SB Nation - Tobi Umodu

Tobi Umodu, A BNer Blogs About UCLA Football In The New York Times

Nestor — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:28:33 -0000

We have known for a while that there are few guys in our football team like to write. We have been tracking ATV's blogs posts through out this summer. We have been following ATV's weekly posts on the official site which started this past summer. We have also blogged a number of times about a weekly column in a local paper entitled "Keeping it Bruin: A Look Into UCLA Athletics," written by ATV's team-mate - Tobi Umodu. Actually Toby himself has fanshotted his column here on BN.

Well it looks like Tobi has made the big time. He is now going to be blogging periodically in the Quad, the college football blog for the New York Times. In his first post Tobi gives us a little taste about the camaraderie that exists among UCLA football team:

My football team at U.C.L.A. is no exception. Our team consists of more than 100 guys from different walks of life and different racial backgrounds, but we have no problem getting along with each other. One good example would be life in our locker room. Some of my teammates set up speakers so they can play music while we get ready for practice or just hang out. Every day, the music being played is by a rap, hip hop, or R&B artist, and everyone enjoys it, dancing along and singing the lyrics. Now I’m sure some of them would rather listen to country or rock than Gucci Mane and Young Jeezy, but no one would ever know.

Another interesting thing: the nicknames. I have a few personal nicknames for some of my teammates who are good friends. First is Alterraun Verner, who I’m sure many of you have heard of. He is on every watch list you can think of and is an all-American candidate at cornerback. Some people like to call him Al, a few broadcasters call him ATV, but to us in the locker room he is fondly known as the Receptionist because of all the attention he receives. He probably won’t like that I wrote that but since we are a family I’m sure he will forgive me.

Next is running back Jonathan Franklin. He is a bit different from everyone else because he has quite a few nicknames. People on the team call him Flaps, Jet Ski, among other names, but I prefer to call him Hollywood Ski because he used to be on the show "Baldwin Hills" on BET. My fellow fullbacks Chane Moline, Trevor Theriot, and Jason Almond all have their own nicknames as well. I like to call Chane, Sugar Chane Moline; everyone refers to Trevor as Moose (I’m still not quite sure why); and Jason Almond is called Almond Joy for obvious reasons.

You can read rest of his post here. You will want to click on it because it's a fantastic read.

All I can say, congrats Tobi. Now it would be even cooler if you come back here and cross post your stuff in our fanposts. We know you are reading.

GO BRUINS.

Spaulding Roundup: Tobi's Offseason Wrap, Some Good News & Pirate Alert

Nestor — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:00:17 -0000

Let's start our UCLA football roundup this Monday with Toby Umodu's off-season notes. He has been writing a weekly "Keeping It Bruin," which is a look into UCLA athletics for a local paper in Malibu. Toby's this week's write up is all about gearing up for the start of training camp:

WESTWOOD—The day we have all been anxiously waiting is almost here. In a little over a week the Bruins begin training camp and when that is all said and done, the college football season will finally be upon us.

For the past six weeks, the Bruins have been pushing their bodies past their limits to make sure they are completely prepared for San Diego State, come September 5. Winning doesn’t come without a price and by working out four days a week in the morning and afternoon, the Bruin football team has definitely earned their pay, but it still remains to be seen whether they cash in or not.

"I am confident this season is going to be good. You can tell by the team’s offseason work that we are a lot bigger, faster and stronger team," said senior defensive back Alterraun Verner.

As for ATV's offensive team-mates Toby has some interesting notes on our passing game in his writeup:

The afternoon workouts have been most helpful for the offense because it has given them the opportunity to improve the passing game. Freshman quarterback Kevin Prince, who has been named the new starting quarterback, has shown that he is more than ready to assume control of the Bruin offense.

"I think he has come a long way over the summer, especially with the timing of everything. The timing between him and the receivers has definitely gotten a lot better. His confidence has grown a lot throughout the summer and he has made all the hard throws look easy," said sophomore wide receiver Taylor Embree.

