Running Tar Heel

Using technology to overcome the pitfalls of technology

2012-01-23T19:18:00.000-05:00

Years ago, it was easy to enjoy my preferred way to watch Carolina football and basketball games from home.

As Woody Durham used to call it, I had my own "Turn Down The Sound Party."

All I had to do is turn down the sound on the TV and flip on the radio to listen to the Tar Heel Sports Network and there were no issues with one being ahead of the other.

Technology changed that in the last decade or so and has made it maddeningly difficult. TV signals now take longer to arrive than a radio signal.

When I was in Newport News, Va., I could get a stream of the broadcast on the Internet and use my DirecTV DVR to sync them. I used to be able to do the same thing here in the Triangle with a radio broadcast until DirecTV's latest DVR made it next to impossible: When you pause it and then press play, it kicks back about five seconds. It just wasn't working.

My dad discovered and gave me a product that has given me a perfect solution.

Using the SportSync AM/FM audio-delay radio, I can delay the broadcast up to 8 seconds. That has allowed me to listen to Jones Angell, Eric Montross and the THSN and has spared me the yelling antics of Dick Vitale.

I have the SR-101 model. The SR-202 model pictured is the only one that appears to be sold now and it goes for around $60. Pretty pricey. But if you really want to hear the call from your favorite team's radio network, it might just be worth it.

On Thursday night when many of you Carolina (and State fans, for that matter) are groaning about having to listen to Dick Vitale while watching the game, I'll be blissfully unaware of his rants.

My morning runs are a lot more entertaining with Brad and Britt

2012-01-21T18:44:00.000-05:00

Thanks to two daily running partners on the radio, my early-morning runs are a lot more entertaining.

Generally, I prefer listening to talk radio during my runs. When I lived in Newport News, Va., and usually ran around 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m., The Dan Patrick Show gave me an excellent option and Colin Cowherd (The Herd on ESPN Radio) was interesting many times.

Our move back to the Triangle in May 2010 shifted my work schedule, dictated that runs would start a little after 6 a.m., and I soon found a big problem: The options I knew about weren't very good.

There was Mike and Mike in the Morning on WCMC-FM (99.9 The Fan) and Mark and Mike on WDNC-AM (620 The Bull.) Both can be entertaining at times if they hit a subject that interests me or if they are interviewing somebody knowledgeable or interesting. But, for the most part, I'm bored -- and in the case of Mike and Mike irritated -- with those shows.

Mark Thomas and Mike Maniscalco have decent ACC discussions at times and Maniscalco does generate informative discussions about the Carolina Hurricanes. But those are the exceptions.

Brad Krantz and Britt Whitmire provide compelling
and entertaining talk in the mornings for Triad
and Triangle listeners.

Without hearing about them from anybody or any source, I started looking around the FM dial and stumbled on the Brad and Britt show on WZTK (FM Talk 101.1). My runs have been much more entertaining since then, although it can be a challenge to run while laughing.

When I first started listening to Brad Krantz and Britt Whitmire in 2010, I figured that they must be syndicated and was stunned that one radio station had them all to itself.

Their station has an interesting geographic base since it draws in listeners from the Triad and the Triangle, but that does mean hearing stories during news updates sometimes from Greensboro that I don't care about.

I love sports, but how much sports talk can you take, particularly when it often is inane and NFL heavy? Brad and Britt do talk sports at times, but they hit a wide range of topics. They can bring humor and insight to a variety of subjects.

I am a hopeless political junkie, and Brad and Britt know politics, bringing excellent analysis throughout the current presidential campaign and particularly the morning after each debate.

They'll hammer both sides of the political spectrum even though they obviously lean to the left and Britt is a Libertarian.

Britt does terrific impressions. The most common is of Dan Rather, which he does daily with "The Rather Report." He does excellent impressions of George W. Bush, Strom Thurmond and Rush Limbaugh (Lil' Rush), among others. Even Sarah Palin? You betcha!

I will flip around at the top of the 7 o'clock hour until the Rather Report. I'll also do that if there's a topic that doesn't interest me, or a commercial break or the Panthers Report (which thankfully is done for the season) is airing, but Mike and Mike are so irritating that I don't stay away from 101.1 very long.

From the start of each hour in which Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic inexplicably are asked to do SportsCenter updates (have these guys heard of the NHL?) to Greenberg declaring that they are "back and better than ever," they give me so many reasons to turn away.

Seemingly every person Greenberg interviews is "the best" and every hour is the best ever. Golic actually is more tolerable, but the NFL obsession is too much to take. When Greenberg starts an hour by telling you there will be plenty of NFL talk, it's like me declaring that I have no hair-parting options.

Mike and Mike do have excellent guests at times and when Jay Bilas or ESPN's many baseball analysts are on, that's radio I enjoy. Mark and Mike have decent guests, although most of the interviews seem to be taped the day before (and repeated from one hour to the next), but the questioning isn't as good as it is on Mike and Mike.

Another maddening part of Mike and Mike is that I don't think those guys are allowed to cough without it being sponsored. From every call being sponsored by a national sandwich chain to a sponsor for "what everybody's talking about," you would think it's a NASCAR race. That's thankfully not the case with Brad and Britt.

Don't get me started on the crazy songs they come up with for players and the completely stupid bit they do when picking NFL games. Maybe I'm just not the demographic they're targeting.

I also appreciate that Brad and Britt don't beat you over the head with teasers. Mike and Mike never go to a commercial without teasing you with some allegedly great information or tidbit they will give you when they come back. And "coming up next" could actually not happen for 15 minutes. Brad and Britt will tell you which guests they will welcome later in the show, but the way they do it isn't irritating at all.

On a regular basis, Brad and Britt bring on an impressive stable of ABC Radio reporters. My favorite is White House correspondent Ann Compton. They also welcome Sam Donaldson on a weekly basis, although he invariably doesn't come on until I'm at work. They have all sorts of national guests who make for compelling radio, and they aren't shy about asking tough questions.

I've listened to talk radio for years. Outside of the sports-radio realm, I remember listening to Larry Glick out of Boston, Perry Marshall out of Pittsburgh and Bob Lacey (Lacey Listens) out of Charlotte when I was a kid. All didn't have a political agenda and were entertaining. Such shows are really hard to find these days.

Brad and Britt belong on, if not at the top of, the list of the best radio talk shows I've heard. I'm glad they're part of my morning routine.

Newspaper business just keeps getting more crazy

2012-01-12T20:39:00.000-05:00

I got news about two of my former newspapers Thursday. Both surprised me, but I suppose neither should stun me.

Logic in the newspaper industry would probably stun me.

I learned from a blog post by Burlington Times-News Editor Madison Taylor that carriers for the Times-News have started delivering the Greensboro News & Record. It's not quite like Mike Krzyzewski sharing scouting reports with Roy Williams, but it's very hard to believe. (As an aside, I delivered the Greensboro Daily News during my senior year of high school in Chapel Hill.)

Why the two biggest papers in the Triangle, the Herald-Sun and the News & Observer, will go without on-site copy desks before something crazy like that happens. Wait. All of that has happened.

When I was at the Times-News, we battled the News & Record on a daily basis and hated when it scooped us on a story. It was more competition to us than we were for it, but the battle lines definitely were there.

I remember having to sign a non-compete agreement that wouldn't allow me to work for the competition for one year after I left the Times-News. The agreement was really only enforced if you wanted to go to the News & Record. I left the Times-News for the The Herald-Sun, and it was no problem.

Sadly, the other news was much less surprising. The Newport News Daily Press, which laid me off in March 2010 after I had survived 6 rounds of layoffs in 5 years, had yet another round of layoffs. This time it was 31 people, including three in the newsroom. It sounds like two of the newsroom people departing took buyouts, which turns a huge negative into a slight positive.

I have that unsettling feeling I've had many times before: Very sad for the friends who no longer have jobs but very happy for my friends who still have jobs.

The first I heard of the DP layoffs was from something called the James River Journal, which was new to me. It ran a poorly-written story that said said the DP would lay off 150 people "over the next few weeks." When I heard it was "only" 31, I was a little relieved. I question the accuracy of the story knowing that this week it was 31 and not 150. I do worry about the "over the next few weeks" part.

When I see all the bad publicity that Mitt Romney is getting because of the "vulture capitalist" activities that are alleged to have happened at Bain Capital when he worked there, I can't help but think of Sam Zell. What he set into motion at Tribune is not quite the same, but is no less sad.

Obviously, plenty of newspapers have been trimming staff for years. But what Zell did to Tribune newspapers sounds similar to Bain. He sold off Newsday and made decisions that have led to a massive amount of layoffs in the chain.

I don't know about the other Tribune newspapers, but the Daily Press was a thriving newspaper with many more writers, copy editors and photographers before Zell's people started carving it up. From what I understand, the DP was doing pretty well financially. There are still good people there, but the numbers are way down.

I'm happy for folks who still are working in newspapers, but I'm awfully glad I'm not one of them!

The myth that games always fit into 2-hour programming window

2012-01-09T20:11:00.001-05:00

Why does ESPN think that a college basketball game fits into 2-hour programming window?

This belief by its programming people forces fans to miss the opening tip (and, in some case, much more) of way too many basketball games.

It's not always a basketball game that is the culprit.

In the 1984-85 season, there was a men's tennis match that preceded the Tar Heels' game at LSU and went five sets. Luckily I could listen to the Tar Heel Sports Network radio broadcast as the seemingly never-ending match dragged on. ESPN didn't join the Carolina game until four minutes into the second half.

That's the most drastic example of a frustrating dynamic that's repeated practically on a daily basis on ESPN's channels during the basketball season. Every time a UNC game is scheduled to tip off on an ESPN channel two hours after another game tips off on the same channel, I know that it's likely that I won't be able to see the entire game on TV.

A tennis match is much less predictable. With four TV timeouts per half, very few basketball games are completed in two hours, particularly when there is a close finish.

It doesn't have to be like that. I would invite ESPN to take a look at what the ACC Network did last weekend. It aired the Virginia Tech at Wake Forest game at noon Saturday, then the Boston College at Carolina game at 2:30. ESPN would have had the UNC game tip off at 2 p.m.

UNC and B.C. fans didn't have to worry about missing the beginning of their game. No such luck for Miami and Virginia fans. The 4 p.m. Notre Dame-Louisville game went into double overtime, so ESPNU didn't join the Miami-U.Va. game (which it scheduled to start at 6 p.m.) until 6:17 remained in the first half.

Why can't ESPN shift the beginning of such games to ESPN News? ESPN has alternate channels. Why can't ESPN shift the beginning of those games there?

I don't think that ESPN will ever consider a 2.5-hour window for college basketball games. Most games don't need that much time and that does leave a lot of time to fill in many cases.

But why not a 2-hour, 15-minute window? A 4.5-hour window for two games? It's not going to completely prevent one game for overflowing into another, but it's going to eliminate a lot of those cases.

There is the ESPN3 option for some fans, but who wants to watch the game on your computer? Unfortunately it isn't an option for me because I am a DirecTV customer who gets Internet service from Time Warner Cable. TWC only gives Internet customers access to ESPN3 when they also subscribe to cable and receive ESPN.

Carolina fans potentially faced the same situation Saturday when ESPN aired the Kentucky-Tennessee game at noon and then the UNC-Florida State game. Fortunately the UNC game didn't actually start until 2:10 p.m., so we only missed the first 41 seconds of the Tar Heels' game. Had Kentucky-Tennessee gone into overtime, who knows how much of the UNC game would have been missed?

After all these years of this maddening practice by ESPN, it's not likely that it will change its scheduling anytime soon. But a fan always can hope!

Talent drives unconventional approach to N&O's Duke coverage

2012-01-05T18:35:00.001-05:00

It seems that within large newspaper chains, many big decisions are made with an eye on the bottom line and barely a thought about what it will mean for the quality of the product. There appeared to be another such case in the Triangle.

What if you were told that largest area newspaper covering a national men's college basketball power did so with a part-time writer? You wouldn't believe it.

The bad news for Raleigh News & Observer readers is that it's true.

Daly

The same McClatchy chain that took away Raleigh's copy desk and shifted all desk work to a regional desk in Charlotte made another curious move. Since late November, the Duke men's basketball beat writer for the N&O has been Jack Daly, who is now a part-time employee at the newspaper.

The first piece of good news? Daly is a good choice as a beat writer. He distinguished himself as the UNC beat writer for the The Herald-Sun in Durham before leaving to go to graduate school.

Tim Crothers is a former senior writer at Sports Illustrated
and wrote a biography about UNC women's soccer
coaching legend Anson Dorrance.

The second piece of good news? The N&O also is adding former Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Crothers, also as a part-time writer. N&O Executive Editor John Drescher said Friday that Daly and Crothers will focus on Duke but also get other ACC assignments.

Drescher said the fact that Duke is covered by part-time writers shouldn't be an issue.

"I don't think our readers care about hours a reporter is budgeted to work; I think they care about the quality of our coverage," he said in emailed comments, admitting that this is a new approach.

"This is a different beat structure than we've had in the past, but we ought to experiment," Drescher said. "We feel good about having Jack and Tim as part of the team."

When this season began, Ken Tysiac covered Duke's men's basketball. He left the beat and the newspaper after the Blue Devils' Nov. 18 victory over Davidson to become a senior editor at the Journal of Accountancy.

The N&O didn't cover Duke's run to the Maui Classic title, then sent Charlotte Observer sportswriter Rick Bonnell to the Blue Devils' blowout loss at Ohio State. The N&O then sent Carolina Hurricanes beat writer Chip Alexander to New York to cover Duke's win over Washington on his way to covering the Canes' game at Toronto.

Since then, the N&O's beat writer has been Daly. Until his story on Duke's loss Wednesday night at Temple, he was listed as a correspondent. For that story, the correspondent tag was replaced with what usually is under the name of a full-time writer: his N&O email address.

Drescher

Why did the N&O not hire a full-time Duke beat writer? It seems logical to guess that this was another heavy-handed financial move made by McClatchy brass. But Drescher said that this isn't the case.

"McClatchy hasn't forced me to do anything," he said. "I have a budget and I have to stay within it. My budget hasn't changed recently.

"Ken was a Charlotte Observer employee when he wrote for both papers," Drescher said. "When he departed, Gary Schwab (senior sports editor for both papers), Rick Thames (editor of The Observer) and I decided this was the best solution."

This is the second change in a big beat in a short time for the N&O.

Pickeral

When Robbi Pickeral left the N&O's UNC beat to blog for ESPN.com in the fall, the N&O did hire a full-time replacement. It was fortunate to be able to lure Andrew Carter, who had been the Miami Dolphins beat writer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

For a Carolina fan like myself, it's been a 2-for-1 deal. Carter has done a good job and I also have enjoyed Pickeral's coverage on ESPN.com. Down the road, Harold Gutmann has stepped in as The Herald-Sun's beat writer after Briana Gorman left for Australia and also had done a good job.

Carter

"We lost a lot with Robbi Pickeral and Ken Tysiac left," Drescher said. "They were excellent. But we've added some excellent people. UNC beat reporter Andrew Carter is off to a good start and Jack and Tim are going to do well."

To the N&O's credit, it sent Daly to Philadelphia for Duke's loss to Temple while The Herald-Sun ran a story from The Associated Press.

Will the N&O's approach to covering Duke, which certainly comes with challenges, work?

"I believe we will have strong coverage of Duke and the ACC," Drescher said. "That's what our readers want and that's what we're going to give them. I don't think readers care about the inner workings of our newsroom budget. I think they care about coverage. That's what we are focused on."

The move to a regional desk, in which multiple newspapers are produced by one desk, has created issues for N&O readers. They initially included the lack of coverage of Triangle-area non-revenue sports, but those problems were ironed out.

Some of the errors, which I think are related to an overworked desk, have been chronicled by an anonymously run website called N&Oops. While I have made contributions, it's not my site and I have no idea who is behind it. Andy Bechtel did ask in this Q&A on his blog in December.

I don't see similar issues with this latest move.

The approach to covering Duke is unconventional. But given the talent that the N&O has brought in to execute it, it should give readers good coverage of the Blue Devils.

As a Carolina fan, of course, I hope that that coverage ends in mid-March.

Bring on a 16-team ACC

2011-09-18T19:38:00.001-04:00

I'm ready for a 16-team Atlantic Coast Conference.

That is something I never thought I would write. But given that the ACC already has gone to 14 teams, I like the way the league would look with 16 teams a lot better than its makeup with 14 teams.

Debbie Yow fought to make sure that
Maryland played Duke twice a year
in basketball while she was the Terps'
AD. Maryland will have a tough time
keeping that home-and-home
with Duke in a 16-team ACC.

N.C. State athletics director Debbie Yow already has said in an interview that aired Monday morning that the league will go to a North Division and a South Division.

If the a 14-team ACC has two divisions, the North Carolina schools will be split.

Likely 14-team ACC divisions:

North Division: Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Virginia and Wake Forest.

South Division: North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. .

How would the ACC split up the North Carolina teams is anybody's guess, but my money is on Wake Forest being the odd school out in that deal.

That's why I prefer the likely 16-team ACC divisions:

North Division: Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Virginia and two teams to be named later (Rutgers, West Virginia and Connecticut are just three possibilities.) This division likely would include six former members of the Big East Conference.

South Division: North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami.

If expansion to 16 teams does indeed involve
two more current Big East teams, designers
of the ACC logo will only have to add four
more dots. I'm sure logo designers for the
Big Ten, Big 12 (though that guy might
be looking for work) and the Pac 12
are quite jealous.

I like the latter because that would mean that the N.C. schools would play each other twice during basketball season and once every football season. This would also end the ridiculous setup since the last expansion in which N.C. State and Duke don't play every season in football. No matter how bad Duke was over the years, that always seemed to be a terrific game. They also haven't played twice in basketball every season.

Carolina has been lucky in that it still has been able to play N.C. State and Duke twice every season in basketball and every season in football. It would be nice to get back to having the Heels play Wake Forest every football season and twice every basketball season.

In these setup, you might not play everybody in your division twice in basketball and once on football. But if you break each division into two four-team pods, the North Carolina teams logically would be in one of those pods, and you definitely would have two basketball games and one football game against every team in your pod each season.

Maryland wouldn't like this, of course. The Terps fought hard to be a scheduling partner with Duke so that they would be assured of playing the Blue Devils home-and-home in basketball every year. But I don't think that Maryland would be able to fight its way into the South Division.

I would have preferred that the ACC not expand, but it ia not realistic to stay at 12 with the crazy state of college athletics. If it had to expand, I'm happy that the league has added two solid basketball schools considering that it seems that football drives nearly every conference expansion.

Hopefully this talk of Texas coming to the ACC is over since I'm reading that the Pac 12 likely will be hooking the Longhorns along with Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. That just was crazy. At least under the possible setups I've heard, Pittsburgh would be the only Atlantic Coast Conference school not located in a state that borders the Atlantic Ocean.

Hopefully if the predicted four superconferences come about, the ACC will be positioned to be part of some sort of college football tournament involving the four champions. (Not that my Heels will ever be involved.)

People who thought that ACC
commissioner John Swofford was
standing pat obviously were wrong.

