Mixed Bag

BEVERLY HILLS (MI) -- Hopefully, the home cooked taste of Fordham Ram will be just the ticket for the Red and Blue on Wednesday night to even their conference record at 1-1. May I suggest some mint jelly and a nice chardonnay to accompany it? In the meantime, why dontcha chew on this:

-- Just in time for the onslaught of post-UMass, ‘the end of the world is nigh’ Chicken Little posters like game thread downer “kiefaber455” on UDPride.com and ‘fire BG’ proponent “308” on the FlyerHoops.net Message Board, I give you Demotivators:

http://despair.com/viewall.html#

They have a depressing sentiment available for every fatalistic Flyer fan to trot out whenever BG’s Boys happen to take one in the shorts.

-- I think it is safe to say that not too many UD fans are in love with Chick Ludwig at the DDN, mostly due to his insistence on resurrecting the “Why Won’t UD Play WSU?” nonsense on a regular basis. I gotta hand it to him tho, “The Chickster” actually struck journalistic gold with this DDN blog item on Dwight “The Blur” Anderson, the almost-mythical hoops talent from Dayton Roth HS:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/con...ight_ande.html

Watch the video and listen as superstars who were his contemporaries like Isiah, Dominique and Mark Aguirre rhapsodize about Dwight…he really was a total freak of nature. Several people in the comment section on You Tube asked the question: where can I find the rest of this story? It turns out that this is the ‘trailer’ for a full-length documentary on DA being produced by Cleveland Cavs beat writer Branson Wright. I’d pay good money to see the finished product.

I actually got to play pickup hoops with Dwight once when he was still a high schooler at the outdoor courts at Fairmont West. Even just screwing around you could tell the kid was really special. Later he scored something like 10 unanswered points in the final 60 seconds of a game for Roth. I also remember when Joe B. Hall inserted him into a nationally televised game as a frosh at UK –- and the Wildcats proceeded to run their entire offense thru and around “The Blur.” Unreal!

BTW, what would ever possess an adult male to refer to himself as “The Chickster” anyway?

-- College Chalk Talk (http://collegechalktalk.com/) is making an earnest effort in their first year of existence to be the go-to source for all things Atlantic 10. Here’s how CCT.com got started:

http://www.projo.com/uri/content/sp_...2.34bc7c5.html

I particularly like the Bill Barton (Assistant Coach at Duquesne) blog on CCT, since he was formerly the Head Coach at my HS alma mater, Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, MA.

-- And then there is A-10 College Hoops (http://a10collegehoops.com/) where the forum is literally burning up, with a grand total of four (4) posts in the last two months! And yet, they somehow have the unmitigated gall to proclaim themselves “Atlantic 10 Basketball’s #1 website.” ORLY, according to whom?

-- As a Detroit area resident for almost 28 years, I have watched the Motor City serve as an easily bludgeoned piñata for an assortment of national critics, especially now with the auto bailouts. Mitch Albom was asked to write a piece for Sports Illustrated about his and my adopted hometown and did a masterful job defending “The D.” Make sure you read the whole thing:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...oit/index.html

After the Future Doctor Younger Swampette sent it to me, I emailed Mitch’s piece to a bunch of my Detroit-based clients and even some transplants and many of them wrote back to thank me for it.

-- Imagine encountering this ugly mutha in the woods -- a 12’ tall, 1100 lb., POed grizzly bear:

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/giantbear.htm

-- Mrs. Swampy and I are gonna try and make it over to Da Burgh for the Dukes game on Saturday the 17th. We’ll be staying at her folks’ place in Erie for the weekend and plan to buzz down I-79 (weather permitting) for the tilt late Saturday afternoon and go right back afterwards. I’m gonna try and connect with my esteemed Editor and UD Pride MB poster extraordinaire “The Fly” while we are there.

-- Speaking of Blitzburgh, Go Steelers!

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com

	Massachusetts MASSACHUSETTS UMass Amherst, the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system, sits on nearly 1,450-acres in the scenic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, 90 miles from Boston and 175 miles from New York City. The campus provides a rich cultural environment in a rural setting close to major urban centers. UMass enrolls over 20,000 undergraduates and 5,000 post-grad students. Fellow members of the A10 Conference. Nickname is the Minutemen. Women's teams known as the Minutewomen. Sports achievements include NCAA Final Four appearances in men's basketball and women's soccer.

	Fordham FORDHAM Fordham University is an independent Jesuit university established in 1841 as St. John's College on old Rose Hill Manor in the village of Fordham, then part of Westchester County in the Bronx, NY. The name Fordham is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words "ford" and "ham," meaning a wading place or ford by a settlement. Rose Hill is the name given to the site in 1787 by Robert Watts, a wealthy New York merchant, in honor of his family's ancestral home of the same name in Scotland. The College was originally staffed by diocesan clergy. The name was officially changed to Fordham University in 1907. Fordham's 10 schools enroll 14,448 students. There are 7,652 undergraduates, of whom 3,842 live in University-managed housing either on-campus or in the local community. Fellow members of the A10 Conference. Nickname is the Rams. Athletic claim to fame is consistent mediocrity in nearly all sports and few A10 title winning programs.

	Duquesne DUQUESNE Duquesne University is a private, coeducational university, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania located on 48 secluded acres, on a bluff above downtown. Founded in 1878 as a Catholic college by the Order of the Holy Spirit. It is the only Spiritan institution of higher education in the world. Duquesne offers 10 schools of study and 100 degree programs to 6,000 undergraduates and 3,800 graduate students. Fellow members of the A10 Conference. Nickname is the Dukes.