We Are Going to the Final Four in Indy............

Yes, indeed, a good friend of mine from Charlotte, NC, backed out of going to the NCAA Tournament so he could tend to the health of his ailing Yorkie terrier B.B. King (named after the blues legend, of course). We wish B.B. the best, but we are going to Indianapolis!

For those of you who are politically liberal, you will be delighted to learn that because of a hotel shortage in the Indiana capital, where Republican governor Mike Pence signed a stupid gay discrimination bill cloaked as religious freedom, I will be staying in Louisville, Ky., instead.

The issue has been the talk of both the political and sports world circuit. Dave Zirin of "The Nation" said that Duke University Coach Mike Krzyzewski (also known as Coach K) was a coward for not standing up to the measure. But, we did learn that the Duke coach recently wrote a letter to a struggling grade school kid in Oklahoma, urging him to make a strong effort in school. Unlike Zirin, a rare progressive sports writer, David Brooks, who is center-right politically, criticized gay rights groups for being too political, or something to that effect.

But, I am nevertheless pleased to go to the Final Four; the ironic thing is that I would have been just as happy to go to the Frozen Four in Philadelphia!

Images: 1) the retired jersey of Kentucky Wildcats great Sam Bowie wh played there in the early eighties, 2) the Duke Blue Devils mascot who is simply known as Blue Devil, 3) Frank Kaminisky, number 44 in red, in action for the Wisconisn Badgers.

The Michigan State Spartans are the fourth team in the Final Four.

Today, We Celebrate Five Years of Blogging!

It was on Sept. 18, 2005, when we started with the original version of "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," a blog which is still active (hmm....free time is beginning to become much like Kuwaiti oil, a thing which once seemed plentiful, but now much less so!).

Today, I run both the new version of that blog and this crazy thing called "The Daily Vampire," which is actually an in-joke about my twisted sleep cycle, but perhaps because of the "Twiligt" film and book series as well as "True Blood," this blog gets about 12 times as many hits per day as "Politics...," yet we seldom post anything about vampires here!

I want to take a moment to recognize my alma mater Glenvar High School's remarkable 3-0 start to their high school football season. Last night, the Highlanders won a home game over the Grayson County Blue Devils by a 27-7 score.

My other favorite high school in Virginia, Floyd County High School, which ironically hosts Glenvar on Nov. 9, won a road game against George Wythe High School by a 17-7 score.

And, of course, I'm equally proud of both the American and Turkish men's basketball teams. The U.S. Team, which featured NBA phenom Kevin Durant and was coached by Coach K from Duke University, won the final game over a very impressive Turkish team which was lead by standout Hedo Turkoglu, who will now play for the Phoenix Suns, in Istanbul last week.

My late father Mehmet Gokbudak hailed from Turkey, and if he were alive today (he would actually be 89 years old!), I'm sure he'd still be telling me to do my math homework even though it's been 22 since I graduated from high school!

PS- I also want to extend my kudos to the NC St. football team. Though I sort of made fun of them earlier in the week, they did win their home game over the Cincy Bearcats on Thursday night by a 30-19 score.

Kudos to Duke University (Again?!)- This Time for Men's Lacross Title

First they did it men's basketball, now the Duke BlueDevils bring another NCAA championship back to Durham, NC, as they won the men's lacrosse championship by defeating Notre Dame in Baltimore by a score of 6-5.

The game-winning goal was scored by sophomore C.J. Catabile with :05 remaining in overtime. Freshman goalie Dan Wigrizer made five crucial saves to help Coach K's squad (ooops! Sorry, we got our sports mixed up!).

This was the first NCAA Championship in men's lacrosse for Duke University.

The team made national headlines off-the-field back in 2006 for an incident with a local stripper which proved to be based on false accusations and lead to the resignation of Durham Country Attorney General Mike Nifong.

You can apparently follow the team on Facebook and Twitter, but we can't verify that and since we are not a professional news organization we will skip the verification process as we need to buy a mouse from the pet store on Williamson Road in Roanoke, Va., before it closes to feed our pet boa Larry (that is a joke! In fact, I can't stand snakes.....)

Duke Beat Radford U in Men's Basketball

For the first since losing to the University of North Carolina in the opening round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament in Greensboro, NC, this spring, my alma mater Radford University, located in Radford, Va., came to Durham, NC, to play the Duke Blue Devils.

The result was alas more or less the same as Duke beat RU 104-67. Though more Duke alumni were probably focused on the Blue Devils' football game with the University of Miami (Fl) on the same afternoon, which Duke lost.

But, I expect good things from the Radford University men's basketball team, which I wrote about in the Greensboro alt weekly "Yes Weekly!" earlier this year (when RU was playing UNC).

The RU Highlanders, a team which is the defending Big South Conference champion, plays their conference opener at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, on Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m.

The team's next home game will be against Roanoke College from Salem, Va., on Dec.
13. The Highlanders will be in the Triad on Jan. 19. 2010, to face High Point University.

Meanwhile, the next home game for the Blue Devils men's basketball team will be against St. John's on Sat., Dec. 5, and their ACC home opener will be against Clemson on Sat., Jan 3., 2010. I'm sure Coach K will have the team ready for both games.

I have to think if the Highlanders were to have played the Blue Devils at the Dedmon Center, RU's home gym, that the outcome would have probably different....we may have lost by just 36 points!

PS_ One team that Radford University fared better than was the English soccer team Wigan Athletic- they lost to Tottenham by a score of 9-1 yesterday! I also want to applaud my favorite Turkish soccer team Bursaspor for winning 1-0 over Gaziantep. In the MLS (the USA's main soccer league), Real Salt Lake edged out the Los Anglese Galaxy to win the MLS Cup.

Quote of the Week- Mike Krzyzewski

"Effective teamwork begins and ends with communication."

The Duke BlueDevils will play the Villanova Wildcats in the Sweet 16 in Boston on Thursday night. The tip-off time is 9:57 p.m. (EDT)