Touching Them All

I read about this story when I was at the C-USA Softball Championship in Houston. These college softball players carry an opposing player around the bases after she hits a home run and gets injured. It's a really good motivating story that shows a lot of character from the opposition.

2008 Soccer Media Guide Cover

Pictured are the covers for the 2008 Memphis soccer media guide. It's been fun watching the two programs grow in the last couple of years. When I first came to Memphis in 2004, I handled media relations for the men's soccer program. The team won its first conference tournament and went to the NCAA tournament. That year was also the first year the program was ranked in the national top 25, and it has now been in the top 25 off and on the last four years. The women's program earned its first conference tournament and NCAA appearance last season. We'll have three games on national television this year on CBS College Sports. The women play Rice at home on TV, and the men will play SMU and Tulsa at home on the network.

Golf Tournament

I just finished my fourth year as a volunteer at the Stanford/St. Jude PGA Championship last week, and I am pretty sure it will be my last. One of our assistant athletic directors at Memphis has been the media coordinator of the tournament for the last 30 years or so.

At first glance, it may seem like a really fun job to be working in a PGA golf tournament. But unlike other jobs working in sports like basketball and football, golf isn't as glamorous since you don't really get to watch the event unfold. At the tournament, there is a media center indoors with a bunch of works stations that have computers with live stats, shot-by-shot, of the golfers. The only golf you really get to watch working in the media center is the television broadcasts of the tournament. It is a lot of sitting around all day long.

My job was primarily to answer phones, which don't ring very often anymore because everything is now live on the Internet. I got to escort Boo Weekley to the Media Center for a press conference after he was leading the first day of the tournament. I then brought a microphone to media members with questions during some of the press conferences, including the interview with Justin Leonard after he won the tournament.

We didn't have Tiger Woods in the tournament and Phil Mickelson withdrew last minute. Vijay Singh was in it as well as Sergio Garcia, Bob Estes, Padraig Harrington, Kenny Perry and John Daly. BYU alumnus Dean Wilson was in the lead until the last two holes on the final day when he double bogeyed. Somebody brought in to the media center two clubs he had broken during his melt down.

Tammy and the kids before church on Sunday.

This picture is of the kids and me in my full volunteer uniform on Sunday, the last day of the tournament. The final day of the tournament they did something different and called it Seersucker Sunday. All of the volunteers received these ugly seersucker shorts to wear and the tournament winner was presented a seersucker jacket. Seersucker is a type of material made popular in the South. It is white with thin blue lines and the material feels a lot like a paper bag.

Bike Riding

It finally happened!!! Shelby has been riding her toddler bike for the past few year without the training wheels trying to learn her balance. A few months ago we took the training wheels off her big bike. She wasn't ready. Lately, she's been giving it another shot now and then.

Today it happened. Tamara was fixing dinner and Shelby came in with a huge grin on her face and said, "Mama! Come See!" So Tammy walked outside and she was riding her bike in our neighbor's driveway all by herself. What's funny is she can ride in circles better than riding in a straight line. Shelby's still learning to use her brakes, but it will come.

Noah Stuttering

Wha-Wha-Wha-What's up with Noah? In like the last two months, he's developed a little bit of a stutter. We hope he eventually grows out of it. Tammy thinks it is because he has all these words in his mind, but he's not able to get them out of his mouth quick enough. Noah has a pretty big vocabulary and can talk in sentences really well. He particularly struggles with WH words like What and Where.

New Swimming Pool

Tamara and I finally caved in to the kids desire for a swimming pool this weekend. We kept telling Shelby she maybe could get a pool in the summer, so she has been constantly asking us if it is summer yet. It's a small pool that the kids are a little too big for, but they had a lot of fun with it and it keeps us from having to monitor them too closely.