I'm not happy with what the expansion will mean for the ACC Tournament. But as I've blogged and was featured saying last March on A1 of the News & Observer, I'd favor doing away with the ACC Tournament. I know that there's no way that's going to happen, though.

ACC commissioner John Swofford's comments Sunday suggest that he would expect that the ACC tournament will be played at Madison Square Garden at some point.

I have one question for Mr. Swofford: Will he make sure that a Stamey's Barbecue restaurant opens near Madison Square Garden? We don't need yet another ACC Tournament venue that doesn't accommodate the obligatory barbecue fixes during the tournament.

Right now, Swofford isn't too concerned with chopped barbecue. He's busy chopping up at the Big East.

Sad to see Kinston's long pro baseball run end

2011-09-17T13:47:00.000-04:00

There’s something special about minor-league baseball and the folks who embrace it as part of fabric of the small town. A classic old ball park attracts fans trying to catch a rising star who might just be the next Jim Thome. For many, it's just a terrific inexpensive option for some good family fun.

We just lost that tradition in Kinston.

Next season, the high-Class A Carolina League franchise that has been in Kinston since 1978 will move to Zebulon and become the Carolina Mudcats. The Double-A Southern League franchise that has been the Mudcats since 1989 is moving to Pensacola, Fla., next season. Unless Kinston manages to find another team, there will be no pro baseball at Grainger Stadium next season.

Kinston's long history of pro baseball that began in 1908 is over ... for now.

Twenty-one years ago (has it really been that long?), I had the pleasure of covering a couple of hundred Kinston games while I was sports editor of the Kinston Free Press. I was there for the start of possibly the last chapter of Kinston professional baseball in 1987, when the franchise's long and productive affiliation with the Cleveland Indians began.

Sadly, I was there when it ended Friday night on a rainy night with a miserable result: an 11-3 Kinston loss. The Frederick Keys' victory, sparked by a seemingly never-ending 11-run inning, earned the Carolina League title with a 3-1 series victory and provided a frustrating farewell to Grainger.

My younger son still was eight years from being born when I covered the Kinston Indians for the final time. At least he got a chance to experience possibly the last taste of what minor-league baseball once was in Kinston.

The turn of events is frustrating, but frankly not surprising. As the country's smallest city with a full-season minor-league team, the fact that Kinston was able to keep a team that long is a testament to the commitment of the owners, the town and the Cleveland organization.

The team's owner, Cam McRae, hadn't made money for years and you can't really blame him. To his credit, he's trying to find another team for Kinston.

It was the second time a deal was in the works to move the franchise to Zebulon. Before Steve Bryant bought the Columbus (Ga.) Mudcats in 1989 and made them the Carolina Mudcats, it looked like the Kinston Indians franchise would be headed there. Unfortunately, it's actually has happened this time.

When I covered the team, it never was called the K-Tribe as it has been in recent years and it simply was Grainger Stadium. But the team departs what has become known as Historic Grainger Stadium, a facility that is much nicer than the one I saw in my last previous Grainger Stadium visit in 1990.

Most of the off-the-field characters have changed.

I wasn’t able to hear the classic phrases of longtime scoreboard operator Delmonte Miller on Friday night. Is it really a Kinston game if we don’t hear cries of “ham and cheese” from Del? That was his way of yelling for a double play when an opponent had a runner on first with less than two outs.

I didn't realize until last week that Delmont died a few years ago of a heart attack. When I got to the stadium Friday night, I was thrilled to discover that the press box was named after Del. Bryan Hanks' blog noted a nice column by one of my former sportswriters at the Free Press, Todd Murray, about Delmont.

I sat with Del in the press box from August 1986 until the end of the 1990 season. There were lots of good stories to cover there as the general manager at the time, North Johnson, now the GM of the Triple-A Gwinnett Braves, had the franchise thriving.

North is a terrific guy and the team really had some of its best years after he took over control from Gary Fitzpatrick, whose idea of the way to boost attendance was to threaten to leave. Fitzpatrick once waited around 30 minutes to announce that a game was rained out so he could get the extra concessions revenue.

I remember interviewing Mike Hargrove at the airport in the winter of 1987 before he was about to take his first managing job at any level: Leading the first edition of the Kinston Indians.

No, this isn't my trading card, I just
I just found this image on the Internet.

Late in the '87 season, Hargrove got an enigmatic addition to the team, an outfielder then known as Joey Belle. He hit his first professional home run (in the Durham Athletic Park that you see in the movie "Bull Durham") the night the Indians clinched the second-half title. While all of Belle's new teammates celebrated in the dressing room, he sat quietly in a chair outside of the dressing room.

Belle had his share of run-ins with sportswriters, but I got along with him fine. On one particular afternoon in the 1988 season, I sat in the Kinston Indians office and watched a few innings of a Cubs game with him. A couple of weeks later, he abruptly left the team after hitting .301 with eight home runs in 41 games. Any other player would have been released on the spot. But the Indians, although suspending him, stuck with talented outfielder and the rest is history ... as Albert Belle.

That 1988 season, which included Grainger playing host to the Carolina League All-Star Game, was the highlight of the four full seasons I covered the club. I had a terrific rapport with the manager that year, Glenn Adams. I knew I was going to get some terrific quotes from Glenn when his first words to me were, "R.L., what the hell do you want?"

Adams had a solid team, although there ultimately weren't that many future major leaguers. Belle had the best big-league career and, sadly, the player who later made the second-most news was sidewinding pitcher Steve Olin, who died in a boating accident during spring training in 1993.

The most fun name to learn to spell was Hawaiian pitcher Carl Keliipuleole, who came out of the bullpen to the tune of the "Hawaii 5-0" theme song. PA announcer Jim Kelso would precede the song by saying, "here comes Hawaii 5-4" (he wore No. 54).

It's always more fun to cover a team that's winning, and there was plenty of that. Kinston dominated the league, sweeping both halves to finish the regular season 88-52. Kinston won a close, intense first-half race with the Durham Bulls in the year that "Bull Durham" was released. Kinston didn't put away the first-half title until beating Durham on the last day of the first half at Grainger, then coasted to the second-half title.

A curious question was asked of me before that first-half clinching victory. We had extensive coverage daily leading up to that game, and so had the TV stations. A fan came up to me before the game and asked, "Who are we playing tonight?" That was just a reminder that minor-league baseball is more like a night at the movies than a topic for the water cooler.

The Indians beat the Lynchburg Red Sox in the Carolina League championship series 3-2 to win the Mills Cup and Kinston's first league title since 1962. The Kinston Indians would add league titles in 1991, 1995, 2005 and 2005 before falling two wins short this season.

Earlier this season, Thome hit his 600th major-league home run. I saw many of the 33 games he played for Kinston in the 1990 season. Many Kinstonians probably had the same feeling seeing Thome hit No. 600 as I did: It is neat to see a player you saw in Class A ball reach a milestone such as that.

Will there be other future major-league stars who will first call Grainger Stadium home? I certainly hope so, although it seems more likely that Kinston will get a team in the wooden-bat amateur Coastal Plain League.

So long, Kinston Indians. Lenoir County and anybody who has ever enjoyed a night at Grainger will miss you. I know I will.

Sept. 11 and why I'll never like Caillou

2011-09-09T19:03:00.000-04:00

I slept right through horrible history 10 years ago when the United States was attacked Sept. 11, 2001.

Back in my newspaper days, I didn’t get home from work until 12:30 a.m. or later and stayed up a much later than I do now. I usually slept until 10 or 10:30 in the morning.

There was no Twitter, so I wasn’t getting news updates on my phone back then. I didn’t even have my own cell phone then; Jean and I shared one. So when I rolled out of bed about 10:20 that day, I had no clue what already had transpired earlier in the morning.

My younger son, Scott, then 3 years old, was watching Caillou on PBS when I woke up. Once he finished watching that show at 10:30, I grabbed the remote control on the television and prepared to flip over to The Weather Channel to see what the conditions would be for my run that morning.

For whatever reason, I first switched to CNN to see what the headlines were. I was greeted by a split screen, one showing the scene around the World Trade Center and one showing the Pentagon. (What I saw is very similar to the below image taken a little less than 30 minutes earlier.)

I never went on a run that day, even though it was nice and sunny in Hillsborough, where I was living at the time. Instead I couldn’t stop watching the news channels in disbelief and horror over what was happening.

My older son, Alex, who is a freshman in college but was 8 at the time, was sick and didn’t go to school that day. I remember being happy to have him at home on a day with so much fear and uncertainty.

Just driving to work that afternoon (I was assistant sports editor of the Durham Herald-Sun at the time) seemed eerie. Although everything looked fine around me, it just felt haunting not knowing what else might happen that day.

Nothing against the fine people who produce Caillou, but I’ve never liked that cartoon since that day because I forever will associate the show with Sept. 11, 2001.

Nice changes at the N&O

2011-09-09T18:17:00.001-04:00

The sports section this morning really did read like the Raleigh News & Observer rather than the Charlotte N&O.

I wrote earlier this week about how alarming it was for there to be nothing in Monday’s paper after the two top-ranked men’s college soccer teams in the country played Sunday in the Triangle. Not even a score. Also alarming was the apparent pattern of ignoring Triangle non-revenue college sports in the N&O while running blurbs on Charlotte and Davidson games.

Hopefully Friday’s paper is evidence that this is changing.

First, the N&O played a little catch up on its coverage of the now top-ranked UNC men’s soccer team with a nice story from Jonathan Jones. I attended the 2-1 victory over then-No. 1 Louisville on Sunday, but I learned a lot I didn’t know from that story. On top of that, the story started on the sports front.

Second, there was a short non-revenue college sports roundup on page 2 that included blurbs on N.C. State women’s soccer, Duke cross country and Duke volleyball. And, appropriately, nothing about how the soccer teams at Davidson and Charlotte fared (we’ll leave that for the Charlotte Observer).

It also was nice to have byline stories on the Durham Bulls’ playoff games this week from veteran baseball writer Mike Potter, even if the scores haven’t been so nice.

I’m not advocating blowout coverage of non-revenue college sports because I realize that there isn’t enough interest for that. But a newspaper’s sports section should be like a grocery store with a little bit of everything. It shouldn’t be a specialty store.

The N&O has and likely still will provide excellent ACC football and basketball coverage. The level of this coverage is entirely appropriate and I will continue to enjoy it. But hopefully when another huge non-revenue game comes up, it will get coverage on the front page.

There still is a complete lack of agate on non-revenue sports and, considering some of the wire agate that makes it onto the Scoreboard page (today's Scoreboard had the top 64 Champions Tour points leaders and extensive Champions Tour statistics), it’s not for space reasons. There’s plenty of high school sports agate, but that’s there because the coaches called the paper to give them the information.

At the very minimum, you should be able to pick up the sports section of a newspaper and see a schedule on the scoreboard page of games to be played that day and the next day. That doesn’t happen in the N&O.

You might wonder why I call them non-revenue sports at a time when sports-information offices and many newspapers call them “Olympic sports.” I know it’s an attempt to give them a name that sounds better, but it doesn’t make any sense for at least three sports.

Men’s basketball is in the Olympics, but isn’t defined by SIDs as an “Olympic sport.” Golf and baseball are not in the Olympics, but are somehow meet the definition of “Olympic sports.”

Whatever you call them, I hope to read more about them (for schools in the Triangle area and not the Charlotte area) during the school year in the N&O!

It really should be called the Charlotte N&O

2011-09-05T08:40:00.005-04:00

When the McClatchy chain moved all of the copy editing and design of the Raleigh News & Observer to Charlotte last month, I knew it wouldn't be good for N&O readers. But I didn't anticipate that it would be this bad.

I have no idea what Triangle stories on the news side are being missed because the copy desk is in the Charlotte Observer's building. In the sports section, though, if a game isn't either high school action or covered by a staff writer, it generally doesn't get into the section unless it also would be of interest to Charlotte readers.

The most recent blatant example of this came with the N&O's Labor Day section. It should have included a report on No. 2-ranked North Carolina's huge 2-1 men's soccer victory over No. 1 Louisville that avenged a loss in last season's NCAA semifinal. Below is my video of the final moments of the game:

While the Herald-Sun, which has its copy editing and design work done in Owensboro, Ky., published a staff-written game story on the game, not even a score appeared in Monday's News & Observer.

If an N&O writer isn't at Triangle non-revenue college sports event, it generally is invisible to N&O readers. But if you want to catch a blurb about non-revenue sports in the Charlotte area, it's there for you!

UNC's big win didn't merit a mention. But there are blurbs on Charlotte's 3-1 women's soccer victory (I had to check to see if it was women's soccer since it didn't say) over East Carolina and Davidson's 0-0 men's soccer tie with Denver.

This is really pathetic. Even if a copy editor is in Charlotte, he or she has access to UNC's athletic website, right? Obviously they've figured out how to go to the athletics websites for Charlotte and Davidson.

I spent years in sports departments of newspapers and know how non-revenue sports coverage gets into the newspaper: Copy editors have to go to websites (and read emailed releases) to get the information on games that aren't staffed and write stories. On a busy spring day, you can spend hours putting together a complete college roundup.

Or you can just ignore it, apparently.

Non-revenue high school sports agate shows up in the N&O because the high school coaches either call or have a student call the newspaper. Maybe college coaches should start doing that?

A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to see that the N&O had three graphs on the Durham Bulls' game the previous day. That was much more than it usually gives the Bulls. But there was a very good explanation: The Bulls were playing the Charlotte Knights.

I know that these copy editors are in Charlotte and that they are probably overworked, so I won't "clobber" the poor copy editor who wrote the headline to the left (hat tip to Andy Bechtel for pointing out the head bust.)

The copy editors no doubt are overworked, which probably helps explain this correction and this correction, both from sports, in today's N&O.

When you are putting out multiple newspapers at one site, head busts such as this are bound to happen. There probably are fewer page proofers, and the proofing that is done probably is rushed. But how hard is it to just check the UNC website to see if there are any games that might be of interest to Triangle readers? Perhaps there's one involving the top two ranked men's soccer teams in the country?

The N&O wasn't the only media outlet that was clueless about a men's soccer game with national implications right in its back yard. While WTVD had video of the game and led its 11 p.m. Sunday night sportscast with UNC's win, WRAL didn't even report the score.

The News & Observer does a lot of terrific journalism, including the current series on the mistakes allegedly made by a Durham County prosecutor. This is a case of McClatchy management handcuffing its newspapers and making the job of hard-working reporters and editors much tougher.

Of course I can go to the athletics websites for the respective schools for stories on games, but it's not the same as a story written by a newspaper reporter with a critical eye. If there is any controversy, you'd never know it by reading stories written by the schools. But their jobs are to keep it positive.

We can only hope that the Charlotte area never loses interest in UNC, N.C. State and Duke men's basketball and football!

Since I moved back to North Carolina last year, I've always wanted to get the N&O delivered to my house at least three days a week. The Charlotte N&O? I'm not quite as excited about seeing that in my driveway!

UPDATE: Less than a week after this post was made, on Sept. 5, there were some nice changes, which are noted in this post.

Off-site copy desks: A bad idea that keeps spreading

2011-07-29T10:37:00.003-04:00

It seems like the newspaper industry is run by a lot of people who are as dumb as former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott. The controversial owner once fired a bunch of scouts, declaring that there was no need to pay people "just to watch games."

No, it only matters if you really care about winning. A few bucks saved and many more errors likely.

Newspaper executives appear to be wondering why they should pay so many people "just to read stories." The "thinking" appears to be that you don't need many copy editors. And if you must pay for copy editors, it doesn't matter where they are working or that their workload doubles or triples.

No, it only matters if you really care about a quality product. A few bucks saved and many more errors likely.

In just a couple of weeks, the two biggest newspapers in the Triangle -- the Raleigh News & Observer and the Durham Herald-Sun (one of my former employers) -- will have no copy editors or designers on site. At least McClatchy is shifting the N&O's production across the state to the Charlotte Observer. The Paxton Media Group is moving Durham's production to the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer in Kentucky.

This sad trend just keeps gaining momentum as the bean counters see that money spent on copy editors and designers can be reduced significantly by consolidating operations. Tribune apparently is very happy with the results of its model used at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va.

I was a layoff victim of that plan, which uses many "modules" produced in Chicago. While much of the copy editing and designing is done in Chicago, at least there is some copy editing and designing of local pages (or portions of pages) done in Newport News. Tribune liked this model so much that it's putting it into place at the Hartford Courant.

The N&O and Herald-Sun aren't even the first big North Carolina newspapers to decide that saving money is more important than quality. Media General Inc. laid off the entire Winston-Salem Journal copy desk last year, shifting those duties to out-of-state consolidated desks.

The copy-desk duties for two eastern North Carolina newspapers in the Freedom Communications Inc. chain -- the Kinston Free Press (one of my former papers) and the New Bern Sun-Journal -- are performed at a consolidated desk at the Jacksonville Daily News (another of my former papers.)

Even though the distance between these newspapers is short, there are still mistakes made because a copy editor sitting in Jacksonville may not understand that intricacies or what a story means for Kinston or New Bern.

Sometimes the mistakes are very simple and can make the newspaper look really stupid. An example came at the Danville Register & Bee, which is produced at a Media General consolidated desk in Lynchburg.

A 5-year-old boy drowned in the Dan River, but a subhead read: "Boat flips over in James River, trapping 5-year-old boy underwater." The problem, of course, is that the James doesn't run through Danville. The James does run through Lynchburg, where a copy editor mistakenly typed the wrong river name.

The sad news from Durham came this week, leading to more copy editors being laid off. A news copy editor was kept on, but as a sportswriter. McClatchy gave N&O copy editors the option of taking jobs in Charlotte. Few Raleigh desk people took that option, but at least the choice was offered. Paxton gave Herald-Sun copy editors no such opportunity.

Many hard-working copy editors and designers have been shown the door, and a substantial amount of institutional knowledge went with them.

You can't tell me that someone in Owensboro, Ky., knows anything about the issues that are important to Durham readers. A mistake that would be easy to catch for a copy editor who lives in the Durham area might not look wrong at all to a copy editor in Owensboro.

My sympathy is with the fine people being laid off as well as the survivors who are being forced to deal with crazy decisions and even crazier deadlines.

If newspaper executives think that errors still will be caught, they're right. Many will be caught ... by people reading their local paper and wondering how that sort of mistake wasn't caught. And they'll probably wonder why they are paying for a print edition of substantially less quality than the one they received years ago.

As sad as I am about the Carolina football situation, what's happening in the newspaper industry makes me even sadder. The UNC football program will no doubt bounce back eventually. I'm not so sure about the newspaper industry. (Which reminds me: the Herald-Sun might want to update the picture on this page.)

UPDATE: About two weeks after this was posted (as you can see from the link), The Herald-Sun finally updated its UNC page with Everett Withers' picture replacing the picture of Butch Davis.

Going without caffeine not as much of a jolt as I thought

2011-07-25T14:38:00.000-04:00

In the wake of my heart excitement last month, probably the biggest adjustment I've made is -- at least for now -- eliminating my consumption of caffeinated drinks.

