2011 Roadrunner Athlete of the Year: Kevin Murphy

To see more photos of Kevin Murphy, click here to visit the gallery on Facebook.

By: Dan Kidder

They say that a jack of all trades is the master of none.
But Kevin Murphy is the rare kind of athlete who defies simple sayings.
Murphy, like the Jim Thorpes and Bo Jacksons before him, was never content with the challenge of just one athletic endeavor.
He grew up playing Little League baseball, Boys & Girls Club basketball, Pop Warner football and youth soccer. He tried his hand at motocross for a while (“Just for fun,” he says).
His older sister, Erin, ran cross country in high school and earned a scholarship to UNLV. Since the middle school didn’t offer very many sports at the time, Murphy decided to follow in his sister’s footsteps and joined the cross-country team. He continued playing flag football and basketball while waiting for his chance to show his stuff at the next level—high school.
His freshman season, Murphy played football, basketball and golf, a sport he picked up on a whim and ended up playing at the varsity levels all four years of high school.
“We became members of the country club,” he says. “And I totally fell in love with golf.”
In his sophomore season, he once again played football and golf, but switched to wrestling in the winter season.
“I loved playing basketball,” he says. “I grew up playing with Beau [Reilly], Stehly [Reden] and AJ [Broomell] on a lot of travel teams. But I wanted to try something a little different. One of my favorite sports to watch is MMA [Mixed Martial Arts], and I’ve always wanted to try to get into that. But in wrestling, you work so hard, especially with the guys around you, it’s like a brotherhood of wrestlers.”
Murphy’s sports schedule remained unchanged for his junior year, but things really picked up for him this year.
In his senior year, he played football and water polo in the fall season, wrestling in the winter season and both swimming and golf in the spring.
“My buddy Ian Macfarlane said I should come swim with him because it’s a great workout,” Murphy says. “It totally changes your body. I used to lift weights to bulk up for football, but swimming really leaned me out while keeping me really strong.”
Not only does Murphy play so many different sports, he plays such unique positions that usually require specific skills beyond the pick-it-up-as-I-go-along mentality.
Growing up, he played middle infield and pitcher on the baseball diamond, as well as point guard in basketball.
Although he grew up playing different positions in football, by the time he got to the varsity level, Murphy was so good as a long snapper that he was able to work out his own practice schedule that allowed him to play both water polo and football this season. He worked out with the special teams unit on Thursdays and found time with kicker David Last to keep his game at the highest level.
On the water polo team, Murphy quickly carved out a spot at two-meter defense, despite his relative inexperience.
“I’ve played so many sports, and water polo is a combination of so many sports, it just came to me,” Murphy says. “I played against the other team’s best offender. I like playing defense, and if the team needs something, I’m willing to do whatever.”
He wrestled somewhere in the 140-pound range, posted a golf index of four (which basically calculates how many strokes above par a player is, on average), and swam the 100 freestyle, the 200 freestyle and the 100 backstroke for the swim team this year.
“I love the camaraderie with my teammates,” Murphy says. “I love winning, and for me, there’s nothing like trying to be the best you can. I was never the quarterback, never scored the most goals, never was the biggest guy on the field, but I always want to work hard and try as many different things as I can.”
To try so many different sports takes a unique approach, and Murphy says that each sport he has played carries its own mentality.
“It’s different for each person,” he says. “For example, a football player isn’t as methodical as a golfer. Before he gets to the first tee, a golfer knows where he wants to put the ball and he has a plan for that hole. A football player walks on the field and he has all his coaches worrying about the bigger picture. He just has to go out and make a play.
“In wrestling, it’s just you against one other guy,” he adds. “You don’t really need the whole team to do your job—it’s a team sport, but so much is placed on the individual. It’s all about self-motivation. In water polo, it’s a lot of work and a lot of swimming, but that sense of brotherhood is big. You work so hard with these other guys that you really appreciate each other. And in swimming, it’s a pretty small group but it’s really tight-knit. It takes a lot of work to do swimming, but it pays off when you start to see your times drop. The coaches were great—they know they work us hard, but we know it’s for our benefit.”
Murphy didn’t earn any scholarships for his play on the field, and even though he will always enjoy playing sports for fun, he doesn’t have any plans to pursue college athletics.
“My sister’s boyfriend is a division one football player—he’s six-two, runs a four-six forty and he plays free safety,” Murphy says. “I love playing sports, but I know I can’t reach that kind of level. To play college sports, you have to be so naturally gifted. I look at Stehly [Reden] and that’s the kind of natural athlete you have to be. But even if I’m not playing, I still love working my body to the point where it feels like it’s breaking down and exceeding my goals. We’ll see where life takes me, and what God’s plan is for me.”
Murphy’s father, Sean, was a Navy pilot, his grandfather was a Blue Angel, and his uncle is an F-4 pilot, and Murphy says that he would love to join the ranks of his fellow naval aviators. But he also says his faith plays a central role in his life, and that he’s willing to pursue other directions as well. As a core team member at St. Stephen’s church, Murphy says he wants to honor God’s plan for his life.
“I definitely have an interest in the military, but I want to go where God leads,” he says. “You don’t know where God’s going to take you, but if you love Him and serve Him, wherever He takes you will be wherever you’re supposed to be. For me, if that’s the Navy, then that’s great. But I’m open to whatever.”
Wherever he goes next, Murphy says that he will never forget the years he spent playing sports with his friends here in Valley Center.
“There are so many great memories,” he says. “Like rushing back from a water polo game at Poway to make it to our home football game—I walked in with no shirt on, my pads in my hands and my eyes still watering from the pool, but I made it in time. And I’ll always remember winning league with the golf team this year—we came through a lot. All the practices, working hard and messing around with the guys, those are the things I’ll remember.”
Kevin Patrick Murphy grew up in Valley Center with his family—his father, Sean, a retired Navy pilot who works for Computer Protection Technology; his mother, Colleen, an aide for the Valley Center/Pauma Unified School District; and his siblings, Erin, John and Bridget.
Befitting his Irish heritage—his grandmother is from Ireland—Murphy is a fan of the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Celtics, and Notre Dame football. He and his father are planning a trip to Dublin, Ireland, to see Notre Dame play against Navy next year. He also likes Duke basketball and has been following the emerging career of PGA golfer Rory McElroy, lamenting that “I was a Tiger Woods fan, but…you can’t really do that anymore.”
When he’s not playing sports, Murphy says he’s working, working out, participating in church activities or sleeping.
After his high school athletics experience, Murphy has some encouragement for young athletes.
“To all the little guys out there, don’t ever stop working hard,” he says. “You may not be a stud, but you mean just as much. A team is a well-oiled machine, and it needs every part to work. So never give up, and don’t be afraid to go out and try a new sport. You never know if you’ll like it, so even if it’s hard, keep pushing through.”

