Culturegeist - Confessions of the Pop-Culture Junkies
9.22.2006
Law Weekly: FC GULC hopes to spread "soccer fever"
Photo caption: D.D. Davis (top-left) and Olisa Anweh (bottom-left) celebrate with their team after winning the indoor soccer league championship last spring. They currently are playing in the LawCenter’s indoor league. (Photo courtesy: D.D. Davis.) Note: A version of this article appears in the September 26, 2006, version of the Georgetown Law Weekly.
Soccer balls were literally bouncing off the walls.They were ricocheting off of the pads on the walls and off the curtain hung across the middle of the gym.The goals, nothing more than PVC pipe and netting, fell apart anytime a hard shot hit the post instead of the back of the net.Teammates standing at corners of the court shouted encouragement and advice at the players at the court before ducking out of the way of a fast-moving ball.Shins were bruised, and goals were scored.Indoor soccer had arrived at the LawCenter.Intense was a common word heard during and after that match.In the end, the Well Hung Jurists topped Benfica by a score of 7 goals to 6, holding off a late charge from the team of 3Ls.
The indoor league, played on the basketball courts on the fourth floor of the Sport and FitnessCenter, pits teams in a 5-on-5 match for two twenty minute halves.Unlike the outdoor variety, there is no goalkeeper; no players on either side can use their hands.Where you would find a sideline painted on the grass, there is instead a wall.
Chris Dolan, 3L is the captain Benfica, which is named for his favorite Portuguese soccer club.Dolan is enjoying the league, and his excitement shows.“I wish the season was longer, and I hope they do it again in the spring.”Benfica’s opponents in the match, Well Hung Jurists, comprise the core group that founded the soccer club here at the LawCenter.
Georgetown Law is known, among other things, for its strong international presence.It might be surprising, then, that until recently, there was no club here for the world’s most popular sport.Of course, that all changed when D.D. Davis, 2L, and some friends started FC GULC, the soccer club. The FC moniker is a common mark among soccer teams around the world, standing for “football club” and typically followed by the club’s home city or neighborhood.
The core group of FC GULC formed last spring to compete in a post-graduate indoor soccer league at the main campus.The LawCenter’s team defeated the MedicalCenter’s representatives to win the championship in that league.The core group of that team, including Davis, Eric Charleston, 2L, and Olisa Anwah, 3E, is still together, playing for Well Hung Jurists in the LawCenter’s own inaugural indoor soccer league.
Soccer reached a new height in American culture last summer, during the FIFA World Cup.All sixty-four matches were broadcast in high definition on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2.Unlike the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, when American fans were forced to wake up at two or four o’clock in the morning if they wanted to watch, the matches this year were shown in America during the late morning and afternoon, a fact that certainly helped boost the ratings.The excitement over the sport stemming from the World Cup extended beyond the television.“I think there’s a soccer fever in America right now,” said Anweh.He hopes that the soccer club can build on that momentum and increase its membership and its activity.
Not that the club’s membership is particularly lacking.At this writing, the club boasts 91 members.Outside of the intramural indoor league, the core group of the club also plays together in a city outdoor league every weekend.Because of this familiarity with the team, they seem to know where each other will be on the floor, making plays that look almost practiced.
The club and league might never have happened, though, had it not been for the efforts of Davis, who played soccer during her undergraduate years at AmericanUniversity.“D.D. is the engine behind all of this,” said Charleston, about FC GULC and the intramural league.“She pulled me out of retirement.”
Davis has been playing soccer as long as she can remember, as has Charleston.They each played for traveling teams when they were younger and then for their high schools.Anweh got a later start.His family moved from the US to Nigeria when he was five, and not having played soccer before that, he was behind the other kids.When he moved back to the States in high school, he was suddenly the class of the field.“They all thought I was really good,” he explained.
Of course, the club does more than field their own team.They hope to form more competitive and recreational teams to play, both within the LawCenter community and in the greater DC community.They also plan to organize viewing parties to watch big matches.More than anything, they want to spread the love of soccer that they all share.Said Davis, “Playing soccer has provided a great opportunity to meet and interact with students from other years and sections. In addition to winning soccer games together, we have also formed many lasting friendships." FC GULC is always looking for more people to play, especially girls.Students of all skill levels are welcome, from those who have played enough to have retired and come back to those who have never even kicked a ball.To get involved or find out more information, email D.D. Davis at dld25@law.georgetown.edu.
