Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

In other news, I'm going to be cutting back on my blogging. This is a tough decision, as I enjoy posting here and had a recent resurgence, but I have to focus some of my spare time on other things. Not sure when I'll be back to regular posting (it may be a while) but I hope to get back to it, eventually.

Thanks for reading.

Predictions - Men's Basketball

Already posted these on Crossports, but we'll post 'em again here. It'll be easier to dust them off and dig them out of the archives here when the season is over!

Game-by-Game predictions:
Sun 11/12/06 H Fairfield WIN
Wed 11/15/06 H Hampton WIN
Sat 11/18/06 H Siena LOSS
Tue 11/21/06 A Harvard WIN
Sat 11/25/06 H Wm & Mary WIN
Mon 11/27/06 A Syracuse LOSS
Wed 11/29/06 A Yale WIN
Sat 12/02/06 A Dayton LOSS
Wed 12/06/06 A Duke LOSS
Tue 12/19/06 A Providence WIN
Thu 12/21/06 H G Mason LOSS
Thu 12/28/06 A La Salle LOSS
Fri 12/29/06 N Niagara WIN
Sat 12/30/06 N Delaware WIN
Wed 01/03/07 A B U WIN
Sat 01/06/07 A Lafayette * WIN
Tue 01/09/07 H Army * WIN
Fri 01/12/07 H Bucknell * LOSS
Wed 01/17/07 H Navy * WIN
Sat 01/20/07 A American * LOSS
Tue 01/23/07 A Colgate * LOSS
Fri 01/26/07 H Lehigh * WIN
Wed 01/31/07 H American * WIN
Sat 02/03/07 H Lafayette * WIN
Tue 02/06/07 A Army * WIN
Fri 02/09/07 A Bucknell * WIN
Wed 02/14/07 A Navy * WIN
Sat 02/17/07 A ESPN BBuster WIN
Wed 02/21/07 H Colgate * WIN
Sun 02/25/07 A Lehigh * WIN
Wed 02/28/07 Patriot League Quarterfinals WIN
Sun 03/04/07 Patriot League Semifinals WIN
Fri 03/09/07 Patriot League Championship Game WIN

That's 21-9, 3-0 PLT, and I'll say 1-1 NCAA. They bring a 9-game winning streak into the PL Tourney and 12-game streak into the NCAA's. I'd like to think I'm being conservative here, especially with a couple of the OOC games and one of the league games.


Patriot League First-Team:
Keith Simmons, G, HC
Tim Clifford, C, HC
Brayden Billbe, C, AU
Jose Olivero, G, Lehigh
Chris McNaughton, C, BU

And we'll predict the POY here: Keith Simmons, HC


A few other players we think are worth keeping an eye on:
Jordan Nichols, F, AU
Rob Thomas, G, BU
Andrew Brown, G, LAF
Kaleo Kina, G, Navy
Pat Doherty, G, HC (duh!)

Also looking forward to seeing what guys like Matt Bell, Greg Sprink, and Derrick Mercer will do this year.

Men's Hoops Opener!

Beat Fairfield on Sunday! Have a great year, guys.

Football vs. Colgate

The final regular season game has arrived. T&G reporter Jennifer Toland has predicted a victory for Holy Cross today. I'm a little worried about that, as her record in picking the close-call PL games hasn't been good this season. She did correctly predict that Bucknell would lose to Holy Cross last week, but I don't think that was a tough call.

Anyway, best of luck to the Crusaders today. As many have said, these seniors have endured a lot, with the loss of Coach Allen and the subsequent transition, but they should be incredibly proud of their gains. 1-11 in 2003, 3-8 in 2004, 6-5 in 2005, and at least seven wins in 2006. We're hoping for 8 wins and maybe more!

Beat 'gate!

Women's Hoops Opener!

Continuing our tradition, we're posting the opening game starters. Good luck to the women's basketball team this season!

Posters I've met

I sorted the Crossports memberlist by posts, and here are the top 90 (as of a couple of days ago).

The posters I've met are in bold. I'm not trying by any means to say I know everyone (I counted 26 of the 90 in bold), but it's a credit to Crossports and its moderator that we have a forum to discuss HC athletics, which enables us to meet and hang out with other Crusader fans. Seriously, can you imagine if we didn't have the Crossports message board? Thank you Crossports!