15 candidates for 2011 Roadrunner Athlete of the Year

Great athletes make sports fun to watch.
They turn average contests into you-totally-should-have-been-there events. They make your head spin with a combination of speed, strength and grace that can’t be fully appreciated in a Sportscenter highlight. Basically, they turn a UFL game into an NFL game.
And while we may not get to see the likes of Adrian Peterson, Albert Pujols, David Villa, Dirk Nowitzki or Steven Stamkos here in Valley Center, we have a bevy of athletic talent that makes a Jaguar game anything but average.
This year, I had the privilege of covering Valley Center High School sports from fall to spring, from football to baseball, and everything in between. I must admit right up front that I know I didn’t get to see that much of some of our local teams and athletes, but hopefully we’ll get to hear those stories from you (more on that in a little bit).
Accordingly, I made a list through the various seasons that I titled, simply, “Favorite players to watch 2011.”
I whittled the list down to 15 athletes (not an easy task) that I thought were deserving of another mention because of the way they played on the field. In the coming week, I’ll be choosing one of these 15 athletes as the first-ever Roadrunner Athlete of the Year. The winner will get a full interview in an upcoming issue, and the criteria for winning are mainly athletic, although some other factors, such as attitude and leadership. Basically, I’m going to choose the athlete who I think best represented the Jaguars on the field. I am, however, always open to suggestion, so if you have a strong opinion about one or more of the athletes below, write to me this week at sports@valleycenter.com and tell me why I should choose your athlete.
Just to be clear, this list is based entirely on my experience as a sports fan, primarily, and is in no way intended to rank the included athletes or exclude any other athletes deserving of recognition. This is just the list of a sports fan who wanted to share some thoughts about the outstanding sports he saw this year, and recognize the athletes who helped make it such a fantastic year.
So, in no particular order, here are the candidates for Athlete of the Year:

Travis Bernard—football
Plays like: Barry Sanders
Also a little bit like: Lionel Messi
It had to be hard to follow a great player like Stanton Upson, but Bernard stepped up to the challenge in a big way. The always-shifty Bernard left VC fans gasping at the lightning-quick change of direction, the where-did-he-go cutbacks and the thrill of knowing that the Jaguars were never more than a play away from scoring a touchdown, no matter where they were on the field.
The speed and agility were what made him a great athlete, but to me, the drive and determination are what set him apart as one of the truly phenomenal athletes I’ve ever gotten to see in person. He’s got a chance to see significant playing time at Northern Colorado this fall, and I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more from him before the season’s over.

