Princeton Offense

Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of blogs about our hero's rec league basketball team. While it may not be as exciting as his travels, it will nonetheless hopefully provide some humor.

I have always enjoyed Ivy League basketball. It is a slower pace version of the game that emphasizes defense, fundamentals. It can be electrifying with three pointers and solid offense instead of showboating dunks.

My first exposure to Ivy League Hoops was in 2002 when three teams tied for the conference champion. Since the league doesn’t have a conference tournament, round robin games were played to determine the conference champion who would represent the league in the NCAA tournament.

It became apparent to me last year that our rec league team played similar to an Ivy League Basketball team. We weren’t going to thrill you with highlight reel plays, but at any given time we could have 4 guys on the floor who could hit the three, and we played pretty solid defense.

In 2005, the Princeton Tigers tied a record for fewest points scored in an NCAA Division 1 game since the three point line was instituted in 1986. In a 41-21 loss to Division 1 giant Monmouth, the Tigers shot 9 of 41 for the game and 2 of 20 from the three point line. At one point in the game, they were held scoreless for 15 minutes.

The Beavers had a similar game last week in a 46-22 defeat. At half, the Beavers had scored a measly 6 points. For a time in the second half, it was in doubt whether the Beavers would score in double digits.

As the game progressed and we continued to be awful, I began to think to myself, “What happens if we can’t score in double digits? How embarrassing is it going to be next week when people check out the web site and learn that this team couldn’t even score ten points?” Luckily, the team quickly hit a couple of three’s and we ended with 22 points. But for a while there, I was thinking we were going to be the laughing stock of the league.

As we left the gym, jokes were thrown out about running suicide’s for the next couple of days and morning “shoot-arounds” to make up for our dismal performance. I was glad that this was just a simple rec league game.

The Land of Mickey

When people go to Orlando, it is usually for a trip to Disney World. Walt sure did create an empire in central Florida. But how many people have actually been to downtown Orlando?

On a recent trip, I was thinking just this. While usually I like to go off the beaten path, this time, downtown Orlando is off the beaten path. I was in Orlando for work, but was able to extend my visit for a day and spend time with Andy, a former co-worker.


I told him that I wanted to go to downtown Orlando and see what the city was really all about.












Downtown Orlando is more of a neighborhood instead of a bustling area of commerce. It was full of little bar areas,


















trendy apartments.......
















scary trees.......















and cool little restaurants.


















If you ever get a chance to get outside of Disneyworld, Florida, I would highly encourage you to get into the city and explore. You never know what you may find.

Glory Days

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of blogs about our hero's rec league basketball team. While it may not be as exciting as his travels, it will nonetheless hopefully provide some humor.

It is that time of year again: the beginning of rec league basketball. A time for twenty and thirty something men to relive the glory of their high school (or, for me, grade school) basketball days and act way too serious about a game of hoop.

Rec league basketball is all about the opportunity to Be Like Mike, Magic, Larry Legend, or Kurt Rambis if you so choose. The kids these days may want to be like Kobe, Bron Bron, Melo, or Chris Kaman, but most rec leaguers like to keep it old school. Anyway, while our team, the Beavers, want to imitate its NBA idols, we play more like the Princeton Tigers. We live and die by the three, play sound defense, and will always give that big name Top 25 team a good fight in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Our first game was a foreshadowing of the upcoming 2007 NBA All-Star game to be held in Las Vegas. This is a great concept. A bunch of men with massive amounts of disposal income running roughshod around Sin City. Just take a second and imagine the possibilities… but I digress. (Editor’s Note: Since this is a PG blog, we won’t discuss the shenanigans or various crimes that will inevitably take place during this event.)
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Okay, back to rec league and opening night. Half of the team was out a little late the previous night, carousing around town, and ignoring the curfew that had been imposed. A few had the shakes, a few fell victim to a White Castle Crave Case the previous evening (which wasn’t completely polished off until game day). One of the team’s elder players celebrated the Cardinals playoff clinching victory a little too hard two days prior and was still feeling the effects. This, along with the poor shooting of our hero Manshio, led to an early 13-2 deficit for our team. The 2 points were scored by our own Moses Malone, which equaled his total from the previous season.