In my follow-up visit to the doctor, she asked about how much caffeine I consumed per day. My caffeinated choice for years has been Mountain Dew (with on occasional Cherry Coke), and I easily drank between 24 and 36 ounces (or more) of it per day and have done so for years.

I also have taken my share of Vivarin over the years when I was behind in my sleep or just had a high-energy day ahead.

Given what happened last month, she didn't say that I had to give up caffeine, but suggested that I limit myself to 12 ounces of caffeinated drinks per day. For a couple of days, I had about 4 or 6 ounces of it in the morning and it didn't seem to be much of an adjustment. So I decided that if limiting caffeine would be helpful, why not just give it up all together?

As of this writing, I've had no caffeinated beverages since July 13. It's no doubt the longest I've gone without caffeinated drinks since I first was allowed to drink them when I was a kid.

For the first week, oddly, I had trouble sleeping. It seemed illogical that eliminating caffeine would lead to sleep issues so I don't think it was related. Luckily, I've slept pretty well since then so that hasn't been an issue. As much Mountain Dew as I used to drink, I always made sure not to drink any after 5 p.m. for fear that I wouldn't be able to go to sleep when I wanted to go to sleep.

Sleep always has been a bit of an issue, and being a very light sleeper doesn't help. For years, I've taken Melatonin about an hour before I want to fall asleep to help me do so.

I'm drinking lots of water, which probably is a lot better for me and it's a lot less expensive as well. (For the life of me, I don't understand why people ever PAY for water.) Particularly with the heat we've dealt with this summer, I'm drinking Gatorade before and after runs for the electrolytes. But otherwise, I'm just drinking a lot of water.

For years, I couldn't imagine not waking up to a tall glass of Mountain Dew in the morning. I know that caffeine can be addictive for some people, but I've found that it was more than we well-established habit on my part than an addiction.

I know lots of people, including Jean, get headaches if they go without caffeine. I've heard some people have a miserable time in the first days after giving up caffeine, but I'm lucky that I haven't dealt with any of those issues.

I still might drink a little Mountain Dew if I'm really behind on my sleep, but at this point I'm going to still try to go completely without it.

My only concern is what this all will do to the Pepsico Inc. stock price. The drop of revenue because I may never again buy Mountain Dew has got to send the price plummeting.

If you have Pepsico Inc. stock, my advice is to sell.

Run altered by police instructions

2011-07-24T15:28:00.001-04:00

Given the heat we've endured lately in central North Carolina, I was having a pretty pleasant run Sunday morning. It was fairly cloudy and, although it was pretty hot, it could have been a lot worse. I'm still out of shape, but at least I'm making some progress.

I am nearing the end of a 10.3-mile run and less than two miles from my house when I see flashing lights about a block away. When I get there, I see that police have closed the cross street (a one-way street) to the left of where I am running. I see a lot of police and emergency vehicles and wonder what is going on.

But I keep going and notice two K-9 unit officers in a slow jog just in front of me on the sidewalk, following their dog. Suddenly the dog stops and sniffs at the ground. As I pass the officers, I ask, "what's going on?"

Rather than tell me what is going on, the officer asked where I was going. He doesn't seem thrilled with me running down that sidewalk. I tell him that I lived just down the road in the direction I was running and that I was hoping to run home. He instructs me to take a right and run around this section of road. I never had run down that street before, so that is a little unnerving.

Also unnerving is wondering if there is an armed suspect loose. I have no idea. I take the right, as instructed, and take the first left that I can. There were officers there, and at the next intersection where I took another left.

I finally get back on the original road and looked back to see those same officers about a half block back. At least I was fairly confident that I was running away from whatever trouble there was. But then a couple of more blocks down, there is a police car with his lights flashing at the side of the road. When I run by that car, the officer had wasn't in it.

I get home and wonder what the story was. Finally, later Sunday morning, I saw this story on the website of one of the local TV stations. Some guy's car collided with a police car and he ran away from the scene.

I guess I'm just lucky that he wasn't balding with a beard.

My only other memorable contact with an officer was during the Charlotte Marathon one year when it was 14 degrees at the start. I was wearing a Balaclava, and the officer said jokingly, "There is our suspect."

Let's hope my next contact with an officer during a run is more like that!

Phrases that should be banned

2011-07-02T11:28:00.000-04:00

Once an editor, always an editor. I see phrases in newspaper stories and on TV news every day that make me cringe. The helpless part of it is that I can no longer fix these phrases that have become acceptable even though they don't make sense.

It would take up entirely too much bandwidth if I listed all of them, but here are a few that absolutely should be banned:

In broad daylight

Often used by broadcasters in a feeble attempt to make a crime sound worse because it was committed during the day. "He was shot in broad daylight!" Am I to assume that if he was shot under mostly-cloudy skies that it wouldn't have been as bad? What's wrong with simply saying, for example, that "he was shot in the early afternoon?"

Collided in mid-air

Why is it that whenever plans collide, it's in "mid-air." It's never high air or low air. Why mid-air, anyway. How about, "the airborne planes collided."

He was taken to the hospital/a local hospital

Announcers describing accidents that happen in areas with multiple hospitals often say that "he was taken to the hospital" -- as if there only was one -- instead of "a hospital." There always is relieve when it's reported that someone was taken to "a local hospital." I hate it when they take them to an out-of-town hospital. I realize that there are times -- such as burn patients from around N.C.who are taken to the N.C. Burn Center in Chapel Hill -- when a distant hospital is the desired destination. But, for the most part, it's a silly thing to say.

Got behind the wheel

This is often used when speaking of somebody who was drinking and driving. He drank and "got behind the wheel." But there's no harm getting behind the wheel as long as you don't drive. Why is it so hard to say driving? It's shorter and a lot more accurate.

He turned the gun on himself

Sadly, this is used so often that you know what is meant. But think about it: All they are telling us is that he turned the gun in his own direction. Did he pull the trigger? Did he drop it? Did he try to play music with it? What exactly did he do after he turned the gun on himself? Obviously when this phrase is used, he shoots himself. Then why not simply say that he shot himself?

The store closed its doors

This tired old phrase is used when a store goes out of business. So are we to assume that when the store was open for business that the doors never were closed? Of course they were. Just say the store closed for business.

They met behind closed doors

More obsession with doors, which have nothing to do with what is trying to be conveyed. This phrase is used to describe closed meetings. But aren't there numerous occasions when the door is closed during an open meeting? Of course. Just say it's a closed meeting!

This will save the taxpayers money!

Often used when a government official finds ways to trim the budget. But I never see any money added to my savings account when this happens. It's not saving me any money. If this helps cut taxes, it could help me save money, but the action being reported at the time it isn't really saving me any money. What they actually are doing is saving the government money. But politicians love to talk about saving the taxpayer's money, so that phrase never will go away.

Walk-off home run
I've watched lots of baseball games and I've seen people walk off the field even after games that end with a routine out. While it unfortunately has been so widely used that people know what is meant when the phrase is used, it isn't nearly as descriptive and to the point as game-ending home run.

Blown save
When does a baseball relief pitcher earn a save? When the game is over. Since you can't earn a save until the game has ended, it's impossible to "blow a save." What they mean to say is that it's a blown save chance.

Complete-game shutout
An irritating redundancy. A pitcher must complete a game and allow no runs to get a shutout. If you don't pitch the complete game, you can not be credited with a shutout.

In the paint
This is one of the stupidest basketball phrases around. For years, "the lane" was a more than adequate way to describe the area between the free-throw line and the baseline. I can guarantee that the rules of basketball say that an offensive player can only occupy the space in the lane for three seconds and that it makes no reference to "the paint." When you hang a picture on a painted wall, are you hanging it in the paint? Of course not.

Score the ball
I've seen many basketball games, but I've never seen anybody slice a ball into small slits. Yet I keep hearing announcers say that a "player scored the basketball." Of course, they aren't cutting up the ball, they're scoring. That's why it's silly not to just say that "the player scored."

Partially blocked
Another silly way that announcers describe when a shot is deflected. Block is an absolute word. Either the shot is blocked or it isn't. It can't be modified. (And there is the even more maddening "partially deflected.") Much like when traffic reporters say that a road is "partially blocked" rather than saying that lanes on the road are blocked.

Now I feel better.

No sadness here about NFL, NBA lockouts

2011-07-02T10:47:00.002-04:00

I have sympathy for huge fans of the NFL or NBA as those leagues wage labor disputes with seasons hanging in the balance.

From my perspective, though, I'd love to have less SportsCenter and sports-radio time spent on the two major professional team sports I care about the least.

My only interest in the NBA is following how the former Carolina players are doing. Otherwise, I hardly ever watch except possibly for the last few minutes of NBA Finals games.

I do watch NFL games, but the amount of hype surrounding the sport is irritating. I don't have a favorite team and wouldn't miss it if there was no season.

I thought it was hilarious a couple of weekends ago when Mel Kiper Jr. was talking about how terrible it would be if the NFL preseason was canceled. To me, going without the NFL preseason would be like going without a Dook T-shirt.

The only professional sports I'm passionate about are the NHL and Major League Baseball.

At least NFL and NBA fans never have had to endure a lost season (like the NHL in 2004-05) or going without a champion (like the NHL in 2004-05 or MLB in 1994).

I even went to a UNC hockey games in Hillsborough during the NHL lockout because I missed watching games so much. And that's only a club sport at Carolina! At least there was minor-league baseball for a month once the 1994 baseball season ended.

I wasn't happy with baseball after the strike, but I immediately embraced the sport and my hapless Cubs when it returned. Of course I loved what happened after the NHL lockout: My Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup! (Nice two years for me with the Heels winning a title in 2005 and Canes in 2006.)

My point is that while I'll feel sorry for passionate fans of the sport, I would love to go through a football season with all of the focus (other than labor-dispute coverage) of the national media on college games. I have little hope that the NHL would get that much more coverage if the NBA lost a season, but I'd love to find out.

If the lockouts also lock out the NFL hype, that would be welcome!

A hearty sense of relief

2011-06-18T11:41:00.004-04:00

When I left for work Thursday morning, I had no clue that I wouldn't return home for more than 30 hours ... or the frightening things that I'd be told and thoughts I would have in between.

Although it never was as bad as doctors feared, it sure makes me thankful for my time with Jean and the boys and to be able to see my parents and sister. There were times when I wondered how much more of that time I'd get.

I had noticed a bit of chest discomfort during the day Tuesday. I wondered about it, but didn't think too much of it. I ran three miles Wednesday morning with no problem, but then I noticed it a little more later in the day and it began to concern me more. But it wasn't enough where I even mentioned it to Jean because I didn't want to needlessly worry her.

On Wednesday night, however, I start to feel it while trying to sleep. The combination of this and anxiety because I don't know what's going on keep me from going back to sleep after 3 a.m. I call our family medical practice as soon as it opens at 7 a.m., explain what I am dealing with and ask to see a doctor that morning.

They give me an 11 a.m. appointment, and I go off to work a little before 8 a.m. Noticed the discomfort a little, but not too bad. But I still am worried about what is going on. I leave work for the appointment and figure I'll be back in an hour or so.

I figure that they'll tell me that I am worried over nothing, I'll feel silly and they'll send me back to work. I figured wrong.

They take an EKG (above isn't that EKG, but one they took later) and don't like what they see. One area where it's supposed to be a straight line, there is a dip. I'm later told that this is something doctors are told to look out for. If they see it, it is a sign of potential issues.

Not only am I not be going back to work, I'm headed to an emergency room. They are so paranoid about what they see, that they don't want me to drive there.

That is my first moment of huge anxiety.

Then comes the difficult call to Jean. Difficult in that the news is hard to deliver and that it is hard to keep it together while delivering the news.

There is little reason for humor at this point, but it's funny when they ask whether I wanted to go to Duke Hospital or UNC Hospitals. I was wishing that I had such a choice a week earlier when Alex's high school graduation ceremony was held at Hansbrough (some call it Cameron) Indoor Stadium. The Smith Center would have been a much better choice!

I'm sure either choice would have been fine, but the all the people at UNC Hospitals were nice, helpful and professional.

I call the office and tell them it might be a while before I got back to work. For the first time in my life, I am taken to a hospital in an ambulance, and with all kinds of stuff hooked up to me, including oxygen. The only positive at this point is that they don't think it's urgent enough to use a siren and rush me to UNC Hospitals. It is a nice leisurely drive.

Jean and my sister, Juli (who works at the hospital), arrive soon after I get to the emergency room. The scene is interesting. At one point somebody kidded, "get your popcorn, the show's about to start." I soon find out what they are taking about. A man is brought in who is loudly cursing at everybody. He was accompanied by officers and had to be subdued.

Still curious about what the deal was with that guy, but I soon have bigger concerns.

They take another EKG and, although it was a bit better, the cardiologists still are concerned. They tell me that they are going do a cardiac catheterization, and that they think it's possible that they'll have to put a stent in. They really don't know what they will find.

Then comes the alarming words they are required to tell me: That any time they do that sort of thing, that there is a risk. And that in rare cases, it could result in death. They ask me questions about blood transfusions and whether I would want them to do anything they could to resuscitate me.

That was pretty scary. One of my thoughts at that point: I never got to see Alex before I went to work. I hadn't seen my parents for a few days. Would I be able to do that again? I'd never had those sorts of thoughts before (except when worried about Alex driving home late at night like any parent of a teenager.) I even think to myself that at least I got to see Alex graduate from high school.

Yeah, I was that worried.

Given the risks I've been told about, giving Jean a kiss as I went into the room felt way too quick. I'm thinking that if that's the last time for that, it happened way too fast!

An army of medical personnel gather around me and the strangeness starts. From them shaving where I never would shave, much less have anybody else doing it, to realizing where they'd be going in. Look it up if you're curious. They said that it was much easier to go through that procedure with me than many patients who are overweight.

The good news came about 30 minutes later. There was no blockage, there would be no stent. The relief at that point makes the relief felt after a narrow Carolina win in the NCAA tournament seem like nothing.

I'm happy to greet Jean and Juli, and soon my parents, afterward.

Then there was the fun night in the hospital room with several leads stuck to me and people poking and prodding me on a regular basis (including at 5 in the morning). Even though my worries turned out to be unfounded, it is so nice when Alex and Scott come to my room later in the afternoon!

Other than discussions with the doctors on Friday, the main activity before I escaped from the joint was an ultrasound. (And I didn't even think I was showing!)

The doctors say they tell most patients in my situation to be more active, but with 26 marathons and many runs behind me, they say that this isn't a concern for me. They have me taking "baby aspirin" and Pravastatin daily and believe that this keep my healthy.

They've told me that the EKG is so alarming that I should keep in my wallet the EKG readout they gave me so that doctors in the future don't freak out.

I'm just thankful that this didn't happen one week earlier. Alex's high school graduation was that afternoon. I wouldn't have wanted to miss that, and probably would have put off going to the doctor another day.

I never was inclined to do any sort of waxing and having to take off seven electrodes makes me certain I never want to do that! They left them on when I left the hospital because they said it would be easier to take off when I take a shower. Yeah, but it still didn't feel too good!

The only lingering irritation is the soreness from the catheterization and being told to try not to bend that leg too much or lift more than 10 pounds for a few days. And the worst of it: Being told not to run for 5-10 days.

At least I know I've got plenty of miles left to run. For a time on Thursday, I was starting to wonder!

In TV disputes, the sports fan usually loses

2011-05-01T13:07:00.003-04:00

When you combine the skyrocketing ticket prices with the the clarity of enjoying games much more cheaply on high-definition TV, a comfortable chair in the living room is more often the preferred seat for the big games.

That choice to opt for saving a few bucks is eliminated in some cases because of people trying to save or earn a few more dollars. I'm talking about the disputes involving regional sports networks, professional teams, TV rights owners and television providers.

As a DirecTV subscriber, I couldn't watch NHL games on Versus for much of the 2009-10 season because of a dispute.

Triangle residents who prefer major providers DirecTV, Dish Network or Time-Warner Cable and would like to see games involving the Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals and the Charlotte Bobcats have to make a choice. They are unable to watch all three on a consistent basis.

If you want to watch the Bobcats games, you can't do it through DirecTV or Dish Network. Each of those providers must pay TV-rights holder Fox to show games outside of the 75-mile radius of Charlotte.

Neither DirecTV or Dish Network are willing to pay what Fox is demanding.

Even if you are an NBA League Pass subscriber, you can't see the Bobcats game via either dish provider because the Triangle is -- logically -- considered the the Bobcats' home area. It's blacked out on the NBA League Pass channel because you are supposed to be able see the games on your regional sports network. But, of course, Triangle viewers find it blacked out there as well because there is no rights-fee deal.

The only time dish subscribers in the Triangle can watch Bobcats games is when they appear on ESPN, ABC, NBA TV or TNT, which is rare.

I'll point out that this is not a big deal for me. If there isn't a former Tar Heels player playing, I have little or no interest in watching any NBA game. Since Raymond Felton moved on in the offseason and Sean May left the Bobcats a long time ago, this doesn't really bother me.

What are Triangle residents supposed to do if they want to watch Bobcats games? You have to be a Time-Warner Cable subscriber. There is a downside, though: You don't get to see Orioles or Nationals games.

The Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) has shown Orioles and Nationals games since the Montreal Expos because the Washington Nationals in 2005. Initially, MASN wasn't widely available, but it eventually struck deals to allow more viewers access to the channel. But MASN still doesn't have a deal with Time-Warner Cable to allow Triangle subscribers to watch MASN.

Triangle TWC customers who want to see Nats or O's games can't even do that if they subscribe to Extra Innings. It's the same routine as with Bobcats fans in the Triangle who are dish subscribers. It's blocked out on the Extra Innings channel because you need to view it on the regional sports network. But, of course, that network is MASN, which isn't even on the TWC channel menu.

I've been a DirecTV subscriber for a few years and TWC has been calling with an decent offer that would include paying up to $200 to get me out of my DirecTV contract. I'm not going to do it. Since I'm not an Extra Innings subscriber this season, the only Major League Baseball games I'd be able to see would be games on TBS (one a week), ESPN or MLB Network.

For me, it's an easy choice. But I'm sure there are Triangle sports fans who want to see Bobcats, Nats and O's game and it's impossible to do that unless you subscribe to cable and one of the dish providers.

There's another irritating aspect of this dispute that leaves fans as the loser: The apparent assumption of the sports departments of the two Triangle newspapers that everybody is a cable subscriber. Neither the Raleigh News & Observer or the Durham Herald-Sun list MASN or MASN2 games on their TV sports schedules, I assume because the channel isn't on the cable menu.

But they aren't alone. Countless national media outlets still insist on referring to CNN, MSNBC and the Fox News Channel as "cable news." They should be called "news channels" since you obviously can receive all three of those via Dish Network or DirecTV.

At least Triangle viewers can watch those news channels via cable or dish subscriber. Sadly, that isn't the case when it comes to watching some professional sports teams.

Omission cooks up $2 worth of confusion

2011-04-24T12:23:00.000-04:00

Like many guys, I sometimes don't follow directions very well.

Usually the results of this deficiency can be bad, but I've found that when cooking (or however you describe what I occasionally do in the kitchen), it's sometimes a smart move.