David Last—football
Plays like: Ronnie Lott
And a little like: George Blanda
In football, the kicker is usually the spry little fellow prancing about on the sideline of the stadium, fiddling with some stick-and-net contraption and trying not to look bored until he’s suddenly called upon to do something productive.
David Last is not your usual kicker.
Not only did he boot a school-record 51-yard field goal against Escondido this year and send nearly every kickoff out the back of the endzone, he was a dominant defensive player at cornerback and a handy weapon as a receiver on offense.
I had the most fun watching him play defense. Of the dozens of big hits I saw from the sidelines this year, at least ten to 15 of them belonged to Last. Teams didn’t like throwing the ball his way because they knew that, at best, they’d get a completion and an immediate stop. He was rarely out of position, he was fearless in pursuing (and often flattening) the ball-carrier, and he only seemed to get better as the game wore on.

Kevin Murphy—football, water polo, wrestling, swimming, golf
Plays like: Jim Thorpe
And a little like: Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Some athletes are gifted in such specific ways that they're fun to watch--but only when they're doing that one thing they're good at.
Murphy doesn't have to worry too much about that--he's got 11 varsity letters from his four years at VCHS, and he capped off his senior year by playing five sports in three seasons. Five. He started with football and water polo, then (in what must have seemed like a break, going to just one sport after playing two) he joined the wrestling team for the winter season before going out with a bang in golf and swimming in the spring season.
Now, anybody can show up to practice and be on a sports team--just look at half of the Padres' roster this year (seriously--who are these guys?).
But it's another thing altogether to actually be good.
Murphy was the long snapper on the football team, a position that is not for the faint of heart (just for fun, go out in your back yard with a football, then bend over and try to heave the ball between your legs to another person 20 yards away while simultaneously whipping your head back up so you don't get railroaded by a humongous person trying to knock you flat on your back). In the same season, he was also one of the key offensive weapons on the boys water polo team. On the wrestling team, he was a mainstay in the 140-150 range, and helped the Jaguars win the Valley League title. He was also one of the top contributors on the golf team while balancing his time with the swim team.
Each of those things requires a specific skill that would take a long time for anyone to master. And here Murphy was, mixing it up on the varsity level in five completely different sports. Even if he had just played water polo and golf, those two alone astonish me. Then add wrestling...it boggles the mind.

Kelly Hagadorn—field hockey, soccer, lacrosse
Plays like: Alexander Ovechkin, only on turf
And a little like: Ed Reed
There are athletes who impress with skill, and there are athletes who impress with determination. There are also athletes who impress with skill and determination.
Then there are athletes who scare the bejeezus out of you.
If you follow the NFL, you probably know who Ed Reed is. He plays safety for the Baltimore Ravens, and underneath that black helmet, his bushy black beard and his silent scowl could make a running back’s blood go cold (for video evidence, search YouTube for “Ed Reed decleated Knowshon Moreno big hit forced fumble” and get ready to send the kids out of the room).
Hagadorn plays with the same quiet intensity that has made me think, more than once, that I’m glad I don’t play field hockey. Or soccer. Or lacrosse. Or Powder Puff football.
What separates her from the thugs that sports can sometimes breed is the fact that she can back up her swagger with incredible skill. She was the focal point of the offense for the VCHS field hockey team that went deep into the CIF playoffs, and she was a rock on defense for the girls soccer team and the girls lacrosse team.
She was a leader. When she walked onto the field, the rest of the team knew they had a really good chance to win, because they knew she was going to be the one of the best players on the field, no matter what it took.

Melina & Vanessa Heredia—volleyball, soccer, lacrosse
Play like: Charlie Davies, only there’s two of him
And a little like: Deion Sanders, minus the showing off
I hate to put them together—I’m sure that, as twin sisters, it’s happened pretty much all their lives thus far—but it really is impossible to talk about the athletic prowess of one without mentioning the other.
As freshmen, they both played significant time on three varsity teams this season. My first glimpse of these dynamos was in volleyball, where they both showed incredible athleticism around the net and a willingness to learn from the upperclassmen around them.
In soccer, they flashed some of the eye-popping speed that quickly caught the attention of the other team (and the fans).
But it wasn’t until lacrosse season that I fully understood what I was seeing. Both of them have the capability of changing the momentum of a game in the blink of an eye, and they dropped plenty of jaws both in the crowd and on the opposing sideline.
By the end of the season, I learned to sit up a little straighter and watch just a little more closely whenever one of the Heredia sisters got the ball, no matter where they were on the field. A handful of times, I watched as one of the two of them would collect the ball behind their own net, jog with the defender for about 30 yards, then turn on the jets and absolutely blow past one, two, even three defenders before slamming the ball into the net.
Can’t wait to see what they do for an encore in their sophomore seasons.

