Haiku IX

Double-digit seed played great.

Bracket? Staright busted.

NC Double A Tournament.

The Greatest Internship Ever

At Penn State University, to receive a degree in Business at the Altoona campus, one must complete a 9-credit-hours internship at/ with a local business of some sort. When presented with this information at the onset of the Fall semester of my senior year, I felt a serious amount of trepidation. Since, as I stated, I was already dead-set on what I’d do with my life, putting on slacks and a button-up shirt and reporting to sit at some desk for 20-45 hours per week was NOT in my plans, for any foreseen stretch of my life.

All the business-major seniors had to register for an actual internship class that actually met once per month. At the beginning, most of us were still finalizing where our internships would be. Later, the class served as the hub to report on internship progress or lack thereof. A Mrs. Cynthia Wood was in charge of the business internship program, and she was one of a few great professors I came across at Altoona. Great because Mrs. Wood actually taught from real-life perspective; that is, she always communicated to us how things would be going once we were OUT OF college, not juts simply feeding us (essentially useless) information as many college professors do.

The wonderful Mrs. Wood, far left.

Luckily, Mrs. Wood acted on my inertia and suggested for me to do an internship that had never been done before: helping a Mr. Sky — Phil Sky –  to promote certain business projects he had dipped into. Phil Sky is a legend of sorts in Altoona, I guess. He’s involved in several businesses — real estate, food distribution, campaign contributions, to name a few  — and he is the man whose name comprises one-half of PSU-Altoona’s beloved  Port-Sky Cafe.

When I met Phil Sky, he explained to me the 3 projects he was working on, one o which I was to tackle as his intern. But I only remember one, vaguely: He was working on some way to promote some product that had something to do with George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act (Side note: Carol Mosely Braun was a guest speaker at Altoona that year and poked fun at the Bush administration by derisively calling it “No Child’s Behind Left”). Anywho, my assignment was to take the product Mr. Sky had and call the education departments of newspapers all over the country, to try and get them to pick up the story and get the product some attention, blah, blah, blah.

(I was really concerned, in writing this, if my apathy for higher education would show through. Let me know if I can do better.)

Thing was, Phil Sky had not done any promotion of said education product before I came along to be his first ever intern, so my work had no standard to live up to. Good news for Dre Baldwin, bad news for Dre’s employer and the PSU-Altoona business internship program.

What I DID do: call about 50 newspapers all over the USA and even get several interested enough to request materials to be mailed out to them.

What I DID NOT do: much more work past than the above stated for the rest of the Spring semester 2004. I worked hard making call after call for about a solid week from the comfort of my apartment. From then on, I basically enjoyed my final months of being a college student and all that position entailed.

As the semester went on, our internship class with Mrs. Wood met weekly and we turned in progress reports on the “real life business experience” we were getting. We also all had to do 20-minute presentations to a board of professors at the end of the semester on our experience. The progress reports and presentation was the easy part for me: I love public speaking and being that Mrs. Wood and Mr. Sky had been the ones pushing me to do this internship, there wasn’t much ball-breaking either could do to confront the fact that I was obviously doing about 25% of the work the other graduating seniors were doing. This was painfully evident during my semester-ending presentation: the outside professors who were asked to sit in and ask questions and help in the grading of the presentations could see that I had basically made no progress and done not much work; Mrs. Wood and Mr. Sky, however, their own reputations on the line, deflected a bevy of tough questions that came my way during the Q&A.

Paradoxically, my roommate, B, was also a senior in the Business major, so he had an internship at the some time as I. B worked in some office somewhere in Altoona that had a business causal dress code and required him to report to work at 8 AM 5 days per week. So while I was in my room sleeping off the previous nights’ Banker’s Club vodka, Madden marathons and rampant debauchery, B was diligently going to work from what might as well have been a 9 to 5 Monday thru Friday. So even though we were roommates, we became like a married couple that works opposite shifts: hardly ever both awake, with free time, simultaneously.

I have to speak on the power of setting one’s mind to a certain ideal and how much it actually comes to fruition if you really concentrate on it. I really did not want to even do an internship, and knowing I had to, I wanted to find one that would require the least amount of effort. And whaddayaknow, I got it. This pattern has played out countless times in my life (the concentration on what I really want, not the lack of effort thing), and if you’ve never tried it, you should.

I gotta hand it to B, though: He played the hand he was dealt, just as I did and would have had I been the one that had to actually work for my 9 credit-hours of internship. Hell, it was a business degree requirement and not graduating was not an option.

