NBA Playoffs!

Here it is! My predictions for the NBA Playoffs of 2011. As you can see I've chosen the Lakers to win it all, as much as it pains me. The reality is, almost nobody can match Kobe's composure and willingness (read: ability) to do anything required to win, nor can most teams match the overall strength of the Los Angeles Lakers' lineup. I begrudgingly respect their ability to win championships, even though the universe really shouldn't allow it. I mean, for god's sake, one of their players now participates in a reality show with his Kardashian wife. Unfortunately, they still seemed to be allowed to win. And I wouldn't be a good Blazers fan if I didn't also mention how many calls tend to fall in their favor, with enough whining from Gasol or Bryant.

Also this rocks:

(Jen, I don't know how to provide relevant information! I suck at blogging!)

Moving on, I call this year, 2011, to be the year that the Blazers make it past their out-in-the-first-round blues. We went 2 and 2 with Dallas during the regular season and Gerald Wallace, Nicolas Batum and the venerable LaMarcus Aldridge's in-the-paint scoring give us a significant edge on this perimeter-shooting team. Also, too, in addition, I'm pretty sure Dirk Nowitzki is the progeny of Dr. Frankenstein's creation. Although, that works in his favor.

Ugh.

At this very moment, there are 2 minutes and 23 seconds left in the fourth quarter of game one of the Blazers v. Mavericks and Dallas is up four. I'm about to lose my shit over some bad officiating, so I better go before this post gets ugly.

-Allie

Last Minute Superbowl Prediction - Hedge Your Bets!

As ridiculous as our predictions two weeks ago may have been, it turns out that we at These Are Sports are in fact cutting edge sports journalists after all. At least, if the explosion of hair related NFL coverage in the last few weeks is anything to go by we are!

I have been wrestling with this prediction all week, but the hour is nearly upon us. Without further ado, I present to you These Are Sports' guide to the Hair Bowl a.k.a. Super Bowl XLV.


As we saw in the playoffs, each side has a very strong case. Let's start with the underdogs.


PITTSBURGH
The Pittsburgh Steelers have fewer daring heads of hair to consider, but only a fool would take that to mean they are a weaker squadron. Key players for the Steelers are:

Brett Keisel: the beard has its own Facebook fan page, and is reaching legendary proportions amongst fans. Keisel's beard's section of his Wikipedia article currently includes this tidbit: "According to a local radio station, the beard consumes raw meat and has been credited with the killing of a bear." Keisel's beard is lauded in this short video from Steelers Depot.

Photo sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

Maybe you already know all about Troy Polamalu. He inspired my foray into actually watching NFL. He was one of the few players that I could identify on the field, and all because of his incredibly personable hair.

photo source: 1, 2, 3, 4

photo source: 1, 2, 3

Not to be forgotten in categories of hair and the occasionally epic beard is Chris Kemoeatu.

photo source: 1, 2, 3, 4

Clearly, the Pittsburgh Steelers are a force to be reckoned with.



GREEN BAY

The Packers have an amazing overall presence that must not be ignored.

Recycled graphic: D. Nance, E. Walden, E. Dietrich-Smith, T. Williams, AJ Hawk, G. Jennings, J. Gordy, B. Swain, A. Bigby, C. Matthews, R. Picketts, J. Sitton

Who are our future champions?
As you can see, it is a very difficult call to make. It may come down to product used in the locker room or lucky hair restraints. Ultimately I feel the overall team spirit of the Green Bay Packers will bring them victory.
If not, I will never again doubt the fearsome combination of  Polamolocules and Keisel's Beard.

photo source

 

 

 

 

These Are Sports’ Guide to the Naturally Fabulous Locks (NFL) Playoffs

Unless you are exceptionally good at being oblivious to such things, you may have noticed that the NFL post-season has nearly wrapped up. Super Bowl XLV is a mere two weeks away.

