SB Nation User Blog: Nico2.0

BCS Championship Game Travel/Hotel/Stuff to do in LA Thread

Nico2.0 — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:29:56 -0000

Okay, since the general thread is way too broad and has too much going on in it, I'm breaking it down into three different threads:

Tailgating
Tickets to the game
Travel/hotel/stuff to do in LA

THIS IS THE THREAD FOR AIR TRAVEL, TRAINS, ROAD TRIPS, HOTELS AND STUFF TO DO IN LA

BCS Championship Game Tickets Thread

Nico2.0 — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:28:23 -0000

Okay, since the general thread is way too broad and has too much going on in it, I'm breaking it down into three different threads:

Tailgating
Tickets to the game
Travel/hotel/stuff to do in LA

THIS IS THE THREAD FOR TICKETS TO THE GAME

BCS Championship Game Tailgating Thread

Nico2.0 — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:26:05 -0000

Okay, since the general thread is way too broad and has too much going on in it, I'm breaking it down into three different threads:

Tailgating
Tickets to the game
Travel/hotel/stuff to do in LA

THIS IS THE TAILGATING THREAD

UA's Official YouTube Channel?

Nico2.0 — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:11:51 -0000

Seems like UA has removed all of their official YouTube videos. Anybody know why? Man, I've been watching those things like they're going out of style lately. Love 'em. Please bring 'em back Bama.

Nico2.0's Favorite Music of 2009: RAIN MACHINE

Nico2.0 — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:29:52 -0000

Anybody that's spent more than a day two on Roll Bama Roll knows that we talk about music and movies a lot around here. 2009 is winding down, so despite our football frenzy, there's always time for some tunes (plus, BixBiederBecke requested something along these lines recently.) I'm not going to do a countdown or a Top 10 or anything formal like that, I'm just going to bestow upon you some songs and/or albums I loved this year.

RAIN MACHINE
Rain Machine

First up is RAIN MACHINE, a side project of TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone. I love TVOTR, love 'em...so I was excited to see what Kyp had up his sleeve for a side project. This song ("Give Blood") kind of sounds like it could be on a TVOTR record, but the rest of the album is definitely a departure from his main band. Gotta love the cowbell intro, angular guitar lines, lead vocals, female backing vocals, percussion, etc.

Here's a fun bit of trivia for you. I'm 99% sure that guitar in the video was purchased in Birmingham. Their show here this fall was the first leg of the tour and he said his regular guitar was broken by the airline and that they had to rush around town all day looking for a new guitar and that he finally found one he liked...that is assuming of course they don't tell that story in every town they visit...

Poll

So, how awesome is this song?

RBR at the Movies: Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

Nico2.0 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:06:21 -0000

"RBR at the Movies" is a new feature I've cooked up to help get us through the offseason and/or bye weeks/slow news days, etc. I know we have the biggest game for our program in nearly two decades coming up in a few weeks, but right now things have slowed a little bit. Ingram's won the Heisman, but the team isn't practicing, and we're still several days away from the first bowl games, so I figured I'd go ahead and throw one of these out here. Anyway, consider this column the cinematic version of Kleph's RBR Reading Room. I'm primarily going to cover football movies at first, but really any sports movies are up for review. To kick things off (no pun intended), a documentary...

When I first saw the black & white image and the title Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, I assumed it was going to refer to some bizarre incident where the game was decided by the flipping of a coin because it was getting too dark for the game to continue or something like that.

It turns out that that couldn't be further from the truth. Thecontest in question is from November 23, 1968 and featured both teams coming into the rivalry game undefeated. Despite both teams having perfect records, Yale was favored in the game as they'd cruised through most of their schedule that season; a 25-13 win at Cornell being the closest they came to defeat. Harvard on the other hand had some close calls: a 9-7 win at Princeton and a few other games that were only decided by a touchdown. Harvard were considered to be overachievers in 1968.

Though the production value of the documentary feels a bit low at times (interviews being done in people's kitchens with coffee makers, etc. in the background instead of a simple studio setup) the story itself is fascinating. First of all, Tommy Lee Jones played in the game, so that had my curiosity factor up right off the bat. Add to that these interesting side stories and you've got a compelling story on your hands: one of the Yale players was a roommate of George W. Bush, another Yale player was dating Meryl Streep at the time of the game, a bunch of the Harvard guys were friends with Al Gore and it turns out that Gary Trudeau of Doonesbury fame based the character of B.D. on Yale quarterback Brian Dowling who was captain of their squad in 1968. It's also interesting the way the Vietnam war and the politics of the era play into the retelling of the game. Some of the players were anti-war protestors while some of their teammates were veterans of the same war being protested.

