HappyValleyHoops.com
A website devoted to Penn State Basketball.
I’ve spent a lot of time the last six weeks getting this up and running and I’m pretty proud of it.
Christmas Card Hype
Just wanted to post a little retrospective of past NJ Falls’ Xmas cards. I’ve got a new one coming, and really think y’all will like it, so I wanted to create a little “buzz” for the debut.
I figure I’ll post the new one Xmas Eve, unless the public outcry for a preview becomes overwhelming, in which case I might release the digital version early.
Nice weekend for Fremd grad Russ Rose
On Thursday, he gets inducted into the American Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Then he follows that by being named the 2007 AVCA National Coach of the Year. Then on Saturday, he coaches the Nittany Lions to a thrilling five game win over Stanford for the national championship title.
Congrats Russ and congrats to the women’s vb team.
PSU vs Stanford for women VB title
These two were probably destined to play for the title. PSU ended the season as the #1 ranked team. But Stanford got the #1 seed in the tournament. PSU has now won 25 straight matches with their last loss coming September 15th against, you guessed it, Stanford. Stanford and Penn State are also the only two teams in the country who have made every NCAA tournament.
Stanford needed five games to win their semifinal match against USC, fighting off a match point in the fifth game to do it. Penn State, on the other hand, swept Cal in three, continuing the roll that they have been on since the start of the NCAAs. PSU got stronger in every game winning 30-28, 30-25, 30-16. Cal was actually the first team in the entire tournament to score 20 points on PSU – they have been that dominant.
The finals will be on ESPN2 Saturday night at 9PM EST. Unfortunately, that the same time that I’m having my fifth annual State College Santa Crawl (poor planning on my part). The good news is that I can maneuver the crawl so that we’ll just move from one bar to another between games so we should be able to catch most of the action anyway (weather permitting, that is, the forecast isn’t too good right now).
On a related side note, I was down at the Tavern last Saturday after watching PSU beat BYU for the regional crown when one of PSU’s players, Kate Price (Kate’s the one who went into the stands for that spectacular save that I mentioned last week), came in with some former players. I’ve known Kate for about three years now (her older teammates corrupted her and used to sneak her into some of the local taverns as a minor).
Kate begged me to show the others one of my tricks that I rarely do. It involves someone freely picking a card out of a deck, signing it, returning it to the deck, then shuffling the deck. After giving the deck back to me, I toss the deck into the air and the signed card winds up sticking to the ceiling. I don’t do the trick very often because it ruins the deck. In addition to the one card on the ceiling, the other fall to the floor and just scatter everywhere. Even if you bother picking the cards up off of the floor, they’re usually too messed up to use anymore. But it was near the end of the night, the deck I had was kind of messed up anyway, and Kate had just won a big match, so I relented.
One of the secrets of doing the trick is to make sure that you put it on a ceiling that’s high enough that someone can’t just pull the card down. The Tavern ceiling is about ten feet high so I figured I was safe. Wrong. I overlooked the fact that while Kate is a girl, she’s also 6’4″ tall and a top caliber NCAA athlete. The card stuck cleanly to the ceiling but as her girlfriends stood there staring at the card, Kate just took a running jump and cleanly picked it off of the ceiling. I was caught red-handed with wax stuck to the back of the card. Of course, they still couldn’t figure out how I found the card and got the wax on it, but a little bit of the awe and amazement was gone. Next time I need to remember not to underestimate my audience.
Oh My Aching Knees!
Well, one anyway. The other isn’t so bad. Today I’m going to get my left knee “scoped”.
I have a “torn meniscus”. Don’t know yet how extensive, but I don’t think it’s too bad. The other knee shows some degeneration, but doesn’t need surgery yet.
How many of us have had knee surgery?
Good news Ron…
Your story isn’t gone forever.
I was afraid that your Phi Psi 500 moment in the sun might have been lost forever but the Penn State Daily Collegian has just finished digitizing all of their back issues (there was a gap from 1977-87 that was incomplete for the longest while). Guess what made the archives?
From the April 14th, 1986 issue, on page two…
Craziness was the norm at this year’s Phi Psi
For some of the runners the event was a true family affair. Larry Fall, class of 1972, has run in the race approximately 15 times, and has won the masters division in the past (UL note to Collegian writer: I won the hole damn thing too). This year, however, his brother Ron, 14 years younger, ran against him in Saturday’s race.
“I’ve heard about this race for years, now I’m going to challenge him in my first time running it” Ron Fall said.
But experience paid off in the long run as Larry Fall best his brother by about two minutes.
“It’s a pain for about 1o minutes, but from then on it’s great. I’ve met some of my best friends here at the Phi Psi 500” Larry Fall added.
I feel much better now that I know the results of the race are preserved for posterity sake.
BTW – Some added notes culled from the results piece at the end of the article:
My buddy Randy Woolridge (mistakenly spelled Woolrich in the article) won the masters in a pedestrian 8:10 time (when in shape I usually finished around 7:00 with my best time 6:35 recorded as a master).
The third place masters finisher in the race was Dave Barsda, who was a former employee of mine from Harrisburg. Dave came up from Harrisburg to see me (I had moved to CT a couple of years earlier) and run in the race.
The remark about meeting some of my best friends at the rate was quite true and reads even more eerily when I realized that I’m still in touch with three of the students who ran on the team that placed second in the race. Eric Brugel, along with his brother and sister, worked at the Tavern. He comes back to State College for an annual golf tournament that I play in. Tim Flynn, is the wrestling coach at Edinboro University.