Nine days out of 10, I make the lunch that I eat at my desk each weekday. Given my relative lack of cooking ability, it's almost always some sort of pasta dinner. Hey, runners love pasta and the accompanying carbs, right?

I make these dinners so often, that I've memorized the microwave directions for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. It was an advantage to do so because the Kraft folks don't put the microwave instructions on the package. You have to find those instructions (from other sources) on the Internet.

One of the dinners that are in my rotation is Pasta Roni Shells & White Cheddar (above, left). I started to make this on a fairly regular basis when I took my current job last May.

I immediately noticed a hilarious omission: If you follow the microwave instructions (right) exactly, you never would actually put the pasta in the bowl.

I'm just a nonconformist, I guess, because I decided to put the pasta in before microwaving the contents of the bowl for 10 minutes.

Seasoned hot water might be interesting for some people, but it doesn't excite me.

I assumed last summer that somebody would point it out and that it would get fixed, but I assumed incorrectly. Months and months of buying this product and it never got fixed. I decided to point it out to the company, and got this response via email:

I was more irritated that nobody had pointed out this omission than anything else. I really didn't expect to get anything more than a thank you from the company. But when I got the above email, I figured that the coupon would be for $10 or $20 off. How much is that worth to them? A $2 off coupon came in the mail about 10 days later.

So everybody, including pasta makers, needs proofreaders. And if you actually are making pasta, remember that it always is helpful to actually add the pasta during the cooking process!

Time to go where you go and do what you do, Woody

2011-04-19T20:48:00.013-04:00

Carolina sports will never be the same.

They'll hire another "Voice of the Tar
Heels" but they will never replace
Woody Durham.

About the only Woody Durham news that would have made me sadder than the news I heard late this afternoon would have been if we had lost the legendary "Voice of the Tar Heels."

Woody, who turns 70 in August, is retiring after 40 terrific years of announcing UNC basketball and football games on the radio.

For as long as I can remember, I always turned down the sound on the TV so that I could listen to Woody Durham's call of the Tar Heels games. If I went to the game, I tried to bring a radio so that I could hear his insights.

The most frustrating part of watching Carolina games in recent years was struggling to get his radio call to sync up to what I was watching on TV. It always was maddening to have to listen to the crazed yelling of Dick Vitale (Dookie V) instead of Woody. (Where is the mute button, again?) Years ago, it was easy to sync up. But technology made it harder.

He'd tell me when to "go where you go and do what you do" if the critical moments of the game were upon us.

There were plenty of "Woodyisms" such as referring to pants as "britches," cries of "go to war, Miss Agnes!" or the standard order in describing a player as "the 6-9 senior from Poplar Bluff, Missouri" and pronouncing restaurant "rest-runt." And then there was, "front rim, back rim, it's good!."

Bill Currie was the "Voice
of the Tar Heels" before
Woody's 40-year run.

It wasn't always that easy. Years before students began chanting his name at football games, there was plenty of criticism in 1971 when the WFMY announcer was hired to replace another legend, Bill "The Mouth of the South" Currie, left.

Woody grew on everybody, including me, and no doubt the legend of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Famer in UNC circles long ago topped that of Currie, who passed away in 2008.

You knew who Woody wanted to win the game, but he was much more impartial than many college play-by-play announcers. Quite a contrast to Duke play-by-play announcer Bob Harris who, interestingly enough, was on the same Albemarle High School football team as Woody in the late 1950s.

The first memorable call that's etched in my memory was when Woody described Mitch Kupchak's "long front-court pass" against Duke as the amazing eight-point comeback in 17 seconds culminated at Carmichael Auditorium in 1974. And, of course, when Walter Davis made the 35-foot bank shot, Woody went crazy. "UN-BEE-LIEV-ABLE!!!" Catch the classic here:

There were plenty of others over they years, but the one that always gives me goosebumps when I hear it (no matter how many times I hear it), is Woody's call of the 1982 national championship. It was the first UNC national championship of my lifetime and the first one he called. I don't know who was more excited, Woody or me:

Then, 11 years later came another memorable call when Chris Webber took the time out that he didn't have. Woody's cries of "TECHNICAL FOUL! TECHNICAL FOUL!" sounded like when Gomer Pyle was yelling "citizen's arrest!" at Barney Fife on an episode of "The Andy Griffith Show."

But whenever Carolina had a memorable finish, Woody made it even more more special, like when Rick Fox's shot helped UNC upset No. 1 Oklahoma in the 1990 NCAA tournament. "THE GAME IS OVER! THE GAME IS OVER!:

Woody Durham deserves to have a banner hanging from
the Smith Center in his honor.

Watching UNC games without hearing Woody's call will be nearly as unsettling as it would be if UNC wore dark-blue uniforms and slapping the floor on defense. It really will be different.

Woody certainly deserves to have a banner honoring him hanging from the rafters of the Smith Center. (N.C. State has a banner honoring former public-address announcer C.A. Dillon.)

Who will be person attempting to replace the legend? I hoped that Mick Mixon would consider taking the job, but the N&O reports on its ACC Now Twitter page that Mick says he's happy with the Carolina Panthers and isn't interested. One of Woody's sons or Jones Angell now seem like the logical choices.

They will fill the position. But we'll never replace Woody Durham.

Although I've been lucky enough to chat with Dean Smith on a few occasions, I've never met Woody. But it feels like he's an old friend.

Thanks for the memories, Woody!

Strange editorial decisions by N.C. newspapers

2011-04-17T10:21:00.002-04:00

There are plenty of reasons why newspapers are struggling to sell print editions these days. Many of those are out of the control of people trying to do the best job they can with depleted budgets and resources and crazy deadlines.

Sunday, a look at North Carolina newspapers shows another reason why some people don't bother to buy print editions. And this one is completely in the control of the people running newsrooms.

I remember thinking Saturday night how much adrenaline would be flowing for people working news desks at North Carolina newspapers. I was thinking how exciting it would be to help design bold, punchy layouts. I was wishing that I had a chance to write headlines that have an impact to give readers the treatment they deserve when you have deadly tornadoes blow through the state.

With the exception of the Fayetteville Observer (although the headline could have been better), the top front, and the Sanford Herald, right, most newspapers that have their fronts on the Newseum website were sadly disappointing.

If there ever was a newspaper that should scrap a planned front for splashy tornado coverage, it was the Raleigh News and Observer, below. Raleigh had fatalities and the storm certainly was historic.

The problem for the N&O: The first stories of a big series was planned to start Sunday. It's a series on the millions of dollars wasted unsuccessfully trying to fight water pollution in the state. The "Wasted Away" series includes two full pages inside in today's newspaper. I haven't had a chance to read it, but I'm sure it's good journalism.

I understand that it at least had to start on the front. But when a big story such as this breaks, you have to change your plan. The Wasted Away story needed to go across the bottom and the tornado story should have dominated the front.

What happened? They didn't let a major story change the original plan. Sadly, the tornado story went across the top of the front page with a headline not even close to befitting the tragedy of what happened.

It's terrible that the state is wasting money on ill-advised projects. But it's also terrible that people lost their lives and homes in Raleigh and the local newspaper didn't think enough of it to give it better play in the print edition.

You know it was the wrong call for the N&O's print edition when you go to its website this morning and see which story is getting better play. Obviously, it's the tornado coverage.

I've not seen reports of any fatalities in Guilford County or Forsyth County, but I also was quite surprised to see that the Greensboro News & Record, left, and the Winston-Salem Journal (just below the N&R front), didn't even put a tornado story on the front page Sunday. The N&R at least teased to the story.

In the case of the N&R, it probably was because they spent hours crafting a nice design for big story on budgets. Yes, nice designs are good. But it is a NEWSpaper. Budgets are huge these days. For this day, the tornadoes are bigger. Look at its website this morning and you see that they realize this.

I remember years of looking at TV news and laughing at the mistakes they made and saying with pride that my newspaper wouldn't have made that sort of mistake.

I'm not laughing now.

Newspaper print editions already are at a disadvantage because of deadlines. Why make it worse?

WRAL had coverage of the tornadoes from mid-afternoon until midnight. (I'm sure other stations had extensive coverage as well.) I believe the only commercial interruption during that time for WRAL was for the lottery number announcement that the station probably was contractually required to do.

Do you think it's possible that WRAL had some nice features reporters and editors had worked hard to craft that didn't air on Saturday? Certainly possible. There were no sports reports or reports on anything else on Saturday. WRAL, and probably other stations, understood the impact of this story and gave it the sort of coverage that it demands.

I'm sad that many of the newspapers I've seen, who likely provided good coverage online, didn't answer that call in their print editions.

I'm a hopeless old-school newspaper man. I love online journalism. But you don't save a printout of a website so that you can remember a big story years down the road. You save the print edition, and particularly expect the front page to show how big the story was.

Years from now, people probably still will be wondering why the front page that you saved didn't give better play to the devastating tornadoes that will be remembered for a generation.

I would also, but it's unlikely I'll save the print edition of Sunday's N&O.

MONDAY EDIT: And what do you know? Tornado coverage not only made the front pages of the Greensboro and Winston-Salem paper Monday, it dominated both fronts. I see that the N&O's "Washed Away" series won't resume until Tuesday. Why the couldn't editors have delayed the start of the series and not start it Sunday? Sounds like some papers are trying to get it right a day late.

Playing a big fish in a small race

2011-04-02T13:43:00.002-04:00

Executive summary: Michael Hooker Memorial 5K in Chapel Hill, N.C.; 22 minutes, 20 seconds, fourth overall (no age group awards, only awards to the top three men and top three women.) Highest overall finish in a race since finishing third overall at the Dogwood 5K in Mebane, N.C., years ago.

Slightly longer version: A day short of two weeks after running the Tobacco Road Marathon, I ran my second 5K in as many Saturdays.

My love for the University of North Carolina campus drew me to the Michael Hooker Memorial 5K, and the $15 registration fee clinched it. It also started right next to one of my favorite buildings in the world: Carmichael (I'm sorry, I'm not going to call it Arena) Auditorium (left).

I know this race will be a little different when I walk up to the table and am told, "hey, you might win, there aren't that many people registered." Look, I'm not that fast and certainly am not used to hearing that sort of thing. I must look faster than I am.

Turns out that there were only about 35 runners in the race, but the strangeness of this one doesn't stop there: We are directed to run on the sidewalks for all of the race except for about a half mile on a smaller road on mile 3 and a short part of mile 2, and the only police support was at three street crossings.

With so few runners, it is easy to evaluate the competition. Most of the runners were college age and I'm almost certain I was the second-oldest runner.

I love the course, which goes by Boshamer Stadium, up Stadium Drive past Kenan Stadium and goes past Alexander Dorm (right), where Jean and I were living when I met.

I actually lead the race for the first 2/10ths of a mile, which makes it easy for me to figure out how many runners are in front of me. One mile into the race, three people have passed me. Nobody else passes me the rest of the race and I never can quite catch the guy who finished third.

It is one of the rare 5Ks where there actually was a short stretch on a curvy part of mile 3 in which I can't see a runner in front of me or behind me. This sort of dynamic usually is reserved for late in marathons or half marathons.

A week earlier, I ran a 22:41 on a much hillier course at the Great Human Race 5K in Durham. Last week, I ran two solid just-a-hair-above 7-minute miles for the first two miles, then the daunting hills pushed me to a 7:29 third mile.

Today, I run a similar first mile at 7:03, but shoot up to 7:21 for the second mile and pull down to a 7:16 third mile. I really feel like I could have run a better time if there had been more runners and more of the real feel of most races. But I know that all three of the guys in front of me were younger, so I have my age-group locked up (or so I think.)

Unfortunately, I don't ask the question about race awards until AFTER the race. Had I known that they only were giving awards to the top three overall, that extra motivation would have possibly given me another gear to try to catch the third-place guy. As it was, I think that guy beat me by about 25 seconds, so it probably wasn't realistic.

This comes after finishing second in my age group at the Great Human Race and finding out later that I was only nine seconds behind the guy who won my age group. Again, had I known that I possibly could have found another gear.

This really was one of the oddest races I've run. How else can you explain me being in first place at any point?

The cold-hard facts of my Marshall University Marathon

2010-11-08T11:36:00.001-05:00

Executive summary

I finish the Marshall University Marathon in 3 hours, 42 minutes, 1 second (officially 7 seconds since they didn't have a chip mat at the starting line); nine seconds faster than my March time at the Tobacco Road Marathon); 13th out of 45 in my age group; 141 out of 517 overall. My 25th marathon and the 14th state in which I've run a marathon. I picked the MUM because it got such good reviews on marathonguide.com, and it also would give me another marathon state.

Race week

This was different than any other race week. I worked night hours at newspapers for every previous marathon, and had to take two or three days of vacation before the race just to adjust my sleep schedule. Most marathons start at 7 a.m., and I slept until 10 a.m. when I worked at newspapers. Now that I work days, I didn't have to do take sleep-schedule-adjusting vacation days.

Originally, the whole family was going to be along for the 5.5-hour drive to Huntington, W.Va., but Scott and Jean stayed in Durham so that Scott could play in a soccer playoff game Saturday. Alex came along on the trip that featured some beautiful fall colors and the sight of snow on the side of the road.

We got into Huntington in time to pick up my packet, check into the motel and get to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch Carolina's win at Florida State (although we had to deal with listening to the audio from the Marshall-UAB game).

Considering many factors that were out of my control, it was a pretty decent time. I had visions of running a PR (which would have required a 3:33:54 or better), but it wasn't going to happen.

Thursday, I developed a scratchy throat and started taking lozenges to try to keep me from getting sick. That helped the scratchy throat, but I still was coughing and sneezing some. To say that it was aggravating for this to come up on marathon week after weeks of training with no such issues would be an understatement.

And if you're dealing with all that, 26-degree conditions at the start wouldn't be the preference. But that's what I got.

It would have been nice to get the extra hour of sleep provided by the time change, but Alex's cell phone made some noise at 4 a.m. (my plan was to get up at 5:15). He was apologetic and went right back to sleep, but I never could fall asleep again.

I woke up with one nostril completely stuffed. After a few sneezes, my nasal passages were amazingly clear and I didn't sneeze again until well after the marathon. Although I coughed a bit before the race, I miraculously never coughed or had to sneeze during the race. Pretty fortunate in that regard.

My race

I park next to Joan C. Edwards Stadium (Marshall's football stadium), right, because that's where the race ends. It still is dark at that point, but the sun is coming up by the time the race starts.

It is nice that the race starts outside Cam Henderson Center (Marshall's basketball arena, which is just a couple of blocks from the stadium). The arena is open to all runners. That means a warm place to stretch and wait for the race to start. It also means plenty of nice bathrooms so that I don't have to deal with the PortaPotties that are the only option for many races.

I head outside about five minutes before the scheduled 7 a.m. race start. As cold as it was, it is irritating that it doesn't start at 7. A woman sings the national anthem about two minutes after 7 and the race doesn't start until six minutes after. It is really nice to finally get going.

The conditions are 12 degrees colder than for any run during my training for this race. This is my first time in long running pants since last winter. I debate, but finally decide to wear my Lifa Prolite underwear, which makes sure a certain part of your body doesn't get cold. It is a good decision since I doesn't make me feel hot. I also wear running shorts on top of my long running pants.

I wear a Balaclava pulled over all of my face and am surprised that I don't see anybody else doing that. I don't peel that off until 17.5 miles, when I was running into sunlight and it seems too hot. I run with my running cap and still have that on once I take the Balaclava off.

I wear the long-sleeve technical shirt from last year's Detroit Marathon (which also featured start temperatures in the upper-20s), with my Dead Runners Society singlet on top of that with my misspelled race singlet. I also wear cotton gloves.

Since there is one runner dressed as Batman and another dressed as Spiderman, I blend in very well. Check out pictures 308, 309 and 310 in this photo gallery to see how I look.

This is the first race I've run where they misspelled the race name on the bib. I wonder if somebody spellchecked it and figured it was fine? I'm kdding, of course. Everybody makes mistakes, and I know they weren't happy with that one.

Despite it all, I come out feeling strong and on target with my goal of running 8-minute splits. Thanks to the constant feedback from my Garmin, I pull back in the first couple of miles when I realize I am going too fast.

I am really consistent in the first 16 miles: 7:54, 7:59, 8:05, 8:01, 8:17 (which I actually think was a bogus reading from my Garmin), 7:53, 7:59, 8:00, 7:57, 8:12, 8:11, 8:09, 7:58, 8:18, 8:12 and 8:06.

My half split is 1:46, so I easily am on pace for a PR at that point. But my splits start falling beginning with an 8:19 at mile 17, followed by 8:43, 8:58, 8:31, 8:57, then the dreaded 9:08 at mile 23.

I have some Advil in a pocket of my shorts and usually grab a packet of Gu to get something in my stomach before taking it around mile 18. They aren't giving any out. I know that it usually helps me, and debate whether it is worth risking stomach distress. I decide to take one anyway, letting it dissolve in my mouth for about a mile before swallowing it along with Gatorade. I don't know if it helps, but fortunately it agrees with my stomach.

With about five miles left, I know I have no shot at a PR. I already am in survival mode, in full marathon shuffle and completely unable to pull off the splits that it would take.

Those are some of the toughest final four miles I've dealt with in recent marathons. I really want to stop and walk. I know that doing so not only would mean it would take me longer, but it would really hurt my time.

There also is the mentality of it. Stopping to walk, for me, makes it tougher to start running again. I don't know how people doing the Galloway run/walk method do it.

At least the last few miles include running through some of the campus, which is pretty. Once I pass the basketball arena, I know I am getting close. Finally, I come up to the football stadium, and we run down a severe downward grade on the ramp to the field level (that doesn't feel good, but at least it wasn't an upward grade.)

We first go down one sideline and you have the option of being given a football. I want one, but they don't have any at that moment. A guy grabs one, runs after me and hands off to me about 30 yards down the sideline.

Once we get to the end of the sideline, we turn at one end zone, then run down the middle of the field-turf surface. That felt really different from the roads and trails earlier in the course.

I have a football, but definitely am not running down the field with Johnny White speed. (Maybe Johnny White speed after he broke his clavicle?) I am quite relieved to hit the finish line!

I'm sure the aforementioned minor health issues play a part, but the last four miles are very difficult. During those miles, I am wondering why I do this to myself. Of course my answer comes at the finish. I keep telling myself that the pain is temporary, but the thrill of the accomplishment never stops. The thrill of reaching the finish line of a marathon never gets old ... even the 25th time.

Impressions of this race

I highly recommend this race. The course is very flat, with the exception of during a couple of short east-west stretches that included about a half-block hill didn't amount to much.

Huntington is a nice small college town. The course includes short stretches at the beginning and toward the end at Harris Riverfront Park. That was an interesting sight running by there early with the thin layer of fog or mist rising just over the surface of the Ohio River.

I loved the miles along the beautiful Ritter Park, which included running on trails. I wasn't a big fan of the two loops that went into the southern part of Huntington. Those were fairly nondescript and boring, but that would be my only beef about the course.

MUM's expo was one of the smallest I've ever seen at a marathon, with only one vendor. But that isn't a big deal to me at all and something I'm glad to deal with when I choose a smaller race with a reasonable ($60) registration fee.