hchoops
sader1970
KY Crusader 75
CHC8485
NTKHC64
HC1843
Sons of Spitler
Rick
newtimholycross
pitt65
Root
nhteamer
Ray
lou
Jon
purplehaze
JRGNYR
TheYouk
Non Alum Dave
bison137
Chu Chu
hcnj
Sader81
hcbballfan
Wheeler
dadominate
Sader03
Sader Fan
Gate Raider
Class of 83
colgate13
HCCT
breezy
bikeman
jmw
GOPURPLE97
BeatBC
PatriotFan
Another65er
HC93
HC62
Purple71
crusader1970
Matunuck
Ignatius Loyola
TS1970
JoeHC
eric...
HC13
boxman37
Jet - 99% sure
Cross19
CL Metsfan
germ75
cf rivals
MHMD05
Tom
Zipp
HC92 - I can put 2 and 2 together
HC89
BBFAN
Hoop Time
1saderfan353
WCHC Sports
Fred
HC_01
HCFAN
PROTON
MHMD
purple1
saderman
laxfan
pittman
sader08
hc69
CROSSPORTS
HChockeyalum
purplepower
RGS318
HCAlum2000
baseball fan
JDAllston
Hcbball99
HC03
JS
unwired
mattb
td128
LindenLane
Class1996

There are a handful of others on this list I've figured out (by face) but haven't officially met, or haven't met in the context of Crossports and their posting name. And there are others I've met who are not in the top 90 posters, like Jim (appreciate you reading!) and TheRevHC. Look forward to meeting many more.

And this "top 90 posters" list does raise some questions. For instance, if you add up the posts for all the iterations of MHMD, how high would he rank? And how the heck has bison137 surged into the top20? Dave, fend him off!

New Hockey Column

Telegram & Gazette correspondent Steve Kendall has a new hockey column that will appear on Mondays, bi-weekly. I have to believe HC's win over Minnesota provided some of the impetus for this column. Look for Holy Cross to be covered extensively in his column.

This week's column contains an update on former Crusader hero Tyler McGregor, whose whereabouts were last unknown by the hockey fans on Crossports. Kendall reports that McGregor is playing in the Central Hockey League, as a Memphis RiverKings teammate to former HC goalie Ben Conway. Marc Bianchi is also in the CHL, with the Lubbock Cotton Kings. Does every team have "Kings" in its name?

Must-Read HC Articles

Last weekend's Sunday Telegram contained a ton of Holy Cross content. Paul Jarvey wrote an excellent front-page feature. Also, there were the football and hockey game recaps, along with season previews for the men's and women's basketball teams.

Here are a couple of the articles, which I don't remember seeing linked by anyone over on Crossports. Read 'em before they get archived by the T&G!

First up is a heartwarming story by Sports columnist Paul Jarvey, on senior lineman Matt Lemire and his family. Matt's mom is battling lupus.















Next is the women's hoops preview, featuring an ecstatic Brittany Keil, taking a break from her basket-weaving classes.
Coach Gibbons is always good for some quotes, and this article is no exception. A nice story on Brittany.

I couldn't find the link to Jennifer Toland's men's hoops preview, but it was a very good article. Torey and Keith spoke about their bond, and how Keith does the cooking and cleaning in their student apartment. Keith also recently made his "famous beef enchiladas" for the team. Simmons also discussed the frustrations and limitations of his cramping last season. "I'd cramp up when I tried to be explosive," he said.

Torey Thomas closed the story with this gem regarding being a captain: "I relish the responsibility because not everyone's a leader, not everyone's called on to be a leader. It's prestigious, but it's not just because of a title. It's because you have more to give to other people. When you have more to give to other people, you can be successful. If you lead right, with a keen eye and good discretion, you can make something ordinary become something special."

Pearl of Wisdom #23

"He's an excellent defensive player, but he also adds a lot to our offense. He made the big play last night and had another great game today. He not only scored those goals, but he also broke the puck out well and did the things we expect from him on the ice."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Steve Kendall's game story in the November 5, 2006 edition of the Sunday Telegram, talking about senior defenseman Jon Landry's outstanding play (including a hat trick) as Holy Cross completed the weekend sweep of Canisius with a 6-3 victory at the Hart.


Does Steve Kendall know we're "24" fans? He led his story by comparing Landry to Jack Bauer. We know you were throwing us a bone, Steve. You've seen THIS, right?

Pearl of Wisdom #22

"You have to be able to kill penalties consistently to have success. It's not a glamorous job - getting hit in the gut with a 90 mile-an-hour slapshot isn't fun - but it's incredibly important."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Steve Kendall's game story in last Saturday's Telegram & Gazette, discussing his team's three big penalty kills in the third period of the 5-4 HC win over Canisius at the Hart Center.

Asleep in the street

Here's something you don't see every day. This woman was intoxicated and fell asleep during the Wednesday morning rush hour in the middle of Worcester's most notorious intersection, Kelley Square.

She was taken away by police and brought to the PIP shelter (People in Peril).

Family Weekend Losing Streak

The HC football team hasn't won on Family Weekend since 2001. Consequently, the Dr. Edward N. Anderson Award has been presented to an opposing player each year since.