A.J. Broomell—basketball
Plays like: A young Jason Kidd
And a little like: A young John Stockton, minus the short shorts
Of all the sports I used to follow closely as a kid, basketball is one in which I’ve slowly lost interest, mainly due to the look-at-me preening of the typical NBA star.
But even I couldn’t help but look forward to VCHS basketball games, because players like Broomell only come around so often.
Watching Broomell in each Jaguars game was a study in how to morph your game to match the weakness of your opponent. On a team that ran its offense through center Stehly Reden—with good reason—Broomell was so much more than just a John Stockton to Reden’s Karl Malone.
Broomell proved time and time again that he could carry the team when they needed him, just as adroitly as he found ways to make his teammates better. They say that you can tell how good a basketball player is by the job he does when he doesn’t have the ball, and Broomell passed this test with flying colors.
Whether he scored 20 points or only five, Broomell built a reputation as a smart, clutch player who got the best out of those around him.

James Siva—basketball
Plays like: Spud Webb
And a little like: Kevin Bacon in The Air Up There
He wasn’t the biggest player on the court—not by a long shot. But the players you love to have on your team are the ones who practice hard, play hard and refuse to accept losing as an option.
Siva led the Jaguars in scoring a few times, but mostly he provided the energy and determination that was infectious.
I think the perfect stamp of Siva’s impact on the team this season came in the first round of the CIF playoffs at Santana (click here to watch the video). The Sultans held a one-point lead and had the ball with under a minute left in the game. The Jaguars double-teamed the opposing center, who forced up an off-balance shot that ricocheted off the rim and bounced off Reden’s hands before Siva swooped in to grab the ball at the baseline. After faking a pass, Siva darted up the floor, past four surprised Sultans jogging back on defense, and slipped a perfect bounce pass to Beau Reilly, who banked in the easy layup that gave the Jags a one-point lead.
And Siva wasn’t done. On defense with under 20 seconds left, the Jaguars forced Santana to try a contested three-pointer that missed the mark. As the big men slammed into each other going after the rebound, Siva once again weaved through the traffic, stuck his hand out and tipped the ball away from one of the Sultans. He stayed with the ball, scooped it up and was fouled with under a second remaining, all but sealing the win for VC.

Miriam Zabinsky—girls basketball
Plays like: Magic Johnson
And a little like: Julie Connor from the Saturday morning classic Hang Time.
It’s great when a player plays his or her position well, but when they play multiple positions at a high level, you know you’re watching something special.
Zabinsky showed her versatility in nearly every basketball game this season, from running the offense as a point guard to taking outside shots as a shooting guard to crashing the boards and posting up her defender like a power forward. She’s obviously talented; a casual observer can see that almost immediately. But her focus and intensity put her on another level, and her toughness only serves to shine a brighter spotlight on her skills.

Eddie Alba—soccer
Plays like: Wayne Rooney
And a little like: The Italian kids in the Will Ferrell movie Kicking and Screaming.
Alba is another one of those athletes who isn’t very big and probably isn’t the fastest guy on the field. But his quickness, especially with the ball at his feet, is explosive, and he impressed me more than once with his field vision. I’m not a soccer expert, but I can distinctly recall a handful of times during the boys soccer games when Alba would get the ball and it looked like there was nothing there, but he would find a seam with a pass, or make one extra move and get off a shot when it looked completely closed down.
He was never one to jaw with opponents, or flop to the ground at the slightest whisper of contact (as is the unfortunate case for some soccer players in the world). I remember Alba getting a hard red card at the end of the game against Orange Glen, a penalty that results in ejection. The crowd was understandably upset; the game had been increasingly rough-and-tumble throughout the second half, and Orange Glen had come close to causing some serious injuries with reckless challenges. Alba made an aggressive challenge and caught some of the opposing player’s foot as he slid for the ball, but compared to what had been going on without so much as a whistle, the play seemed harmless.
Alba didn’t complain, didn’t mouth off to the ref or whine about it. He definitely looked surprised, and stood on the field for a while as if in disbelief, but ultimately, he accepted the unjust punishment in a close game that the Jaguars eventually lost without taking his frustration out on the ref, his coaches or his teammates.

Hannah Sanders—girls soccer
Plays like: Shannon Boxx
And a little like: Keira Knightley in Bend It Like Beckham.
The VCHS girls soccer team was fun to watch this season. They had a lot of talented players, especially on offense, and they had a lot of confidence heading into the season.
Sanders was the key cog in the middle, handling the ball often and with more than once with jaw-dropping skill. She always seemed to have another gear to shift into when she got the ball, and she made a lot of defenders look foolish. And for being a willowy blonde, she wasn’t afraid of contact, either.
It was a lot of fun watching how in sync she was with forward Sam Koch, and how often they seemed to know exactly where to go when the other one had the ball.

