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Eli Manning

Super Bowl Sunday - Go Eli!

Well, Super Bowl Sunday is finally here!

Eli goes back for the pass...he's looking long!

The Eli roar! No Eli pout here.

And all I can say is go Giants, go Eli (Eli Manning that is, not Eli Yale)!

Chili meal for the big game.

I have my chili simmering on the stove. And because you are what you eat, my chili is made with our home grown beef (thank you to my grandmother!), home grown tomatoes (thank you to my mother!) and other all natural, from scratch ingredients--nothing canned or processed here! We will have corn muffins on the side and peach (yes, home grown) cobbler for dessert. Come what may, this is Louisiana and we will eat well!

Eli

Though I have some friends who do not admit to be fans of Eli Manning, because they perceive him as arrogant--I like that about him. I think if you are a good NFL QB, you are due a certain amount of confidence that others may take as arrogance. I like Eli's little pouts when a pass goes incomplete because a receiver dropped it or threw short. It shows character.

Excessive Celebrating

And everything every athlete who works hard and fights hard deserves to celebrate on the field.
I love to scream when I score a touch on the fencing strip. I enjoy dropping to my knees, yanking off my mask, tossing it to the side and screaming when I win a tournament! Dramatic? Yes, but worth it!

I worked hard for that win and life is just too short to not celebrate on the field of play--whether it is a fencing strip or a football field. I think the NFL regulations that penalize a player for excessive celebrations are hooey.
Let them celebrate! I would!

NY Giants

Jeremy Lin: 2 Incredible Stories from Knicks-Lakers

I have been staring at my computer screen for 10 minutes. I have 22 e-mails in my inbox from the last hour. I've sent text messages to over a dozen people. I can't concentrate. I keep on trying to come up with a series of complex sentences and metaphors to describe what I've just seen and how I'm feeling and nothing's coming to mind. I write thousands of words a week, and somehow I can't find the words to adequately describe the one sports story that I've had the biggest emotional response to.

Jeremy Lin just dropped 38 points on Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Am I dreaming?

Jeremy Lin life stories are emerging from the interweb at a pace that would make Usain Bolt's shoes melt. But, for posterity's sake, here we go.

Lin was an undrafted free agent in the 2010 rookie class coming out of the very prestigious academic heavyweight Harvard University. There's almost no need to say it, but as one of the finest institutions of higher learning on the entire planet, Harvard isn't exactly renowned for its athletic programs. Before Lin, only 3 other varsity basketball student-athletes had ever made to the big leagues. In fact, the Harvard pedigree has produced twice as many United States Presidents (8) as they have NBA players (4).

Despite taking his high school team to the California State Championship his senior year, Lin was only offered a basketball scholarship by 2 schools; Harvard, of course, and Brown University. Lin chose Harvard, only to see the program flourish underneath his skilled handle. The Crimson went on to their winningest season ever, and along the way, defeating the #17th ranked Boston College Eagles in 2009, and then again the following year (not to mention the next two years WITHOUT Lin - so maybe this speaks more to the inferiority of a supposed ACC-caliber team in the Eagles than the upstart Crimson).

Jeremy went unselected in the NBA Draft, as few scouts and critics saw him as anything more than a somewhat athletic Ivy League player whose collegiate dominance was supremely tied into the substandard competition he faced. Lin, as many undrafted free agents do, went on to play in the NBA's Las Vegas Summer League, hoping to catch on as an invitee to any training camp, or at best, sign a non-guaranteed contract with one of the 30 teams. To the surprise of everyone (except for perhaps those who saw his skill firsthand in high school or college), Lin was one of the most effective players in Vegas, dropping nearly 10 points in 18 minutes on 54% shooting. Scouts were stunned by Lin's confidence with the ball, his decision-making ability and fearlessness in the face of more polished prospects. He was soon signed by his hometown Golden State Warriors.

Right there, in signing a two-year non-guaranteed deal, Lin's story was already an incredible one. He had overcome college scouts and coaches that didn't think he was anything but a limited player that won at the high school level. Those same people didn't think he could play well enough to warrant a scholarship to a 4-year college. He erased the stigma attached to playing in the Ivy League, a league known more for its scholastic achievements than any athletic endeavor. Even after overcoming all of those obstacles, he still managed to fight through the ignominious distinction of being undrafted, ignoring all the professional scouts and taking the hardest road to the NBA. Anything that he had achieved, right in that moment of being signed to a professional basketball contract, should have been enough.

Lin averaged only 2.6 points in 29 games as a Warrior. He was cut as soon as the NBA lockout vas lifted last December, only to be signed and waived 12 days later (on Christmas Eve, no less), by the Houston Rockets. Then, on December 27th, he was claimed by the guard-desperate New York Knicks. All the previous events had been dissapointing, but yet in a serendipitous turn of fate, Lin somehow landed on the team and situation for his talents to best thrive.

