Quotes from Off the Beat and Path (2 of 6): John Waters

When we last posted 12 days ago, Robin Williams was still alive, everyone from Bill Gates to Didier Drogba to the Florida State women's volleyball team had not taken the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and Ferguson, Mo., was a suburb of St.Louis no one outside the Show Me State knew of.

So, here is our quote from the Baltimore hipster, film director and author John Waters:

"I pride myself on the fact that work has no socially redeeming value."

College Volleyball Notebook: Four to Watch: Minnesota Hosts Radford

If you include Chicago traffic, a drive from Radford, Va., to Minneapolis is about 20.5 hours, and that journey passes through Madison, Wisc., another host city in the first round of the NCAA tourney.

The Radford University Highlanders will be in Minneapolis to face the Minnesota Gophers on Friday. Two of the stand-out players for both teams include Rachel Wiecchecki (pictured top), a junior who guided RU to a Big South championship, for the Highlanders, and Tori Dixon (pictured bottom) , a member of the all Big-10 Conference Team who has also overcome open heart surgery, for the Gophers.

Here are Four Games to Watch on Friday, all times are eastern

Radford @ Minnesota 8:00 p.m.

Florida State vs. Georgia Southern 5:00 p.m. Gainesville, Fla.

The FSU Seminoles feature two all-ACC team members in Ashley Neff and Katie Mosher

Purdue vs. Central Arkansas at the University of Missouri

Purdue's outside hitter /setter Val Michael, a junior, was named to the all-Big 10 team

Michigan State vs. Ohio University

The MSU Spartans feature Kori Moster, the Big 10's defensive player of the year.

 For more games in the tourney, go to our sister blog:

http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

http://www.ruhighlanders.com

http://www.purduesports.com

http://www.msuspartans.com
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College Volleyball Notebook: It Was a Good Home Weekend for UNC and Virginia Tech

It was a busy weekend for the ACC in women's college volleyball play this weekend. Three teams from the conference, Duke, UNC and Florida State are nationally ranked while Virginia Tech has been a team on the rise.

UNC won two home games over Clemson and then Georgia Tech over the weekend. In Friday's win over Clemson, UNC had two outstanding performances from the Tarheels' two international players as Ece Taner, from Izmir, Turkey, had a career high 28 digs while her teammate Jovana Bjelica from Belgrade, Serbia, had 14 kills and 14 digs in the team's four-set win over the Tigers.

On Sunday, Paige Neuenfeldt (pictured top) posted 11 kills and four blocks in the three-set sweep over the Yellow Jackets.

This Saturday, UNC hosts Virginia Tech (pictured bottom), a team which also had a superb weekend which included a major upset over nationally-ranked Florida State.

On Friday, Lindsey Owens knocked down 15 kills in a four-set win over Miami (Fla). Then, on Saturday night, Victoria Hamsher and Samantha Gosling combined for 35 kills in the four-set win over the Seminoles. For her efforts, which included 13 kills versus the Hurricanes, Hamsher was also named ACC Player of the Week.

Here are weekend scores from the ACC:

Friday:

Duke 3 Maryland 0

Virginia Tech 3 Miami (Fla) 1

UNC 3 Clemson 1

Florida State 3 UVA 1

Pitt 3 Wake Forest 2

Saturday:

Virginia Tech 3 Florida State 1

Notre Dame 3 Boston College 2

UVA 3 Miami (Fla) 1

NC State 3 Georgia Tech 2

Sunday:

Maryland 3 Wake Forest 0

UNC 3 Georgia Tech 0

Syracuse 3 Boston College 2

Duke 3 Pitt 1

Saturday Morning Tweets_ Picking Up Those Pesky Pennies

It's been a long time since we talked about Turkish soccer, but we learned today that our beloved Bursaspor, a team nicknamed the crocodiles even though Gustave the notorious man-eating croc' lives a long way from Turkey in the central African country of Burundi, tied Istanbul powerhouse Fenerbahce 1-1.

Here is a look at some tweets we have digested (yes, that is a nudge to Gustave) from the 11:00 a.m. hour (New York time, which seven hours behind Bursa and Istanbul):

1. @TheMuslimGuy (Arsalan Iftikhar, a progressive Muslim-American): "DC Friends: Sunday night check out my friend comedian Dean Obeidallah @DeanofComedy shows in Wash. DC, will be fun!" (Obeidallah is a Palestinian-American comic, he is pictured top).

2. @current (Current TV): "In Colorado, a ballot initiative to legalize pot is more popular than either Romney or Obama."

3. @FSU_Volleyball (Florida State Seminoles Women's Volleyball, featuring two Turkish student athletes Fatma Yildirim and Duygu Duzceler, this tweet is in reference to their very close win over Georgia Tech last night): "@FSUVolleyball is on the road and headed to Clemson. Thanks everyone for their Twitter love last night! We love our fans."

4. @HuffingtonPost (Huffington Post): "Burger King unleashes pumpkin burger" (pictured, middle).