Dylan Smith—football, wrestling
Plays like: The Ultimate Warrior
And a little like: “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan
Defensive tackles are usually the fattest guys a football team can dig up without resorting to pillaging sumo arenas (although that always seems to happen in every football comedy movie).
Smith is built a little more like a wide receiver—a big receiver, but still, not exactly earth-mover-esque.
But his motor doesn’t seem to have a brake pedal, because he just never quits.
As impressed as I was with him in football, I was doubly so when wrestling season rolled around. He had a way of pacing around the ring, staring down his opponent before the handshake, then launching himself across the mat when the whistle blew to start the match. He showed how tough he is, but I marveled at his quickness, especially when getting at his opponent’s feet.

Dan Henderson—basketball, baseball
Plays like: Tom Glavine
And a little like: Eddie Harris from Major League
Nice guys finish last, as the old saying goes.
They don’t get much nicer than Dan Henderson, and you don’t have to go far to find somebody who will adamantly agree.
What makes him a great athlete to watch is his approach to the game, no matter what that game might be. He does the little things right—he hustles, he pays attention, he’s not afraid to ask questions, and he is never at a loss when it comes to an encouraging thing to say to his teammates (and, on occasion, his opponents).
On a personal level, I had a great time watching him play because he is exactly what I tried to be when I was a high school athlete. I also played baseball, and I also tried my best to be the guy who was first to practice, last to leave, first to hop up for the stray foul balls, first to high five the guy who just struck out, and always ready when the coach needed me.
But I can’t in any way claim to have done it as well or as thoroughly as Dan Henderson, who not only accomplished all these things, but showed time and time again that he’s also a really good ballplayer. He started the baseball season as an afterthought when it came to the pitching rotation, but by the end, the coaches were counting on him in some tight spots as the team tried to stay alive in the battle for the league title.
When he wasn’t pitching, he was still in the lineup and played third base, which wasn’t the spot they had him in at the beginning of the year. He still picked it up as the season went along, and became a solid defender at a tough position.

Anna Luna—softball
Plays like: Cat Osterman
And a little like: If Randy Johnson pitched underhand
When it comes to softball in Valley Center, you only need to talk to two people: Bob & Pat Tousley, who have been a part of the youth softball program and the high school softball program in various forms for the past… Let’s just say there aren’t many people who can remember that far back anymore.
So when Pat Tousley told me that she saw a photo of Anna Luna pitching and added, “That’s exactly how we teach the kids to pitch,” I knew the Lady Jaguars were going to have a good season.
The above comparisons aside, Luna reminds me quite a bit of Orel Hershiser, the former Dodgers pitcher who earned the nickname “Bulldog” for his gutsy pitching performances in the late 80s and early 90s.
Luna has the same lanky build that Hershiser always had, and the same tenacity in the pitcher’s circle. A change in high school softball regulations moved the pitcher back three feet this year, and early in the season, the difference was clear. Offenses had just a little more time to pick up the pitch, and hitters were finding ways to exploit the mistakes that pitchers used to be able to cover up.
The Lady Jaguars were no different—they had a tremendous offensive year and advanced to the quarterfinals of the CIF playoffs. Luna’s pitching was a huge part of that run, especially late in the regular season. She found herself in some tight spots more than once, but she quickly gained a reputation for cranking up the intensity and pitching her best when it counted.

Garrett Fiehler—boys lacrosse
Plays like: Sidney Crosby
And a little like: Peyton Hillis
It’s easy to see why so many VCHS football players ended up on the boys lacrosse team this season. It’s a very different game than what the girls play, right down to the different lines on the field.
Fiehler was the third running back on the varsity football team that went undefeated until they lost a heartbreaker in the CIF championship game at Qualcomm Stadium. Travis Bernard was the starter and Michael Rodriguez was the primary backup, but Fiehler showed more than enough evidence in his limited action to indicate that he’s going to be the starting running back next season.
The same mentality he played with in football translated easily to lacrosse, and it was easy to see that he’s been playing lacrosse for a long time. Where some players were still struggling to get used to the mechanics of running and keeping the ball in the cage at the end of the stick, Fiehler fairly glided around the field with that same powerful stride he showed in football.
As a midfielder, the offense ran through him, and his quick first step led to more goals this season than I can count. He never shied away from contact; more often than not, he was the one initiating a hit, even when he had the ball. I can still see in my mind’s eye the opening night game against Temecula, when Fiehler barreled into an oncoming offensive player in one of the fiercest collisions I’ve ever seen.
(Quick aside: the hardest sports hit I’ve ever seen in person came courtesy of James Johnson, Valley Center’s phenom wide receiver who graduated in 2009. In a home game against Orange Glen in ’09, the Jaguars were on offense, and Tyler Bernard dropped off a pass in the flat to the tight end, I think it was Jeremy Dozier. Johnson had gone on a deep corner route, but turned around to come back and block once the ball was caught. One of the Orange Glen corners was trying to chase Dozier down when Johnson completely blindsided him with a totally legal, but absolutely bone-rattling hit, shoulder to chest. It happened about seven yards directly in front of me, and I can distinctly remember hearing all the air get forcibly pancaked out of the kid.)