The spaghetti dinner was free, but I didn't think it was all that good.

With that money, I got a nice fleece jacket (which they were selling for $40 after the race). You chose between the jacket and the long-sleeve technical shirt. I obviously made the right choice in picking the jacket, since it only cost me $20 to buy the shirt after the race.

When I bought the shirt, they gave me a free DVD of the movie "We Are Marshall." Sunday happened to be the 40th anniversary of the tragic plane crash that killed most of Marshall's football team. To commemorate that, they offered runners a flower as you entered the campus late in the race.

The postrace food spread was excellent. It's the first race of any length that offered hamburgers and hot dogs to finishers, in addition to the more common bananas and bagels.

Another concession when you pick a small marathon is that there isn't much crowd support. I'm sure the colder weather made the support smaller than usual. I'm OK with that and still much prefer smaller marathons over the huge mega marathons that force you to constantly zig-zag around people.

The actual course support by the race officials, volunteers and police officers was excellent.

Now it's time to recover!

Settling for an old-guy PR

2010-09-25T17:28:00.002-04:00

There were many things and people I missed during my five years in Virginia. One of the races I missed the most was the Salem Lake 30K in Winston-Salem, which I was happy to run today for the first time since 2004. I wish that it wasn't a 90-minutes away from my house in Durham, but it was worth the drive.

Executive summary: Finished in 2 hours, 26 minutes, 37 seconds, which gave me a "40-something PR," meaning that I've only run a 30K faster than that once: When I was 39 and ran a 2:21 at the 1999 Salem Lake 30K. Obviously the second-fastest time of the seven Salem Lake 30Ks I've run. I guess it pays to be old, though: I finished third in my age group.

There are many reasons I love this race. It's obviously put on by runners and they don't charge an outrageous fee like many other races. For a mere $20, dirt cheap for today's standards, I get everything I need. They do a lot of little things right such as using paper cups at water stations instead of plastic cups, providing good race support and helpful volunteers.

They don't have race chips, but that doesn't really bother me if it means the fee is lower. There isn't much crowd support, but that's never a big deal to me.

The race winds through mostly hard dirt trails around Salem Lake, with some paved trails as well.

It's a very good race for people training for marathons, providing a much more helpful test than a half marathon.

The weather wasn't very helpful, though. Today's low, in the high 60s, is supposed to be Sunday's high. It was the hottest SL 30K I've run. Fortunately, there is a lot of shade, but that also turned my Garmin into nothing more than a stopwatch because it did not get a signal most of the way (it had me only running 13.9 of the 18.6 miles.)

It was irritating not getting constant feedback on my pace, and having to settle for feedback at every mile marker.

I was hungry for a PR, which would have required around a 7:33 pace. On a day that wasn't as hot I may have had a shot. I could see the sweat dripping from the bill of my cap. Through all of the very hot summer runs, I only had to wipe sweat out of my eyes a few times. Today, I had to do that, and my running gear was soaked when I finished.

I ended up averaging 7:53 miles, which is closer to what I'll be hoping for at the Marshall University Marathon on Nov. 7. After splits of 7:08 and 7:50 in the first two miles, I was a bit more consistent the rest of the way, edging more toward 8-minute pace in the last few miles.

It turns out that my biggest mistake of the day was leaving before the awards ceremony. I wouldn't have come close to winning an age-group award with today's time in recent years, so I didn't hang around. I was stunned when the results were posted online to learn that I finished third in my age group. I suppose that the hot weather made a lot of people slower.

Overall, a good race day that hopefully provides me with helpful training for my marathon.

A "Groundhog Day" sort of learning process adapting to running in Durham

2010-08-29T11:57:00.004-04:00

I feel like I'm going through a process vaguely like Phil Connors' plight in the movie "Groundhog Day."

Phil Connors memorizes Rita's drink preference.

I don't wake up to "I Got You Babe" playing on the radio every day, but I do start my runs six days a week from our house in Durham.

I'm not fine-tuning a romantic pursuit of Rita like Bill Murray's character methodically did every day, but I try to figure out the best places to run around my Durham house through trial and error.

The Triangle is home to me and I'm thrilled to be back. But I've never lived in Durham and running in Durham is new to me. The beauty of owning a Garmin is that I make up my routes as I go along daily on my morning runs and still know how far I've gone.

What that gets me in many cases, though, is many up-and-back runs in which I turn around when I reach half the number of miles I intend to run. I much prefer loops, and it's taken weeks to develop loops that are not only workable, but not brutally challenging.

Phil Connors' mistakes sometimes earned him a slap on the face. My mistakes earned me some climbs on hills I didn't expect on a day that I didn't plan to do hill work.

As I've said many times since moving, it's as hard to find flat areas to run in Durham as it was to find hilly places to run in Newport News. Both are very difficult.

Part of why I've been slow to figure out loops (as opposed to up-and-back runs) is that four days a week my runs are done before work. I don't have time to either get lost or run a few extra miles because I underestimated the distance.

I've discovered that I've moved to an area with many terrific places to run, and I'm still learning the best ways to take advantage of that fact.

I'm two miles away from the trailhead of the American Tobacco Trail, which offers many miles of gently rolling paved trails with only a few street crossings.

I'm a little more than a mile from the connector trail for the Bueller Trail, which is a nice dirt trail around the D**e Golf Course. It features very challenging downhills and rather daunting uphills that leave me seemingly running on my toes.

The trail roughly runs just inside this yellow border.

Just in the last week, I discovered that Campus Drive is a very nice, pretty place to run. On one end is the D**e Chapel, and at the other end is D**e's East Campus (left). There is a dirt trail that goes around the East Campus, just inside the stone wall that surrounds it.

That discovery helped me on Sunday's 20-miler.

For my 20-miler two weeks ago, I ran the two miles to the American Tobacco Trail and still had two miles left to get to 10 miles when I got to where it stops at Southpoint Crossing shopping center. I ended up filing in those miles in a really hilly neighborhood near the shopping center. I also missed a turn, which made a 20-miler a 21-miler.

Sunday, I ran Campus Drive to the East Campus and did the trail around there. From there, I took Main Street to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and ran 5.5 miles up the American Tobacco Trail before turning around and eventually heading home.

I'm slowly figuring out a few loops, which is always nice because that gives me a chance to compare times on the loop.

Phil Connors eventually found love with Rita. I'm finding that I love running in Durham more. It's just taken a lot of time.

Terrific long run misdirected into a hilly, challenging finish

2010-08-15T11:18:00.003-04:00

I got a good gauge of my fitness level with this morning's long run, and was thrilled to see that I'm in much better shape than I thought.

There are several reasons that my perception of my fitness level was much less than the reality.

The biggest is that I've been running hills in Durham that I never had the opportunity to run when I lived in Newport News. The hills figured to hurt my times and, like many runners, the main way I assess my fitness level is the times I'm putting up. The excessive heat also has slowed me down.

With all of the hills and the heat, my times haven't been that good.

Given that, I had modest goals of running today's planned 20-miler in about 3 hours, 10 minutes..Anything faster than that would be a surprise. In a sense, since I hadn't run longer than 15 miles since March, I simply wanted to finish and see how I did.

I know that I'm ready for a marathon any time I can run 20 miles in under three hours.

I ended up hitting the 20-mile mark in 2:56 and finished the 21.3-mile outing in 3 hours, 10 minutes and 16 minutes. This was well ahead of my expectations.

I ran from my house, down Chapel Hill Road and Morehead Avenue to Durham Bulls Athletic Park, which is where the American Tobacco Trail starts (left). It was two miles to the trail, then I ran the trail all the way until it stops next to Southpoint Crossing shopping center. (It actually resumes a little bit past the Streets of Southpoint mall, but there's too much traffic on Fayetteville Road around there to run to where it resumes.)

I found out why parts of the trail were closed earlier in the week: They've repaved portions of the trail. And I was reminded that one nice part of the trail is that, although it is a bit rolling, it doesn't have the excessively hilly stretches that you find in most areas of Durham. It also is shady in many areas.

I still had a little more than a mile to get to 10 miles at that point, so I ran down Rollingwood Drive and into the Woodcroft subdivision and a bit on Highgate Drive before turning around. I actually got applause from a guy picking up his paper at the end of his Rollingwood Drive driveway. Don't usually get "crowd support" on long runs. :) That helped since those streets were a bit hilly.

I got to the halfway point at about 1 hour, 28 minutes, which surprised me. Going back, I felt terrific. I could tell the miles were adding up, but I felt strong.

When I got back to the start of the trail at the DBAP, I knew I was two miles from home and still felt strong. I turned onto Morehead and kept going when I realized that I had missed the turn for Chapel Hill Road. My bearings were all messed up, so when I came upon Anderson Drive (which I have run some in the last week), I turned right. I should have turned left, which I realized when I reached D**e University Road.

Now I knew my way to get home, but I had misdirected myself into a very hilly last couple of miles. That was the bad part. The good part is that I still felt strong and weathered it pretty well, although at a slow pace.

This turned out to be my longest training run in years because I never plan to go more than 20 miles. By adding the extra mile or so, I am close to the 1,000-mile mark for the year at 996.3 (I thought I had passed 1,000, but realized that Saturday's 4-miler was logged in twice) and finished my first week training for the Marshall University Marathon with 51.7 miles.

It's a nice feeling to know that I'm starting training -- at least for me -- at a high fitness level. It has me excited that I may be able to run a good time at the MUM considering that it is a flat course.

Can't wait for Week 2 of training!

My road-racing plan for the fall has been set

2010-08-07T20:08:00.001-04:00

It's time to get serious about training!

I've registered for my two centerpiece races for the fall, and may add other races and possibly a marathon in December. My training program is done, all I need to do is follow it.

First is the Salem Lake 30K in Winston-Salem, which is Sept. 25 this year. It's one of my favorite races, and I missed it during my five years in Virginia. Now that I'm back in North Carolina, I can't wait to run those trails again.

Salem Lake is entirely run on trails, mostly hard packed dirt but also some paved trails. Half marathons are helpful in preparing for a marathon, but an 18.6-mile race is a much better test than a 13.1-mile race.

Second is the Marshall University Marathon in Huntington, W.Va., which is Nov. 7. West Virginia sounds hilly, but it appears to be a flat course and that's been confirmed by the comments on marathonguide.com, which are very positive.

Both races are very reasonably priced as well: Salem Lake is only $20 and MUM is $60, which sadly is inexpensive for marathons these days.

For the $60, in addition to what appears to be a well-run race, you get a fleece jacket, a long-sleeve technical shirt and a free pasta dinner the night before.

The MUM also has an interesting finish. The finish line is one of the goal lines inside Marshall's football stadium. They hand you a football as you enter the stadium to carry over the last 100 yards of the race.

It's not the only marathon that has a similar finish. I know that the Sunburst Marathon ends in Notre Dame Stadium and the Green Bay Marathon finishes in Lambeau Field.

The closest I've come to that sort of finish is the Oriole Advocates 5K, which I've run twice. You run through the tunnel at Oriole Park at Camden Yards and finish inside the stadium. The men finish at the center-field warning track and the women finish behind home plate. Sadly, I see from its website that the race wasn't run for the second straight year because of financing issues. (Maybe Buck Showalter can fix that while he's trying to fix the Orioles.)

The Grandfather Mountain Marathon, which I ran in 2001, starts in Appalachian State's football stadium and ends on the field for the Highland Games but that's not quite the same.

I'm pumped up to start serious training and, for the first time, I'll actually be able to do all of my long runs on a weekend. All of my long runs will be done the same day of the week (Sunday) as my target race. I've never done that before because I always scheduled my long runs for the second of my two days off, which have varied over the years from Wednesday to Friday.

Hopefully the hills in Durham and Chapel Hill I'll be running in training will help me run a good time on a relatively flat marathon course.

Marshall will be my 25th marathon and West Virginia will be the 13th state in which I've run a marathon. Should be fun!

I'm blissfully unaware of who is on the pole for the race!

2010-07-31T18:37:00.002-04:00

I've now been out of the newspaper business nearly 4 1/2 months, and there is a lot that I miss about it. But there are far more advantages than disadvantages.

The obvious advantage is the hours: I finally get every weekend, holiday and evening off for the first time in years. I get to spend more time with my family and there are many other reasons that a Monday-Friday daytime schedule is better than the second-shift schedule working for newspapers.

It may seem like I really love all sports since I spent most of my newspaper career in sports departments, but that's not the case. If the NFL, NBA, NASCAR or the MLS went away tomorrow, it wouldn't matter to me.

That is one of the big advantages that I initially didn't consider: I no longer have to keep up with these sports that don't interest me, and I love it.

Of the leagues listed above, I probably watch the NFL the most. I don't mind watching the games. The overkill hype given to the league by ESPN and just about every other media entity is something I couldn't escape while I was in the newspaper business. It was my job to keep up with the storylines in order to help me anticipate what might need to go in the paper the next day, so I'd pay attention even when I was off.

NASCAR bores me, and about the only time I'll watch is if I flip to a race and there are fewer than 10 laps remaining. At all of my newspaper stops, NASCAR always was huge for readers, so I had to keep up with the storylines. I'll admit that I enjoyed reading stories about drivers feuding. Other than that, it was just a dull part of my job.

The only part of the NBA that interests me is keeping up with how the Carolina guys are doing. I've was fortunate that the NBA never was a big element of the coverage at any of my newspaper stops. I didn't even watch all of Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

But my days of having to keep up with those sports are over!

I followed several NFL and NASCAR Twitter feeds because many times they alerted me about a breaking story well before AP moved any copy about it. I've unfollowed all of them since I don't care and don't have to care!

If a sports-talk station is talking about the NFL, I switch stations. I record the late SportsCenter each night and watch it before and after my morning runs before work. That allows me to skip through all of the NFL coverage. Something tells me that in a month or so, it won't take me any time to get through a SportsCenter. I'll watch NFL highlights Sunday night and Monday, but it will be on NFL Network so that I don't have to listen to Chris Berman.

Now, most of my time devoted to sports will focus on the ones I'm actually passionate about: baseball, hockey and college basketball. I'm not quite as passionate about college football, but I enjoy following it.

Not only do I not know who is leading the NASCAR Cup points race, I don't care. And I've taken the last of the hundreds of calls over the years wondering, "Who's on the pole?"

I'm blissfully unaware of the answer.

A blast to be racing on the Fourth of July

2010-07-04T10:52:00.003-04:00

With the notable exception of Christmas, it really doesn't seem like a real holiday for me if I'm not racing. I made it a real holiday by heading out to to York County for (likely) my final road race as a Virginian.

In terms of winning hardware, I didn't pick a race very well. Several weekends back in Newport News in the last month, I've nearly gone out for races but decided to stay home and run. In nearly every case, when I saw the times in my age group, I saw that I easily would have won an age-group awards.

With more than 400 runners, that wasn't going to be the case with today's Yorktown Independence Day 8K. Judging from the 2009 results, I would have had to run 6:15 mile splits to have a decent chance at an age-group award. After mile splits around 6:57 for the first two miles, I knew that this wasn't going to happen.

It's always fun to race, and this was no exception. Unlike when I was in the newspaper business, I actually was able to go to bed early enough to get in a good night's sleep!

This course is completely on trails, 95 percent of it pavement, so there's no concern about traffic. Thankfully, there was shade for much of the course.

After the first couple of miles, I kept a fairly even pace. But for the last couple of miles, I never could really pick off other runners and pretty much kept my position. I was hoping to break 35 minutes if I had a good race, but had to settle for 36:20. (An 8K is actually just shy of five miles, not 5.19 miles as my Garmin read.)

I caught up with Michelle Smith-Harden, left, after the race. The Daily Press did a feature on her a few months ago after she finished marathons in all 50 states. She's doing TWO marathons next weekend: The Grandfather Mountain Marathon on Saturday and the Flatlands Marathon on Sunday. Better her than me!

Can't wait to do my first race when I, once again, am a North Carolinian!

Early arrival by McAdoo would be a bonus

2010-06-08T20:43:00.003-04:00

What's the best way to solve this problem of seeing the best talent in college basketball come one year and leave the next? Have the star come early.

That appears to be what is about to happen in the case of Norfolk (Va.) Christian power forward James McAdoo, who long ago committed to play at North Carolina. The 6-foot-8, 205-pound star, rated No. 3 overall in the rising senior class by MaxPreps.com, could become a Tar Heel a year early.

An Internet report Monday suggested that he has withdrawn from Norfolk Christian. Why? Because he needs three summer-school classes to graduate from Norfolk Christian. By withdrawing, the honor-roll student only needs one online English class to qualify for a GED. Coupling that with his grades and high SAT score would qualify him to attend Carolina for the fall semester.

You might wonder how much this kid could help the Tar Heels next season. I say that if he helps at all it's worth it for UNC and there's every chance that he has the talent to have a huge impact off the bench.

Another high school player from Hampton Roads, Atlantic Shores' Andre Dawkins, left high school a year early to play for Duke. The difference with him was that he was reclassified and was the age of most graduating seniors at that point. His season was full of inconsistent play and inconsistent playing time, but it seemed like a good move overall for him.

Any contribution McAdoo makes next season is a bonus. If he played his senior year at Norfolk Christian and joined the Tar Heels for the 2011-12 season, there's a significant chance that he'd be tempted to leave after one season. But because of his age, if he joins the UNC program next season, he has to stay two seasons before entering the NBA and hopefully stays longer.

You can argue that the Heels will be in better shape next season with Alabama transfer Justin Knox playing for them next season and possibly McAdoo also joining the program than if the Wears had not transferred to UCLA. If the Wears had stayed, odds are that only one of them would have played next season because of David's hip issues.

In getting Knox to play for one season, it's like an NBA team making a trade for a player with an expiring contract. Coach Roy Williams knows that his scholarship will be open for the next recruiting class.

It would be more family history for the McAdoos. James' uncle Robert (who went by Bob once he got to the NBA) became the first Tar Heel to leave early for the NBA after leading UNC to the 1972 Final Four. Now James could become the first player to leave high school early to become a Tar Heel.

Suddenly the concerns about front-court depth aren't as significant. Let's just hope that injuries don't force that depth to be tested more than it needs to be.

Time to expand replay reviews in baseball

2010-06-02T21:18:00.013-04:00

I've just witnessed the worst call in sports history. It denied Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a special place in Major League Baseball history Wednesday night.

He pitched a gem against the Cleveland Indians and was one out away from the 21st perfect game in major-league history when first-base umpire Jim Joyce ruled the baserunner Jason Donald safe at first base. It was obvious that Galarraga's foot clearly touched the bag before the Donald reached first base.

And you can read Jim Joyce's lips as he's yelling at Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera shortly afterward. "There ain't no f-ing way." Oh, really? That was the worst call in sports history given the situation. And he appears on replays to be nearly ready to signal out before signalling safe.

I have to give credit for Galarraga and Detroit manager Jim Leyland for being classy about the mistake. But they never should have been put in that position. I feel badly for Joyce, who no doubt is beating himself up over this bad call.

If this was the NFL, the NBA, college football or college basketball, this would have been reviewed and this would have been fixed.