For some time I have been the sort of person who predicted the outcomes of football games based on a careful analysis of which mascot would most likely annihilate the other. While this method was largely successful and has been bountiful fodder for sitcom writers over the years, it did very little to get me actually interested in watching the games. Imagining, let’s say, a Viking destroying a Cowboy inevitably took my attention away from the action on the field. But now I have a new system - a system that allows me to watch the actual game, and not churn out anti-football rants before the fourth quarter even arrives.

I suppose I should come out and say that I don’t generally care for American football. It’s all stops and starts and flags and penalties, and I feel like the games last a billion years because there seem to be more minutes of commercials than gameplay. The equipment transforms uniforms into armor, largely obscuring  the spectrum of human emotion that powers my enthusiasm for sports. 

My new system of determining team superiority has changed all this. Or at least made it so I can actually watch (most) of a football game.

Without further ado I present to you my predictions for this weekend’s playoff games - based entirely on who has (or in some cases, had*) the most fabulous hair. With the occasional epic beard.

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. New York Jets

B. Keisel, E. Hood, T. Polamalu, D. Johnson, M. Wallace, W. Gay, C. Kemoeatu

vs.

B. Edwards, K. Wilson, E. Cook, N. Mangold, M. Cole

At first glance, this appears to be a close call. But if you look a bit deeper, you discover that Troy Palomalu’s hair is equal to the manes of at least 5 defensive backs combined. Head & Shoulders has insured these lovely locks for $1 million dollars. They know a good thing when they see it.

[source]

I have no choice but to award the victory to the Steelers.

Chicago  vs. Green Bay 

T. Jennings, K. Shaffer, C. Steltz, J. Moore, D. Hester, C. Tillman

 vs. 

D. Nance, E. Walden, E. Dietrich-Smith, T. Williams, AJ Hawk, G. Jennings, J. Gordy, B. Swain, A. Bigby, C. Matthews, R. Picketts, J. Sitton

Bears vs. Packers! I hear it on the streets! I'm pretty sure I live in Bear country, so it's possibly slightly dangerous for me to point out that Green Bay is the victor, cut and dry (HA!). They are pretty hard to beat in the overall team hair department. Sorry, Bears fans, but your boys are just too well groomed. I will award some bonus points for the fact that Devin Hester named his hair, but overall the Bears make the Packers look like a bunch of guys who run a food co-op. Or have a wicked Norse metal band. 



Perhaps you think my methods are suspect. Perhaps you agree with my picks, but for reasons based on statistics or legitimate football things that I can’t be bothered to learn about just yet. Long hair is a surprisingly popular topic in American football, loosely tangled with recent discussions of head injuries and helmet to helmet hits. Perhaps you are one of the many who feel that long, luxurious locks have no place in the NFL. In a time when I passively learn tons about head injuries via sportscasters, it is surprising that hair tackles are currently not penalized.

But I digress. The point is: Steelers vs. Packers in Superbowl XLV. 

Bring on the hate. Go team.

* Initial selections were made based on the official team roster photographs on each team’s official website, but I may have inadvertently let a player or two slip by unnoticed or included someone who is no longer on the team. The author has made every attempt to verify that the hairstyles listed are current, but may have missed reports of a salon visit or two. Clearly, I have only a very shallow understanding of this strange, strange game.

Kakà returns to the pitch, restores balance to the universe

If the Spanish have a concept similar to Taoist balance, I have not yet discovered it, but the important thing is that in returning from his injury, the ever radiant Kaka has restored the balance of Real Madrid. And I guess he's not hurting his team's performance either, as Real Madrid now sit 2 points behind La Liga leaders Barcelona.

Kaka has been absent from the pitch since the 2010 World Cup, recovering from knee surgery. Real Madrid even provided us with this pretty video about his recovery to watch in his absence, complete with inspiring rock soundtrack.