John Turori—rugby
Plays like: Adrian Peterson
And a little like: If Troy Polamalu played both offense and defense
Honestly, the Adrian Peterson comparison is the closest thing I can come up with to accurately explaining how Turori plays. NFL commentators gush about how Peterson runs “with violence” and how he is a nightmare to try to tackle in the open field.
Turori runs with the same ferocity, and all the more so because he’s doing it in a game without pads. His legs never stop churning, no matter how many defenders he has draped on his back, ankles, or wherever they can try to get a hold of him. And he knows how to use his strength, squeezing his broad frame into the tiniest crack of an opening between defenders to keep them off balance and allow him to gain those precious extra yards.
And he’s smart, too. He’s not just plowing through the nearest defender because he can, he is active away from the ball, feeling out the weak spots in the defense and carefully positioning himself to maximize his efforts once the ball does come his way. And he usually doesn’t have to wait long—the ball finds him in a hurry, another mark of a truly gifted athlete playing at an elite level.
— — —
There you go, 15 athletes who made this year in sports so much fun for me to watch. I had more, but there’s only so much room, and only so many amusing comparisons to movie and/or TV athletes I can think of.
But if there’s anyone I left out, or anyone you think deserves a mention, write to me at sports@valleycenter.com and I’ll add them to consideration.
You can also visit the Roadrunner's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/valleycenter to share your thoughts about your choice for 2011 Athlete of the Year.

I Kid You Not: forget resolutions, what can sports do for us this year?

The beginning of a new year can serve as a reminder of the ever-changing nature of our world. The old is gone, the new has come.
And so many of us take this opportunity to take stock in our lives; to re-evaluate what’s important, to learn from the experiences of the past year, and, if possible, to make plans for improvement in the year to come.
This is not what I will be doing this year.
Operating under the assumption that I’m pretty great already, I’ve decided that the world should be making resolutions to make my life better.
Specifically, I’ve decided that the sports world should make a few changes.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a list of sports-related resolutions that I wanted to implement. I wanted to watch more games (which I’ve done), go to more games in person (also done),
...root for a team over an individual (sorry, Miami Dolphins players, but my fantasy football team did much better without any of you in my starting lineup), wear real eye black (which was confused for mascara by a scorekeeper in my coed softball league last year)
...and in general, have more fun with sports.
After months of introspection (or five minutes watching Sportscenter), it became clear that A) I’m pulling my weight around here, and B) the sports world is not.
So what should the world of sports do to better appease me?
I’m glad you asked.

1. Quality Over Quantity

512. 4,860. 2,460. Another 2,460. 36. Add those all together and you get 10,328.
That’s how many major sports competitions are held every year, just in the regular season. 512 NFL games, 4,860 MLB games, 2,460 games in both the NBA and NHL, and 36 NASCAR races. If we say that the average length of each of these contests is around three hours, that’s 30,984 hours of major sports action every single year.
There are only 8,766 hours in a year, so since many of these games are going on simultaneously, the number will be higher.
But my goodness, 30,984 hours of sports? I’m a big sports fan, but even that seems like a little bit too much time. Some games are fantastic, and more than worth the three-ish hours we put in. Others involve the Milwaukee Brewers, and shouldn’t be shown to small children.
I’ve written before about how the NFL has it right—one game per team per week, 16 games in the regular season, three weeks of playoffs, then the Super Bowl. Just enough to keep us interested, but not too much that we get bored. Because let’s face it, Americans get bored really easily. What used to be called multitasking a few years ago is now just called “tasking.” We watch TV while we eat. We talk on the phone while we drive (um… with a hands-free device, of course). We watch more TV while we… um… sleep.
I’m just as guilty as the next person. In our home, my wife and I have three TVs (one of which looks like this),
...four video game systems, two computers and three cell phones, two of which are “smart” phones. Not counting my collection of old Hardy Boys books (I’m a sucker for kitsch), our DVD collection outnumbers our book collection (not as much as it used to before I got married, at least). I recently chuckled to myself as I noticed another person watching TV, listening to an MP3 player and playing Mario Kart on the computer, all at the same time. Needless to say, we live in a country that takes sensory input to levels never before imagined.
But as we discussed in the NFL-has-it-right column, more is definitely not always better. Baseball is fun to watch, but it’s easy to lose interest in a team when you can’t watch 162 games. Same with the NBA, NHL and NASCAR (as much as I love NASCAR, it’s just too long of a season). And now the NFL is talking about an 18-game schedule for next year. Really? I mean, I know football is America’s current pastime, but as ESPN.com writer Gregg Easterbrook consistently reminds us, there is no law that says football has to remain popular.
I know it’s a lot to ask, but I think the sports world owes us less quantity and more quality. If it means contracting a few teams in the NBA and NHL and scaling back to 40 games or so (from December through March or something like that), then let’s do it. If it means only playing baseball in the summer (the horror!) instead of spring-to-winter, then let’s whittle the schedule down to June, July and August, with the playoffs in September. If it means only running NASCAR races from February through August, so as not to overlap the NFL, I’m all for it.
Basically, I want to be able to enjoy the sports I get to watch. I want games to mean something. I want each sport to have its own season of the year, with the exception of basketball, which is boring and should be ignored while we watch hockey.
I want sports to be worth watching in the 8,766 hours I have this year.