After a brief timeout, the Beavers started playing like themselves. Our Kevin McHale and Craig Ehlo rained threes. The defense was tenacious, led by Robert “Tractor” Taylor and Cherokee Parks, and we went on an unbelievable 26-3 run. At about 6 minutes left in the game, (Editor’s Note: This is an estimate, since the league we play in has no visible clock. One of the referees occasionally calls out the time remaining in the game.) the Beavers were sitting pretty up 28-16. Then we almost ended up like the 1994 Houston Rockets, as we did everything in our power to blow a huge lead in the final minutes.

Turnovers, missed shots, and poor rebounding all contributed to our opponents 11-0 run. With less than a minute in the game, we were winning by one. However, our team showed great determination as the Beaver defense tightened up and shut down the other team. Finally, a clutch free throw in the waning seconds clinched the first win of the season for us.

The next day, I checked the league scoreboard and realized that our 29 points tied for the 2nd lowest in the league. But in Princeton Tiger fashion, this was enough to get our first win of the season. As Beaver JR said after the game, “They don’t paint a picture.” And thank God. While it wasn’t pretty, the W was a great start to the season.

Fortune Cookies

On June 22, I went to eat lunch at Joy Yee's Noodle Shop down the street from my office. One of the highlights of a meal at a Chinese restaurant is getting a fortune cookie. The fortunes can always make or break my day. For example, just yesterday I got a fortune that read: “Boats and water are in your future.” Well, I am really excited that now that fall is officially here, boats and water are in my future.

On June 22nd, I received the fortune below:
















“What an interesting fortune,” I thought to myself. So I wrote the date on the fortune, as well as the date 3 months in advance, and put it on my wall in my office.

Finally, September 22nd arrived. I was to fly to Tampa for a business trip. It was supposed to be a quick trip down in the morning, back in the evening. I flew down, conducted my business, and made it to the airport to catch an earlier flight home. Surely, if anything lucky was to happen, it would occur during the evening in Chicago. I raced to the airport and arrived 15 minutes before the early flight back to Chicago. When I got to the gate, the screen indicated that the flight was delayed due to weather in Chicago. I had put myself on standby before I left the airport that morning, and the gate agent had my boarding pass ready to go. “At least I will get home a little earlier even though the flight is delayed,” I thought. The Tampa airport offers free wireless internet, so I logged on to my laptop and began checking email and investigating what was happening during the weekend. Before I realized it, an hour and a half had gone by, and they were now boarding my flight. At least I was better off than those people who were on the later Chicago flight. We jumped on the flight, and I was excited to be getting home. The pilot came on and told us that we had not been clear to depart yet, but we would taxi to the runway and wait. “Perfect,” I thought. We would be on our way shortly. I began to fall asleep. The time was 5 p.m.

I woke up around 7 p.m. and expected to be in the air. I found myself still on the plane with a bunch of flustered people. People were complaining on their cell phone, businessmen were still able to use their “crackberry’s,” and I was able to use my iPod and write a paper for class. I thought to myself “Two and a half hour flight, hour time change, hour to get home, I should be out around 10 p.m., still two hours left for my luck star to shine.”

An hour later, I was back at the terminal in Tampa. The flight was cancelled. I booked a hotel room for the night (I wasn’t going to sleep in an airport on the day my luck star was supposed to shine) and got the airline to put me on the first flight out in the morning.

I got to the hotel, which was in the middle of nowhere - your classic airport hotel - and checked into the room. My flight was scheduled to leave in 8 hours and I had been up since 3 a.m. I decided to watch the Northwestern/Nevada game and call it a night. I have always cheered for the underdog (hence my love affairs with the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Clippers) and thought the Wildcats would come back for a thrilling victory against the Wolfpack. But alas, they lost, my hopes were dashed, and I was left to think what could have been.