Sports Desk_ Weekend Soocer Results from Obscure Countries Around the World

Today, we were debating if we wanted to post up a political entry making fun of Congressional Republicans, such as our pal Cong. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah, we actually don't know him), but then we also thought a UEFA Champions League update, but then we thought: "Well, everyone in Europe knows the scores and few people here in America care."

So, we decided to post scores from four relatively obscure countries, which don't make the ESPN FC highlights. Here, we will give partial scores from Bulgaria and Saudi Arabia. On our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time": http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com we shall provide partial scores from weekend play in Azerbaijan and Serbia.

As always, we like to salute soccer's bad boys, or players who got sent off with red cards, and this week's poster men are Macedonian international Vanco Trajanov who is also the captain for C. Burgas and Saudi Arabian international Mishel Al-Agmi who plays for Al Shoalah FC.

Here we go:

Bulgaria

Beroe 2 Litex Lovech 3

N.Burgas 0 Lok. Sofia 2

CSKA Sofia 3 C. Burgas 0

Lok. Sofia 1 Ludogorets 2

Tables:

1.Ludogorets

2. Litex Lovech

3. Botev Plovdiv

Saudi Arabia (very confusing, as all teams start with Al):

Al-Ittihad FC 2 Al-Taawan 1

Najron 1 Al-Ettifaq 0

Al-Nasr 2 Ah-Shoaloah 0

Al Nadha 1 Al Ahli 5

League Tables

1. Al-Hilal

2. Al-Nasr

3. Al Ahli FC

http://bulgariatravel.org/

http://www.air.bg/en/

http://74.81.82.58/~bulgaria/

http://www.saudiembassy.net/

Coming This Week (we hope): Futbol Week

If all goes well, we are hoping to launch a seven-week series entitled Futbol Week. Our aim is to post lists, soccer results and perhaps Twitter feeds from soccer experts, such as Turkish soccer enthusiast Ahmet Bob Turgut and Grant Wuhl.

We will also be focusing on specific domestic league, and see how some of you favorite teams, including the Dutch futbol team Go Ahead Eagles (yes, that is their real name) with Turkish international Deniz Turuc (pictured above) who grew up in the Netherlands and Turkish soccer team BursaSpor with Argentine national Pablo Battalla (pictured below) perform as Week 4 gets underway in most UEFA-sanctioned domestic leagues.

Of course, the big news in the soccer world today is that Mesut Ozil, a German international player of Turkish heritage, has signed a 'cok para' (Turkish term for lots of loot) to transfer from Real Madrid to Arsenal.

Ironically, Aresnal ousted Turkish soccer team Fenerbahce from the UEFA playoffs just over a week ago without Ozil's help.

Sports Desk: France Wins Under-20 World Cup in Turkey

Today is Bastille Day in France, and their national Under-20 soccer team, is bringing home a World Cup Championship.

On Saturday, France beat Uruguay, which had upset Spain in the quarterfinals, 0-0 (4-1) on penalty kicks after 120 minutes of play without a single goal from either side.

The final was played in Istanbul, Turkey, and other host cities included Bursa, Trabzon, Rize, Gaziantep, Antalya and Kayseri. Surprisingly, neither Ankara, the Turkish capital, nor Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey held games during the tournament.

Paul Pogba (pictured top) who plays for the Italian team Juventus was named the best player of the tournament, and his teammate goal-tender Alphonse Areola (pictured bottom) from the French team Paris Saint Germain, which won the French League this season, was named the outstanding player of the final.

Ghana beat Iraq 3-0 in the competition for third place, and Ebenezer Assifuah from Ghana received the Golden Boot in the tournament as he was the player who scored the most goals.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/sports

Presidential Quotes: Barack Obama

This week, we are posting quotes from the eight last presidents of the United States on this blogs as well as quips from the first eight presidents on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com
Today, we start with President Barack Obama, who was visiting Tanzania this week:

"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress."

SIDEBAR: Perhaps one can thank the respective French and Uzbeki soccer teams for preventing World War III, though we are a bit miffed that France beat Turkey 4-1 in the Under-20 World Game. To make things worse, France won on Turkish soil as the game was played in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, which is also known for its pistachio nuts.

