He also ranked fourth in the Pac-10 in punt returns, averaging 12.3 yards per return. He recorded a career-high 78 tackles as a sophomore in 2007 and was a Pac-10 All-Freshman selection by Sporting News and the team’s Most Valuable Freshman as a 2006 rookie when he came up with 60 tackles to go with an interception, two fumble recoveries and two pass breakups.

Mens soccer gets no 1 ranking in pac10 poll:

BERKELEY – California earned the top spot in the Pac-10 Preseason Men’s Soccer Coaches Poll for the second straight year, the conference office announced on Thursday. The Golden Bears, who also boast a No. 8 NSCAA preseason ranking, edged 2008 conference champion UCLA by two points in this year’s Pac-10 vote, 24-22.

Conference coaches were not allowed to vote for their own teams (points 5-4-3-2-1, first-place votes in parentheses).

The Bears ended 2008 with a 12-4-5 record and a No. 12 NSCAA ranking after reaching the third round of the NCAA College Cup. They also finished second in the Pac-10 behind UCLA last year.

Cal opens the 2009 season against Georgetown at 1 p.m. PT on Sept. 4 in Washington, D.C. The Bears’ first regular-season home game is against George Washington as part of the Cal Legacy Classic at 4 p.m. on Sept. 11 at Edwards Stadium in Berkeley.

Wmens soccer hosts Pacific on Sat:

his Week in Golden Bear Soccer
The California women’s soccer team begins play Saturday, Aug. 15, against Pacific in an exhibition match at 1 p.m. at Edwards Stadium in Berkeley. Admission is free to the exhibition game. The Golden Bears hold a 5-1-0 all-time series advantage over the Tigers, winning the past three meetings. Cal’s most-victory victory over UOP happened Sept. 14, 2005, when the Bears knocked off Pacific, 3-0.

Last Season in Golden Bear Soccer
The 2008 squad recorded the program’s 23rd winning season, finishing 10-9-1 overall and going 3-5-1 in Pac-10 play to finish sixth in the competitive league. The 2008 campaign also saw Cal earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament for its fifth consecutive and 16th overall trip to the postseason. The Bears fell, 2-1, to No. 7 Florida in Gainesville, Fla., in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The team had nine players named to the Pac-10’s All-Academic team.

The 2009 Schedule
The Bears host Pacific before delving into its 10-game nonconference and Pac-10 Conference slate. Of the Bears’ 20 opponents, eight went to the 2008 NCAA Tournament. The Bears will put on the Annual Cal Invitational, which is in its 15th year, on Sept. 4 and 6, welcoming Saint Mary’s, Texas A&M and Texas. The Aggies advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals, while the Longhorns made it to the second round.

Okanes football notebook:

A YouTube search of Cal freshman Isi Sofele yields some pretty impressive footage from high school.

There’s some pretty good stuff of him playing football, too.

Forget the clips of Sofele running circles around the competition at Cottonwood High in Salt Lake City. The top Sofele highlight is a video of him dancing shirtless for his little sisters and cousins while visiting family in Arizona.

“I was just playing around with my little sisters, trying to make them laugh,” Sofele said. “My little sisters thought they were funny and put it on YouTube. I just had to put on a little show for them.”

Sofele may put on a show for Cal fans someday, and possibly sooner rather than later. Of all of the Bears’ incoming freshmen, Sofele has stood out the most so far, mostly because of the explosive speed coming from his compact 5-foot-7, 170-pound frame.

Sofele played running back in high school but is working with the wide receivers so far at Cal. He also is expected to make an impact on special teams, although Jahvid Best is penciled in to return kicks and Syd’Quan Thompson will handle punt return duties this season.

“You see a lot of explosion, a lot of quickness,” Cal coach Jeff Tedford said. “He’s very talented, can catch the ball, can run with it, can do a lot of things. He plays at a different speed.”

Tedford said there’s a possibility Sofele could contribute as a true freshman.

Cerritos connection kicking butt for recruiting:

Bright and early on National Letter of Intent Day, one Cerritos College alum called a current Falcon to make sure they would be united.

Cal coach Jeff Tedford, who played at the Southern California junior college from 1979-80, placed a call to current Cerritos linebacker Ryan Davis to confirm that his oral commitment to join the Bears was solid.

“He called me and woke me up,” said Davis, who signed his letter of intent with Cal later that morning. “It was all cool because I know Coach Tedford is a good guy. We both come from Cerritos.”

Tedford didn’t call every potential recruit that morning, but Davis had just orally committed a few days earlier after decommitting from Washington. That followed a decommitment from Cal.

Almost one week into training camp, Davis is happy with his decision to come to Berkeley. He’s battling Devin Bishop, Chris Little and fellow junior college transfer Jarred Price for the starting job at weakside outside linebacker, the spot that former standout Zack Follett vacated.