Actually, I’m lying. If I had ended up with some tough “Real-Job” internship, I would’ve worked very hard… to circumvent the system and make it work for the level of commitment I had to towards internship in general, which was relatively low. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Book Review: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

This is a review from my Favorite Books list; the link from which will be also on the Books Page.

***

“All the events depicted in the stories are completely true. Only certain dates, characteristics, and places are changed to protect me from criminal prosecution or civil liability. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed living it. “

Where do I begin with the review of this one? For the uninformed, Tucker Max is some regular dude who went to college somewhere and then some law school; the places are unimportant. But whet happened in these places, the way they happened, and the fact that Tucker is a helluva storyteller make this book an uber page-turner to say THE LEAST.

Phu turned me onto Tucker one day when telling me how hilarious the book was, but from the cover I was not close to interested. While in Montenegro on one of many boring afternoons, I opened it up and that was that. I read this book in about 4 days. Being that Beer In Hell has nothing to do with sports, personal development, human psychology, or business, that says a lot of the author and the material.

Tucker’s work is more like a TV show than it is a book; so much that I gave the book to Wes — whom I have never known to read books — and he devoured it in 2 weeks.

Just go to the book store, find this book, and read the back cover. You’ll buy it.

Photo A Day: 7.8.09

The great Blue-White Weekend. Me, Wes and Tone before we hit the mean streets of Happy Valley.

Photo A Day: 6.25.09

Took this one with my college cassmate Chanda at the skiting rink in State College during… you guessed it! Blue-White Weekend @ PSU. I blame the camera for making my face look so damn shiny.

Photo A Day: 6.17.09

From my Grand Finale Blue-White Weekend at Penn State in April 2007. I believe this club is called “LuLu’s,” and it was quite poppin’ that evening.  That’s my friend Kisha sharing a shot of Lords-knows-what… I became much more drunk later on this particular night.

Photo A Day: 6.9.09

Me and Wes before the great West Chester trip. Good thing digital cams have timers.

Things That Make You Go, “Hmmm…”

Here is an article I just read on Stephen Strasburg, the “the best amateur pitcher I’ve [MLB super-agent Scott Boras] seen” on ESPN.com. And here’s Sports Illustrated’s 1995 cover piece on a 19 year-old coming straight from high school named Kevin Garnett.

It is interesting to me how the piece on Strasburg discusses his fastball, how much money his super-agent will be able to fetch him in contract negotiations, and how teams with no chance of acquiring him are sending scouts to watch him anyway, because of what a treat it is just to see the kid perform. How the crux of the column is how much guaranteed money the young pitcher will receive from the team that drafts him, and how negotiation will set a new standard for top-flight draftees.

While the Garnett piece (also this, this, this, and this), paradoxically, discusses how overwhelming the whole situation may be for the young basketball player, how the money he is set to receive is “like… Monopoly money” to him, and how there is a strong possibility (along with past cases as evidence) that he might fail.

I know this issue has been talked about ad nauseum over the years, and fired up again last yer when Brandon Jennings ditched the NCAA for Europe and this year when Jeremy Tyler passed up his senior year of high school for the pros overseas. It’s just crazy that Lebron James and Kevin Garnett’s initial NBA contracts were worth less than $25 million COMBINED (note: the NBA installed a rookie pay scale in 1998;  LBJ’s rookie year was 2003-04; and KG’s yearly salaries can be seen here), and Strasburg’s agent has MLB general managers talking in the $50 million range and there is nary a word of how overwhelming that may be for Strasburg or how he may have to worry about keeping childhood friends from pulling him in all directions or how he very well may fail, or how his example of being super-talented sets a bad precedent for less-gifted amateurs who may attempt following in his footsteps.

Just interesting to me.

The Thrill Is Gone

The title of this post came from a song I was listening to by Styles P. & Talib Kweli (featuring a B.I.G. sample) of the same name.  The track, of course, deals with the artists’ issues with hip-hop, but the title can be applied to several other areas of life as well, in which things have been watered down to the point that they’re only a shadow of what they used to be.
“I have a college degree.”

There was a time when this statement, to me at least, meant that the speaker existed above a certain threshold of intelligence. That no longer is the case, as I come across a plethora of higher-educated fools who lack basic “adult” knowledge, grammatical skills, and even the ability to infer. And I’m not stating this to be funny in the least; being a bachelor’s-degree-holder, the folks I speak of make me, and you, look bad by loose association.