Ridiculously happy to be back [source]

So what's the big deal? Surely soccer players return from injury recovery all the time?
Ok, but this is Kaka. Kaka is wholesome and determined and good. Kaka loves his God and his family and his sport. He doesn't dive, he doesn't trash talk, and ok he probably smells like Axe body wash but let's pretend he smells lovely. His ridiculous red card during the Brazil v. Ivory Coast match last summer was heartbreaking to endure. He is a stellar player and a huge dorkus.

[source]

"Why would I unbutton my shirt? You guys are silly." [source]

 [source]

Yes, his shirt is indeed on backwards. [source]

Kaka still has to earn back his starting position, but on January 9th he made his third appearance and scored his first goal of the season, helping solidify Real Madrid's victory over Villareal.

Hopefully the first of many goals in 2011 [source]

I could not be more delighted with his return. Because for all that Kaka is honorable and role-model worthy, Cristiano Ronaldo is smarmy and, well...perhaps I can show you better than I can tell you.

To be fair, a lot footballers have at least one photo like this. [source]

If you are the sort of person who can separate a person from their personality, then you can at the very least appreciate that this man is physically a fine human specimen.

Cristiano out shopping with his man purse. [source]

              However.

Captain of the sportsmanship [source]

[source]

[source]

I want to actually hate Cristiano Ronaldo. He is pretty much everything I loathe in a professional athlete. But, epic instances of diving and whining aside, he IS amazing on the pitch. As every yin must have its yang, Cristiano is balanced in character and on the pitch by the presence of Kaka. Together, they make spectacular goals. They also have one of the most adorable bromances in all of soccer.

[source]

[source]

[source]

[source]

[source]

[source]

[source]

No love lost - Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates Kaka's return [source]

Celebrating the results of their teamwork [source]

So welcome back, Kaka! Watching Real Madrid is now officially 100% more delightful.


(I feel like I should apologize for the fact that all soccer videos seem to have horrid soundtracks, be they vuvuzela infested or not)
 

Tough Times in Portland and also, Hello!

My name is Allie, and this is my introductory blogpost.

Let me start by saying that I don't know very much about sports. Previously, I believed that my lack of knowledge was because of a very intentional decision to "not participate." Growing up un-athletic in the Hawkeye-saturated Iowa City, I associated all sports fans with the undifferentiated tools that took over my town on weekends and used it as an excuse to behave belligerently and violently. In my defense, these people are impossible to ignore; and if you are not of their ilk, they are also impossible to tolerate. In fact, their presence had some significant impact on the speed at which I came to the realization that I had to leave Iowa City.

Much to my amazement, shortly after arriving in Portland, Oregon I rediscovered my love for basketball. Credit has to go to my partner, who closeted his love of sports until I loved him too much to let it be a deal-breaker early on. Even before we arrived in PDX, he began expressing his excitement about living in a basketball town again, as he had in his hometown of Chicago. I politely nodded as he gave me the details about the Trailblazers organization being on an upswing, with their newish poster boy, Brandon Roy and their promising first-round draft pick, center Greg Oden.

At this point, long ago, in the year 2008, I could never have envisioned myself, two years later, screaming at the television, shouting unheard advice to the players and actually feeling pain or relief depending on the outcome of a game. But here I am.

It doesn't hurt that basketball on the whole has a "calmer" audience - partially, I think, due to the frequency of games. Football's ritualized sacred day, for many, is a 24-hour event, starting at 6 am with tailgating and ending, I can only guess, in one's own vomit. In basketball, one's team plays about 3 to 5 times a week, and on no particular day, and there are about a billion more games in a season. Basketball fans wouldn't survive the season if we partied the way American football fans do.

Yes, I realize I am comparing college football fans to NBA basketball fans; the reality is, these are my only real experiences of sports fan culture. I much prefer the latter, though I no longer scoff at any fan's love for his or her team. I only hope that they continue to celebrate somewhere far, far away from me.