“My expectation coming in was just to learn more, get better and adjust to a new system,” Davis said. “They told me I would have an opportunity to compete. What I need to do is learn the plays more and ask more questions. I really do have a long way to go.”

Stanford names QB starter, Andrew Luck:

If Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck didn’t officially know it before, well, coach Jim Harbaugh confirmed it Thursday:

“We’ve already named Andrew as a starter,” he said of the promising redshirt freshman.

Thus ended any suspense about the Cardinal quarterback position three weeks before the season opener at Washington State.

After four days of training camp, the 6-foot-4, 235-pound Luck has looked as sharp as he did during spring practice when he took over the starting role from fifth-year senior Tavita Pritchard.

Although Pritchard has started 19 games at Stanford, it is Luck who has coaches, teammates and boosters giddy as the Cardinal tries to end a seven-year bowl drought this season. The program’s highest-profile recruit since Trent Edwards in 2002, Luck has all the qualities Harbaugh needs to break open the offense.

“Very sharp mentally,” Harbaugh said of Luck, whose father, Oliver, was an NFL quarterback. “He has a great understanding — he’s very good at memorizing things. He has a really good blend of confidence and humility.”

Luck said Harbaugh hadn’t talked to the quarterbacks about who would start Sept. 5 in Pullman, Wash., but the Texan added, “I assume I’m No. 1 right now, but Tavita is a great quarterback and a lot can change before the first game.”

Daily Cal Fall Camp Report:

In Will Ta’ufo’ou, the Cal football team lost a 6-foot, 255-pound fullback who could bulldoze a linebacker, surprise you with his speed, catch a pass out of the backfield and — despite guiding 1,500-yard rushers in back-to-back years — probably go unnoticed on campus.

In Ta’ufo’ou’s replacement, the Bears are looking for somebody who can do all of those things (the latter is probably optional) and fill what running backs coach Ron Gould right now calls a “void” in the backfield. Fortunately for an offense riding a streak of seven straight seasons with a 1,000-yard rusher, Ta’ufo’ou taught his potential replacements quite a bit before he left.

“I learned a lot of things from Will, man,” says senior Brian Holley. “Playing fullback, it’s not glorified, its not anything. Just be humble, go in there and get the job done. That’s what I learned from Will. He did that every day.”

Ta’ufo’ou played in 11 games in 2007 and all 13 contests in 2008, the primary lead blocker for tailbacks Justin Forsett and Jahvid Best, respectively. Forsett and Best combined for 3,126 rushing yards in those two years. This season, with Best’s explosive running being one of the biggest factors in the potential for Cal to unseat USC atop the Pac-10, whoever replaces Ta’ufo’ou is going to be crucial to the Bears realizing that goal.

JUST A FEW MORE HOURS LEFT AND ONLY 1 VOTE SEPARATES UC EUGENE AND FROM I DECLARE YOU SANCHEZ. VOTE NOW! VOTE NOW! VOTE NOW! VOTE OFTEN! WHERE’S THAT DETROIT RADIO STATION WHEN YOU NEED THEM????

Particularly the past couple weeks. Clients are selling things, I’ve had some travel, done a little speechifying [“BOOM, infringement!”], and then there’s the whole “golf as much as you possibly can” requirement during the summer. I’ve missed a whole bunch of DBDs lately. Did anything important happen on them while I was gone? [Only legitimate answer: “of course not”]

Of course, the summer shall not be complete until I travel out to the Maryland game. I am so so SO looking forward to that. And to eating Hydro’s expertly prepared food, I think there was some agreement as to that a while back.

Best makes ESPN’s preseason All-America team.

Best, Anger, and Syd make Ted Miller’s All-Pac-10 team.

Things that I have done this summer:

2 days of golf in Manila
Weekend breaks in Hong Kong (twice), Bangkok and Singapore

Things that may happen the rest of the summer:
Weekend break in Hong Kong (I do like that place)
North Korea (I’m really really thinking about it – it’ll be up to vacation time)
If North Korea doesn’t happen, then Cambodia . . .I guess I feel like evil
Bangkok for a weekend.

Work my ass off. Little else.

Marshawn Lynch is a pretty good teammate.

Nice Rick Reilly story on kids with xeroderma pigmentosum (i.e. they cannot stand sunlight) playing ball at Yankees stadium through the night.

And that’s DJax.

Does anyone know if we had other 5* recruits before Tedford? And what 5* recruit we’ve come close to getting? I think Devon Kennard was one last year.

