I'm a bigger loser than you think

2:16 PM / Posted by Ryan / comments (1)

I had an epiphany recently. This was not one of the Thomas Edison kind of epiphanies where you spend hour after hour in the lab slavishly stealing the ideas of other people, but more the Archimedes kind where all of the relevant facts are rolling around in your head, pinging off old phone numbers and cheat codes (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start) until that moment when the pieces all fall together into a clear singular vision and you jump out of the bath and take of down the street naked as the day is long yelling " EUREKA!!" at the at the top of your lungs. The epiphany I had was this: I am fat.

Now, I am not orca fat. I could probably even pass for in moderate shape if you passed me in the street and were walking too fast to get a good look. I was practicing a fine act of self-deception, squeezing myself into the same clothes I wore a decade ago, hiding my fat face in a beard, sucking in my gut all day long and pretending that was where it was supposed to be. Slowly the hints began to creep into my awareness. People would be talking about finding a place to eat and say, "Ask that guy, he looks like he knows how to eat". My Wii Fit character looked like he swallowed a beach ball. My roommate started trying to force feed me vegetables. We were playing a game where you compare people to an animal and I got a hippopotamus. A girl that I coached started calling me Santa. One day all of these added up and I was forced to deal with the realization that I was overweight, grossly so.

This did not translate into anything resembling immediate action. I don't do immediate action. One time I slept on my couch for 4 months because my room was too dirty to put together my bed. I will live with something being miserable and broken forever rather than man up and fix the problem. See my relationship history. Fortunately for me, a surprisingly high number of soccer coaches in the club that I work for decided that they were tired of being slovenly pigs while screaming at kids daily to run for hours. That is the providence of football coaches. Acknowledging that we lack the discipline to correct this on our own accord we decided to bring the strength of our competitiveness into the equation and make a Coaches Biggest Loser Challenge. We each pitched in $30 and the winner (loser) takes all, because with gambling, everybody wins. The competition is judged on three categories: weight, body mass index, and body fat percentage. The coach who loses the most of the three combined is the winner. The competition began a week ago and runs for a little over 2 months. My opening numbers are 210.4 pounds, 30 BMI, and 27% body fat. This made me the consensus front runner, as the fattest coach and also the youngest. Sad, I know.

This is my plan. For those of you who don't know I work with the women's soccer team at Pima Community College, and teach a class on advanced soccer. As a result I have a good relationship with the whole athletics faculty, who I have convinced to work on my behalf in this endeavor. The fitness instructor has made me the special project for his team of interns, who will function as my team of personal trainers and nutritionists. They are being evaluated on how fit they can make me. At first I was a bit convicted about whether or not this was a violation of the spirit of the competition, but then I realized that the people with money were getting gym memberships, hiring personal trainers, loading up on supplements like Hydroxycut, and whatnot. Well I don't have money, but it should be open game with the things I do have at my disposal, like the team, and you, our beloved readership.

I realize that %90 of the people I know are in much better shape than I am, and not in need of an intervention on these lines, but I invite you to join the competition. Post your numbers in the comments section on a weekly basis and I will put together a data base of how we are all doing, and the winner will get to dictate to which charity I give the prize money. If I do not win our contest then I will put up $150 of my own money to give to the charity of the Left Coast Biased winner's choice. If you happen to be in grand shape, then there are other ways that you can join the fun. Have any weight loss tricks? Work out plans? Post them in the comments. Want to contribute in a more material way? If you want to donate money to the prize fund, or order me supplements, or have a line on some Anavar or Primobolan (steroids), or anything along those lines you can send them to the following address:

Left Coast Biased
c/o Ryan Ringdahl
3448 E 2nd St
Tucson AZ, 85716

Come on guys. Join the fun. It's for charity.

Problem: My right hand is full of superbowl rings

9:50 PM / Posted by Alan C. / comments (0)

So I was thinking: A few years back some creative soul in da Burgh wrote a song about the Steelers. This was pre 2005, so for those of you not paying attention the Steelers only had 4 super bowl rings at this point. All of them won by Chuck Knoll. Anyway there was a line in the song that said "This is the year we'll get that one for the thumb"

Then it happened.