Hooray for YouTube users - on the ball with the Joey Porter thing. Now you can experience it in all its hilarity. Personally, my favorite part is when the genius that is Joe Theisman asks, "Howard Dean lost, didn't he?" I'm not sure if he was being serious or not (unlike if Kornheiser would have asked). Anyway, last YouTube post until after the weekend. I promise.
Quick correction: It was Tony Kornheiser that asked if Howard Dean lost, not Joe Theisman, as I previously thought. Of course, where I have no confidence in Theisman (who is the one who asked why Porter's "BYAAH!" needed explanation, presumably because he thought it was funny ipso facto), I know Kornheiser was making a joke, albeit not one of his best. Just wanted to preserve what little cred I have by setting the facts straight.
That's right, folks. It's election time again. We are presently less than seven weeks away from the 2006 midterms. Democrats are trying to take back the House for the first time since 1994, and Republicans are desperately trying to stop them. Or are they? There's some contrarianism going around through GOP ranks saying it would be a good thing for Republicans if the Dems took back the House, maybe even the Senate. Hell, there are even some conservatives who are all for a Democrat in the White House come 2008!
Now, anybody who knows me probably knows by now where I stand politically, and let's just say I'd be happy about a Democratic victory for other reasons - I am one. I understand Christopher Buckley's argument for the "real" conservatives' being ambivalent toward the election - they want the Republicans to lose so that they can go back to standing for something again. It's the more cynical argument of Jonah Goldberg that reminds me why I'm not a fan of thinkers like Jonah Goldberg. His line of thinking is that if those crazy Nancy Pelosi liberals take back the House, American voters are going to see what Democrats are really like (not the lovable underdogs we seem to be right now) and will elect a Republican for President. Goldberg is so confident in Democratic overreach (i.e. investigations of President Bush and maybe even an impeachment) he almost falls over himself trying to contain his glee at the thought.
Personally, I don't see Democrats, who can be every bit as strategic and cynical as the Republicans, making the same mistakes the Republicans did. Democrats know that they would look petty and like they were pandering to their base if, immediately after taking back the House, they hired the liberal equivalent of Ken Starr. And they know it would backfire. Hopefully that will keep them from doing it. And hopefully the thought of inheriting the mess that the Republican administration and Congress have created won't be enough to deter Dems from going out and running their very hardest to take back the government.
At any rate, it's public service announcement time. Everybody reading this should make sure to go and vote (even if you are a Republican, or a Steelers fan, or something else disagreeable) on November 7. If you're argument is that you don't know enough about the candidates, I direct you here. There, no more excuses, unless you're lazy, which I know you are. And don't think I'm going to stop bugging you. You should expect more political posts as the election draws nearer. Please don't hate me for that.
Alright, kids. I promise I'll do my best to keep this from being a "shit I found on YouTube blog." Nevertheless, I promised you the Chappelle sketch, and the Chappelle sketch I have delivered.
Well, seeing as this weekend marks the opening of Big Ten play, I could think of no better way to fire up our defense than showing them the biggest hit they may have ever put on somebody. Now, granted, the game I'm showing (also against Minnesota, like this weekend's game) is what started last season's "downward spiral," and I know Marcus "Bonecrusher" Pollard left for the NFL, but who cares? Just look at that hit!
Also, this post goes by way of saying that I finally figured out the YouTube blogging deal. Hooray.
One final note: for those of you reading this on facebook, you'll have to navigate over to the real site to see the videos. Just click on the little "view orignal post" button. Or click here. You know, whichever works.
Three posts in one. Let's do this. Don't have a lot of time - it's late, and I have more reading to do for class, but some things need to be covered tonight.
First, as promised, is "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," the new show from "The West Wing" masterminds Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme. This. Show. Rocks. That's it. I made a prediction while watching this, based in part on a little bit of history. This duo has never failed to win the Emmy for best drama. They worked together for four years on "The West Wing," and the show won that award all four times. That trend won't end this year. "Grey's Anatomy," "CSI," and the rest be damned, this Emmy belongs to "Studio 60." I've been psyched about this show since I heard about it - I even read the early version of the script that leaked online. You know that guy who can quote lines during the premiere? Yeah, that was me tonight. Brilliantly written, beautifully directed, expertly cast, and perfectly executed. And my understanding is that the second episode is better. Now that we've all established that I have a man-crush on this show, let's move on to topic number two.