My short relationship so far with the Trailblazers has been an emotional roller-coaster, an experience only augmented by our honeymoon period. It's been two years now - both years, we (yes, "we" is now how I refer to my team) have been a successful underdog, an inspiring story of fighting through adversity. Last year was the toughest of the two, with a slew of devastating injuries which forced the strength of our deep bench to pull through and still make it to the playoffs. Our players missed a combined total of 311 games due to injury. It was depressing, but also extremely impressive to see them come up with a 50-32 record, and make it to the competitive Western conference.

We lost in the first round to Phoenix, but the story of the season was by and large a good one.

This year is going to be an interesting one for the Trailblazers. We are at a make or break point already, and new and old injuries continue to plague us. But that is for another post, another time.

So, I'll leave it at that and say: Hello! And welcome to the world of nerd-sports-fan dilettantism!

My Fairly Baffling Obsession - or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Professional Sports...Again

Hi. I’m Jen. I’m a moderately overweight nerd with an overactive imagination.

This summer, I fell in love with sports. Not for the first time, if I am honest, but we’d been on the outs for some 15 years. A lot of people in my life were a little confused by my embracing professional athletics after all this time, and I cannot fault them for being bewildered. There have been points in my life where I was very vocally anti-sport, but before then it really was one of my dearest loves.

When I was 12 years old, it was documented that I aspired to be a professional baseball player. This is no joke - I took it very seriously, throwing myself 100% into Little League with a fair amount of success. I cried in 1994 when Ryne Sandberg retired (the first time), and had a rigorous system of organization for my baseball cards. But it goes back further than that - as a 5 year old I would growl and shout my answer to the high school wrestlers' inquiries about my future occupation. “I’M GONNA BE A WRESTLER!!” (My younger self, like my older self, had a limited acceptance of the conventions of gender)

At some point after those “awkward years” that we all get to enjoy, a mixture of idealism and cynicism ruined sports for me in general. I became a very active marching band geek, which meant I still attended sporting events but never followed the games. I sat on the bleachers and discussed important television events or played especially awesome card games with my bandmates, never once properly channelling any school spirit. My freshman year of college, I played the sousaphone in the Hawkeye Marching Band. This means that I got to see every home game the Iowa Hawkeyes played in 1999, something a great many people spent a lot of money doing. The games were purely social events for me, though I would periodically belt out a generic "GO HAWKS!!"  I had to use the Internet just now to see how many games the Hawks won that year, as I could only recall that “we sucked”.

Fast forward through my college experience and my dabbling in punk and hardcore, through marriage, art school, and the birth of two children - all the way to the Summer of 2010.

I returned to sports through my projects studying fan culture. I don’t know how it remained a blind spot for so long, because sports breed some of the most amazing examples of fan culture in existence! Some friends shared with me the beauty of the world of football chants and the door to the amazing world of soccer culture opened, blinding me with its shining glory.

I followed the 2010 FIFA World Cup with much ardor. And while I cried a little when the US team was knocked out in the Round of 16, I cried a lot when Germany didn’t make it to the finals.

All of the good things about sports flooded back to me last summer. They represent warfare reduced to a size that fits inside a stadium (or Coliseum, I suppose). They are a live action narrative that is experienced on a mass scale, featuring prime specimens of humanity flaunting their attributes for the world to envy and enjoy. They are games taken to ridiculous extremes. They are an excuse to be flamboyant about something that you love, and they unite strangers from very different worlds under the banner of potential victory (or sometimes, in the great underdog’s tradition of defeat).

I started this blog with my friend Allie so we could show our puzzled friends the amazing things about sports that they might be missing.

So hello readers! My name is Jen. I support Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, and the US and German national soccer teams. The San Francisco Giants won my heart during the world series, and I am doing my best to approach football and basketball with an open mind. I invite you to follow our blog also with an open mind, and hope that you will join us here as we celebrate the more delightful side of sports.