Earlier in the day yesterday, in a game that was also played in Gaziantep, Uzbekistan beat Greece 3-1. Thus, there will be no Turkey-Greece match which could have started the third great international war (we are joking of course_ well, to an extent).

Today, American soccer player Maurice Edu, who has played pro soccer in Turkey and is of Ghanaian heritage tweeted that Ghana upset Portugal 3-2 in a U-20 game that was played today in Istanbul (we believe).

Of course, I am not going to suggest a boycott of Asterix and Lucky Luke (know as Red Kit in Turkey), the world's two most famous French comic book heroes. In fact, one can find these comic books at Chapel Hill Comics in Chapel Hill, NC.

http://www.chapelhillcomics.com

And, for more on the U-20 cup, one check our friend Ahmet Bob Turgut's soccer blog at: http://www.turkeyfootball.blogspot.com

Quote of the Day/Week- Lorraine Hansberry

In honor of Black History Month, we continue to quote famous African-Americans and today we share a quip from playwright/activist Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) who died all too young at age 34 from pancreatic cancer.

Hansberry is best-known for her 1959 play "A Raisin in the Sun," about a struggling family residing in the south side of Chicago. Both the original Broadway stage production and the 1961 film version starred Sindey Poitier.

This month, Stained Glass Playhouse in Winston-Salem, NC, is staging "A Raisin in the Sun" (until Feb. 19th).

In the Los Angeles area, the play is also being produced by Center Theatre Group which is performing "A Raisin in the Sun" at the Kirk Douglas theatre in Culver City.

Here is her quote:

"Children see things well sometimes_ and idealists even better."

SIDEBAR: In Durham, NC, Duke University men's basketball player Austin Rivers is assuredly the Big Man on Campus as he hit a three-point shot to help the Blue Devils prevail over their man arch rival, the University of North Carolina Tarheels.

But, half a world away, the nation of Zambia is celebrating as another young athlete, soccer player Emmanuel Mayoka, a substitute, scored the game-winning goal in that country's 1-0 upset win over Ghana in the Africa Cup.

Thus, Zambia, which lost its entire soccer team due to an airplane accident in 1993, will face Ivory Coast for the continental title. Ivory Coast scored its own 1-0 victory over Mali thanks to a goal from Arsenal star Gervinha.

The Africa Cup final will be played in Liberville, Gabon, the same city where that fatal airplane crash took place.

The Rabbit Ear Test_ (6 out of 12) "Batman"

Greetings to all our blog-readers, irregardless if you are in Winnipeg, Canada, the hometown of cult filmmaker Guy Maddin, or Atlanta, Georgia, where the Winnipeg Jets were playing hockey last year (they were then called the Atlanta Thrashers).

Many people born when Bill Clinton was president may not be aware that there was a "Batman" tv series, based on the hit DC Comics series, in the 1960s, which us Gen X'ers saw in reruns circa 1976 as kids. The show ran for 120 half-hour episodes, most of which aired multiple times during the week, from 1966-1968.

Though many of the actors who played the bad guys, including the pianist Liberace (he played the evil pianist Chandell, no we are not making this up), Frank Gorshin (The Riddler), Cesar Romero (The Joker), Vincent Price (Egghead) and Burgess Meredith (The Penguin) have passed away, the two main actors of that original "Batman" series are still alive.

Adam West, who played the Caped Crusader, is alive and well at 83.

But, are not going to reveal the age of Burt Ward who played Robin (pictured) because that is today's question for our quiz. So, how old is Ward; is the answer?

A) 63 B) 64 C) 65 D) 66

While, we can not disclose Ward's age until a later time (yes, I know you kids will google it), we can say that according to the IMDB, Ward was paid $350/week during the show's first season.

SIDEBAR: Italy has just passed Russia for fifth place on our top ten lists for countries where we are getting hits from. So, thanks to all you Juventus fans out there....and, oh yes, thanks to all you AC Milan fans as well (forgive the soccer humor).