Interestingly, no more than 30 minutes after that baseball game, the Philadelphia Flyers were awarded a goal in the Stanley Cup finals. Replays showed that the puck Scott Hartnell redirected went past the goal line. It had been ruled no goal on the ice. Even though they played a couple of minutes afterward, NHL officials still reviewed it and the right call was made.

The NHL had the rules in place to allow the correct call to be made.

I'm very much a traditionalist when it comes to baseball. I hate the designated hitter, for example. But it's time to loosen up the replay-review rules. The only time a replay review can be used now is for boundary plays and to rule whether a fly ball is a home run or not.

What happened Wednesday never should happen again.

They should give umpires a chance to review any play, except for balls and strikes, after the seventh inning if a pitcher has a no-hitter. I really don't want to see delays for replays of plays at first in regular-season games except in these sorts of situations.

Come on, Bud. You let the World Series get canceled one year. Don't let another pitcher lose a deserved place in history over a completely blown call by an umpire.

This was a shameful moment for Major League Baseball.

I'll take reading the print version of a newspaper over website reading any day

2010-05-29T10:45:00.004-04:00

Maybe it's my age. Maybe I'm just "old school." But even though I'm a reformed newspaper man, I won't ever stop loving the print editions of newspapers.

On my way back from my run today, I picked up a News and Observer and really enjoyed reading the print edition.

My mom subscribes to the online edition, which means that she can look at images of all of the pages and zoom in on the stories. I tried that a couple of times. But if I'm reading the stories on the computer, it's much easier for me to just go to the regular website view of the stories.

It's nice to check out the page designs, which is the reason I often go to the Newseum's website to look at front pages from throughout the country.

I go to the N&O's website every day, but I found that I read a lot more stories from today's print edition than I usually read on its website.

I'm enjoy the numerous information options of cyberspace, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, message boards or countless news websites. And I love being able to read newspapers published in other states on the Internet.

But newspaper websites just don't provide me with the same experience offered by a print edition. Viewing the designs, observing (and second guessing) the news judgments and critiquing the stories and headlines is fun for me. And the very simple pleasures of reading standings, box scores, TV sports schedules and the comics aren't the same online.

It's obviously different with breaking news, which newspapers can provide in a timely manner on their websites.

I fear that there will be a day when print editions vanish, but I hope it's not anytime soon.

NBA playoffs don't compare to the Stanley Cup playoffs in excitement

2010-05-15T10:38:00.002-04:00

What we witnessed in the last week in the Philadelphia Flyers-Boston Bruins Eastern Conference semifinals series is only the latest evidence that the Stanley Cup playoffs are the most compelling and unpredictable in all of pro sports.

The Flyers had to win a shootout against the New York Rangers in their final regular-season game to even make the playoffs. A big underdog against Marty Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia cruised to 4-1 series victory in the first round.

Then it looked like reality finally had set in on Philadelphia when it went down 3-0 in its series against the favored Boston Bruins. But the Flyers rallied not only from that series deficit, but from a 3-0 hole in Game 7 on the road to win the game and the series 4-3.

So we've got the No. 7 seed Flyers against the No. 8 seed Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference finals.

If you can eliminate sports preferences from the debate, and I realize I'm in the minority in preferring hockey over pro basketball, this shows why the Stanley Cup playoffs are so much better than the NBA playoffs.

Incredible upsets such as this rarely happen in the NBA.

This season, it's hard to even find a competitive series. Three of the four conference-semifinal series in the NBA were four-game sweeps. The other series, the Boston Celtics' 4-2 victory over Cleveland Cavaliers, did last six games, but most of the games weren't either close or compelling. Yes, that series was an upset, but nothing like the Flyers' victories. After all, the Celtics did win the NBA title two seasons ago.

Any team that makes the Stanley Cup playoffs knows by just reviewing history that they have a shot at making a run to the Cup. In the NBA, there usually are only three or possibly four teams that have decent shots at winning the championship.

That fact is what frustrated me so much when my Carolina Hurricanes couldn't quite recover from the early- season hole it had created. The Canes played well the last two months of the regular season and I thought they had a chance of making another thrilling run if they could have slipped into the field. Sadly, it didn't happen.

Since coach Peter Laviolette was the coach who guided the Canes to the 2006 Stanley Cup, I'm definitely cheering for Philadelphia even though it pains me to be backing the Flyers.

I'm extremely happy for goalie Michael Leighton, a former Norfolk Admiral who got released by Carolina. Philadelphia smartly picked him up, but then he had to deal with an injury. But an injury to Brian Boucher thrust Leighton into a tough high-pressure playoff situation and he's performed well.

Sure we won't have Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin in conference-finals series, but the Sharks-Blackhawks and Habs-Flyers series should be entertaining.

Wake me up when the NBA playoffs end.

I'm officially a reformed newspaper man

2010-05-14T12:45:00.006-04:00

It's a time of excitement and sadness at the same time for me.

I'm looking forward to the challenge of my first professional non-newspaper job, as a proofreader with AICPA. But this feels like a divorce from a profession I loved. I still love it, but it's just too painful to give it another chance.

When I was a little kid, I looked forward to reading the newspaper each day. The business fascinated me and I knew at a very young age that I wanted a career in newspapers.

I've been lucky enough to spend 27 years in the business and, until the last 10, couldn't imagine doing anything else.

You don't work for newspapers unless you have a passion for it. It's certainly not for the money, the work on nights and weekends and the numerous holidays spent at the office. There were countless nights coming back from work when I truly felt fortunate to be able to do make a living in newspapers.

My first jolt of the new newspaper reality came in 2005 shortly after Paxton Media Group bought The (Durham, N.C.) Herald-Sun. The new owners laid off many good people that first week in January, and I was stunned to suddenly be looking for a job.

It started more of a love/hate relationship with the business. It's fun work, but I hate where the business is going. It's sad to see the damage it inflicts on the lives of the people trying to do good journalism and on the product weakened with every cut.

I realize that newspapers are struggling to make money and that they have no choice but to cut budgets. But newspaper companies around the country are making curious decisions as they continue to lose readers.

If your cable or satellite TV provider cuts numerous channels from your package but keeps the price the same (or even increases the price), you'd be outraged. Newspapers, while giving executives bonuses in some cases, basically are doing something similar and shouldn't be surprised that the drop in readership is accelerating. The future is online, but how many newspapers are generating much website revenue?

I never seriously discussed any job outside of newspapers in 2005. My job search produced seven interviews in five states, three job offers and a sports copy-editing job at the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press.

I enjoyed the challenges there, learned a lot and had the privilege of working with some terrific journalists. There were numerous good times in Newport News. But in my five years at the Daily Press, I survived six rounds of layoffs/buyouts before Tribune Company, which owns the newspaper, came up with an outsourcing plan that led to the elimination of my job and the jobs of many others.

I actually had an interview for a newspaper job on the day I got laid off in March. But I reluctantly came to the conclusion that if I wanted some sort of job stability, I'd probably have to look outside of the industry.

The difference in the economy in general and the newspaper business in particular from five years ago was obvious. I only had three interviews in two states, although I canceled a fourth interview in a third state when I accepted the AICPA job. My discussions with several newspapers were short once I realized the money they were offering.

I applied for an out-of-state newspaper copy-editing job weeks ago and was told in an e-mail message this week that I was one of 28 people who still were under consideration. I'm obviously no longer interested, but that's pretty competitive!

That number illustrates to me how many good out-of work newspaper people are out there and how few good jobs are available. There also are scores of talented journalists who are employed, but miserable. Their companies handcuff their ability to produce a newspaper that is even close to the same quality of years ago. But the jobs that could look good today, could be the target of corporate brass tomorrow.

Do people still working at a newspaper look elsewhere in the industry? These days, comparing which newspaper company is better is like me debating which Cubs failure frustrated me the most. Nearly all are bad. Few can promise much stability and most lack the financial commitment to good journalism.

Before interviewing with AICPA, my last previous non-newspaper job interview was for a public-relations position with the LPGA in 1983. Earlier that year, I had interviewed for a PR job with the Denver Nuggets. Neither worked out, but that was fine because I began my newspaper career that year.

A career ended this year.

There were so many highlights. I felt like a kid on Christmas day covering ACC basketball and football games and, in particular, the ACC tournament. Covering the Stanley Cup finals in 2002 was incredible for somebody like me who loves hockey, even the game that ended after 1 a.m.

I wrote the first story ever written about a kid who was then a dazzling freshman at Kinston High School by the name of Jerry Stackhouse. I covered Mike Hargrove in his first year as a professional manager with the Kinston Indians, and Kinston's Carolina League championship team in 1988.

I remember sitting in the Kinston Indians office one Friday afternoon watching a few innings of a Cubs game with Joey Belle just days before he went AWOL in 1988. He had a torrid relationship with the press in the major leagues as Albert Belle, but we always got a long fine.

One morning in 1993 at the Burlington Times-News, when it was an afternoon paper, I made a call to the pressroom to tell them to "stop the presses!" It was the only time I made that call to change A1 to get a breaking story into the newspaper. Jim Valvano had died.

More memorable than the games was the camaraderie with many terrific people I was fortunate to work with at five newspapers. Every newsroom was a little different, but the commitment to readers was the same.

But I'm officially a reformed newspaper person as I begin a new challenge next week with AICPA. I'm excited to get started. Clearly, I won't miss working nights, weekends and holidays and the anxiety of wondering when (not if) more layoffs will go down.

I feel fortunate to be starting a job just two months after getting laid off and to be working for a company that's been around for more than 100 years.

When there is a big story breaking, I'm going to miss the adrenaline of being in the newsroom as the story is coming together. I'll miss trying to come up with the perfect headline or the best possible display for a story. I'll miss facing seemingly impossible deadlines on a nightly basis and somehow making it anyway.

But when my Tar Heels play next season, it will be nice that the bulk of my game viewing won't happen via the DVR the next day.

--30--

Getting to know Jack

2010-05-09T13:15:00.000-04:00

After the unexpected departure of the Wear twins, one of names that quickly emerged to possibly fill the gap for North Carolina was 6-foot-9 Kadeem Jack.

Jack, left, is a senior at Rice High School in Harlem who announced last week that he would attend prep school instead of going directly to college. Fortunately for the Tar Heels, he appears to be reconsidering that decision.

The good news is that Jack is expected to visit the Chapel Hill campus soon. The bad news is that he also appears to be planning to visit Kentucky.

Recruiting expert (and former co-worker of mine) Dave Telep speaks highly of Jack, who would give the Tar Heels badly needed front-court depth. The Wildcats, who currently have only two players taller than 6-7 on next season's roster, also could use his services.

Jack apparently is a raw talent, but it appears that he's likely the best option to fill a gap. At 210 pounds, he's not going to be a physical force, at least next season, but hopefully a player who could develop into a star.

He is from Trinidad and Tobago, barely picked up a basketball before he was 13 and really didn't start to become a star until his junior year of high school. The prep-school decision apparently wasn't driven by academic concerns, but in order to give him more time to develop athletically.

The more I read about David Wear's injury, it appears that he may not have played next season, anyway. So, for next season, UNC is going to miss one Wear instead of two.

There are rumors out there that his dad, Dave, thought that UNC misdiagnosed his hip injury and that had something to do with the decision to transfer.

Reports suggest that Jack's scheduled visit to Chapel Hill likely will be before his visit to Lexington. Hopefully he's so impressed that he'll commit on the spot and not bother visiting UK.

Losing Wears huge blow to UNC's depth

2010-05-06T19:08:00.002-04:00

We thought the throbbing pain that Carolina basketball consistently inflicted since New Year's Day ended with the loss in the NIT final. But Dave Wear had a little May surprise for all Tar Heels fans and the pain is back.

Dave is the father of twin big men Travis and David Wear who, until this week ,were members of the UNC basketball team and apparently eager to play for the Tar Heels next season. We find out today that the Wears are transferring to be closer to their California home, and rumors have UCLA as the likely landing spot for the twins.

Was this a decision made by the twins or was it made by their dad?

Tweeting UNC players seemed stunned by the news and coach Roy Williams' comments in the press release clearly indicate that the players and the coaching staff didn't see this coming. If the Wears were unhappy, one would think that players on the team or the coaches would have known about it.

It sounds like Dad was calling the shots.

I believe that what we have here is a dad who was worried about his kids' playing time. He likely wondered if playing elsewhere would improve his sons' chances of showing off their talents to NBA scouts. It also likely preferred David be closer to home since he's dealing with a hip injury that probably would have limited his play next season anyway.

What does this mean for next season?

In short, it means that this team better get strong play from its point guards because the Tar Heels will have to push the tempo even more to take advantage of their speed and quickness. And they have to shoot much better from the perimeter.

Without the Wears, the team won't be that physical inside and -- barring any late additions -- will have only two true post players. Losing one big man would hurt depth. Losing two cripples the Tar Heels' depth.

John Henson reportedly has been adding weight during the offseason, but still has a long way to go before he is a physical player. Tyler Zeller can be physical, but also is injury-prone. Players will be forced to play out of position, and it will get even worse if Zeller gets hurt.

Some recruiting experts are suggesting there could be options in the current high school senior class, but they wouldn't nearly be as polished as the Wears.

Unfortunately, the Carolina basketball offseason just got a lot more interesting.

Words have meanings, including "star"

2010-05-06T11:06:00.001-04:00

Many media members recently are either not doing their homework or don't know what a word means.

I'm talking about the misuse of the word "star."

The most recent irritating references have come in the reporting of the sad University of Virginia lacrosse homicide case. I realize there are a lot more important facts to check, but just because it's a minor point doesn't mean that you should not be accurate.

I've heard several TV reporters refer to both the victim, women's lacrosse player Yeardley Love, and the accused, men's lacrosse player George Huguely as "stars."

A quick trip to the U.Va. athletics website offers plenty of evidence that "star" isn't an accurate description.

If these reporters would take that time, they would see that Love, who played defense, only started three of 15 games. Huguely didn't start any of the Cavaliers' 15 games games and collected only four goals and three assists this season. Neither made the All-ACC team.

I'm sure that both displayed very good lacrosse talent or they would not have earned college scholarships. But there's no way that an athlete could accurately be called a star if they rarely or never start.

My youngest son has started every one of his recreation-soccer games this season. He's playing well and has scored a goal, but honestly compels me to report that you can't call him a star.

This isn't the only story in which "star" likely is at least overused.

Whenever a woman who does work in porn movies is described, she seemingly always is called a "porn star."

I'm sure that there are porn stars, but every porn actress who makes news is called a porn star. A woman who allegedly had a relationship with Tiger Woods has been given this title in every report I've seen. I don't care to check for the accuracy of these references. She may be a "star." But I'll bet it's unlikely that every porn actress who makes news is a "star."

I just wish that if reporters working on the Virginia lacrosse story can't take the time to check if the word "star" is accurate, that they simply would call them former players.

Painful winter-sports season thankfully over for me

2010-04-12T16:32:00.003-04:00

Mercifully, the winter-sports season has ended for me.

I blogged back in January about how this had the potential to be the worst winter-sports season of my lifetime as a fan. Although there were some bright spots at the end, it certainly lived up to that potential. Two of the three teams I'm most passionate about -- Carolina basketball and the Carolina Hurricanes (the other is the Chicago Cubs) -- made sure of that.

The Tar Heels finally started to play well enough to beat teams in the sub-standard NIT and got some valuable experience for the younger players in the process. But a 17-loss season and an NIT berth aren't outcomes that sit too well with me or any other Carolina fan.

Coming off a national championship, I knew not to expect another title because of the players the Tar Heels lost. But I never expected this sort of drop off.

The Canes started out horribly and slipped to the worst record in the NHL, thanks to poor play in a lot of areas and an injury to goalie Cam Ward. After advancing to the Eastern Conference finals in the previous season, I was expecting big things.

The Hurricanes also finished with some positives and, frankly, were playing some of the best hockey in the league over the final month of the regular season. They beat two of the best teams in the NHL -- the Penguins and the Caps -- during that run.

But the Canes provided one last bit of embarrassment in Saturday's season-ending loss at Boston: Becoming the first team in NHL history to give up three short-handed goals while trying to kill one penalty.

Now comes the offseason, which today provided a bit of pain with Ed Davis' decision to leave UNC for the NBA. That doesn't come as a huge surprise, but there was some speculation that he might return because his injury will make it tough for him to show off his skills in workouts for NBA teams.

The Canes' offseason also will likely include some painful decisions, the biggest surrounding the future of former captain Rod Brind'Amour.

At 40, and with his skills slowly eroding, and it's probably time for him to retire. It will be sad to see the guy who led the club to the 2006 Stanley Cup finals no longer on the ice, but it's time. He doesn't need to spend another season as a fourth-line center and retirement is probably best for the organization.

About the only positive in this winter-sports season for me is that my fantasy-hockey team won the league championship for a second straight season.

Let's hope the Heels and the Canes give me some real titles next season!

Job hunting without a "shield"

2010-04-07T13:31:00.001-04:00

There's a reason that I haven't written much lately on the blog, one that probably is easy to guess.

When you've been laid off, there's a helpless feeling of being out of control of your future. I compare it somewhat to the plight of a college coach who badly wants a particular recruit to pick his or her college. They probably feel that they have to outwork all of the other coaches and feel like that they never can do enough in in their attempt to sway the kid.

That's been my feeling. I don't have a paying job, but I certainly have a job: To get somebody to hire me. To do that, I spend hours each day on my laptop checking job listings and applying for all sorts of jobs. But it never feels like I've done enough.

Until last Thursday, though, I didn't do that with quite the same anxiety.

The first time that the editor of the Daily Press tried to call me March 17, on my day off, to summon me for an HR meeting, I didn't answer. I had the ringer off because I was in the middle of an interview for a job that would pay more than the one I had.

When the guy interviewing me was checking his BlackBerry just before we went to lunch, I checked my phone. I saw the missed call, and immediately knew it was the Daily Press and that I was going to be laid off.

But the interview went very well. He had been doing his job and the job for which I was interviewing. When we were wrapping up, he commented that, if it were up to his wife, he'd hire me right there because he had been spending so much time at work. But he said wanted to interview one other candidate.

The interview went well and I felt like I had a solid shot at getting hired.

Between that day and last Thursday, it was as if I had an artificial mental shield from my unfortunate reality. I blogged fairly frequently, although I still was plugging away very hard looking for other job opportunities. I felt anxious, but optimistic.

But that shield was lifted last Thursday when I got word that he was hiring another candidate who has a lot more of experience than me in a key area.

There have been lots of compelling topics to blog about since then, but I didn't write about them. It not only that the time writing a blog entry takes away from job-search time, it also was the result of my general outlook changing because the shield was gone.

Searching for jobs is a lot different from five years ago. I've only had to go to the post office once since most employers ask that you apply for jobs electronically. It makes the process much easier, but it also makes it much more impersonal in a lot of ways.

I miss my old job and the talented folks I worked with a lot. I'd sure prefer looking through a list of stories to edit over checking lists of job openings. It's as if somebody told me abruptly that I can't run, but I might be able to run again at some point.

The lack of control is extremely frustrating and, amazingly, my right knee is giving me a little trouble while running lately. What else can happen?