With what seems like a never ending depth when it comes to receivers, Prince has been able to forge great timing and a better understanding of what each receiver likes to do. All of that and a lot of success against the defense for most of the summer during the afternoon passing sessions has the offense thinking they can take over the role of being the strongest aspect of the team this season.

Once again gotta add the usual caveat about not getting too excited from this off-season reports because of how many times we have all been burned during this past decade. Still can't help getting excited to find out what we are going to get out of our new QBs and some of the new players coming into the mix. Speaking of new players we have some good news after the jump.

Earlier this summer we had heard that there were some questions about whether incoming freshman Nik Abele and JUCO transfer Eddie Williams will be able to get their coursework done this summer. Dohn had some good news on these kids late last week as he was told both of them were "on track to complete the necessary academic work and be admitted in time for training camp." I am sure Coach Palcic more than anyone was excited to get that news.

Lastly, let's end with this amusing note from Dennis Dodd about a certain college football coach (emphasis added):

After the career year, he interviewed with Washington. He would have killed to get UCLA the previous year. His name was attached to Notre Dame. That was just in the last two years.

Of course he is talking about none other than the Captain of Texas Tech ~~Pirates~~ Red Raiders: Mike Leach. I thought the note was pretty funny. I remember the UCLA coaching search well. While Leach might have wanted to come to UCLA really badly, he certainly wasn't sending those signals during the negotiation process from what I have heard.

Moreover, when Neuheisel's name popped up, the more everyone thought through it, the more it became clear that the best fit for UCLA football program given the culture around the university was CRN. I think the world of Leach's ability as a football coach. However, given how our football program is situated, I think Neuheisel is the better fit in terms of guiding the program within the academic culture of UCLA and the UC system. We got the right guy.

Still a pretty amusing note to say the nonethless from Dodd and it tells us something about the potential of the football program at UCLA when a coach like Leach is so interested in it.

GO BRUINS.

Roundup From BN Walk: Aikman's Weekend, Stokes Interview, Umodu's Writeup & Other Notes

Nestor — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:00:29 -0000

More photos » by JOE RAYMOND - AP

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Let's start the week with one last shout to Troy Aikman was officially enshrinement at the College Football HOF in South Bend, Indiana this past weekend. That's a picture of Aikman hanging out on his float at the Enshrinement Parade. In case you missed it probably the biggest story from all the festivities (at least for our purposes here on BN) was Aikman's comments about standards for success for a UCLA quarterback (beat U$C & get into the Rose Bowl) in Westwood.

While Aikman's legacy at UCLA by his own account was "incomplete" he still achieved immortality at the next level and given the way he has been making an effort to stay in touch with his alma mater, that "incomplete" resume is not going to stay in the way of him being remembered as a football legend from UCLA.

Moving on to the present, kids like Reginald Stokes - another out of state Bruin football player like Aikman - are now working hard to reestablish UCLA football program in Westwood. Why I am talking about Stokes? Because he sat down for a pretty cool interview with the official site. Stokes who is a redshirt Junior from football player from Montgomery, AL, had somewhat of a breakout season in 2008, seeing action in 11 games and making five starts. He shined in his first career start against Oregon, when he was credited with five tackles and also blocked a field goal attempt. More on the interview after the jump.

Stokes specifically talked about his huge breakout performance against Oregon and what the last regular season game means to the UCLA program (also referenced by Aikman this past weekend)

Q: Last season, you had a breakthrough game against Oregon. How did it feel to have such success in your first start?
A: It felt great to have my first start in college football against a good team like Oregon. Throughout the week at practice I just wanted to make sure I knew the game plan for the week and concentrate on my responsibilities. I also wanted my teammates to feel comfortable with me being out on the field with them for a full game instead of having to come in as a substitute. I got great advice from a former teammate, defensive end Justin Hickman, who told me what he did and how to get ready for a game. He also told me what I needed to work on. I also talked to fellow teammate and roommate Alterraun Verner, who also gave me some helpful tips on how to prepare for a game. Blocking the field goal was a big relief after having missed an assignment on the previous series that gave Oregon a big play. I knew I had to do something big to make up for it.