Previous……………………………………………………….New
Rose: Pac-10 # 1 vrs Big-10 # 1……………………………Rose: Pac-10 # 1 vrs Big-10 # 1
Holiday: Pac-10 # 2 vrs Big-12 # 3/4……………………….Alamo: Pac-10 # 2 vrs Big-12 # 3
Sun: Pac-10 # 3 vrs Big-12 # 4/5 or Big East # 2…………Holiday: Pac-10 # 3 vrs Big-12 # 5
Las Vegas: Pac-10 # 4 vrs MWC # 1………………………Sun: Pac-10 # 4 vrs Big East # 3
Emerald: Pac-10 # 5 vrs ACC #5-7…………………………Las Vegas: Pac-10 # 5 vrs MWC #1
Poinsettia: Pac-10 # 6 vrs MWC # 2………………………..Emerald: Pac-10 # 6 vrs ACC # 5-7

Does anyone else think it will be much harder to replicate 5-0?

Video of NBC Bay Area’s report on the BART strike, with shots of traffic from the last strike in 1997.

Working. The rest was largely spent back visiting my family in Merced.

On a related note, camp has sort of taken away my social life. Most of the interacting I do has been online or in texts, save for my co-workers and the guys in my house. Kind of a bummer, but oh well.

… Haven’t had one of those in years.

Mine started when I was laid off in January and started living off the government (lousy demicrats!). Then, I got a job with the Oakland A’s doing in-game promotions on Diamondvision. Basically, I get paid to goto A’s games. And race in a giant dot costume!

Like everyone I was confused by the Eagle’s decision to hire Vick. I think the press still is. After I talked to my friend at a distressed fund this morning, it all became clearer to me. Vick is a distressed asset that Andy Reid inteds to flip.

A distressed asset is basically an asset that’s in trouble… you buy it because it’s trading at below it’s tangible asset value… and by holding it, changing it, improving it or bundling it… you hope to sell it later for a nice profit.

Now by definition, the distressed asset’s future is at it’s bleakest… nobody wants to touch it… that’s why it’s not even worth it’s tangible value (which is rare). However, the difference between a distressed asset and a cheap asset is often seperated by a single varable…time. Let’s look at Vick as if he was an asset.

Do the Eagles need a QB: I don’t think so… Feva could answer this but I see no need here. This looks like a second “investment property” to me.

When is a good backup at it’s lowest value: Before the season, when all the teams have healthy QBs and backups. Plus the season is all potential… teams believe they have the talent in place to have 10 wins… 12 wins… 16 wins. It’s all good because the season hasn’t started yet. A good backup’s negotiating powers are at its lowest.

When is a good backup most valuable: 3/4th through the season. Many teams are now hit with reality, they aren’t 10 win teams… the starting QB really sucks… the rookie QB really sucks… the starting QB is out with a torn ACL. The free agent Backup’s negotiating powers are at it’s highest.

Why was Vick’s value distressed: Because nobody wanted to touch him. Look at what he’s doing to the Eagles now… it’s a PR shitstorm…. they had to contact the Mayor, Animal groups etc before they even signed him.

Why did Andy Reid roll the dice here: With a superb offense and good defense, I think the Eagles are going to win alot of games. They’ll even have some blowouts. That’s when Andy Reid could give Vick some playing time (as he said he would)… Vick doesn’t need to be impressive. He just needs to change people’s image of him from a criminal that kills dogs…to a normal football player. Seeing someone throw a touchdown tends to do that for you.

After the one year Andy can keep Vick (what if he’s actually good again?)… or sign him for the cost of a 4th round rookie. He then can occasionally play Vick and wait till one team is DESPERATE for a QB… it happens every year without fail. Then flip him for a 2nd round pick, a LB, another TE… whatever.

Fever… what are your thoughts? I’d like to know because I’m not really knowledgeable about free agency, contracts and trades and such. But I do know what a distressed asset is.

I wonder if his mom (Mrs. Tedford) gave Coach Tedford an earful for putting her son in harm’s way. :p

Since carp isn’t here, someone has to pick up the slack: From the Rumble Seat’s (Georgia Tech SBN blog) The Girls of University of Virginia. [NSFW]

Happy hour + NINERS PRESEASON GAME OMG SHAUN HILL = Win

See you pals later.

Seattle story on Forsett:

The temptation is to say this is Justin Forsett’s time to shine, to open eyes, to prove his worth to the Seahawks’ coaching staff as preseason games begin Saturday in San Diego.

But Forsett is looking beyond the exhibition season this year, beyond training camp, beyond the practice games where he made his mark last year as a rookie out of Cal.

Forsett doesn’t want to just build a reputation as a speedy little running back who can rack up yards when it doesn’t count, but isn’t big enough to lean on when the NFL regular-season begins.

At 5-foot-8, he is short in stature. But don’t make the mistake of thinking Forsett is a little guy. At 198 pounds, he packs some punch.

- Graduate
- Visit family in India
- Move up to Husky country in WA
- Start full time job
- Get homesick

Yep

It’s about 5PM on a Friday evening, most of the people have left work already and I’m still here…

I guess that’s what happens when you don’t get your shit done on time and need to leave early next week for a doctor’s appointment.

Le sigh