“I play (professional/ college) basketball.”

I covered this topic in depth here under “PGP.” But I’ll tell a story now that’s not covered there:

In Fall/Winter 2005, I frequented a certain gym in the Philadelphia area and played with/against a group of solid-to-really-good players daily. There was one guy who came in one day and appeared to have a high level of skill, even though he was missing a lot of his shots on that particular day. I didn’t know his name (found out later he was a city bball Legend), but he kept coming to the gym and we matched up vs. one another a lot, as we never seemed to be on the same teams. One afternoon we were playing spirited game of three-on-three full court, and I did a move and scored the game-winning basket, with this Legend covering me. Being the competitor he was (along with the important fact that it appeared to me that he didn’t believe anyone in that gym could get the best of him, even on a single play), the Legend disputed the play and claimed I had committed a violation on the move. After a snarky retort from me, which basically stated that the basket counted and the game was, unequivocally, over, the Legend, with a dismissive wave of his hand, stated, “Whatever, nigga. I played PRO BALL (note emphasis).” As if to say, ‘Yeah, you got me in that game, but it’s not significant because I have competed at levels much higher than where we are at the moment.’

A statement like this is what I like to call "Copping a Plea," because this Legend tried to use his pro baller (PB) status as a crutch for his lack of performance in the present moment (not to mention he had no idea who the person was he was speaking to). THIS IS NOT ALLOWED! But it happens a lot in basketball and I see it often with my own two eyes.

“I be in the gym (fill in daily or weekly frequency count);” or, “I work at a gym.”

I think this used to mean that this person had a certain amount of knowledge of the workings of the body as it applied to exercise & physical fitness. As the old cliche goes (or as I’ll paraphrase it to fit my needs), going to a gym every day don’t make you an expert of fitness any more than going to church every Sunday makes you an expert on God.

“I’m a rapper.”

This is a really good point I heard Redman make recently when discussing some new rap artists…

In the 90′s when a rapper came onto the scene, you just KNEW said rapper had certifiable skill, because record deals weren’t being handed out like bus schedules back then. To sign a deal, you needed to display your skill, network and be persistent, all the while fighting your way through all the other rappers who had the same goal as you had. There were no rappers starting their own labels, no rappers whose albums were available only via MySpace (or download), and rappers spurning labels to get in the game independently could be counted on one hand.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m in full support of artists making moves to get more of the money they generate to go into their own pockets and to have ownership of their work and the like. But the flip side to that coin is that any Joe off the corner can claim “rapper” status now without having had to reside in the crucible and earn his chance. And that has watered down the genre. And this fact has hurt the perception of all rappers, especially the ones who had to earn their shots. So I can completely understand the “hatin’” that comes from 90s-era rappers towards the new generation of artists who attain a measure of “fame” 60 days after deciding to rap.

“…The thrill is gone/ the shit is pathetic…”

Photo A Day: 6.3.09

Wes came thru to Philly one weekend  and we took the one-hour drive to West Chester University to party with these breezies that Wes knew from somewhere. West Chester was one of the Whitest college campuses I have ever seen, with only a small handful of Black dudes on the scene that night- most of them clowns to the third degree. We had a few drinks but not much- the parties we went to weren’t poppin enough to have me take too many sips. And it was cold as hell that night.

Page Updates

The college basketball experience- PSU Abington & PSU Altoona are now here!

No Honor Amongst Thieves

So in England, there’s now a hotline concerned citizens can call if they feel one of their neighbors is showing too much money without having some obvious form of reputable income. So England is just now catching up to us by developing a snitchin’ hotline.

Which brings me to a hot topic in the USA sports scene: Southern Cal’s men’s basketball coach Tim Floyd is under investigation now after a former business associate of one of Floyd’s former players snitched to federal authorities about Floyd allegedly giving money to one of the player’s handlers in exchange for delivering the player to USC.

OJ Mayo, now with the Memphis Grizzlies, is the player in question. The man coming forward with the uncorroborated story, Louis Johnson, is a former member of Mayo’s inner circle, who worked as right-hand man to Rodney Guillory. Guillory is widely known to be a “runner ” for BDA Sports Agency; a person who acts as liaison between professional sports agents and the amateur athletes the agencies are forbidden to contact before the athlete officially makes a decision to turn pro.