Q: You earned a starting position against USC this past season. Talk about the deep rivalry between UCLA and USC and how it felt to be out on the field for that game.
A: Well, me being from Alabama, I didn't really know much about the rivalry until my freshman year when I experienced it firsthand. Seeing the fire and intensity in my teammates' and coaches' eyes the week of the game really showed me what the rivalry was all about. It made me want to be that much better so I could help UCLA win that game in the years to come. Even before entering this game, I knew it was going to be a war from all of the publicity. What made me play harder was knowing that I was out there with friends who were raised watching this rivalry, and I wanted to help them feel the same way the previous Bruins felt after winning the game a couple of years before. When running on the field, you can feel the passion and the pride that take place during this game. The crowd has so much energy that you can feed off. But once the game starts, I really don't notice the crowd because I will be in that mindset that nothing around me matters but the calls and signals that I have to know for that particular play.

You can read rest of the interview here.

Stokes talked about his game day rituals which includes riding the same bus with Darius Savage, Terrence T.A Austin, Al Verner, Christian Ramirez and Tobi Umodu, who he came into UCLA with. Well speaking of coming into UCLA Tobi had some interesting takes in his weekly editon of "Keeping it Bruin." Tobi wrote about unique expereinces UCLA athletes go through as freshmen when they arrive in Westwood:

WESTWOOD—Freshman year of college is always a bittersweet time for any student because they have to leave everything they know behind, but on the other hand they are excited about all the new experiences they will encounter.

For athletes it’s a bit of the same except they not only have to deal with the pressure of coming from a high school to a college academic field, they must deal with a transition in the athletic field also.

In high school every athlete was the biggest thing on campus. Everyone knew their name, the teachers gave them breaks in class, and the future wasn’t in question because a scholarship already let people know your destination. Coming into college a lot of athletes experience uncertainty for the first time and start to worry about whether things will pan out just like they did in high school.

"My freshman year was definitely a learning experience. Athletically I had to adjust to new coaches, a new training environment, decreased training hours, and a new team oriented aspect of competing. Academically I entered college after having taken a year of school off to focus on my athletic goals. Classes were definitely challenging and provided a much different learning environment," said junior gymnast Marcy Burnholtz.

Now as interesting as Tobi's take is, I wonder how the experience for students who often come into UCLA, somehow end up rooming with super star athletes from high school. I know most of times football, basketball players usually end up rooming together, however, there are times students have to room with student-athletes. While I was at UCLA few of couple of my friends ended up staying with football players up in Saxon suites and it worked out ok for them because the guys they were staying with were really cool.

Still there are interesting stories around the country when regular students have to room with huge student atheletes. For example, read through the series of posts entitled "Livin Large" on the blog Basketbawful. They are a hilarious series of posts (you need to start at Part I) of some kid from Purdue who somehow ended up rooming with a seven foot dude from the Boilerplayers basketball team. The experienes are so awkward, yet ridiculously funny.

For some reason, the story made me think of Johnathan Ogden, while he would come into Puzzles for dinners (yes Puzzles was our makeshift cafetaria when Sunset Village first opened in Fall of 1991). FWIW Ogden was always incredibly gracious and would usually come in with Sharmon Shah, who eventually changed his name to Karim Abdul-Jabbar. Karim was a great kid too. Good memories.

Speaking of good memories, let's end the walk with another video from New Orleans Hornets featuring DC and their other rookie Marcus Thornton:

Marcus thornton and Darren Collison Tour (via dadadrizzeee)

Apparently DC rolled his ankle in his last summer game but to date has been performing as one of the best rookies during summer ball. As we will keep mentioning over and over, we never get tired of watching and reading about one of our all time favorite UCLA Bruins (not just Ben Ball warriors) here on Bruins Nation.

GO BRUINS.