Casulaties of Modern Technology (6 of 12)_ The Typewriter

First of all hello to those of you in Davos, Switzerland, and Montego Bay, Jamaica, who have somehow found time to check us out today. We also wish to congratulate teh citizens of Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Zambia for reaching the finals of the African Cup in world soccer play over the weekend. Lastly, kudos to Eli Manning and the New York Giants for winning the Super Bowl over the New England Patriots 21-17.

And, you thought Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were the only ones kissing babies left and right!

Today's Casualty of Modern Technology is the typewriter. Since I am a big fan of the Tom Robbins novel "Still Life with Woodpecker" (1980) and the novelist typed the whole work on Remington SL3, that is the image we are going with today.

In his novel, Robbins even alluded to the machinery with the line: "I sense that the novel of my dreams is the Remington SL3_ although it writes much faster than I can spell."

The typewriter was also an external force in the excellent William Burroughs novel "Naked Lunch" (1959), a surreal masterpiece that was turned into a David Cronenberg film many years later in 1991.

There are many serious collectors of typewriters, including actor Tom Hanks and politcian/business leader Steven Soboroff, who has typewriters from Jack London and Ernest Hemingway in his collection.

The legacy of the typewriter, which was first invented circa 1868 remains today as the QWERTY keyboard is found on all personal computer keyboards.

Typewriters became more standard around 1910, and they were gradually implemented into newspaper journalism. The IBM selectic typewriter was developed in 1961 as a replacement for the originals. The newer typewriters were less noisy and printed more effectively.

But, by the 1980s, the world processor evolved, and typewriters were soon allegedly sent off to former Soviet republics, such as Azerbaijan, where even today, the computer is highly preferred.

Quote of the Day/Week- Pablo Escobar

We continue our series of quotes from famous Latin Americans, with a quip from the drug lord Pablo Escobar (1949-1993) who was gunned down by authorities in his native Colombia at age 44. We are pretty certain that Escobar is the most notorious person we've ever quoted here, but we are not 100-percent certain of that.

Escobar made a bundle selling cocaine (yes, the Coke can is a joke). He was also heavily involved in the Colombian soccer scene, and in 1986, he actually entered domestic politics?!

The kingpin extraordinaire was also known for assasinations, bombings and political corruption. Amazingly enough, his mansion in Medellin is now a museum and a top tourist destination (No, we are not making this up!).

Here is his quote, which definitely seems ironic now:

"I prefer to be in the grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States."

Quote of the Day/Week- Pele

Since we have been completely obsessed with soccer later (auggh! I forgot to check the scores in the Dutch League, but we think PSV Eindhoven won), and we are focusing on Latin America), I thought it would good to quip Pele for a second time.

The first time we quoted him was on one of these two blogs during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. For those of you from the planet Neptune, Pele is from Brazil, and here is his quote:

"A penalty is a cowardly way to score."

SIDEBAR: For those who were wondering what the answer is to our "Rabbit Ears Quiz" from earlier in the week regarding the cartoon version of "Star Trek," it is A) 57 episodes. That is the differential between the number of episodes in the original show and the cartoon, which ran for 22 episodes from 1973-74.

Things We Learned on Google Today- Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays in Large Stadium

Today, we conclude our series of looks at soccer teams from around the globe with a profile of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv, which plays in Bloomfield Stadium which can house 14,700 fans.

Maccabi Tel Aviv has won 18 domestic championships, 22 national cups and two Asian Championship Cups. But, even though Israel is geographically in Asia, they now compete in the UEFA, the European Soccer Federation, as do teams from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Today, Maccabi Tel Aviv traveled to Ukraine to face Dynamo Kiev and they came away with a 3-3 tie, but the team was already eliminated from Group E, which was won by the Istanbul soccer power Besiktas which defeated the English team Stoke City 3-1 today.

For Maccabi Tel Aviv, goals came from Omer Vereda (49th minute), Eliran Atar (62nd minute) and Moanes Dabour (75th minute), who is just 19.

Dabour is also one of several Israeli Premiere League teams with soccer players of Arab heritage, a list which also includes Ali Ottman.

The team's main rivals are Hapoel Tel Aviv, Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Haifa, which also played today in a 3-0 loss to German soccer team Schalke 04, which also won Group J. The Romanian team Steau Bucharest beat the Cypriot team AEK Larnaca 4-1 to ensure the other slot in the next round of the UEFA League.