Another thing I was excited about this fall was the move of Monday Night Football from ABC to ESPN. I loved the addition of Tony Kornheiser to the booth, even if I wasn't thrilled about ESPN's keeping Joe Theismann. Mike Tirico is money, too. So far, the booth has been feeling itself out, still, trying to find its comfort zone. That's fine. That's not what this paragraph is about. ESPN has taken the lineup introductions to a new plateau. Tonight I saw a new approach to the lineups. Sure, during the first possession each team was on the field, they showed the player pictures on the bottom of the screen. Where ESPN excelled was in the details - it really is a Disney company. Instead of having the commentators read off the lineup, they videotaped one of the players from each side reading it off and adding his own comments. For the Jaguars offense, it was QB Byron Leftwich, who seemed relaxed and cool. For the Steelers D, it was the usually unbearable Joey Porter. Tonight, though, he had me rolling. He decided instead of playing it cool - he is Joey Porter, remember - he was going to channel Dave Chappelle. More specifically, he channeled Dave Chappelle's spoof of Howard Dean. Absolutely amazing. I don't have video of the Joey Porter bit, but the "Chappelle's Show" sketch is at the end of this post. Do enjoy.
While we're on the subject of football, I want to send my thoughts out to David Pollack, the Cincinnati Bengal who literally broke his own neck making a tackle today. Anybody playing that hard deserves some respect, and a speedy recovery.
One last note. The New York Mets clinched the National League East division title today, officially marking the end of what some would call the Atlanta Braves' reign of terror. As a kid, I was a Braves fan - I loved their pitchers and Dave Justice and the rest of the cast - don't blame me, I was young! The Braves were eliminated from contention sometime last week, but today made it official. Here's hoping the bloody Mets don't go on their own 14-year streak.
So, I'm currently fighting with YouTube to make it let me blog videos, but it's not cooperating at the moment. Watch this space.
Remember when we were kids, and the meatheads never ever got along with the eggheads? Okay, neither do I, but our parents might. Regardless, I know a few people who seem to think that sports and academics don't belong together. Being the sports loving law student I am, I tend to disagree, as do the incomparable late Stephen Jay Gould and the always long-winded Gregg Easterbrook, two authentic brainy types. Gould, better known for his thoughts on evolutionary biology, was actually quite the proponent of sabermetrics, and a profound fan of baseball. Easterbrook, a contributing editor for The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Monthly, and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, is also known as the Tuesday Morning Quarterback over on Page2.
Academics have long had a flirtation with sport - not all academics, natch, but still - and one entertaining tidbit I've noticed with these two is their connection to their times. Gould grew up in New York in the mid-20th century, when baseball truly was America's Pastime. In his age (which butts right up against our own), academics loved baseball. Thus the whole sabermetrics thing. Easterbrook, of course, is a football guy. Football is now king in American sport, and arguably also in American academic communities - at least those that follow sports. If you read TMQ's latest column (which actually inspired this post), you'll notice the scientific analysis of statistics that is creeping its way into football, as well - not that you can always tell by the coaches' calls.
Another thing both of these men embody mirrors something one of my professors at Purdue said to my class. It really stuck with me, what he said. He lamented the loss of the true scholar, the interdisciplinary genius. Back in the day, Aristotle was a mathematician, a political theorist, an astronomer, a philosopher and more; Leonardo was an engineer, a sculptor, a painter, a master of anatomy (and if you believe certain novels, the head of an underground organization); Newton was a mathematician, a physicist, an astronomer, an alchemist (and the head of that same underground organization). Today, my professor argued, everyone is a specialist. There are physicists, there are chemists, there are philosophers and painters and writers of prose, but there are no true scholars. If nothing else, Gould and Easterbrook are evidence to the contrary, though certainly not the only ones. (Modern physics actually is the source of some really interesting modern philosophy, and it must have taken some kind of interdisciplinary skill to gather that, right?) Gould and Easterbrook are masters of statistics, philosophy, popular psychology, and of course sports fandom and general geekiness - all admirable disciplines. They are both also enjoyable writers, and I recommend them to anybody interested in some good reading.
Sorry about the dearth of posting since I came back. It's been a long week in the world of Civil Procedure and Property (no Torts yet, though...that's for the Spring). Anyway, some housekeeping to take care of. Not that you can tell, since he hasn't posted again, yet, and I haven't had a chance to change the information around the site, but Collin's back. That's right, ladies 'n' gents, the Linesbomb will be resuming his rightful place as a contributor to Culturegeist. Hopefully he'll be able to fill in the gaps of time when law school has my ass in a blender, and I am unable to find time to post.