The most successful of the bunch though is Chris Bevilacqua, who went on to make millions in the sports and TV business. Chris went to work for Nike out of college – he’s the one that started the first Nike shoe and apparel contracts with college programs. He left Nike to work for Major League Baseball for a while, then started his most successful venture College Sports Television, aka CSTV. CSTV was eventually bought out by CBS which put considerable coin in Chris’s pocket. He worked for CBS for a while as the head of the regional sports programming but then left to go out on his own. He’s currently working on some soccer/TV startup deal but I’m not privy to the details. However, on that spring Saturday, some 21+ years ago, Chris was just another beer jugging, pavement pounding College student out to have some fun.
PA vs Utah
Not the school but the state.
Penn State hosts BYU tonight in a regional women’s volleyball final with the winner advancing to the Final Four next weekend in Sacramento. The #17 ranked Cougars (24-7) will be looking to pull off a huge upset over #1 ranked Penn State (31-2).
Penn State has now won 33 consecutive matches on their home floor and look to be prohibitive favorites to make it the the NCAA championship semifinals for the fifth time in the last 15 years. Penn State is one of only two schools to play every NCAA tournament in the 24 years the NCAA has been hosting the VB championship. Stanford is the other and looks to be one of two schools with a chance to derail the Lions championship express (Nebraska is the other – Neb and Stan are the two schools the own a victory over PSU this season).
As good as Penn State is, they actually look to be a year away from putting their best team on the floor. They lose only one player who is a factor on this time, part-time starter and defensive player Kate Price, and have a very capable back-up already in place.
Hall of Fame coach Russ Rose has been building an incredible juggernaut here at PSU. He’s upgraded the talent on the team every year for the last five years (while winning the B10 title every year too). Penn State has now claimed the freshman of the year in the B10 for six years running. The absurd thing about it is that many of these freshman award winners have found themselves on the bench the following year because the incoming freshman have been even better. For example, the aforementioned senior Kate Price was named the B10 freshman of the year as a front row blocker in 2004. She was out of the starting lineup the next year and didn’t work her way back to the starting lineup until the second half of this season (and she’s only starting because she changed positions to a defensive specialist – she couldn’t break into the front row).
PSU’s starting line-up is now:
6’2″ Sr Kate Price – B10 Freshman of the Year (2004)
6’4″ Jr Nicolle Fawcett – National Freshman of Year (2005), 1st team All American (2005), Big Ten Freshman of the Year (2006), 1st team All Big Ten (2006, 2007)
6’2″ Jr Christa Harmotto – B10 Player of the Year (2007), 1st Team All B10 (2006, 2007)
6’3″ So Megan Hodge – National Freshman of the Year (2006), 1st team All American (2006), B10 Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year (2006), 1st team All B10 (2006, 2007)
6’0″ So Alicia Glass – 1st Team All B10 (2007)
6’2″ Fr Arielle Wilson – B10 Freshman of the Year (2007)
Coming off the bench is Sr Mellisa Walbridge who was 1st team All B10 and a 2nd team All American in 2005 but cannot break into the starting lineup now.
These girls have a good shot at a national crown this year and, barring injuries, should be an odd on favorite to win it all next year.
I’m looking forward to running between Rec Hall where the volleyball battle starts at 6:30 (ESPNU coverage for those who would like to watch) and the Bryce Jordan Center where the basketball team takes on Seton Hall at 8:00 PM (coverage on the Big Ten Network for those who might get the channel).
e-Boy Gets a Job
Big soccer news out of the state of Utah. While his Dad was helping lead the Judge Memorial Girl’s soccer team to a state title, Elliot scores a full-time gig with a Major League Soccer Club. Real (pronounced “ray-al”, like the Madrid club) Salt Lake has hired the boy to work in their Marketing/Communications Department. Hey that’s two Fall’s (Gary) working for a major league team…though the Yankees and oft-losing RSL exist on opposite ends of the sports spectrum.
RSL finished it’s third year here, and failed to make the playoffs again. Elliot had an internship this past season (April to Oct) and they loved having him…hired him first chance they got. His title is now Public Relations Coordinator – e-mail efall@realsaltlake.com He’ll stay in school and work part-time til the ’08 season starts. After he earns his degree (economics ) in May he starts full-time at the club.
He’s pictured here holding up the Rocky Mountain Cup trophy, making the trip to Colorado where RSL beat the Rapids to win their annual competition.
Meanwhile, the Judge Memorial Girl’s team (I’m still assistant coach) startled the Utah high school scene by going on a blistering run through the playoffs – giving up just one goal in four games – to capture the state title. The team had begun the season 1-6, but turned things around and beat three number one seeds to win State. It’s our third state championship in six years.
It seemed like a good idea at the time
New Coke, 20 years later, and other marketing fiascoes
AP file
What are they laughing about? Roberto C. Goizueta, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, left, toasts New Coke with Donald R. Keough, the company’s president, in 1985. Celebration would turn to defeat within months as Americans rejected the tweak on the classic drink.
…
This 2005 MSNBC article takes a look at some historic, seemingly good, ideas that just didn’t work out. The most famous, of course, being New Coke.
Others that make the list include:
– rabbit jerky
– clear beer
– the eight track tape
and so on.
So why am I publishing this two year old article. Well, because I have one more to add to the list – this blog.
Gary and I clearly misread how the rest of the family would embrace it. We thought it would be an excellent vehicle for all of us to keep up on what the rest of the family was doing. Quite apparently now, that wasn’t a vision shared by the rest of you.
I’ve pretty much refrained from posting over the last couple of months just to see if the lack of content might prime someone to try to fill the void with something. It didn’t. Obviously, the value just isn’t there for most. I see that now.
The renewal date for the WeAreTheFalls.com domain name comes up for renewal in a couple of weeks. There seems to be little reason for continuing this experiment so I’m going to let the domain expire and pull the plug on the blog.
Hope you at least enjoyed it some while it lasted.
Yankee Stadium Tour