Johnson was expelled from Mayo’s inner circle a year ago and came forward to ESPN to expose his “story.” When asked by ESPN why he came forward, Johnson basically appealed to being a concerned citizen that didn’t want to see this type of stuff happening.

Bullshit. Louis Johnson is a snitch, in every sense of the word. Mind you, he was part of the situation with Guillory in dealing with Mayo and receiving money for his work in Steering OJ to BDA. When Johnson was booted out of the loop, he went on record saying,

“Most of that stuff never really made it to O.J. OJ really saw a lot of the scraps. The fact of the matter is OJ has been pimped by Rodney.”

The details of the how and why of the entire probe into USC, Mayo, Guillory and the money can be found at the ESPN.com link above; whether OJ Mayo received illegal benefits is not of my concern. Plenty of amateur athletes receive benefits that they are not “allowed” to receive; more will in the future, and the NCAA will continue to be the ones doing the real “pimping.”  I gave my opinion on all of that here.

The only reason we even know of Louis Johnson is because he was kicked off of the Mayo money train before it reached its destination (Johnson was out of the loop before Mayo was drafted last June). Johnson took the coward route from that point, reaching out to ESPN on his own, with designs on tattle telling on Mayo and Guillory. So Louis Johnson is a snitch. Was there any point during the time that Johnson was running around with Guillory (if Johnson’s story, in fact, is true) that Johnson stopped and thought, “Na, this aint right”? No, because he was gettin’ paid to do what he was doing. Soon as the faucet was turned off, he bitched up and snitched. Put himself on national TV to snitch, and looked damn proud doing it. And it’s downright disgusting.

School Of Hard Knocks

Jeremy Tyler, a California area High School junior, recently announced recently that he would forgoe his senior year of high school to turn pro and play in Europe, presumably for two years, before entering the NBA Draft (per the NBA’s age-limit policy- gotta be 19 to get in).

Brandon Jennings took a similar path last year- albeit after graduating from high school- by turning pro to play for Lottomatica Virtus Roma in Italy.  So Tyler will ostensibly be seen as either a groundbreaking trailblazer who paved the way for more youngsters to make bold moves against the grain, or a dumb kid who “messed up his life” by making a bad decision as a young man.

My issue is one that has been voiced many times over by our Afro-American leaders (and also many non-Blacks), many times over as far back as Kevin Garnett’s entry into the NBA Draft fresh off his high school prom in 1995: Why such an uproar only when the Black athlete ditches the accepted path to pursue a profession in sports?

Prodigies in tennis , golf, hockey and baseball leave school at ages ranging from 11 to 17, for a life of 5-hour practices and traveling tournament teams. High school players are drafted by MLB and the NHL every year and hardly a peep is spoken. So why is it, then, that NBA commissioner David Stern enacted the age limit to prevent young (mostly) Black men from making a living? And why is there talk of actually increasing the age limit?

Young basketball players are exploited by the NCAA year after year, as coaches cash in on million dollar contracts and schools rake in ticket and merchandise sale receipts. And oh, yeah, the “student athlete” receives a full ride scholarship for his efforts. Nothing to sneeze at, but let’s do the math. Four years’ tuition, room and board is worth roughly $56k-128k (NCAA estimate). Louisville’s Rick Pitino’s contract is worth between $1.65 and $2.5 million. A year. So we know the money is there. The NCAA is raking in money off the player’s backs in both basketball and football (their top “revenue sports”), and the NCAA also enacts some very strict rules which severely limit an athlete’s freedoms once a scholarship is officially accepted.

The NCAA expert talking heads at ESPN (ahem, Jay Bilas and Doug Gottlieb) have, expectantly, trashed the moves of the aforementioned kids in favor of athletes taking their talents to the NCAA. This is to be expected; ESPN has a huge broadcasting deal with the NCAA and zero European pro basketball games on TV. Aside from that, it is also easy for one to predict failure for an individual going against the odds. If I take a trip to Vegas and you predict that I’ll lose money, is there any “expert analysis” required for that? Not really. And smart money says you’ll be correct.

It appears that there are still a lot of people in America that have a deep-seeded issue with young Blacks stepping outside of the limits set for them by society and taking some power for themselves. We saw it in the 90s with the burgeoning popularity (and profitability) of Hip-Hop, and the same issue rears its head every time  a young Black man decides to dribble a basketball for money at 18. But when that 18-year-old’s HS classmate decides to go carry a gun in Iraq at 18, he’s a hero. Even though neither establishment- the NCAA nor the US Government- will be around to help out if either venture doesn’t go so well (which is a whole ‘nother blog post). So what’s the difference?