5. @LOLGOP (LOL GOP): "The other freedom ObamaCare offers is the chance to create your business w/out fear of losing or not being able to afford health care."

6. @neilhimself (Neil Gaiman, a famed fiction writer): "Wife is jogging somewhere."

7. @wamu885news (WAMU 88.5-FM, a new station based in Washington, DC): "The Baltimore National  Aquarium is asking the public to help name its baby sloth."

8. @TheOnion (The Onion is a faux news journal): "Area Man Spends Absurd Amount of Time Trying to Pick Up a Penny."

http://www.deanofcomedy.com

http://www.current.com

http://www.seminoles.com

http://www.aqua.org (web site for the National Aquarium)

My NCAA Brackets....I'm Picking Those Pesky Wildcats

I haven't seen what every single one of my friends is projecting for the NCAA final, but I am inclined to agree with both President Barack Obama and ESPN college basketball commentator Dick Vitale that Kentucky and North Carolina will meet for the championship game.

But, even though I am a Democrat who lives in North Carolina and a Tarheels fan (ok, I'm a band-wagoner_Virginia Tech is the team I have been rooting for 95-percent of my life), I have to agree with Vitale that the Kentucky Wildcats will prevail.

Assuredly, if this does come true, actress Ashley Judd, an unabashed Wildcats fan and UK alumnus will be very happy.

In my Final Four, I am also projecting Florida State to win the east region, Michigan State to win the west region, to complete the brackets.

The four teams I have in the Elite 8 are Duke (South; losing to Kentucky), Missouri (West; losing to Michigan State), Kansas (Midwest; losing to UNC) and Syracuse (East; losing to FSU).

In the first round of games which start tomorrow, I am picking the following upsets: In the south, I am picking Colorado (#11) to upset UNLV (#6); in the west, I like Davidson (#13) over Louisville (#4); in the east, I like Harvard (#12) over Vanderbilt (#5) and lastly, in a tough call, in the west, I am going with North Carolina State (#11) over San Diego State (#6).

In addition, I am picking one nine-seed St.Louis to beat an eight-seed Memphis, in the west. And, conversely, I like the ten-seed West Virginia over seven-seed Gonzaga (east region) and ten-seed Purdue over seven-seed St. Mary's (midwest region).

SIDEBAR: Quite a few of the 68 schools in the tournament (well, technically it is now 66 as of this writing), have nationally-ranked teams in other sports. There are four tournament schools with Top-20 men's hockey teams (Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame and Harvard). Similarly, there are seven schools with Top-25 women's gymnastics teams (Florida, Alabama, Ohio State, Missouri, North Carolina State, Michigan and Kentucky). In addition, there are four NCAA tournament teams with top-20 teams in women's water polo (San Diego State, Michigan, Indiana and Long Beach State).

SIDEBAR 2: We want to congratulate Lori Anne Madison, age 6, of Woodbridge, Va., for being the youngest person ever to reach the finals of the National Spelling Bee. For her sake, we hope she isn't asked how to spell "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (yes, that "Mary Poppins" term is now in the dictionary!...we believe).

Congrats to UCLA on Team's Women's Volleyball Championship

We were personally rooting for the Florida State Seminoles amongst the four women's college volleyball teams that made it to the semi-finals (apparently, the term Final Four can only be officially used for college basketball) in San Antonio because the team has two Turkish players in stand-out Duygu Duzceler and Fatma Yildirim.

But, the Seminoles were defeated in straight sets by a very talented UCLA Bruins team that went on to win a thrilling match over the University of Illinois by a score of 3-1 (25-23, 23-25, 26-24, 25-16) last night (Saturday).

The Illini, in spite of their loss in the title game, had a banner year which included a semi-final victory over UCLA's main rival, the USC Trojans, in a five-set nail-biter that finished with a 63-second back and forth between the two teams.

In last night's game, the Bruins were led by Rachael Kidder, a 6-3 junior who was also named NCAA Tournament MVP, who had 20 kills and eight digs. Her UCLA teammate Lauren Van Orden added 17 digs, and freshman Zoe Nightingale had 11 blocks and eight kills.

For the Illini, Michelle Bartsch had 22 kills, and Colleen Ward added 17 kills as well.

The Bruins, who were a powerhouse in women's volleyball, had not won a title in the sport since 1991. UCLA has now won four NCAA titles in the sport, and 108 titles in collegiate athletics, with a significant number of titles in men's basketball, women's softball and women's gymnastics.

Coach Michael Sealy of the Bruins, who was also named NCAA Coach of the Year, is also the first coach to win a title as coach and as a player, since he was on the 1993 men's volleyball team at UCLA which won a championship as well.

Sports Desk- ACC Volleyball Action

It was a very busy weekend for the ACC, but while most people were paying to the football games in the conference, many women's volleyball games were played as well as all 12 current ACC members were in action.