The film interweaves modern day interviews with the players with highlights from the 1968 contest. Storylines with various players are developed and just like a Hollywood movie, there are protagonists and villians. One need not be a fan of either team to enjoy this documentary. Even though Ivy League football is an afterthought in our day and age (as it largely was when this game occurred...only one player off of the two squads became a professional), these two former powerhouses are fierce rivals and that's never going to be diminished regardless of what caliber the overall quality of the teams is. Despite many of them being New England old money, these guys had a passion for their team and a true hatred of their opponent, which is really the recipe for any great rivalry. That's something we can all relate to and ultimately what makes this film successful.

Should Alabama Basketball Play a Game Annually in Birmingham?

Nico2.0 — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:39:38 -0000

In this fanpost about the Alabama vs. Purdue basketball game, attendance at the game was something brought up...as is often the case with our basketball program. Coleman Coliseum holds 15,316 and 12,477 were on hand to see us play the (at the time) #5 team in the country. That's roughly 81% full to see us take on one of the best in the land. We're unquestionably a football school with everything else being way behind as far as the level of attendance (I'm talking percentage of capacity here as nothing can obviously compete with football numbers-wise) and the level of intensity.

Since Alabama's football playing days in Birmingham are over, it makes me wonder if they should perhaps dedicate themselves to playing a basketball game in Birmingham on an annual basis since there's a lot of history between the University and Birmingham. Obviously, you'd keep all of the conference games in Tuscaloosa at Coleman Coliseum, but considering that Tuscaloosa more or less turns into a ghost town during the winter break, it seems like moving a game against a marquee opponent to the BJCC might be worth looking into. There's obviously a much bigger population base in Birmingham and it probably isn't too expensive or cumbersome to get the team to the Magic City from Tuscaloosa. The BJCC holds 17,654 for basketball games, which is, admittedly, too large for our program, but if you're going to have a bunch of empty seats anyway, might as well mix it up and do some "local barnstorming." Perhaps they could make it a big annual event for the local alumni society or something.

I know this is out of left field and I know neither party would ever go for it, but it'd be pretty awesome to have an annual game at Bartow Arena (capacity of just over 8,000.) That place gets absolutely rocking during games since it's so small and even on the last row of the arena you feel like you're on top of the action. Anyway, now back to reality...

I looked back at the last 10 years or so to see the attendance of games in the month of December (and early January) against "name opponents" to see if the idea was worth exploring:

03 JAN 2009: 9,988 for Georgia Tech (65% capacity)
13 DEC 2008: 9,316 for Texas A&M (61% capacity)
01 JAN 2008: 9,316 for Clemson (61% capacity)
01 JAN 2007: 11,538 for Oklahoma (75% capacity)
22 DEC 2005: 10,621 for North Carolina State (69% capacity)
11 DEC 2004: 11,751 for Temple (77% capacity)
30 DEC 2003: 10,714 for Wisconsin (70% capacity)

For some reason, attendance numbers weren't available for a home game against Providence in the early 2000s, nor for the game in Birmingham against Georgetown a few years ago (the box score on RollTide.com lacks the attendance figures and the box score on Georgetown's site doesn't exist.) Oh yeah, it's not a typo on the Texas A&M and Clemson attendances being identical, I checked it multiple times. Admittedly, this is a small sample size and some data is missing (no attendance figures for 01-02, 02-03 seasons), but we're not even cracking 2/3 capacity on some of these games. I know some of that had to do with people's frustration over Gottfriend's coaching, and some probably had to do with games being played on New Year's Day, but the numbers aren't what they could be. I'm very much in the camp of the games should be on campus and for the students, but since they're playing when school's out of session, why not move one to Birmingham once a year?

Poll

Should Alabama basketball play one game a year in Birmingham when school is not in session?

Alabama Dismisses Classes January 6-8

Nico2.0 — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:17:29 -0000

Alabama Dismisses Classes January 6-8

From the link:
The University of Alabama will resume its normal operations on Monday, Jan. 4, 2010 as scheduled. However, given the number of students who have to be in Pasadena, Calif. to represent UA on Jan. 7 and the number of faculty, staff and students who want to be there, classes will be dismissed Jan. 6-8. Students should expect additional assignments to make up for the lost class time.

The Official RBR BCS Championship Game Tickets & Travel Thread

Nico2.0 — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:29:11 -0000

Others have posted about the trip, but I figured we should create one central location to talk about travel, tickets, etc. Please give it the necessary recs to get stickied in the recommended section.

As I mentioned yesterday in my fanpost of the Random 10, this is my song of the night. May it be...

Nico2.0 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 05:48:09 -0000

As I mentioned yesterday in my fanpost of the Random 10, this is my song of the night. May it be again on January 7th.