So I’m proud of athletes who decide to buck the system, say “No, Thank you” to being exploited for 1-4 years, and take the power into their own hands. KG did it. Kobe did it. LeBron James Did it. Brandon Jennings is doing it. Jeremy Tyler has taken the power into his own hands, and whether he ends up an NBA star or not, he will do it having answered to nobody but himself, the manifest destiny. And that is what taking charge of one’s life is all about. Right?

Bounce Wit’ Me

Wow, I remember this one so clearly: Late 2000. My team at PSU Abington had practice on a Saturday morning and it was snowing. I drove my ’88 Cavalier to the gym and waited in my still-running car for the coaches to show up with the keys to the building.
This was back when I would rock my hoopin sneaks en route to playin ball, so when I hopped out of the Cav, my feet immediately drew attention from teammates.

“Ahh, you got the ‘Boings’?!”

The Nike Shox BB4, b.k.a. the “Vince Carters” back then. I was in love with these shoes (exemplified by my wearing them until they literally fell apart 4 years later). The look, the feel, the image of being like VC (who was The Man among NBA Men at the time), all pulled me in, and there was no struggle to do so.

Ever since I donned the Nike Hyperdunks last July, I had only 2 pairs of bball shoes I’d like to wear when (if ever) resting the Hyperdunks: the Nike Flightposite (with the hard space-like outer shell and zip-hidden laces) and the BB4s.

I found out today through SLAM that the VCs are being re-released on April 18. At last, my love has come along.

Gotta Go, Joe

My leading disclaimer to this post is that I attended Penn State University (Altoona, to be exact). So I have nothing against the program or any of its players. I do not read college football message boards, and don’t know who PSU’s prized recruits for next season are. I can name maybe 5-10 players by name, and outside of the head coach, I can name about .5 names on the coaching staff. So that’s out of the way.
So here’s what I do know: Joe Paterno should do Penn State a favor and step down as head coach now.
Joe Paterno should step down because he will never be fired. He is a demigod in Happy Valley– a status he has damn well earned– and there is no one at PSU who would want their name branded as “The One Who Pushed JoePa Out At Penn State.” Similar to Bobby Bowden at Florida State, Paterno has been around too long, accomplished too much, and become too big to have anyone other than himself determine his next move.
So out of respect for the program, he should walk away.
Not because his team ain’t good; PSU was one bad conference loss from being in the BCS title game. And they showed that they could be competitive (in the second half, at least) with another top-tier team in the Rose Bowl. A few years ago, when PSU’s program wasn’t as strong as it is presently, some pundits called for JoePa’s head. Some other insisted PSU would bounce back, and here we are– they have, with JoePa still at the helm.
So the program is strong, no one will ever tell JoePa what to do, and there are likely a lot of other great things going on up in State College that only the most dedicated Lion fans know about.
The reson I say Joe Paterno needs to go is based on one small bit of fact I heard while watching the Rose Bowl: JoePa coached from the booth (not a problem), and he didn’t leave the booth to address his troops at halftime (big problem).
A loyal PSU fan informed me of the grad assistants, assistant coaches, right hand men, etc. that basically take all the game day responsibilities away from JoePa. Meaning, based on this person’s reasoning, JoePa doesn’t have to do much while the game is going on. Oh yeah, except one thing:
Be the leader of the program you are in the position to lead!
In the college and sports world nowadays, staffs have so many extra bodies around the head coach that the head coach has little responsibility– no calling plays, no worry about defensive alignments, no individual attention to players. We often hear about assistant coaches who are “doing more work than the head coach” or whom the payers respect more and/or go to first when there is an issue that needs resolving. I’m not at all saying this is the case at PSU– as I stated earlier, I don’t follow the program that closely.
But I do know sports pretty well. And I know that when a coach has enough help around him that he can sit up in a booth while his team run like a well-oiled machine, that coach has only one major responsibility:
Be the leader and address your players at the proper times.
This means 1) Before the game; 2) Halftime; 3) After the game. If a head coach, with all he doesn’t have to do, physically cannot do these things, he is not fit to be coaching.
And I don’t think JoePa was unable to make it to PSU’s locker room at halftime at the Rose Bowl– we have elevators and wheelchairs and crutches nowadays– I think he knew his assistants and right hand men were more than capable of maintaining order. So does that not, by definition, make this man expendable?
As I said, no one can nor will force Joe Paterno down from his perch (no pun intended). He defied the critics and the odds and has a power program still going strong at his advanced age (Bowden’s Seminoles have not been nearly as strong for a long while). Out of respect for the program he has built over the last 42 years, he should walk away on the heels of winning hand.