Anyway, rather than taking time to write out a proper rant, I'm just going to point you to a couple of sites that are at least as good as this one when it comes to killing time online. The first one hasn't been updated in a few months (sound familiar?), but it made my buddy Max famous in New Zealand's little corner of the Internet for a little while. The link has actually been on here for a while now - I'm just now actually properly mentioning it. I refer of course to Nuclear Bob's Shirt of the Day: one man's dream to show the world every shirt he owns - and trust me, there are plenty of them. The site that's been keeping me distracted and laughing for a while now, though, is the Internet Word Generator, created and maintained by Alan, another friend of mine at Purdue. Basically, it creates smashups of words to make some really hilarious new words, most of which have actually never been uttered before. Some of my favorites include Snakes-on-astan, gynomatic, and necrorhythm, but there really are too many to list.
I'll do my best to get a new Hypometer up by the end of the weekend...Also a new pick of the week is up. Huzzah to the return of Aaron Sorkin! Hopefully I'll have a review or something about the pilot up by the end of Tuesday. There are my goals, let's see how it goes.
I'm not going to be that guy who yells at the many, many people who are themselves railing against the new features of facebook. But I'm not going to join them, either. Don't get me wrong, there are some issues with the new News Feed and mini-feed, and I'm all for privacy protection. But it seems to me that the gut reaction against the feed is just that - a gut reaction. Once you look through what's actually on there, it's generally stuff that most people on your friends list could find anyway. The big problem is that there is no easy way to opt out, other than deleting each and every individual action you have taken. Bad news, especially since facebook was finally starting to do a good job of reconciling privacy protection with the great good it can do in connecting people and killing time. They allow you now to change who can see which aspects of your profile in each of the networks you have joined. Personally, I'm alright with the mini-feed on facebook - it makes it much easier for me to see how my friends have changed their own profiles, which saves me time and energy. Facebook does need to add the News Feed to the privacy settings, and I hope such a change is forthcoming. Hopefully once people have a way to turn it off and on, the rioting on facebook will come to a peaceful conclusion. I'm sure I'll take some heat in the comments from this, so let's hear it.
Okay, so never mind that post from a few minutes ago re: the Hypometer. It's moved. As I'm sure you must have noticed by now, everyone's favorite (even if they don't know it) monitor of pop-culture is no longer down the right side of the page. Instead, you will find new updates of the Hypometer in line right here in a post (assuming I can make it work). Really, I'm just doing it this way to make my life easier, and to see how it works. Bear in mind that I'm still working out the formatting and other such nonsense. As it stands, I took out the neutral mark in the middle, and instead will be color-coding entries on the continuum. Anyway, you can figure it out. So, without further adieu, I give you your Hypometer.
New in this edition: For the first time, things are falling off the Hypometer. Nobody is really thinking about the World Cup or the Duke Lacrosse Scandal or JJ Reddick anymore, so they have literally fallen off the radar. I'm still remembering the NBA Finals, thanks largely to the FIBA Worlds, which also made the list. How could anything with the word Hype in it not include the pop-culture champion of the summer, Snakes (on crack) on a (motherfucking) Plane? Regardless of its premiere more than two weeks ago, SOAP holds it down at number one. Also making the list: Tiger Woods, fantasy football, and the Irish. Seventeen items on the list this time. Here it is, kids.
The Hypometer v.9.05.2006 More Hype (less chill)
Snakes on a Plane pre-release
Tiger Woods (5 straight wins, and counting)
Notre Dame football, preseason 2006
The new-look facebook
Dwyane Wade post-2006 Playoffs
Kobe Bryant post-81
Lines Wedding 2k6: The Halloween Extravaganza
Fantasy Football
NASCAR
Kobe Bryant pre-81
Bill Simmons
Chris Gianopoulos
Deadspin
Snakes on a Plane post-release
Dwyane Wade pre-2006 Playoffs
USA Men's Basketball post-2006 FIBA World Championships
So I must be the worst blogger on the Internet. Seriously. I'm either on for a few weeks, or I'm very off for even longer. Anyway, I'm hoping to reignite this thing and keep it lit through law school, if only so that I have a reason (however noncompelling) to pay attention to frivelous things like pop-culture. Anyway, this is kind of a nothing post announcing that I'm back, and to tell you to check the Hypometer. Watch this space. (Hopefully, it will change relatively soon.)
Photo caption: D.D. Davis (top-left) and Olisa Anweh (bottom-left) celebrate with their team after winning the indoor soccer league championship last spring. They currently are playing in the 