Roundup From BN Walk: Guerrero's "Power", Umodu's Weekly Writeup, Love's Tweets & Other Notes

Nestor — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:05:57 -0000

Let's start our Monday walk checking in with Dan Guerrero. As silverlakebruin pointed out over the weekend under Dan Guerrero's leadership last week NCAA changed its summer rules so that college coaches could spend more time with the student athletes. It seems DG's influence in the NCAA is getting noticed as couple of days ago he was mentioned as one of "the nation's most poweful in college sports" by the Orlando Sentinel. From yet another summer "list":

12. Dan Guerrero, UCLA athletic director and incoming chair of the NCAA Men's Tournament selection committee.

As David Wharton from the LAT notes:

By the Orlando Sentinel's reckoning, Guerrero places at No. 12, just below the likes of network television executives, conference commissioners and NCAA President Myles Brand. He is the only athletic director to make the top 20.

Now in his eighth season in Westwood, Guerrero is the incoming chair of the NCAA men's basketball committee.

Only two coaches made the list -- Florida football Coach Urban Meyer at No. 13 and Kentucky men's basketball Coach John Calipari at No. 14.

While DG deserves a lot of kudos, we need to note that being mentioned one of the most powerful officials in the NCAA (albeit the article mentions "college sports") might not be seen as all that significant given how erratic, incompetent and impotent NCAA has appeared in last few years in enforcing its own rules. Plus, while lot of us are happy as of right now with the state of UCLA athletics, we are keeping a close eye on how he execute the renovation of Pauley Pavillion among a number of important projects, which also includes building solid foundations for both our football and baseball programs. So we will see how it all works out in the coming years since DG's record is not yet complete at UCLA. To continue with our walk come with me after the jump.

Speaking of the football program, Tobi Umodu has his weekly writeup on UCLA athletics up on the Canyon News. For this edition Tobi interviewed couple of the unsung heros in the football squad. He talked to Leandro Barbosa, a walkon junior linebacker about his role in the team:

Q: Do you think your role on the team is an important one?

A: "I think my role, whether it be on scout team or whatever, [is being] considered part of the team. It’s important because I’m working as part of the team not just working for myself."

Q: It is worth it, working as hard as you do for almost nothing, and do you enjoy it?

A: "I personally really enjoy working out and playing football. I feel it’s worth it because it is way bigger than just the game of football in helping me prepare for the game of life. If I can get through this I know I can make it later on."

And then asked sophomore gymnast Brianna McCulloug, who also serves as a manager of the football team about her contributions to the program:

Q: How do you feel about your role on the team?

A: "I’m a part of the team and I feel like everything I do is appreciated"

Q: Your situation is a bit different from a walk-on because you’re a manager, but you still have to endure the same workouts as anyone else. Why do you think it’s important to work just as hard as they do even though you will not be doing the same things during matches?

A: "I feel whatever you do, you should give 115 percent. Even though you think you are not getting any recognition doesn’t always mean people do not see how hard you are working and what you are doing."

As Tobi notes later hopefully that kind of attitude and commitment will rub off on all their team-mates and make them work even harder during the off season.

While we are on the topic of working hard, DC had a great debut for the Hornets summer league team this past weekend. Even though his team lost by a score of 86-92, DC had 19 points, six assists and five rebounds. More details over the Hornet's NBA blog.

Lastly, since we are talking about the NBA, let's end the following video from KL, who recently spoke to ESPN reporters about art of tweeting:

Note how he gives UCLA props at the very end. KL once again displaying even though he was with us only for one year, in spirit he is a Ben Ball warrior for life.

GO BRUINS.

Spaulding Roundup: Roster Management & Other Football News/Notes

Nestor — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:00:35 -0000

I am still slowly working my way back from a long vacation. Looks like during last few days a number of football related notes (besides Fauria's transfer and E.J.'s desire to be a Trojie) trickled out of Westwood. So let's try to rest and try to put them all together in one place.

In addition to E.J.s departure, UCLA also said goodbye to Shannon Tevaga(HT to thisismitchell). Tevaga had to leave the program due to academic issues:

On a day former UCLA safety E.J. Woods said he finalized plans to transfer to Santa Monica College, the attrition continued with offensive lineman Sonny Tevaga leaving the program for what sources said were academic issues.

