Crazy Croatians

Saturday, December 28, 2013

2013 The Year in Review

A lot happened this year. Lots of news stories, celebrity stories, TV shows, Movies, and lots of famous people died. So much has happened that it's impossible to list everything. But here are some of the things that I found memorable:

top Sports stories of 2013
1 Lance Armstrong confesses to using performance enhancing drugs and is stripped of his 7 Tour de France victories.
2 Oscar Pistorius murders his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
3 Andy Murray wins Wimbleton Tennis Championship
4 The Boston Red Sox win the World Series
5 The Auburn Tigers football team
6 The Boston Marathon bombing.
7 Jameis Winston wins Heisman Trophy despite allegations of rape.

top news stories:
Paula Deen racism scandal
George Zimmerman trial (found not guilty)
Trayvon Martin
Obamacare (ACA)
Jodi Arias trial (found guilty)

deaths:
Nelson Mandela
Peter O'toole
Patti Page
Jonathan Winters
Larry Hagman
George Jones
James Gandolfini
Slim Whitman
Tom Clancy
Lou Reed
Annette Funicello
Bonnie Franklin
David Frost
Paul Walker
Hugo Chavez
Margaret Thatcher
Marcia Wallace
Tom Laughlin

Celebrity and TV show stories
Duck Dynasty
Jennifer Lawrence
Breaking Bad
The Walking Dead
Miley Cyrus
Twerking

So much for just one year. You'd think it couldn't all fit.


Sunday, December 8, 2013

A Pretty Good Day

  December 7th, 1941 has for 72 years been remembered as the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor & brought the US into WWII. Yesterday, December 7, 2013 many will remember as the day Auburn University made it's own mark in history. For that day they earned a seat in the BCS National Championship Football game.
  Auburn had the week before been victorious over Alabama, previously the #1 college football team in the country, and so was playing in the SEC Championship game in Atlanta, GA. against Missouri. It would be a tiger on tiger brawl the likes of which has never been seen before!
  The teams fought viciously fang and claw for 4 quarters with the teams going back and forth. All told there were 8 lead changes, making for a very competitive and rollercoaster game. You can check out the game stats here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_SEC_Championship_Game
  I rode over with a couple friends to Atlanta and met another of our friends there before the game. Me, Adrian and Rick, who drove and had tickets took us. He gets tickets for many sporting events as he's a great follower of all kinds of sports (basketball, baseball, football, tennis, etc.) and a great guy to be friends with. I was lucky enough to be invited along and even though going to football games in person is not something I especially like doing I figured that this was an exceptional opportunity & not just some regular season game. This was going to be something epic. And watching the game I was definitely not disappointed, for the two teams played their hearts out and left everything on the field.
  Here are pictures of me and the other guys I went with at the game just after Auburn won.

  Auburn proved victorious this day and so it was up to two other conference championship game outcomes to determine who would be going to the big bowl games in early January. Michigan State was ranked #10 playing against #2 Ohio State in the Big Ten Conference Championship. You can see the stats of the game here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Big_Ten_Football_Championship_Game
Me, Adrian and Rick watched most of the game at a popular sports grille in Douglasville, GA called Taco Mac. They have an absurd amount of tv's, all on the games, so it's probably one of the best places to watch and get something to eat while doing so. Michigan State lead early, got tied up at 17-17 then lost the led 24-17, but then outscored Ohio State 17-0 and ended the game by a winning score of 34-24. Needless to say, since Ohio State stood in the way of Auburn reaching the BSC National Championship game, we were exstatic. We also saw #1 Florida State beat #20 Duke as expected to earn their place alongside Auburn in the big bowl game to be held in January. Here's my link to this game here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_BCS_National_Championship_Game
Being from Birmingham, AL. and a fan of local teams I was also pleased to hear that UAB won their basketball game on Saturday too by a score of 74-69. This gives them a record of 7-2 including a win over #16 North Carolina so far this year. Hopefully they can win most of their remaining games and have a good shot at getting into the NCAA Basketball Tourney in March of next year.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

One Second To Kill Yourself


  Last night #4 Auburn played the game of the year and beat #1 Alabama. And they did it in 1 second.
  The game had gone back and forth for 4 quarters. Auburn scored first going up 7-0 to end the 1st quarter. But this woke the sleeping giant and in the 2nd quarter Alabama outscored Auburn 21-7 to lead 21-14 at halftime. In the 3rd quarter Auburn repeated the scoring from the 1st quarter and outscored Alabama 7-0 to tie Alabama 21-21. And so they battled in the 4th quarter neck and neck, both gaining a touchdown. Throughout the game Cade Foster for Alabama missed 3 attempted field goals, knocking as much as 9 points off the scoreboard, unusual for their kicker.
  The game was tied 28-28 near the end and with 7 seconds to go Alabama had the ball, T.J. Yeldon drove down the field and was knocked out of bounds at Auburn's 38 with 1 second left on the clock. What to do?
  Alabama had several choices. Take a knee & go into overtime. Throw a long bomb pass for a TD to try & win the game. Or do what they did & attempt a field goal to win. Obviously they'd lost faith in Cade Foster's ability to kick, so they brought out redshirt freshman kicker Adam Griffith to make the 57 yard kick. Doom.
  The choice, though not absurd, was frought with danger. Although seemingly invisible to Alabama, not so to Gus Malzahn and his crew. For, as everyone lined up for the kick one Auburn defender, Chris Davis, instead of staying on the line to try and block the kick, ran back to the end zone to wait and catch it--assuming it would fall short. The kick was up and it did fall short & he caught it. Chris Davis then ran 100+ yards past all of the Alabama players and scored one of the most remarkable touchdowns to win the game in Ironbowl history.
  And so another regular season is over. Auburn heads to the SEC Championship instead of Alabama. And Alabama's hopes for a 3rd consecutive national championship are most probably dashed. And Alabama should have seen it coming.
  With big fat slow offensive linemen on the field Alabama had little chance to catch the speedy Chris Davis when they kicked the ball with only 1 second left. Couldn't they have foreseen this happening? Well, Auburn obviously did. Otherwise Chris Davis would not have been where he was. Nick Saban always talks about giving your team the opportunity to win. But in this Ironbowl game he gave Alabama the opportunity to lose.