That's how we got here. From 6 years ago when Lin was wondering if the end of his high school basketball season would be the end of his competitive basketball career, to today, when he threw down 38 points against the Lakers and led the Knicks to victory, Jeremy Lin has overcome every single hurdle that's come his way.

Jeremy Lin Pics

Jeremy Lin Pics 1

Jeremy Lin Pics 2

Jeremy Lin Pics Set 3

Jerdmy Lin--A God Thing?

Jeremy Lin--A God Thing?

Call me an idiot or an infidel, but here's what I think. Every once in a while, the Lord God almighty throws us a knuckler nobody can touch. He creates an anomaly to toy with the impossible because when he does we all go slack-jawed. Every last one of us calls a halt to the tedium of our lives and breathes in the wonder--the insanity--of what's actually going on right before our eyes.

As per.

Last night Jeremy Lin hit a three-pointer with less than a second to play to lead the New York Knicks to victory over the poor Toronto Raptors, who can thank their lucky stars they weren't at a casino, because had they been their losses would have been massive. The Knicks on the other hand, who've now won six-in-a-row, should have been. They'd have run the house flat out of business. Why? Pardon my iniquities here--because the Knicks suddenly seem to have God on their side. And his name isn't Tebow.

And his name isn't even Jeremy Lin, whose court heroics have grown to legendary in the last ten days by way of a nearly uninterrupted series of insane hardcourt exploits. Some of my devout Christian friends are fond of calling their own personal sweet turns of fate "God things." Okay, I roll my eyes at such theology, but, good night, this Jeremy Lin is, isn't he? He has to be. He's not God, but he's got to be a God thing.

Quick now--name five blue-chip Asian-American ball players. Go on. Go on. How about this--two Chinese in the NBA Hall of Fame?

Stumped? Hmmm. What's the matter?--you racist?

There ain't none. Jeremy Lin is absolutely and positively one-of-a-kind. He's Taiwanese, not Frisian. He belongs to the little people of the world. Last week I sat in a church half-full of Southeast Asians, half full of Dutch-Americans, creating the kind of steep drop off fishermen dream of, a two-tiered sanctuary. Asian-Americans in the NBA are hens teeth. I'm sure there are--some place in America--other terrific Asian-American hoop stars, but they don't fare well in the land of the NBA giants.

Get this--Jeremy Lin is from Harvard too. If Romney gets the Republican nod, two Harvard alums will face off come November, a plain fact that will shock no one. But I don't know if there was ever another Harvard grad in the NBA.

His degree in economics. You read that right. Not only is he degreed, he's an economist, which should prove mightily helpful because, if they haven't already, the bucks are going to rain down starting any minute.

An Asian-American, Harvard grad, economics major is, this morning, an NBA star. Last night he hit a three-pointer with less than a second left. You go to see it to believe it. I'm not making this up.

Man bites dog--that's what kind of story this is. Niagara goes dry. Ivory stops floathng. Newt goes sweet. Tea Party caves. Democrats slash entitlements.

"Linsanity" New Yorkers call it. Call me a heretic, but I say that somewhere at the command post of this world, there's direction to this madness. I call it a God thing.

Jeremy Lin has found a home

Jeremy Lin has found a home.

The New York Knicks point guard, who slept on his brother's couch in Manhattan early in his tenure with the team, is moving to a swanky apartment in a suburb of New York City.

According to a report in the New York Daily News, Lin has moved into the Trump Tower in City Center, in White Plains, N.Y. The building is in close proximity to the Knicks training facility in Greenburgh, N.Y.

According to the Daily News, Lin has sublet a two-bedroom apartment from former Knick David Lee. The paper reported that it's the same two-bedroom apartment that Knicks forward Amare Stoudemire rented before he moved to Manhattan.

Lin's lodgings became a hot topic when he said that he slept on teammate Landry Fields' couch the night before he scored 25 points and handed out seven assists in a win over the New Jersey Nets last Saturday. He also revealed that he'd been staying on his brother Josh's couch. Josh is a graduate student in Manhattan.

That night's win over New Jersey was the first of six in a row for the Knicks (14-15). All of the wins came with Lin playing major minutes; he's started in five of the last six games of the winning streak.

Lin is the first player to have at least 20 points and seven assists in each of his five career starts since at least 1970, when the Elias Sports Bureau became the official statistician of the NBA. The Harvard grad had scored 136 points in his first five career starts, which is the most by any player since the NBA and ABA merged in 1976. John Drew had 139 in 1974. In his last six games -- all Knicks wins -- the 23-year-old Lin is averaging 26.8 points and 8.5 assists.

Lin, an Asian-American, is the first American-born player of Taiwanese or Chinese descent to play in the NBA. Lin's parents emigrated from Taiwan in the 1970s. A grandmother remained in mainland China.

Lin was an end-of-the-bench player for New York for most of the season. The Knicks sent Lin to the D-League for one game in January and he played just 22 minutes in his first month with the team.