Tevaga, who started three games last season, is enrolled in UCLA's summer school, but he will not return to the Bruins even if his academic troubles are resolved, sources added.

Instead, Tevaga will explore a transfer to another school. He is the sixth UCLA player to leave the program since spring ball concluded.

Well the problem with Tevaga was that there has always been questions regarding his total commitment to play football at UCLA. This is something he has had issues with dating back to last November and he was still struggling to get into the right midset this past spring. So it's not a total surprise that it never worked out for him him. Hopefully wherever he ends up he finds a right fit that will fit his abilities both in the classroom and on the football field.

As Dohn noted Tevaga became the 6th player to leave the progam since spring ball (following Dean, Carter, Forcier, Johnson and Woods). This kind of attrition however is not really something negative for the program. Remember at the end of the spring UCLA was about 5 or 6 players over the allotted 85 scholarship limit. Because of their departures room opened up for a kid like Joseph Fauria and it looks like coaches will also try to hold a spot open for Josh Smith from Colorado.

Note that we still have some ways to go before our personnel issues are all sorted out. From the incoming class three players - Taniela Maka, Nike Abele and Eddie Williams - still have some work to do to become academically eligible for UCLA (remember unlike U$C* those issues don't get magically "resolved" at UCLA). So after all is said and done UCLA could be around the 81/82 mark in terms of total scholarship players, which would give the coaches lot more room to maneuver with regards to the class of 2010.

Moving on to other football related notes, congrats to Christian Yount for being named to the Playboy All America team. He became the first ever long-snapper to get selected for that team:

Meanwhile, Christian's teammate ATV has put up his second blogpost from this summer:

This past week has been a bit slower than the week before. My Romanian class has gotten a bit harder. We are now getting into conjugations of verbs, definite articles, and masculine/feminine forms of nouns, all of which can be very tricky! I scored another 10 on a quiz so I am starting to get the hang of it. The hours are long, but we are making a lot of progress in the class. However, speaking the language is a totally different challenge. It's hard for me to get that "r" sound just right, but the teacher is working with me.

Football workouts have been stepped up this week. The intensity in the weight room has been pushed way up and the conditioning drills are also at a high level. The defensive backs and every other position have been competing to be the best at each of the drills. A special "shout out" goes to fellow defensive back Courtney Viney, who works out with me at six o'clock each morning. He has been trying to make me better by challenging me in every obstacle, but I do the same to him. We had a couple of people plateau already this summer and that gets me fired up to get there as well.

Learning Romanian sounds just a tad bit more difficult than cruising through Senora Ross's class. No?

Lastly, ATV is not the only UCLA football player who is having fun writing this summer. Tobi Umodu has his own writeup of Bruin football players' summer workouts in his weekly "Keeping it Bruin":

Last season the offense took a lot of criticism for most of the problems the Bruins had, but this summer the offense has worked as hard as they can to change that. Recently named starting quarterback Kevin Prince has taken a strong leadership role among the offensive players and seems to be handling his new responsibilities with a lot of poise and capability.

There is nothing easy about getting up early morning to workout and run until your legs just will not carry you anymore, and then have to head off to class right after, but the members of the UCLA football team do not feel that way. They know how much work it will take to change the Bruin football program around and they are not afraid to do it.

You can read rest of Tobi's writeup here.

I always love reading this kind of reports on off season workouts. My issue with them though is its something we read every off season from every team. So you have to take them with a grain of salt. Still though I think for the first time in years, there is certain amount of optimism around our program given the way our coaches have been managing the program. As we had said over and over again, if they can build on the recruiting successes of past two years and put together a bowl season (6 or 7 regular season wins), that will make all all the hard work these kids are putting through this off-season worth it. It will allow the program to continue to move towards the right direction for the first time since December 5, 1998 (Melsby was down).

GO BRUINS.