2. More Football!

I know, this one seems to contradict the last one, but really, when you think about it… OK so it contradicts the last one. This is my wish list so I can contradict whatever I want.
I know it’s a long shot, but I’d really like to see steps toward the implementation of a Minor League Football system.
I outlined this idea in depth back in August—basically, you take the 32 NFL teams, give each of them a minor league affiliate in a nearby city, and have the minor league team supplement the NFL team’s roster when necessary. Wow, that was much easier to explain this time around. Makes me wonder why I needed 1,100 words to discuss it last time around.
I guess it was to talk about the details of how it would work, not to mention to suggest some fun names for the minor league affiliates (admit it, you’d go see a team called the Escondido Spark Plugs or the Fort Lauderdale Manatees).
This time, I’d like to focus on how it would make being a sports fan better. We all like football, because this is America, and if you don’t, well… you might be a communist. Just saying.
So how could more football not be a good idea?
The risk, as we touched on in the last section, is over-saturation. Too much football could make it seem ho-hum and watered-down.
But the potential reward is intriguing. If each NFL team had a farm team it could use to groom young players, the quality of play in the NFL would go up because young players would get more game experience in the minor league before getting shoved into NFL action. Players who were stars in college would get to quickly show whether or not they belong in the big leagues, while scrappy players who weren’t highly drafted would have more shots to show how their hard work has paid off. And it would even give players returning from injury a chance to play a real game as a bit of a warm-up to coming back to the NFL.
From a fan’s perspective, Minor League Football would give us more opportunities to watch professional-caliber football, play more (or different types of) fantasy football, buy more gear, attend more games (hopefully with the fun-first atmosphere of Minor League Baseball) and see more young players play in real games.

3. Cleaning House

If the world of sports really wants to appease the fans, the key is quality. And the best way to ensure that a quality product hits the field, court, rink or track is by increasing the level of competition while limiting the number of spots available to elite athletes.
In the case of professional sports, I really like the format of the English Premiere League, in which soccer teams are relegated to a lower league if they finish in the bottom four spots in the standings at the end of the season.
For the four major American sports, this would mean splitting the leagues into two levels and allowing only the teams in the top level to compete for the major league championship. In the case of the NFL, if we were to take the top 16 teams in the league (by record) and split them in half, we could separate the teams who are good from the teams who are not. We would have good teams facing good teams on a regular basis, and we wouldn’t have to sit through blowouts like we saw between the Steelers and the Browns on Sunday. Seriously, Cleveland? 41–9? Is that whole LeBron thing still getting to you?
Some might argue that this idea is flawed because we would still have to watch games like the Cardinals against the 49ers. That is true; terrible teams would still be terrible. We can’t get around that. But at least the terrible teams would only be playing other terrible teams, and they would be playing for some sort of second-rate championship, not to mention the chance to move up to the big leagues and play for the real title.
If we don’t get relegation, I’d at least like to see some form of contraction, especially in the NHL. I really like hockey, but there are 30 teams in the NHL, and I don’t think I can name more than one or two players on most of them anymore. And that’s kind of a shame since hockey names are pretty much the best. Where else can you find a guy named Guillaume Latendresse or Georges Laraque or Radek Bonk? Probably not even in the NHL anymore since it’s pretty well impossible to find a hockey game on TV these days.
But if the league went back to 15 teams (half of its current number)—preferably in the colder regions of North America— to consolidate talent, then slashed the schedule down to one or two games per team per week, it would make each game more important and full of better talent. And that’s the goal of this whole thing—more important games with more talent.

4. More Gus Johnson

Pro sports commentators are a dying breed.
Well, we’re losing most of the good ones, anyway. Pat Summerall was an icon. Keith Jackson made a highlight out of introducing the starting lineups. Dick Enberg and his trademark “Oh my!” provided so many great moments.
Bob Papa and Matt Millen, however, do not fall into this category. The NFL Network commentators are just two of the host of insufferable game callers who are increasingly harder to stomach. They all use too many clichéd catchphrases (“When you talk about the Chargers, you talk about a team that really plays well in December.”), too many incorrect words (it’s not, “They’re having a tough time figuring out how to defense the pass,” the correct phrase is, “They’re having a tough time figuring out how to defend the pass.” Don’t try to get all fancy on us.), and too many weird versions of common phrases that nobody else seems to be using (as in, when did “hand-eye coordination” become “eye-hand coordination?”).
At least we have Gus Johnson.