I had the chance to see two of the games, including UNC's win over Wake Forest on the road (28-30, 29-27, 27-25, 25-22) and Virginia Tech's home win in a highly competitive five-match game over Clemson (25-22, 13-25, 14-25, 25-19, 15-11).

ACC volleyball got my attention late in the season last year when I noticed there was a Turkish player at Florida State. As a Turkish-American, I was aware that volleyball was a popular sport among female athletes in Turkey, but I didn't realize just how many volleyball players from Turkey were playing in the NCAA.

In the ACC, on current rosters, there are eight such players, including Duygu Duzceler and Fatma Yildirim (Florida State), Serenat Yaz and Cansu Ozdemir (Clemson, team image is above), Ece Taner of UNC and Cagla Sen of Boston College.

And, as it turns out Liz Trinchere of Virginia Tech went to my high school in the Roanoke, Va., area.

In weekend action, the UNC Tarheels won a road game over Wake Forest 3-1 (28-30, 29-27, 27-25, 25-22) on Friday as each of the four sets in the match were nail-biters. The 'Heels are now 17-5 (9-2 in ACC play).

And, in Blacksburg, Va., on Sunday, the home-court Virginia Tech Hokies a highly competitive full five-set match over the Clemson Tigers by a score of 3-2 (25-22, 13-25, 14-25, 25-19, 15-11); the Hokies go to 13-9 (6-5 in the ACC) and Clemson now has a record of 14-8 (6-5 in the ACC).

During Friday's game in Winston-Salem, NC, Kaylie Gibson of the 'Heels scored 24 digs and her teammate Emily McGee, a former ACC Player of the Week, had her seventh double-double of the season.

For the home Demon Deacons, Dani Thompson scored 14 digs and Andrea Beck added 14 kills. The game included a breast cancer fund-raiser which raised over $5,600.

During Sunday's game at Virginia Tech, the Hokies won a third straight five-set victory. Three Hokies scored double-doubles, including Cara Baarendse (with 13 kills), Justine Record and Jordan Fish.

For the Tigers, the aforementioned Serenat Yaz was one of three players with double-doubles along with Mo Simmons and Hannah Brenner.

Here is a complete list of ACC scores from Friday to Sunday:

Friday:

Clemson 3 UVA 1
Florida State 3 Maryland 1
Va. Tech 3 Ga. Tech 2
UNC 3 Wake Forest 1
Duke 3 NC St. 0
Miami (Fl) 3 Boston College 1

Saturday:

Ga. Tech 3 UVa 1

Sunday:

Va. Tech 3 Clemson 2
Florida State 3 Boston College 0
Miami (Fl) 3 Maryland 1

Sidebar: On a more serious note, the Turkish-American Washington DC-based group ATAA has set up a relief fund for victims of the earthquake in the eastern city of Van:

Turkish Philantropy Funds
Re: Van Earthquake Relief Fund
216 E. 45th Street, 7th Floor
NY, NY 10017

I expect there will be a segment about the devastation on the NPR talk show "The World," which examines evolving stories from around the globe.

Sports Desk- North Carolina High School Game Goes Bonkers

While we were watching WFMY-2 (CBS-Greensboro,NC) the other night, my eyeballs literally popped out of my sockets as if I were a Tex Avery cartoon character as Mount Tabor High School from Winston-Salem, NC, defeated Carver High School by an 87-52 score in high school football. Yes, initially, I thought it had a be abasketball score too. To put in perspective, that means the two schools combined for 19 touchdowns and three field goals!

Two of our other favorite schools in the Greensboro region won easily as Ragsdale High School (Jamestown, NC) beat Parkland 56-7. Conversely, Rockingham County School (Wentworth,NC) trumped McMichaal 44-6 in a home game.

Here are some other scores from the Greensboro/Winston-Salem region:

Western Alamance 48 Morehead 13
Chapel Hill 17 Cedar Ridge 0
Dudley 30 Ben L. Smith 23
Reynolds 18 Northern Forsyth 15
Page 28 Western Guilford 0
High Point-Andrews 25 Southwestern Guilford 0
Eastern Forsyth 21 High Point Central 20
Western Stokes 17 Mount Airy 0
Reidsville 22 Barton Yancey 0

SIDEBAR: Since there are five women's volleyball players from Turkey, my late father's country, in the ACC this year, we plan on keeping tabs on the sport.

Those young women include Cagla Sen from Boston College, Serenat Yaz and Cansu Ozdemir of Clemson, and Duygu Duzceler and Fatma Yildirim for Florida State.

It was a very succesful weekend for both the Clemson Tigers and the Florida State Seminoles.

The Tigers swept two matches from Georgia Tech, while the FSU Seminoles won a straight-set victory over Miami (Fla) which puts them back in the top 25 at number
23.

Here in North Carolina, Wake Forest pulled off a home upset over visiting Duke 3 sets to 1. For Wake Forest, Kadja Fornah and Carlin Salmon hit 23 kills while Amanda Robertson of Duke, a senior from Roxboro, NC, scored a season-high 17 kills.