BN Roundup: Baron Davis Is A "BRUIN FOR LIFE" Edition

Nestor — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:00:21 -0000

Let's start our Monday with some good news from the basketball front. Per Dohn JMM is working out again:

UCLA hoops sophomore-to-be center J'mison Morgan is back working out after offseason knee surgery. He was doing individual shooting and jumping drills with coaches last week.

Keeping fingers crossed for the big fella's full recovery. It is great to hear how the kid instead of feeling discouraged from his recent surgery is doing everything he can to get healthy and get in shape for next season. No doubt this kind of perseverence will pay off for him in Westwood.

Switching gears let's work in some football and softball. Bruin FB Tobi Umodo has a passion for sports writing. During the off season he pens a weekly column entitled, "Keeping It Bruin: A Look Into UCLA Athletics," for the Canyon News, which I am assuming is a publication serving the Westside. This week Tobi is bummed out about the softball team's early exit from the NCAA tournament:

WESTWOOD—I was hoping I would not have to write this article at all, but unfortunately life does not always work out the way you want it to. This holds very true for the UCLA softball team as they were ousted from the Super Regionals by the Missouri Tigers on Sunday, May 24, in the third game of the series.

The Bruins went into the series defeating the Tigers earlier during preseason 2-1, so it was a tad bit ironic that after the first game on Saturday, the Tigers came out on top 2-1. Defensively the Bruins had no problems. Their ace, junior Megan Langenfeld pitched a complete game, allowing only five hits, two runs and one walk in seven innings while striking out six batters.

Unfortunately they were not able to translate their success on defensive over to their batting. They finished the game with only five hits, two by sophomore Katie Schroeder, and left seven runners on base. After the disappointing lost, they came Sunday with the need to win both games to move on in the tournament.

"It was a combination of a lot of different things," said junior Kaila Shull about their performance on Saturday. "We came out Saturday and lost and that changes the dynamic of everything, knowing your going into Sunday having to win two games. We need to execute better offensively."

You can read Tobi's writeup over here. Of course in case you haven't make sure to read Daynuh's full season wrap which is currently in the recommended section of our fanposts.

Moving on, we have notes from couple of NBA alums who have prospered despite having to suffer through Lavin era in Westwood. Jason Kapono recently traveled to Korea and spoke to the youngsters over there about making the best out of his talent and ability in the NBA:

At the camp, which wrapped up Sunday, Kapono shared a bit of his knowledge and experience with Korea's best young players. He talked about the importance of helping the team win by doing what you do best.

``Not everyone is going to be a LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, who does everything well. You've got to figure out what your strengths are and try to perfect them.

``You have to figure out how to take your skills and mesh it in with five other guys. There's a lot of players who care more about their stats, but if you don't win, it's not a lot of fun.''

As a specialist, Kapono comes off the bench and receives about 20 minutes of playing time per game, taking about 10 shots, including a few from downtown. Over his career, Kapono has proved his worth by making the best of limited opportunities.

Kapono embraces his role as a specialist and said he's modeled his game after players like Kerr, who play a similar style and have similar strengths. He said he planned to advise the young players at the camp to do the same.

While the specialists never get the glory of the superstars, the 28-year-old does have an NBA championship ring he earned with the Miami Heat in 2006 and he's also a two-time NBA All-Star Weekend 3-Point Shootout Champion (2007-2008).

From reading the piece, I was pretty amazed to find out that Jason is currently tied with Arizona alum Steve Kerr as the greatest 3-point specialist of all time, with a career average of 0.454. Good for Jason. He was always classy and maintained his composure while his talent was being wasted by an incompetent individual posing as a head coach at UCLA.

Another kid, who has been able to make the best out of his basketball talent despite getting no coaching at UCLA is Baron Davis. B'Diddy is currently enjoying his off season and just like KL and MJD, is setting examples on how to pimp UCLA every opportunity he gets. Here was his twitter feed from this past weekend:

You can follow Baron along with his legion of followers by going here. You can of course keep track of us in twitterverse why following us here.

GO BRUINS.