There are 16 Israeli teams in the domestic premiere league where Maccabi Tel Aviv is struggling in eighth place. The team lost to Hapoel Haifa 2-0 on Dec. 4th and they tied Maccabi Netanya 1-1 on Dec. 12.

Bonus Road Trip- Manteo to Murphy (To Flee Irene)

In North Carolina, the term "Murphy to Manteo" is used constantly for entities which serve the entire Tarheel State whether it be "Our State" magazine or North Carolina Public Television.

But, with Hurricane Irene now hitting the shores of the Outer Banks around Kill Devil Hills, it seems that right now travelers are more likely to head west, which would be from Manteo to Murphy. The route goes through Chapel Hill where the University of North Carolina Tarheels play. Given that Hurricane Irene is expected to be a devastating storm, one has to wonder if the Carolina Hurricanes hockey game perhaps should have chosen a different nickname.

For those who did not major in North Carolina geography in college or live in Wyoming or Uzbekistan, let me explain that Manteo is a town in the Outer Banks whereas Murphy is in 'Deliverance country' near the borders of Georgia and Tennesse in the far west, mountainous part of the state.

We imagine that it has been a slow Friday night for such Outer Banks establishments as Front Porch Cafe, Stripes Bar and Grille, and Chilli Peppers Coastal Grille, assuming they were even open at all.

So, for this Bonus Road Trip, we examined the distance between the town hall of Manteo and Daily Grind and Wine, a cafe in Murphy which has the motto: 'Life is too short for bad coffee and cheap wine."

Thus, we ask you the blog-reader how far apart these two towns are.

Is the answer:

A) 8 hours, 30 minutes

B) 8 hours, 50 minutes

C) 9 hours, 10 minutes

D) 9 hours, 25 minutes

We will give the answer over the weekend.

SIDEBAR: "The News-Observer," the newspaper for Raleigh tweeted tonight that downtown Wilmington was a mess even though it is a few hours south of the eye of the storm. But, there are lots of sporting events in North Carolina which are still on, as of press time.

The Winston-Salem Open, a tennis tournament in (where else) Winston-Salem will have a final featuring American star John Isner and French tennis player Julien Benneteau tomorrow afternoon at 12:30 local time. The game, if it is played, will be broadcast nationally on CBS.

And, tonight, the University of North Carolina-Greensboro (they are the Spartans, not the Tarheels) opened their season at home against Duke University, which was ranked 12th in the country. The Spartans were able to pull a 3-2 upset thanks to two goals from Turkish-German player Hakan Ilhan.

Things We Learned on Google Today-Scottish Futbol

We were actually considering an entry for an Italian team, such as Juventus or
AC Milan, until the BBC, which we were listening to, ran this excellent retrospective story on the 1983 Abderdeen team from the Scottish Premiere League that beat Real Madrid 2-1 to win the European Cup that year.

We noticed that it has actually been a while since Aberdeen, our team of the week, had even won the Scottish league. Despite being a dynasty in the early 1980s, the team has not won the league since 1985.

So, we asked Google, who scored the most goals for Aberdeen on that 1985 team. The answer is Frank MacDougall (pictured here, not the guy playing the bagpipes), now age 53. MacDougall became the fourth Aberdeen player to score a hat trick against their rival Celtic. He joined George Hamilton (yes, in America, we think of the actor of the same name who played Dracula in "Love Bites," which came out in 1979), Billy Williamson and Eric Black.

MacDougall now owns the Criterion Bar, a pub in Aberdeen, where one may well find the Scottish beer BrewDog (pictured here).

Alas, times have been hard for Aberdeen as they lost to Celtic 9-0 last year. It was their worst loss ever to their arch rival.

SIDEBAR: She's back! No, I am not refering to ring-wing nut job Michele Bachmann who has horrified all of us politically sane people in America by winning the coveted Ames Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa, today. But, rather, we are talking about Susan Burns from Alexandria, Va., who according to "City Paper" (Washington, DC) has once again struck the National Gallery.