Here And There 11/12/08

- This vid is of a 6’8″ high schooler that dunks a lot… and SHE is dunking with authority. Impressive.

-
The man above is my dude Leon, a personal trainer from PSC that I worked with during this period. I did a plyometric workout with Leon one morning and my hamstrings felt it for days, which is saying something considering the amount of leg work I do. Leon ills himself as “The best kept secret in the tri state (PA, NJ, DEL.) area for health, fitness & sports performance.” His website is on the way. Email Leon at xfactorfit@aol.com

- Even our new President is powerless to the NCAA’ rules committee.

- Can Stephon Marbury really sit out quietly for all 82 games without causing a scene? My money says no.

- T.I.’s Paper Trail is the latest into my “Play it all the way thru” album Pantheon.

- If you have received a shirt from me, email me a photo of yourself in it to Dre@DreAllDay.com.

- Happy Birthday to my BFF Shawna. Enjoy it!!

What I Want You To Know, Pt 7: 2/24/2008

- the team feast that was supposed to happen as a result of a big win two weeks ago has yet to happen, and many players are losing hope.

- ‘zdravo’ is also a greeting / goodbye. Why am I just now learning this?

- for some as-yet-unknown reason, there is only 1 person in the town with keys to access our sport hall. We had training on a day in which it was quite windy and cold, and Mr. Keys kept the whole team & coaching staff waiting 25 minutes outside for him to show up. As he unlocked the main doors to let everyone in, I attempted to start a chorus of boos but it didn’t catch on.

- we played a game on Sunday, February 17. As we pulled into the parking lot, there is a man standing on the corner dressed as Santa Claus.

- as we are warming up for our match on Sunday, the pre-game clock is at 9 minutes till tip-off. The the lights in the entire building go out, and remain out for 30 minutes. When the electricity returns, both teams are given 3 minutes to get re-warmed up, and the game begins. As some locals fondly say, “I LOVE this country!!”

- I stayed up until 2:30 AM Monday morning to confirm that Montenegro / Croatian TV did NOT carry the NBA All-Star Game.

- I spoke to a friend here who works on ships- he shared with me his experience traveling to the USA: “you have a shop there uhh… Called Wal-Mart? Yes, Wal-Mart. I go there and ask the girl who work there for a cable for eee-Pod. She look at me crazy, doesn’t know what I talk about! She say, ‘What is eee-Pod??’ Then she understand, ‘ooh, iPod!! Ipod!”

He also told me about his work on the ships. When traveling in the Pacific, the temperatures reach well over 50 degrees C (that’s 122F).

The best part was the time he was in Newark airport for a return flight to Europe, and the ticket agent “Was from uh, Texas. This guy talk, Dre, and I can understand nothing!”

- in Herceg Novi (the town I’m in), there is one major road that crosses through the whole town. It is 2 lanes- 1 lane in each direction. So of course, there are times when a driver wants to pass a person in front of them, a la that stretch of 2-lane road between Altoona & State College, PA. Problem is, the 2-lane road in Herceg Novi is not a straightaway- it is curvy, which means passing is a life-or-death decision at high speeds. While riding home with teammates Monday night, a driver going in the opposite direction of us attempted one such pass and dam near caused a head on collision that would have altered lives. Thank God for days without rain, sticky tires, and good brakes.

- how do you say “pass the ketchup”? I’m gonna surprise my teammates with that one.

- in our heat-deprived sport hall, our coach announced that pre-practice stretch time would be reduced from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.

-When You’re The Only One Who Doesn’t Speak The Language Note-Of-The-Week: on Wednesdays we usually practice once in the morning and once at 6PM. I’ve grown accustomed to taking midday naps and getting up at 5 to dress and leave for training at 5:30. This Wednesday, my neighbors- who are teammates I ride to & from the gym with- rang my bell at 5:01 to leave. Figuring they just wanted to shoot around early, I dress quickly and we leave. As we are walking to the car, I ask my teammate about the early departure: “We have a game tonight at 6,” he says. ” Nobody told you???”

