As a pseudo-journalist with his own blog, I feel compelled to disclose my biases, so when I get going on something you all can see where I'm coming from. So here we go:
- I was born and raised in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, went to college at the University of Minnesota and currently live in a Twin Cities suburb. I respect a great many teams and individuals around the world, but I am first and foremost a Gophers, Twins, Vikings, Wild and Timberwolves fan. It is these teams that make me laugh, cry, celebrate, jeer, yell and scowl. And in prep sports, I was raised in the Lake Conference. I have announced games for five years in the Lake Conference. And I live near a Lake Conference school. I know as much about the Lake as anyone, and I am a true believer that it is the best collection of high schools in the state in terms of overall excellence in athletics, arts and academics.
- I believe sports are all about testing yourself, and the emotion and the feelings that come with victory, defeat and the pursuit of excellence. How does Tiger Woods feel when he's standing over a 20-footer for the Masters title? A high-school sophomore on the free throw line with no time on the clock, his team losing by one and two shots coming? A high school football team embarking on its first day of practice in the fall? Every sports story in the world is a function of the basic question: what do you have, and how do you use it? And it is this emotion that I try to convey somehow in every game I call.
- I am a passionate high school sports fan. I believe that you can find more of this raw emotion I speak of in high school sports than at any other level. For five years I have been a play-by-play and color announcer for high school football, basketball and hockey games in Bloomington, Minnesota. I have seen truly great kids win state championships and others suffer through winless seasons, but it takes the same commitment to play sports whether you win two or 20 games in a season. And that effort and drive to excel never fails to impress me.
- I am an athlete myself. I don't come from an athletic family, and I was never all-state by any means, but I did play high school tennis and normally hold my own when on the field of battle. There are lots of things I don't know, but I consider myself to be a sort of expert in the field and an acute observer and consumer of all types of sport. Hopefully I get you to think of things a bit differently once in a while...
- I hate the Yankees. They are the epitome of everything that is wrong with the game of baseball, and they truly do play on a different field than my beloved Twins. Plus, of course, they've eliminated the Twins from the playoffs the past two years.
That ought to get us started. See you around!
1 comment:
Nice work getting a website off and running, it's hard work!
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