But I'm trying to stay positive and will keep plugging away and hoping that that next job isn't that far away. I know from talking to some others in the same situation that I should feel fortunate to at least have had an interview. I also know that there are people who have been looking for a job much longer than I have.

Now, about Duke winning the national championship? I don't want to talk about it!

Ready for 9th year of Blue Devils failure in NCAA tournament

2010-03-26T16:17:00.003-04:00

Let's take a moment to bask in Duke's March failures, hoping for more tonight or in the next 11 days.

Since Duke's unfortunate national championship in 2001, the Blue Devils have five ACC tournament titles but little else to celebrate.

Since then, North Carolina has more national championships (2) than Duke has Final Four appearances (1) and victories against a team seeded No. 4 or higher (0) combined. The Tar Heels beat FOUR teams seeded No. 4 or higher just last season.

And, no, you can't use the term Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is mouthing to the left to describe these facts.

The Blue Devils haven't beaten a team seeded higher than No. 5 since beating Arizona, the No. 2 Midwest seed, in the 2001 NCAA final. Duke hasn't beaten a No. 1 seed since knocking off Midwest No. 1 Michigan State 68-62 in a 1999 national semifinal. Two nights later, the Devils lost to West No. 1 seed UConn 77-74 in the national final.

Here is a rundown of the annual tournament failures for Mike Krzyzewski's boys:

2002 South No 1 seed: Beat No. 16 Winthrop 84-36, No. 8 Notre Dame 84-77, lost to No. 5 Indiana 74-73.
2003 West No. 3 seed: Beat No. 14 Colorado State 67-57, No. 11 Central Michigan 86-60, lost to No. 2 Kansas 69-65. (Gee, who might have been coaching the Jayhawks that year? Of course, it was Roy Williams.)
2004 South No. 1 seed: Beat No. 16 Alabama State 96-61, No. 8 Seton Hall 90-82, No. 5 Illinois 72-62, No. 7 Xavier 66-63, lost in national semifinals to West No. 2 seed UConn 79-78.
2005 Austin No. 1 seed: Beat No. 16 Delaware State 57-46, No. 9 Mississippi State 63-55, lost to No. 5 Michigan State 78-68.
2006 Atlanta No. 1 seed: Beat No. 16 Southern 70-54, No. 8 George Washington 74-61, lost to No. 4 LSU 62-54.
2007 No. 6 West seed: Lost to No. 11 VCU 79-76.
2008 No. 2 West seed: Beat No. 15 Belmont 71-70, lost to No. 7 West Virginia 73-67.
2009 No. 2 East seed: Beat No. 15 Binghamton 86-62, No. 7 Texas 74-69, lost to No. 3 Villanova 77-54.

You might ask why a fan of North Carolina, consigned to the lowly NIT, would be wasting time with this considering how bad the Tar Heels' season has been.

But I ask: which one would you prefer?

* Duke's plight since the 2000-01 season: Nine years of consistency with five ACC titles and only drawing lower than a No. 2 NCAA seed once but making the Final Four only once and never winning an NCAA title. OR

* UNC's plight since the 2000-01 season: Two terrible seasons (8-20 in 2001-02 and the current season, which actually is ending with some positives) and two NIT appearances, but two ACC titles and two national championships.

Yes, Tar Heels fans have endured two painful seasons but also have enjoyed watching UNC win it all twice. Duke's main pain has come in March and its fans have enjoyed no national titles.

No matter which of the thousands of freakish looking Jon Scheyer faces you put on Duke's recent March history, it's one of failure.

I'll take the mixed bag that the Tar Heels have delivered any day.

New York City cheaper than Chapel Hill?

2010-03-25T09:44:00.007-04:00

Anytime you visit New York City, you are quickly reminded that nearly everything is more expensive there.

Everything except, apparently, when it comes to buying Carolina basketball tickets.

I can't afford to fly to New York for Tuesday's NIT semifinals, but I was curious about the price of tickets.

Given that regular-season Carolina men's basketball tickets cost $50 and UNC initially was going to charge $40 for a ticket to the NIT first-round game against William and Mary, I figured we'd be talking about big money when you convert that to New York prices. (UNC, of course, relented and cut the price for a W&M game ticket to $20.)

Boy, was I wrong.

The NIT semifinal tickets (for TWO games) are in four price groupings: $10, $30, $45 and $60. I'm not sure that a $10 ticket really is in Manhattan, but it appears that it will get you a seat inside Madison Square Garden. There's more. The ticket-processing fee is only $3, compared to more than $7 when you buy a ticket through the UNC athletic ticket office.

This leads me to a beef I've had about ticket pricing for Carolina athletics events for a long time: regardless of where the seat is located, the ticket is the same price.

At Carolina Hurricanes games, seats at the top of the upper arena behind the goal the Canes shoot at for only the second period cost $25. From there, upper-deck tickets go up to $35, $40 and $50. In the 200 level, they range from $95 to $200. In the lower level, they range from $70 (for the tickets I had for Sunday's game, although a friend got them to me for free) to $200 on the first row.

There were some empty seats in the lower arena at Sunday's game against the Sabres, but those upper-deck sections behind the goals appeared to be filled.

Although all of the tickets for Carolina athletics events are the same price, I realize that the amount of money many Rams Club members contribute for the right to buy them varies widely.

But it still amazes me that Carolina can get away with charging the same price for the last row in the upper deck behind the basket at the Smith Center that it charges for courtside seats.

UNC charges $50 for a regular-season men's basketball ticket at the Smith Center and, in most cases, you are charged $10 to park.

People wonder why the crowds were down this season for the nonconference games against less-than marquee opponents. Many of these games were played before it was apparent this was going to be a rough season, so you can't necessarily blame that.

I think it has a lot to do with how much UNC is charging for these games,particularly in a rough economy. I'm quite sure that the people who are sitting near the court could afford to pay more than $50 for a ticket and a lot more people would go to games if they could get an upper-deck seat for $15 or $20.

I wish UNC athletics would consider tiered pricing like this. Without that, I suspect that the chances of selling out many of those nonconference games in the Smith Center is unlikely.

Could Heels be on their way to history?

2010-03-24T09:44:00.002-04:00

Who knew that the National Invitation Tournament could be this fun?

After the Tar Heels' loss to Georgia Tech in the first round of the ACC tournament, I heard a lot of North Carolina fans say that they wanted the season to end right there at 16-16.

I never was in that camp, hoping that it would give the young players some valuable experience that would help them next season. The very real prospect of seeing the Heels play down the road from me in Williamsburg or at Carmichael certainly drove my preference for playing in the NIT.

But I never expected three consecutive victories for the first time since December home wins against Marshall, Rutgers and Albany (the latter two combined for 42 losses this season). And two consecutive road victories by a team that only won at N.C. State and Wake Forest during the regular season? I figured I had a better chance of growing hair on the top of my head.

But the John Henson we're seeing in the NIT is drastically different than the one we saw during the regular season. Larry Drew II is showing the poise to make the clutch plays at the end of the games that he couldn't seem to muster most of the season. And Deon Thompson had some strong moves and big shots in finishing with 14 points and 12 rebounds in the 60-55 win Tuesday at UAB.

There was a lot to smile about with the second half.

The Heels turned the ball over only four times in that half and played some of the best defense we've seen from this bunch all season, holding the Blazers without a field goal for 10 minutes during the second half.

And now Carolina is a victory away from another 20-win season and off to New York next Tuesday for the NIT semifinals. And let's call it that. The only Final Four is in the NCAA tournament. This definitely isn't worthy of being called the final four even with lower-case F's. And I don't want to hear anybody claim the Heels are in their third straight "final four."

There's been a lot of frustration and craziness since the Heels last played at Madison Square Garden in November against two teams in the NCAA Sweet 16: beating Ohio State 77-73 before getting stomped 87-71 by Syracuse the next night.

It isn't the sort of history I would have wanted when the season began, but the Tar Heels are two wins away from doing something that never has been done.

No school has won the postseason version of the NIT the season after winning the NCAA title. Florida came the closest when it lost in the 2008 NIT semifinals the season after winning back-to-back NCAA titles.

When my work schedule allowed me to do so, I've watched every game this season. But there were many nights when I wasn't all that eager. Now I am eager to see what this group can do in New York next week.

Not exactly smokin' the Tobacco Road Marathon course

2010-03-21T13:29:00.009-04:00

Executive summary: I finished marathon No. 24, the Tobacco Road Marathon in Cary, N.C., on Sunday in 3 hours, 42 minutes, 10.76 seconds (according to my Garmin), which was eight minutes faster than I ran the Detroit Marathon in October but not as fast as I wanted. The race has me down for for a chip time of 3:42:13 and an official time of 3:42.32.4, which is 152nd out of 698 who actually ran. I was 7th out of 37 in my age group. Here's the way the bib looked before I fixed it and how it looked afterward (officially it's the Duke Medicine Tobacco Road Marathon.)

Much longer version:

One of the running books I use to put together most of my marathon-training programs gives a lot of good advice for all sorts of races. To run your best marathon, it says that you want to set yourself up for a stress-free, relaxing two week leading up to the race. I was "involuntary separated" from control of all that.

When my former newspaper announced March 8 that there would be layoffs within two weeks, that ended thoughts of a a stress-free tapert. I didn't sleep that well worrying about what was ahead. When I got laid off Wednesday -- four days before race day -- all bets were off.

I haven't got more than seven hours of sleep since March 8, and it's ranged from four to a high of 6.5 hours. I resorted to taking Benadryl to help me fall asleep. That helped, but I still was waking up way too early. Certainly not ideal and something I've never dealt with leading up to a marathon.

Normally marathon week is one of the happiest for me of the year. Seeing a game in Carmichael helped a lot. But to say I've had more pleasant weeks would be an understatement.

The race started and finished at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary. A big advantage: they actually had nice bathrooms instead of a Porta Potty.

I was worried about the congestion at the start because there were 800 marathoners and 2,300 half marathoners all starting on a two-lane road at the same time. I was pleasantly surprised that, at least for me, it ended up not being a factor.

After three miles, the half marathoners turned right onto the trail and the marathoners turned left. The American Tobacco Trail is beautiful and a really nice place to run.

As I suspected, with a small marathon such as this one, there wasn't much crowd support although there were pockets of people at certain points. I got a boost at mile eight when I saw a former co-worker at the Herald-Sun, and an avid runner, Neil Amato, who came out to cheer me on. That was pretty cool.

I also caught up with another former H-S co-worker, marathoner Jack Threadgill, right, who did the half-marathon.

My adventurous goal was 3:30 and I was actually on pace for that through 16 or 17 miles. If I could have repeated my 1:45 half-marathon split in the second half, I would have run a 3:30.

But I tailed off a bit at the end and it seemed to coincide with drinking "Gatorade." It tasted watered down and, shortly afterward, my stomach started feeling a little bad. For the first time in any marathon, I nearly threw up a couple of times.

With that, my usual strategy of taking water the first half and Gatorade in the second half quickly was cast aside. I also was paranoid about taking a planned Advil since I was worried about what it would do to my stomach.

But, soon afterward, I took a packet of Gu and downed a little of that with no problem, so I took my "Vitamin I." Didn't have any other issues with my stomach, but I didn't take any more Gatorade even though I probably could have used the electrolytes on a hot day.

The forecast in the days leading to the race predicted a 40 percent chance of rain. Thankfully, that changed and it was fairly pleasant, in the 50s, for most of the race. But when we left the trail for country roads for the last few miles, it really got hot. It must have been in the mid-60s.

I was doing the math and with six miles left, given that my pace getting slower, that beating my PR (which is 3:33:54 from the 1997 Chicago Marathon) wasn't going to happen. My legs felt dead and I was pushing as hard as I could, (like around mile 25, above), but it was a slow marathon trot at that point.

Soon after the beloved 26-mile marker, I turned the last corner and was happy to see Jean, Scott and Alex cheering me on, left, as I pushed for the finish line. That meant a lot. It's been a rough week for them, too, so it was nice to have a moment we all could celebrate!

A very nice marathon on a not-so-nice week. My next question to mull: What will be No. 25?

Marathon-training weather, race-day weather again won't match

2010-03-20T09:58:00.001-04:00

Ideally, you want to train in conditions that are similar to the ones you'll deal with on race day. But it appears that for the second straight marathon, that isn't going to happen.

During my training for last October's Detroit Marathon, I never once wore gloves, a Balaclava on the top of my head or a long-sleeve running shirt. But with temperatures in the low 30s and the wind chill in the high 20s at the start, I was wearing all of that on race day.

My training for Sunday's Tobacco Road Marathon has been full of brutally cold temperatures, blustery winds and some snow and, until recently, gloves were required for every run. The temperature never has been above the mid-40s for any of my training runs, but according to weather.com's hour-by-hour forecast for Cary, it will be 51 degrees at 7 a.m. when the race starts, with the temperature rising to the 60s by about 10:30 a.m., when I hope to finish.

Given the choice between those two conditions, I'd probably prefer Sunday's forecast. But 60s is a bit too hot for a marathon, particularly when I haven't run in those temperatures for months. At least the long-range forecasts of rain for race day turned out to be wrong.

I'm trying to drink as much Gatorade and water as I can today so that I'm properly hydrated for the run.

My goal for the race is to run 8-minute miles, which would give me my adventurous finishing-time goal of 3 hours, 30 minutes.

Short of that, I'd like to beat 3:33:51, which is my marathon PR set at Chicago a few years ago.

Short of that, I could run a Boston Marathon qualifying time with a finish of 3:35:59 or better. I've run Boston with a media waiver, but never have qualified for Boston.

Failing the above, I would hope to at least finish around 3:40.

The key to all of that will be not going out too fast, running as close to 8-minute miles as possible, and avoiding the dreaded 9-minute miles that invariably crop up in the last six miles.

Can't wait to get to the starting line!

A special night at Carmichael

2010-03-19T14:17:00.005-04:00

I would have blogged about this sooner, but life -- specifically my "involuntary separation" from the Daily Press on Wednesday -- has diverted my attention just a bit.

Even though it's a few days later, I can't help but write about how special it was to go to a game in Carmichael with my dad Tuesday night. It was a present a day before his birthday.

My fondest memories as a kid surrounded going to games in Carmichael with him. Of course there were many times when I had to slip over to the aisle to see the action because I was so short, but it literally didn't get any better than that.

I remember not being all that happy when we went to Disney World one year and I missed an exhibition game against the Soviet Union national team. I'm sitting there at Disney World when it tipped off thinking about how I wished I was in in Carmichael.

When I was driving back to Virginia on Wednesday, I talked to my 12-year-old son, Scott, before he went to school. When I was trying to explain how much the game meant to me, I nearly lost it. Heck, I didn't even come close to losing it when I found out I was getting laid off! Maybe it's because I thought I'd never be able to do that again. So there's one excellent result from a painful Carolina basketball season!

Heck, Dad and I even made ESPN's Star Watch (right). Kind of.

Even if the Tar Heels had lost, it would have been terrific. But it was an exciting victory that was very much in doubt until the final four minutes.

I knew from watching several William and Mary games that it is extremely dangerous from 3-point range, and just hoped that the Tribe wouldn't hit that many. Since it took 43 3-point attempts, the second most against the Tar Heels in program history, it's good that W&M didn't hit more than they did!

It was a bit irritating that the Tribe brought its pep band and cheerleaders, particularly after the game when we had to wait for its band to finish a song before our pep band played Hark the Sound.

There are new seats, a new scoreboard, new bleachers and, sadly, a new name (Carmichael Arena instead of Carmichael Auditorium) but it still is one of the classic college basketball venues that gives UNC a significant home-court advantage.

This was no wine-and-cheese crowd. We stood for nearly the entire game as did most of the crowd. Had that NIT game been played in the Smith Center, I never would have driven down for the game.

I've got to thank my former co-worker, Jeff Patterson, for switching his Tuesday night off for my Thursday night off so that I could go to the game. I feel bad that I couldn't make good on my end of the bargain because I got laid off on Wednesday.

Who knows? If N.C. State and North Carolina pull upsets this weekend, there could be a rematch of the last previous Carmichael men's game. That definitely would draw me back to Chapel Hill!

Just another kick in the gut for a newspaper guy

2010-03-17T18:27:00.002-04:00

What is it with my newspaper career and the number seven?

I stayed at the Burlington (N.C.) Times-News for seven years before going to the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun. I worked in Durham for seven years before getting laid off.

In my five years at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., I survived six rounds of layoffs/buyouts. But, you guessed, it, I didn't survive layoff round No. 7, which went down today. Follow this link for details about why these layoffs happened.

The changes explained in the link force a Daily Press sports department with award-winning writers and an excellent sports editor to try to produce good journalism at a significant disadvantage when it comes to the print edition.

A lot of content that doesn't appear in the print edition will go online. Clearly, that's where the business is going and it's extremely important to any newspaper. But very few newspapers are making money with their Web site.

But I'm just as sad to see what is happening at a place I loved the past five years with people committed to good journalism.

My losing my job is collateral damage when you consider the damage that's being done to the business that I love. The Daily Press is far from alone in that regard. Many newspapers are depleting their product at a time when the business already is losing readers.

This all brings me back to the debate I had five years ago: Is my love for newspapers so great that I'm willing to take another chance on a newspaper job?

It always is a tough debate because I have a passion for journalism and newspapers. It's what I love to do. You don't take a job that forces you to work nights and weekends unless you love it. You certainly don't go into this business for the money.

I'm certainly open to non-newspaper jobs, but I've got to think that there is a newspaper job out there that might be safe. It's probably going to be at a small paper or a bigger family-owned paper. It's got to be out there.

The worst part for me is something that the corporate folks making these decisions are unlikely to consider: What laying off newspaper people does to their wives/husbands and their kids. The kids have to change schools and the spouses haves to look for a job -- again -- if the new job forces you to move.

I realize that the newspapers are far from the only industry that has endured lots of layoffs in this bad economy. But if you're a banker, there are lots of banks in most towns. There are countless other professions that would be similar. If you get laid off, you don't necessarily have to move. But if you're a newspaper guy, there are very few situations that allow you to get another newspaper job that don't require you to move.

Hopefully the next big opportunity is out there.

If you know anybody looking for a copy editor with 27 years of experience, let me know!

Hey, at least now I have lots of days off so I can catch my Tar Heels in the NCAA tournament. Wait. Oh, never mind.

Third "last game in Carmichael" on the way

2010-03-15T13:07:00.002-04:00

I was there for the first two alleged last games in Carmichael and I'm will be there for the latest "last game in Carmichael."

The first was on my 25th birthday, Feb. 23, 1985. It was the last home game of that regular season against Clemson, an 84-50 victory, and it was expected to be the last at Carmichael Auditorium because the "Student Activities Center" was supposed to open the next season.

Well, that didn't quite work out -- much to my delight -- and there were more Carmichael home games early in the 1985-86 season.

The move to the SAC was set to be made for the Jan. 18, 1986, Duke game, making the Jan. 4 game against N.C. State, a 90-79 victory, the "last game in Carmichael."

After the game, Wolfpack coach Jim Valvano grabbed a ball and made a layup so that he could jokingly say that he made the last basket in Carmichael.

Later that month in 1986, the new facility became the Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center. Obviously it's more commonly called the Smith Center and a name I've never liked: the Dean Dome.