In my lifetime I have only known two people to man the helm for the Steelers. Knoll and Cowher. Now there is a third, and he has the Steelers in a position to do what the other previous incarnations have failed to do: Win a superbowl in their head coach's second season. I will give you a moment to let that sink in.

And whats more, this year's team might be the most impressive defensive presence ever assembled by man or God. Sorry Big guy, I know you command angels...but this Steelers D is maybe just that good.I remember texting with ryan during the regular season and he said something underwhelming to the effect of: Man this defense is really good. But do you think they are as good as the Ravens? I responded with statistics and then the announcers somehow knew we were having this discussion and lended their statistical analysis. Then something happened.

They got better. Yeah. They did. The Steelers Defense went from being one of the best, to being statistically the best in every measurable category (except 1 i think where they were 2nd) Everyone knows that you can't run on the Steelers, so you should just beat them with the pass. Guess what these guys did? Oh just went 14 straight games without allowing an opposing offense to gain more than 300 yards. I will give you a moment to let that sink it. That streak dated back to the previous season. And that means you stop the run and the pass. What makes this Steelers D different from previous versions? They actually can stop the pass. Like when they stopped TO, and both of the Moss's. In the same season.

To quote one of my favorite movies: "Who are those guys?"

So yeah, maybe the Cards have a great receiving duo. Maybe the best since Rice played. But let me hit you with something: Fitzgerald had all his touchdowns in the first half. The eagles kept him reeeeaaaal quiet in the 2nd half. Oh, that and Boldin was too busy yelling at his O-Coordinator to realize there was a football game being played and he wasn't a part of it. So how do the Steelers stop Fitz and Boldin?

1. Pressure the QB. I don't care if he does have God on his side, Warner will piss his pant when he watches Woodley come from his front side and then gets train-wrecked by Harrison from his blindside. I can spell concussion, but after a few of those hits Warner won't be able to.

2. Double Up on Fitzgerald. But if you do that, will it make a difference? Yes. Now I have been heard to utter: That guy will catch any ball thrown in the building. Larry Fitzgerald was noted by Coach Tomlin as being the best receiver in the world. Of those still actively playing football, that is a true statement. Rice is still alive remember. Anyway, back to the point. The Steelers have some good cover corners. But won't that leave Boldin open, you say. No it won't. I just found this statistic today of which I was previously unaware: 70% of the earth's surface is covered by water. The other 30% is covered by Troy Polamalu.

I am not sure I have much else to say after that. Except that if anyone wants to join me I will be at Harold's in CaveCreek. I will be the one in black and gold face paint waving a terrible towel ans screaming at the top of my lungs. Oh wait...the entire Steeler's nation will be too. And yes...we travel well.

Super Bowling

12:42 PM / Posted by Ryan / comments (0)

Two weeks ago I was ready. I had analyzed the teams, contrasted personnel strengths, evaluated various statistical trends. I knew that the Cardinals were going to kill the Eagles. Maybe I wasn't expecting them to take their foot off the gas and stop running the ball, letting the Eagles back in the game, but my prediction for half time was 28-12. Here is a recap of the salient points from my pregame chat with my boy Webster:

1- God and Puppies: Kurt Warner is currently the Shining Light of Christianity in professional sports. Not of the "I want to thank God for this win before I go beat my girlfriend and shoot myself in the leg" variety, but rather the actual believing, regularly attending church, really loving people, and hoping to make a difference in his community and the world in a positive way variety. He is everything you would want a Christian athlete to be, regardless about how you feel about Christians, or athletes. The timing is going to work out perfectly for Kurt to pass this mantle on to Tim Tebow, but for know it still rests gloriously on his shoulders. In addition to this, Kurt, well, his wife, promised his children that if he won the Superbowl they would get a puppy!! Sound familiar? If Obama has taught us nothing else, know this- with out hugely compelling reason you should never buck God and puppies.