In April, Burns attacked a Paul Gaugin painting at the art museum, claiming it was obscene. And, amazingly enough, she got back to the National Gallery and grabbed both sides of French master Henri Matisse's "The Plume Hat," valued at $2.5 million. "City Paper" stated that Burns slammed the painting against the wall three times.

All of this reminds us that the vintage horror film "The Exorcist" (1973) about a possesed 12-year-old girl played by Linda Blair was indeed filmed in our nation's capital.

Things We Learned on Google Today- The Kid for Chivas

Since the Mexican team Chivas Guadalajara (not to be confused with the American MLS team Chivas in Los Angeles) played Italian powerhouse Juventus in Raleigh, NC_ of all places this week, we thought we'd mention Chivas in today's entry in our "Things We Learned on Google Today" series. Alas, Chivas lost the game 1-0 as Fabio Quagliarella, 28, who should qualify for our next "People with Long Names" list, score the lone goal of the match for the Italian team.

The turn-out at Carter-Finley Stadium was a disappointing 16,124 people, but it was the first time a game between two international clubs was played in the Raleigh-Durham area.

So, we actually asked Google two questions pertaining to Chivas. The first was 'how many first division soccer teams are there in Guadalajara?' (it is Mexico's second largest city). And, the answer is three with Atlas and Tecos, being the other two squads.

We then asked Google who the star player for Chivas is, and it appears to be Marco Jhonfai Fabian, 22, (pictured here) who scored his Mexican first division goal during a 6-0 route of the team Jaguaes (the Jaguars) on Nov. 10, 2007.

Fabian scored his first international goal for Mexico just a month ago in a 1-0 victory over Ecuador.

We expect he will have a great career, and perhaps he may end up playing for a European like....well, Juventus!

50 Beers from Around the World- Castle Lager (South Africa)

Former president Bill Clinton (see last entry) was among those who attended the World Cup in South Africa over the summer. Clinton was there to watch the game between the United States and Ghana, in which the west African nation prevailed in an exciting overtime victory.

Today, we feature the South African brew Castle Lager in our 50 Beers Around the World series (we are about halfway through now). In South Africa, beer in its traditional sense was first introduced by British immigrants in the late 1800s.

According to Wikipedia though, the native Zulu and Xhosa tribes were both brewing forms of sorghum and maice beers prior to the British immigrants' arrival.

Soccer season is in full-swing around the world. Those of us who root for the Turkish team GalataSaray, out of Istanbul, (I am a Turkish-American) were irked to hear that the gold and red lost to TrabzonSpor 2-0 over the weekend.

We profiled the Turkish beer Efes Pilsen as well as the American brew Pabst Blue Ribbon earlier in the series. Perhaps, there is a bar in Paterson, NJ, which has the largest conticencies of Turkish-Americans, which serves them both!

Things We Learned From the BBC Today- UFOs Over Rio?!

The BBC has reported today that the Brazilian government is actually going to start recording UFO sightings. The decree has stated that all military and civilian pilots as well as air traffic controllers should register UFO sightings with the national aerospace defense command.

There have apparently been a number of UFO sightings in Brazil that have caused concern.

In 1986, Brazilian air force jets scrambled to investigate a UFO over the country's largest city Sao Paolo.

And, way back in 1977 when "Space 1999" was on the air and I was in the first grade, citizens of the Amazonian town of Vigia said they were attacked by aliens!

We dedicate today's entry to students at Glendale High School in Glendale, Calif., (for our bonus high school of the week) which has the largest Armenian-American populations per capita in the country. The mayor of this city where comic actor legend W.C. Fields is buried happens to be an Armenian-American named Ara Narajarian. We imagine his ninth grade geometry teacher couldn't spell his name right, either!

The school where I would probably be hard-pressed to get a prom date since I'm a Turkish-American (we have a spat--long story!) if I were in high school.... But, I didn't get a prom date at my high school in Virginia back in 1987 either! Glendale High is nicknamed the Dynamite or Nitro. The school's principal is Deb Rinder.

John Wayne (yes, the guy who was in "Stagecoach" and "The Searchers"), who was actually born in Winterset, Iowa, is Glendale High's most famous alum.