- after training Wednesday night, I rode home with a teammate who, while he drove, danced wildly to what I can best describe as a Serbian version of Busta Rhymes.

- Friday afternoon: one of our point guards is wearing a pair of sweatpants so tight, you can’t help but to look at his ass (no homo!).

- maybe one of you local residents can explain this: I have a clothesline outside a window of my flat, which, of course, is used to dry washed clothing. But for some reason, any time I leave things hanging out overnight, there is ALWAYS one thing that is dripping wet, like someone dumped water on just this one sock or one pair of boxers. There is an awning right above my window, so rain can’t be the reason, nor can the person above me affect said clothing. Why is this happening?

Have Your Cake…

I was asked by someone who has been reading my Funniest Moments from College blogs, what is my Funniest Moment since college? Well, I mentioned one a couple weeks ago here (http://drepaperwork.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-i-want-you-to-know-pt-4-232008.html), and I’ll tell the other one now. Disclaimer: this story is 4x funnier if you ever meet me and have me tell it verbally, because… Well, just read it :
May 2006, the beautiful Mexican city of Tepic. At this time, I’m traveling with about 9 other American players on a basketball barnstorming tour. We drive in 2 vehicles- a white Chevy Suburban and a Jeep- from town to town all over the country (some trips as long as 13 hours), playing games vs. teams of Mexican pros. Coaches, scouts, and managers from different teams all over the country attended these games to scout for the American players they’d sign for their clubs. These games were of particularly low quality; partially due to some of the shitty venues games were played in, but mostly due to the selfishness and lack of cohesion within our team. But all of that is a story for another time, or maybe no time at all. Let’s get to the funny part.

In this city of Tepic, there is a nightclub whose name escapes my memory. We’ll call it “Blue.” one Friday night, about 6 of us descend on Blue, drawing the attention of 80% of club patrons upon walking in. With 3 of us able to speak Espanol (me included), we fan out and test the waters.

1 player, let’s call him DJ, can speak very good Spanish. Within 5 minutes of entering the club, DJ meets a girl and makes some unspoken, assumed arrangements to, uhh, get to know her better later that night at the team hotel. With this in his back pocket, DJ decides to peruse the rest of the club and come back to get said female later. Being a generous Southern guy, DJ introduces said girl to 2 teammates of mine that do not speak any Spanish to keep her company while DJ plays the field. Knowing that they speak zero Espanol, DJ does not see these 2 teammates as a threat to his plans.

Well, I guess DJ didn’t consider 2 things: 1) Basketball groupies (this girl was definitely one of those) don’t care WHICH player they get, just that they get one; 2) the language of lust is universally spoken.

Cut to scene: team hotel, 3AM. The two non-Spanish speaking players sex the said groupie and her friend (they travel in packs). DJ is not concerned at this fact, that is, as long as DJ can get in on the action as well. Problem is, one of the guys has shown this groupie so much personal affection, she refuses to be touched by anyone else. That realization leads to this in the hotel hallway at 4 AM:

(Mind you, this hotel is designed with the rooms situated in a square with the middle being hollow. Meaning if you throw something over the railing from the 5th floor, it lands in the hotel lobby. And any loud hallway noise can be heard by everyone in every room. )

DJ gathers everyone outside of the room which doubled as the scene of the crime. DJ then delivers a short sililoquy that goes down in history:

“Ay man, look! We all out here, man, we Americans! We ‘sposed (“supposed”) to be pimpin’ deez hoes… (DJ now flails his arms in disgust) Y’ALL N*GGAS CAKIN’ THESE HOES!!!!!! ”

(Note: “Cakin” is a Southern term used to describe a male showing an unhealthy amount of affection to a female. This act was frowned upon by DJ, as you can see. )

DJ had more to say, but my hysterical laughter hindered my hearing for a brief moment. The late-night front desk person also visited our floor for the 3rd time, finally succeeding in dispersing the crowd.

As I think about, write, and re-enact this scene, I still laugh heartily at the scene and DJ’s famous words.

And the groupies got treated to breakfast the following morning.

Wrap – Up 2007

a short summary/ review of some of my favorite posts from the year that was…
(faceook users- if the links dont show, check me at http://drepaperwork.blogspot.com/2007/12/wrap-up-2007.html)

- i didnt get bak to my blog until the 10th day of 2007, thanks to some prior endeavors. but i dont think i ever look young enough to be carded at a dam basketball gym…

- i still think everything is competition. you agree with me? i win.