2- Nobody believed in them (karmic balance): It is a widely known fact that sports team draw tremendous motivation from being told that they can't or won't be able to accomplish something. Movies are made, the Rocky theme song is played, tears are wept. Underdog stories are compelling. Now, I mean real underdogs, not the 12 seed in March that literally everyone and their monkey is calling to upset the 5 seed. To really be an underdog, the idea of you winning anything, from a coin flip to a playoff game has to be laughable. As in makes people laugh. The only way that you earn that level of contempt in the sports world is to produce such a consistent supply of failure that it isn't even a snub anymore when you are picked to finish last in your division. It just makes sense. So many things have to go wrong over the years for this to happen, what with the leagues all focusing on parity and salary caps, and whatnot. Your coach blows up on national television screaming "They are who we thought they were!!". Your defensive captain goes off to fight in a war. You draft Jake Plummer. What this leads to is what I am going to call a colossal karmic debt. Has any team in the NFL accrued more karmic debt than the Arizona Cardinals? Seriously? Even the Lions don't come close. The karmic pendulum has swung so very far to one side with these guys that the back swing has come, inevitable and heavy.

3- The Quarterback: Neither team has a running game to speak of, as Brian Westbrook has been operating under the impression that the Eagles didn't make the playoffs and is currently vacationing in Maui and his doppelganger can't run. Donovan McNabb is crazy. That isn't to say that he isn't a good quarterback, and capable of changing a game, but did you see him run over to the Giants sideline and use their phone? He is equally likely to throw 3 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, or both. It's a three way coin toss. On top of that the Cardinals defense is leading everybody with 12 takeaways in the postseason, twice as many as the vaunted Steelers defense. Donovan McNabb, I would like you to meet Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. Whereas Warner is living the dream right now. He plays in a dome and gets to just sit back and bomb balls up to the best receiving duo on the planet. The mediocre running game doesn't really hurt him because he is at heart an arena league quarterback who just wants to play seven aside anyway.

4- The Dome: This somehow consistently escapes the notice of the rest of the country, but the Cardinals might play in the nicest stadium in the league. the grass is flat and even, the dome opens to allow a breeze and sunlight, and the seats go almost straight up sitting the entire crowd of 90,000 pretty much directly on the field. For this game, they are closing the dome. They want to trap the sound in make, create a hostile environment. Add two more factors, A) you are dealing with a state that is starved for success. A single glimpse from the Diamondbacks is all that they have had to relieve the tension of being teased by the Suns for the last two decades, and B) the ticket operator were asking for drivers licenses at time of purchase and hanging up on every one with an out of state license. They sold out in 6 minutes. On top of all of that there are the Arizona classic Sonoran hotdog vendors pushing carts around the stadium. Do you think that with all that delicious Mexican aroma in the air Andy Ried will be thinking about football at all? My bet is that he starts calling out Mexican foods half way through the first quarter, screaming "Caramello!", "Asada burrito!", and "Pollo chimi!" at McNabb who only stands there looking confused and a little hungry.


In any case, that game was clear and easy for me. The presence of Steelers defense and a coach who is capable of going more than 15 minutes without craving a Steak and Shake complicates things. I do think that points 1-3 still stand. Big Ben is not quite so prone to implosion as Donovan, but his top end is not nearly as high, despite what the cultists from the 'Burgh may tell you. Over all, he is just a little less exciting. He won't win the game for you, but he probably won't lose it, either. The crowd won't be as much of a factor in this game, given the open stadium and divided crowd, but that might benefit the Cardinals, too, as Steelers fans are notorious for travelling well. In the end I think that the game will come down to the Steelers defense, and Anquan Boldin. The Steelers defense will have to put points on the board. Their odds of doing that are directly related to how Anquan Boldin is feeling, both in his leg and in his head. If he wants to play, and is healthy, then the Steelers are going to have to find a way to do what no one else has been able to do: stop the best recieving tandem since Rice and Taylor.

I don't think they can do it. There is too much on the other side. God, Puppies, the Karmic Balance, the triptych force that is Warner, Boldin, and Fitzgerald. My call: Cardinals 24 - Steelers 13. But there is always the chance that the Steelers win by 30.