But, thanks to renovations in the Smith Center, Tuesday's NIT game will be the latest "last game in Carmichael." As I blogged earlier this month, it was my understanding that this would happen if there were NIT games this season.

Barring upsets of No. 1 regional seed Mississippi State, No. 2 UAB and No. 3 South Florida, it will be the only NIT game at Carmichael this season and likely the last for the men's team.

I got the matchup I wanted. But I wanted the Heels to face William and Mary because I figured that the game would be just down the road from me in Williamsburg. I'll certainly take another game in Carmichael, but I wish $40 tickets and a 9:30 p.m. tipoff didn't come with it.

Knowing UNC's tendency not to defend the perimeter very well makes me worry about playing the Tribe, which has several excellent 3-point shooters. When W&M is hitting, it is very dangerous as it showed in winning at Wake Forest and at Maryland, both NCAA tournament teams.

David Schneider (92 3-pointers, 33 percent shooting from 3-point range), Quinn McDowell (48, 42.6), Danny Sumner (45, 31,8) and, off the bench, JohnMark Ludwick (34, 40.0) all are dangerous shooters. The Heels can only hope that Schneider's shooting slump that kept W&M from beating Old Dominion in the CAA tournament final (he was 2-for-12 from 3-point range) continues.

The Tar Heels should score with ease inside as long as the guards are able to get the ball to the big men, but this Tribe team is a gritty bunch that won't make it easy. How William and Mary has a lower seed than North Carolina is mystifying, but I'll take it.

It's a terrific story with W&M coach Tony Shaver returning to the same building where he played a reserve role for Dean Smith in his playing days. I've loved following William and Mary's season, but I'm obviously hoping that it comes to an end Tuesday!

ACC tournament isn't as good as the old days

2010-03-11T16:48:00.006-05:00

The ACC tournament still is a special event that gives fans lots of good basketball -- no thanks to Wake Forest today -- but the tournament doesn't have nearly the same tension and excitement that it had back on the mid-1970s and before.

Coaches such as Roy Williams who, most years, already know they are going to the NCAA tournament, openly admit that they don't put much emphasis on the ACC tournament. Obviously Roy has a different approach this week, but the fact remains that when teams know they're in the NCAA field, the ACC tournament isn't a big deal.

In the old days, it didn't matter how you did during the regular season. You had to win the ACC tournament to make the NCAA tournament. Back in the 1970s, the ACC was the only major conference that determined a champion with a postseason tournament.

It wasn't until the 1975 NCAA tournament that more than one team from a conference could earn a berth. Even that year, it only was a 32-team field and regular-season champion Maryland was the only at-large ACC team to join the league champion Tar Heels.

That year was a classic ACC tournament and the earliest one I vividly remember.

UNC, as the tournament's No 2 seed, rallied from an eight-point deficit with 50 seconds left in regulation for a 101-100 overtime first-round win over Wake Forest. It's commonly known as the scoreboard game. During the Heels' rally, referee Fred Hikel nullified a layup by the Deacs' Skip Brown with a horrible call. He said that the inbounds pass nicked the overhead scoreboard at the Greensboro Coliseum, but film evidence proved otherwise. I believe the ACC suspended Hikel for the mistake.

Defending national champion N.C. State upset Maryland, which had a first-round bye, in the semifinals.

UNC earned a matchup with the Pack in a classic 76-71 overtime semifinal win over Clemson. The Tigers' Tree Rollins missed a follow shot in the final seconds of regulation that would have won it.

In the final, freshman Phil Ford, left, scored 24 points as the Heels dethroned the mighty Wolfpack, led by David Thompson, 70-66.

Even that year, UNC had no guarantee of making the NCAA field had it not won the tournament.

The year before, Maryland was one of the top two or three teams in the country. But because it lost in the best game in ACC tournament history -- 103-100 in overtime against N.C. State in the final -- the Terps were left out. Disconsolate over the loss, the team voted to turn down an invitation to the NIT, which still was a very prestigious tournament at the time.

The Wolfpack went on to beat UCLA in the NCAA semifinals on the same Greensboro Coliseum court and beat Marquette in the final to earn only the ACC's second national title.

Everything was different in the 1970s. The league had eight teams (then seven when South Carolina left the league), and the first-round games weren't televised. I remember sneaking transistor radios into school so that I could keep up with those first-round games. The games were huge because you had to settle for the NIT if you didn't win.

Teams certainly are trying hard to win these days, but most are simply playing for NCAA seedings. And the teams that have to win the tournament to make the NCAA field, such as this season's Tar Heels, don't have a realistic shot of doing so.

At least the tournament is back at the Greensboro Coliseum where it should be every year!

That's where I attended several Big Four Tournament games as a kid, and where I saw my first ACC tournament game in person. (And where I've seen several Carolina Hurricanes games in addition to Heart, REO Speedwagon and Pat Benatar, among others.)

I saved enough money from my newspaper route -- delivering the Greensboro Daily News -- to drive to Greensboro and buy a ticket outside of the arena in 1978. I ended up getting a book of tickets at face value from an guy who must have been in his 60s. He said said his wife couldn't make it. I was thrilled to finally see an ACC tournament game in person.

As a Tar Heels fan, it didn't turn out that well. UNC was the regular-season champion and, with only seven teams, it got a first-round bye. When I finally got to see the Heels play, they lost to Wake Forest in the semifinals. I sold my ticket to the N.C. State-Duke final. That was a good decision considering Duke won.

When your favorite team is playing, you're glad that the ACC tournament isn't nearly as nerve-wracking as it was during the 1970s. But it sure made the games more entertaining.

Please stop the NCAA tournament cliché madness

2010-03-07T14:17:00.005-05:00

Maybe it's because of all those years working at newspapers in North Carolina, but there are quite a few clichés associated with the NCAA tournament that seem to be used more with every passing year. And they also seem to irritate me even more every year.

Let's get one basic common error out of the way. If you, like I do most often, call it the NCAA tournament, the first "t" in tournament is lower-case since the official name is the NCAA Basketball Championship. And why would you refer to the event as "the NCAAs" if you'd never call the ACC tournament "the ACCs" or the NIT "the NITs"?

I don't object to a cliché when there is some logic to it. Sweet 16 to describe the regional-semifinal round is probably overused, but at least it makes sense: It's the round of 16. Elite 8 or Great 8 both are valid, although I prefer the regional finals.

Obviously Final Four makes sense, but it's funny when people talk about Final Fours before 1982 since the name was not yet used. Back then, it was referred to as the "NCAA Basketball Finals."

The Tar Heels played in the last one that was called the "NCAA Basketball Finals" (above) in 1981 and the first that was called the "Final Four" in 1982 (right).

But there are plenty that irritate me and make little sense.

In 1939, the Illinois high school basketball tournament started using March Madness as a nickname. Please, let's let the Illinois folks have it for themselves! Unfortunately, I believe it was Brent Musberger who started using it to describe the NCAA tournament while covering it for CBS and it's become very popular.

I've just gotten tired of this phrase and wish people didn't use it as much. It's also become a lot less valid since just about every Final Four is played in April these days. The Tar Heels won the 1957 title on March 23 and the 1982 title on March 29. But the other titles all have come after March: April 5, 1993, April 4, 2005 and April 6, 2009.

Of the next seven Final Fours, every championship game will be played in April and the only semifinal day to be played in March will be March 31, 2012.

Sometimes as kids we didn't always get a date to the big dance and being able to go was a big deal. So somebody unfortunately came up with the idea that getting an NCAA tournament berth was similar and decided to call it the Big Dance. Sadly, it's caught on.

While I can see arguments for March Madness, I can't see any valid arguments for the Big Dance. It's not a dance, it's a tournament! And it's spawned countless other phrases. Teams that earn a berth are said to be "dancing" and being added to the "dance card." Hate it.

In the weeks leading to Selection Sunday (a phrase that makes sense), we hear a lot about teams being "on the bubble." That's overused, but it makes sense. Years ago, CBS used to use the phrase "on the fence" instead, and on the bubble actually seems more logical.

Of course the most irritating part of this year's NCAA tournament is that -- barring a miraculous run of four wins in four days by my Tar Heels in Greensboro this week at the ACC tournament -- it won't include my Tar Heels. Then again, they could become the first program to win the NCAA title one year and the NIT the next.

A possible solution for this rushing-the-court problem

2010-03-04T15:15:00.002-05:00

The NCAA has to do something about crowds rushing the court before somebody gets hurt, particularly in places such as College Park.

I was overjoyed, of course, that Maryland defeated Duke on Wednesday night at the (Corporate name redacted because I hate corporate names) Center. But when students are storming the court like that, it really is dangerous for the visiting team.

It didn't help that the clock stopped with less than a second left to allow more students to gather at the edge of the course just before time expired.

I see no reason to ban rushing the court as long as it is reserved for big victories over a team ranked much more highly than your team. But I've seen students rush the court when the victory wasn't big enough.

Here's my compromise: Once the game clock goes to all zeros, the shot clock starts. No fans are allowed on the court until those 35 seconds have expired. That gives the visiting team time to quickly shake hands with the players and coaches on the other team and hustle to the dressing room before the mayhem begins.

If fans storm the court before the shot clock expires, the school is warned. The second time it happens, the home team forfeits that game.

The SEC has a system in place that fines schools when fans storm the court. Unless they pay the fine by increasing student fees, I doubt that this is going to change the behavior of students (didn't seem to stop South Carolina students after the Gamecocks upset Kentucky). But students who are proud and happy about the big win aren't going to want that victory to be forfeited.

No, you can't control what the students are going to do. But if there are rules with teeth in place, you can bet that places where there is a problem, such as Maryland, will take steps to make sure this doesn't happen again.

I'll say this for Duke: I've watch Carolina's games at Cameron Indoor Stadium the past four years and haven't seen the Cameron Crazies rush the court once. Wait. I guess there's a reason for that. :)

As for the profane chants at Maryland games? Those are, of course, over the top. And it should be pointed out that they also are yelled in unison. It's not one or two rogue fans. But I better not hear any Duke fans complaining about them.

If you've ever been to Cameron Indoor Stadium for a game, you know what I'm talking about.

I remember covering a Duke-Florida State game during the Charlie Ward era. Ward was about to make an inbounds pass in front of me when a Duke student leaned over me and yelled something about two feet away from Ward.

I won't say exactly what was yelled, but he basically asked if Ward performed a certain sexual act on Seminoles football coach Bobby Bowden. And he was extremely direct with his query.

Ward didn't even flinch, to his credit.

But if he was in that mob scene in College Park, he probably would have. And he played college football!

NIT game in Carmichael?

2010-03-03T12:32:00.004-05:00

Because of renovations that are supposed to be made at the Smith Center, I'm hearing that Carolina athletics officials have decided to play any NIT home games in Carmichael, although nothing has been announced.

If that happened, I'm crossing my fingers that a game will be played the weekend of March 19th-21st because I'm in town anyway to run the Tobacco Road Marathon.

I was so excited talking about it that my 16-year-old son asked me If I'd rather watch UNC win a national championship in the Smith Center on the big screen or see a men's game in Carmichael. Because I never thought it would happen again, I might lean toward the game in Carmichael.

Some of my fondest memories as a kid are going to Carolina basketball games with my dad.

The top memory? No doubt it was March 2, 1974.

I was sitting on the aisle along the front row behind Mitch Kupchak when he made the inbounds pass from the baseline to Walter Davis, who banked in a 35-foot jumper at the regulation buzzer to send the Duke game into overtime. I then ran out on the floor and patted Walter on the back. If you ever see the tape, I'm the kid wearing blue jeans and a yellow Adidas T-shirt. It capped a comeback from eight points down with 17 seconds left (with no 3-point shot) and the Heels won in overtime 96-92.

A game there would be terrific.

I'll try to ignore the fact that the official name of the facility inexplicably has been changed from Carmichael Auditorium to Carmichael Arena.

Reports on records should be fair to past athletes/teams

2010-03-01T12:58:00.004-05:00

It always irritates to me when I hear that an athlete/team earned the most wins/medals in the history of the event and there is no attempt to make a fair comparison to the effort that was surpassed.

NFL teams play more games than years ago. College athletes can play four years now while years ago they could play only three. There are countless other examples that show that feats by today's athletes aren't as impressive as they sound because they are given more chances.

Tyler Hansbrough is one of my favorite all time Carolina basketball players and I'm proud that he's the school's all-time leading scorer. But he played four seasons and 142 games to get his 2,872 points. His career average of 20.3 points per game isn't even in the top five in Carolina history.

Lennie Rosenbluth leads in that category with a 26.9 average, but his 2,045 points is only fourth. Rosenbluth played three seasons, including for the 1957 national champions, and the three players ahead of him played four seasons.

The latest example of my frustrations in this regard comes with the end of the Winter Olympics and reports that Canada broke the record for most gold medals in a Winter Games with 14 and that the United States broke the record for most medals in a Winter Games with 37.

That's all correct. But with the addition of snowboarding and other events, there are a lot more chances to win medals.

Canada's 14 gold medals beat the previous mark of 13 set by Norway in 2002 and the Soviet Union in 1976.

Since Canada had 86 chances to win gold and only won 16.28 percent, its effort isn't nearly as impressive as the Soviets' accomplishment in Innsbruck. It was better than Norway's 16.25 percent of the gold medals in Salt Lake City (13 of 80). But the Soviets won 35.14 percent of the gold medals since there were only 37 available in 1976. Wonder who won the half-pipe gold medal that year?

As for the the Americans' record of 37 total medals? There were 258 medals awarded, so the USA won 14.34 percent of the medals. That beat the 36-medal effort by Germany in 2002, when there were only 234 medals available. That means Germany won a higher percentage with 15.38 percent.

Canada and the United States should be proud of their respective medal hauls in Vancouver, but their efforts clearly weren't as impressive than the records they beat. Regarding the gold-medal record, it's not even close.

How many reports will put the records in perspective? I'm still waiting for the first one.

Terrific U.S. hockey win, but let's not go crazy

2010-02-22T12:07:00.006-05:00

I loved the first U.S. men's Olympic hockey win over Canada since I was 2 ... days old.

But anybody comparing the victory to the Miracle on Ice, which was 30 years ago today, is crazy. It's not remotely close to that.

If you've ever watched the 1980 American victory over the Soviet Union, it was clear that the Russians were much better than the United States. But somehow a gritty group of American college players managed to find the back of the net enough and the Soviet coach inexplicably pulled Vladislav Tretiak, one of the greatest Olympic goalies in history.

The 1980 victory was the arguably the biggest upset in sports history. The Americans' 5-3 victory Sunday with a talented young group of NHL players was an upset, but not a comparable one.

It only was a pool-round win, although it did earn a first-round bye and gives the U.S. a path to the gold-medal game that won't include games against Russia or Canada. But the Americans still are two wins away from a medal.

Of course, I hope that the U.S. can win two more games to earn a medal or three for a gold medal. But the defense is going to have to get better on its own end. Ryan Miller, above, was amazing in goal, but I don't think it's fair to expect that sort of effort three more times.

If the blue-liners keep giving up 42 shots, the medal dreams will be over. Yes, Brian Rafalski's scoring punch (4 goals in 3 games) has been a key to the Americans' success, but he and the rest of the defensemen have to be better on their own end in order to win a medal.

A hot goalie can go a long way, but Miller hasn't shown that level of consistent dominance in big-time games. The Eastern Conference finals in 2006, when my Hurricanes beat his Sabres in seven games, come to mind. He was terrific in that series, but the U.S. is asking too much of him.

Next up: The U.S. plays at 3 p.m. Wednesday (on NBC, believe it or not) against the winner of Tuesday's game between Switzerland and Belarus. It probably will be Switzerland, which the U.S. beat 3-1, only allowing 15 shots.

Above all, I'm hoping that the Americans' success will turn more people onto hockey.

Satisfying 30K preparing for Tobacco Road Marathon

2010-02-21T10:30:00.003-05:00

Training for fall marathons while I was living in North Carolina, I always enjoyed the Salem Lake 30K in Winston-Salem because an 18.6-mile race is a better marathon tuneup than a half marathon. The problem that I've found since I moved to Newport News is that there aren't that many 30Ks.

The Tidewater Striders gave me the solution in my training for the March 21 Tobacco Road Marathon with their distance-series race Saturday in Virginia Beach. It is geared for runners training for the Shamrock Marathon, which is run on the same day as TRM.

Training for spring marathons in past years in Newport News, I've run the Frostbite 20K in Richmond, but that's a little early in January and even farther away. I've also run the Colonial Half Marathon in Williamsburg, which is next Sunday.

The Striders' 30K, run in the shadow of the Old Cape Henry Lighthouses, is so much better than Colonial in so many ways. I spent $25 to register (as opposed to $55 for Colonial), there is chip timing unlike Colonial and instead of a cotton T-shirt (why no technical shirt?) at Colonial, I got a nice running hat. Colonial also much hillier.

There are lots of small things you notice that show that runners put on this race on. I don't know how many races I've run that put trash cans right at the end of the tables at the water stops. In the Striders' race, they put the trash cans well down from where they were handing out water and Gatorade. You actually had time to drink your water without having to toss the cup on the side of the road.

Had this 30K been a target race, I wouldn't have run many miles last week and I'm sure I could have run a better time. But I ran lots of miles in the week leading up to the race (44.5 miles in the previous six days before taking off the day before the race) so that I could better simulate the last few miles of the marathon. I even ran 9.6 miles two days before the 30K.

My goal was to run 8-minute miles and break 2 hours, 30 minutes for the race. That works out well as I come in at 2 hours, 29 minute, 30 seconds, an 8:02 pace (although my Garmin thinks I ran 19.15 miles). That was only good for 11th out of 24 for my last race in the 45-49 age group (would have been 7th if this race was run three days later), but I'm confident I would have finished higher if this was a target race.

This was a 10K course around Fort Story, an Army installation, that we ran three times. (They also had a 20K Saturday). That made for some odd sights, including a sign in Arabic and different terrain that the Army needs for training.

Even though it's right next to the beach, there were more hills that I usually run in Newport News. When you add the blustery wind that created wind-chill values in the 20s, it made for some tough stretches that made you eager for the course to turn a different direction.

The third loop provided something I've never seen in a race. At one point I look up and I see about nine soldiers with rifles, a couple on the ground and pointing them (not at us!). A couple were wearing what looked like Balaclavas on their heads.

Some were on one side of the road, and some on the other. Had this not been an Army installation, it would have been pretty scary. But we ran right by them, and I could hear a commander explaining the "intell" to his troops.

That had to be the weirdest race experience since a deer ran in front of me at a low-key Montgomery County Roadrunners race at a Maryland park years ago.

Because it was at Fort Story, the race support telling you where to run all were soldiers. So whenever they were shouting encouragement, it was "looking good, sir!" or "nice job, sir." I started to think they were calling me sir because I was old until I remembered that they probably are told to say sir all the time!

I played the +/- game I usually play in races like this: When I pass a runner, the number goes up. When I runner passes me, the number goes down. Not counting walkers, I ended up at plus-16, which wasn't that bad considering the numbers of runners.

Hopefully the race is another training element that will make my marathon next month go well!