And, the school has both boys and girls water polo teams. Definitely, not something that my alma mater in southwest Virginia will likely have any time soon!

But, we did have a soccer team........I have still have the benchmarks on my rear end to prove it!

Quote of the Week- Thierry Henry

We must profess that we were completely unsure of which French person to quip in our last entry for July in this series. Initially, we thought about the iconic writer Victor Hugo since he was quoted by Sam Donaldson on "This Week" last week (we couldn't resist!).

But, after seeing the brilliant new French film "The Micmacs*," we decided to go with French soccer star Thierry Henry (you'll have to see the film to understand why!) who also recently signed with the New York Red Bulls.

"I always think about what I missed, and I think that was my driving force- never be satisfied with what I've done."

*-from the director of "Amelie"

My World Cup Final Four Picks

Without commentary which will have to include some other time, my final four are Argentina, Holland, Uruguay and Spain. I pick Argentina to win the World Cup. One of their star players Lionel Messi is pictured above.

I would personally love to see Argentina play The Netherlands in the World Cup final for sentimental reasons. Those same two countries met in the 1978 World Cup final which was in Argentina in 1978.

That was the year I first started watching international soccer in Black Sea Eregli, Turkey, where the whole country watched the games with black and white tvs. Now, Turkey not only has color tv, but satellite and cable services with up to 200-plus channels, where they can watch reruns of "Gunsmoke" like the 'rest of us."

Quote of the Day- Pele

Today's quote of the day from Brazil's legendary star Pele is being posted in conjunction with the World Cup in South Africa, where our traditional ethnic rival Greece (I am a Turkish-American) won its first ever World Cup game by a 2-1 margine with a surprising comeback over Nigeria. The game-winning Greek goal was scored by Vasillis Torosidis in the 71st minute.

Pele is reporetdly engaged in some kind of war of words with Argentinian team coach Diego Maradona, who is himself a futbol god. But, we don't know the details and we certainly don't want to irritate potential blog-visitors from Rio de Janeiro or Buenos Aires as we have agitated enough people from Athens and Tel Aviv (and perhaps even Istanbul!):

"Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string."

Quote of the Day- Frida Kahlo

I must profess when my girlfriend Louisa (pse) left me for an unemployed car mechanic in Duluth, Minn., that she meet on the Internet, she did cite the fact that I spent way too much time blogging as a factor!

So, it should be no surprise to those who know me well that I am devoting 32 quotes from 32 people, both alive and dead, from the 32 countries in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, which starts (yikes?!) tomorrow with a game between the host country and Mexico that will air at 9:30 a.m. in Boston and Miami (and the rest of the American east coast as well as places like Toronto, Canada).

Today, we feature a quote from the late Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) who was the subject of the film "Frida" (2002) which starred Mexican actress Salma Hayek in the title role.

Frida is popular not in Mexico but throughout Central America as there is a popular restaurant named Frida's in Antigua, Guatemala, that we couldn't get into because there was a long, long line waiting outside (?!) when we there in 2005. We've since read from travel writers that many Americans who go to Guatemala have trouble getting a seat in this restaurant, which is known for its cocktails and quesadillas.

As for the painter Frida, she was known for her Realism, Symbolism and Surrealism. She was also a bisexual and a communist, which made her life, as tragic as it was, even more interesting!

She was married to fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. And, she had affairs with the African-American singer Josephine Baker as well as the Russian socialist leader Leon Trotsky, who was murdered in 1940 while in exile in Mexico. Trotsky also lived for a while in Turkey. My late Turkish aunt happened to spend her summer residence on the island of Buyukada off the coast of Istanbul where Trotsky lived in the late '20s and early '30s before heading off to Mexico.

Frida also suffered from massive injuries that she suffered from a bus accident which happened when she was 18. Those injuries haunted her for the rest of her life. She died under mysterious circumstances, and there is much speculation that she committed suicide.

An exhibit of Frida's paintings is currently taking place at a museum in Berlin, Germany--- a city where one can also see Knut the Polar Bear (at the Berlin Zoo, of course!).

Here is today's quote from Frida:

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?"

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.