- my flagship post theme: Funniest Moments, pt. nine and ten speak for themselves (although the laugh-it up vid has been removed from youtube to keep it all bball related. sorry, everyne. your welcome, ashley.)

- march was my strongest month of 07 with a robust 15 posts and the first ever Dre-A-Thon!! taking place. please, people dont get mad. and the kitchen sink at wes’ old apt in state college probably still induces vomiting-in-the-mouth. and im still not quite sure who wins the dunk contest between wes and the girl. you be the judge.

- someone needed to be clowned, and i took advantage of the opportunity.

- while im thinking about it, shout out to dime magazine. (you can still vote for me. )

- Funniest Moments pt.11 at penn state, was classic. i had a neat idea of what to do for the occasion that never panned out, so ill keep that in th vault until the time is right.

- those who can, do.

- go shawty!!!

- some old white ladies workin the counter at Arby’s in southern georgia tried to play me. but boy, i showed them.

- a hop, skip, and a jump to frankfurt, germany.

- monique inspires me. and im not a bbw.

- rip to ed griffin. from the same neighborhood, but i never knew him.

- i jumped the gun on your jumping the gun on mike vick. uh…, lets move on…

- when jena 6 don’t exist, tell ‘em that’s when ill stop sayin bitch, ……………..!!!

- i entered a bball video contest on some wack- ass website and won, but lost. the guy that won got a tryout with an aba team. h had about as much chance of making that team as that forementioned wack website has of ever being mentioned in this blog again.

- that aint funny.

- yes, my mom came to my school and spanked me in front of the entire class. performance anxiety, hello…

- a power- tripping assistant manager at champs sports tried to play me. i reacted, and he called mall security. really.

- i didnt change it ’til i signed another contract.

SAFE & HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL. LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN IN 2008. MAKE. IT. HAPPEN.

Dre-A-Thon II, Pt.2: Ms. Clarke

In the summer of 20004 after graduation, i was in altoona playing ball, working out, etc. and Wes was around as well.one week i got word from Shawna that she was gonna come thru to altoona for a day to see old friends and have a night out in altoona. great!
Shawna met Wes & me at mansion park where we had been doing some shooting around, and we all went back to college park, with the obligatory stop at the liquor store mixed in. i think we had a mix of… hell, i don’t remember.but i know that Shawna had been a bartender before so she seemed eager to display her drink- making ability. i had about 3 cups of whatever concoction she came up with and we were on our way out.

our first stop was some bar even more hick-ish than altoona itself, a friend of ours named chasey happened to work at the bar there. we went in the dam near empty place and sat the bar for about 20 minutes, all the while chasey did me a “favor”by giving me waaay more than the normal shot of Bacardi 151 , which, according to wikipedia.com,

As with all beverages of this proof, consuming the rum by itself (“straight”) is
not recommended.

i mean, she was filling the glasses that normally hold mixed drinks with 151 straight. (note: not that i was complaining at the time, i was just thinking, “whoa.” we routinely downed straight shots of 151 in college, which we affectionately called the ‘tune changer’, because of 151′s ability to change the tune of anyone claiming to be prepared for long night of drinking. oh yeah, and because of Wes vomiting on a sink full of his own dishes at his birthday party.) i had 3 of these while Shawna talked and Wes bagged a couple of trailer- trash chicks smoking cigarettes at the pool tables. from then, off to our destination for the night- the castle pub in ebensburg.

(by this point, i dont even remember what the hell was going on. Wes was driving, and i had/have no recollection of the 45 minute drive from chasey’s bar to ebensburg. )

so, we’re in the surprisingly- popping pub, Wes is playing the star role, getting beers toasted to him as soon as we show our faces. i ignored every face i saw; i do know that all i wanted to do was sit the hell down.

fast forward i the story… i later found out that while Wes was mingling, mike persio (brother of TP, who we hooped with at altoona, and a star in ebensburg in his own right) had approached Wes and said, “yo, man, you better get Dre. he’s asleep at the bar, they’re gonna kick him out!”

i remember us outside in the gravel parking lot, Wes is holding me up with Shawna trailing behind. i heaved, hard, right in front of Wes‘ whip and lost my chain at the same time. Wes turned on the headlights in his whip and somehow found my chain in the darkness (one of the great rescues in history).

all i remember is waking up on the couch the next morning.

thanks for a great night, Shawna. you “got me drunk.”