The CBS play-by-play guy has developed a reputation this season for calling the NFL games with the most thrilling finishes. He called the Jaguars/Texans game that ended with a Hail Mary touchdown on the final play and inspired ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons to incorporate Johnson into his many theories about how to predict the winner in NFL games. He’s even the commentator on Madden 11, which is a huge upgrade from Tom Hammond in the 2010 version of the game.
If we cut back on the length of the various sports’ seasons, then we can get Johnson calling games year round. And if that doesn’t make sports more enjoyable, then I don’t know what will.
But maybe you do.
If you have any ideas about what the sports world can do to make 2011 better for us, the fans, send them to me at sports@valleycenter.com and I’ll share them with our readers. You can send an itemized list, a couple of ideas, or just random scribblings on a napkin. Whatever you’ve got, send it in and we’ll do our best to make 2011 a great year for sports.

We Always Suspected Jack Black Was A Caveman

...although, technically, in the movie, they lived in huts...

By Dan Kidder

If I'm going to write movie reviews -- which I am -- then I should probably explain, briefly, what my movie tastes are.

For one thing, I tend to enjoy the movies I see, partly because I don't go see movies I don't think I'll like, and also because most movies today are at least enjoyable on some level. And if it's really bad, it's nice to have someone there so we can make fun of how awful it is.

With that said, I must also say that there aren't very many movies that make it into my "must see" list. Most movies fall into the "it was a good movie, but I probably won't see it again" category for me. Glad we've got that straight.

For my reviews, I'm going to break up my analysis into three parts (before, during, after) and an overall conclusion. I'll do my best not to spoil anything, but if you want to go in fresh, you don't have to keep reading.

And now, the movie "Year One," starring Jack Black and Michael Cera.

Thoughts Going In: The trailer had some funny lines, and I like Cera's delivery...he's the perfect combination of awkward and uncertain, but still saying exactly what he's thinking. I expected it to be a bit raunchy (it is a Jack Black movie) and for there to be some swing-and-miss jokes at which only the lowest-brow moviegoer would laugh. Given the hint about the tree of knowledge and all that, I also was curious to see how "offensive" it would get.

For the record, I really don't believe in getting "offended," especially not over something so trivial as a movie. This should apply to the people outside the theater when "Angels & Demons" opened up, as they held their protest signs and compared Dan Brown to the devil. It's a movie. If you don't agree with it, you don't have to go see it. And now back to the review.

Thoughts During: They didn't mess around setting up too much plot or anything, but jumped right into the funny stuff in the first scene. I was in a full theater, and people laughed...a lot. I laughed out loud at a couple of scenes; one in particular that was so ridiculous I nearly choked on my cherry slurpee. I didn't see anything overly raunchy; they did drop some choice words here and there, but most of it was innuendo, which is clearly the smarter way to go about comedy these days.

Black is funny in the most random ways, including a scene in which he starts humming along with the background music that we in the audience assumed only we could hear. Cera delivers some very quotable lines, and the supporting cast is funny enough to keep things going without overshadowing the main characters. And the outtakes during the credits...good stuff.


Thoughts After: Seeing a comedy is different than seeing an action movie because you leave with a different feeling. After seeing "300" in the theater, I left feeling like getting in a fight with the guy walking in front of me, just because I was so pumped up.

After comedies, my usual feeling is one of general amusement, but without any specific physical result. This movie did what it was supposed to; I left feeling like I just had a great time.

The plot wasn't intricate, but it wasn't supposed to be. The story made sense though, despite some intentionally-overlooked historical inaccuracies (such as, Cain and Abel clearly did not exist at the same time as Abraham and Isaac). The Biblical aspect of the movie was interesting; they definitely took some liberties with how they presented the characters, but in the end they were so satirical that they shouldn't be offensive...they were just so over the top that it would be impossible to take any of it seriously.

The comedy and the story work together very well to make a movie that makes sense but isn't going to get anybody lost. The camaraderie between Black and Cera is developed very well, and the absurdity of romance in that time is explored with amusing results. Again, the subtlety of the innuendo through most of the movie is excellent, and it makes the more overtly physical comedy that much more funny. There are some funny gross moments, but nothing that would make most of us feel uncomfortable for long.

Overall Thought: Go see it. It's funny in a clever way, and it's clean enough to see with a date...unless your date is really picky about those things. Basically, if you like Jack Black at all, you will love this movie.

There you go...the first of what I hope will be many, many successful, enlightening, well-received movie reviews. Transformers 2 comes out next weekend, so be sure to check back then to see what I think.