This year, the Holy Cross Club of Greater Worcester presented the Anderson Award, given annually to the outstanding player in the Family Weekend football game, to running back Marques Thompson of Lehigh. According to HCCGW president Dave Mahaney, Thompson "received 15 of the 16 sportswriters first place votes, was very humble and thanked the Club for the handsome trophy."

Thompson ran up 141 yards on 30 carries against the Crusaders, and was a pretty obvious choice in this fan's opinion.

The previous four winners of the award were Jermaine Pugh of Lehigh, Charlie Rittgers of Dartmouth, Daris Wilson of Bucknell, and last year, Jordan Scott of Colgate.

So we can add Thompson to the list of humble winners. Not all (*cough* Bison *cough*) of the award winners have been gracious in their acceptance of the trophy!

The People Under the Stands

Either my freshman or sophomore year, Kimball Theater at Holy Cross showed the mediocre Wes Craven horror flick, The People Under the Stairs. I guess it wasn't so bad to be deemed "forgettable," since I do remember watching it there!


Well yesterday, it was The People Under the Stands. With 36 seconds to go in the first half of Lehigh's 28-14 win over HC, lightning was visible in the immediate area, and fans scattered out of the stands like rats, very quickly, and most gathered under the home grandstand for the next 45 minutes.

So who'd we see under the stands, anyway? Pretty much the same people who were in the stands to begin with, except you could actually recognize them without the big hats, ponchos and umbrellas.

We saw parents of football players. We saw many of the regular football diehard fans. We chatted with "Crossports" himself. We also saw Steve Silva.

CBS4/WBZ-TV anchor Scott Wahle was there, too. Found out he's a Holy Cross parent, and according to the HC Online Directory, his wife is a member of the Class of 1978. I didn't know Scott was another Boston TV personality with a connection to Holy Cross, joining former WCVB Channel 5 executive Paul LaCamera '64, along with current CBS4 colleagues Joe Bergantino '73 and Joe Shortsleeve '79. I'm sure there are others. Please drop a comment if you know of more!

I guess some would consider Dan Shaughnessy '75 a Boston TV personality, and maybe also current Celtics color analyst Tommy Heinsohn '56, but I'm thinking more of TV news anchors, reporters, and execs.

Toland Football Picks

Telegram & Gazette reporter Jennifer Toland predicts the area college football results each week. She correctly predicted Holy Cross wins over Georgetown, Marist, Fordham and Dartmouth, and the losses to Northeastern and Harvard. But more recently, she incorrectly predicted losses to Brown and Lafayette, skeptical over the strength of Holy Cross.

This week, our Crusaders had apparently won her over, as she thought HC would beat Lehigh, 17-13. Oops! Well, it was a tough call. I wasn't convinced HC would win the game, especially as the rainy weather forecast became evident.

We like Jen, and she's been more right than wrong this year in general, but she's missed on the three "toss-up" games (Brown, Lafayette, Lehigh). "We Are Crusaders" predicts Jen Toland predicts a win over Bucknell this week. And hopefully she'll predict a loss in the season finale at Colgate, giving her an o-fer on the "tough call" games!

Pearl of Wisdom #21

"We couldn't get the puck up the ice, be it five-on-five or five-on-four. We just kept fumbling the puck. I don't know, a bad night I guess. We worked really hard to establish the puck on a power play - and once we get set up, we're moving pretty good - we're going to start moving it over and the puck's flipping over the guy's stick or he's fumbling the pass. Different things were occurring out there. With the quality of defensemen we have, that can't happen in a game like this and expect to win."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Jen Toland's game story in Saturday's T&G, after Holy Cross lost a very winnable game to Yale, 2-1.

Coach Pearl didn't hold back in discussing his team's mistakes. In talking about going one-for-ten on the power play, Pearl said, "we were acting like the thing was a hand grenade instead of a puck."

I have to say, I'm not used to reading quotes like these. Stay candid, Coach, but hopefully the team will get its consistency so you don't have to describe your team's play this way!

Mike Pedone Lookalike

Thought of this while watching the Tigers lose the World Series to the Cardinals on Friday night.

Former Cardinals and Phillies and current Tigers infielder Placido Polanco on the left, and Assistant Head Football Coach and Offensive Line Coach Mike Pedone on the right.

I don't think this comp came out as well as I envisioned it. Maybe it works better with Polanco's Phillies picture?

Will Venable Update

Since the now-archived Will Venable thread on Crossports received more interest than I expected, we're posting an update here. A former Princeton hoops player, Will is a San Diego Padres prospect and is currently playing in the revived Hawaii Winter Baseball League, for the West Oahu CaneFires. Venable is an outfielder and has played in ten games. He's compiled a 286/348/405/753 stat line (AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS), which isn't anything special by MLB comparison, but is much better than his team's total of 233/325/347/672.

He is among the league leaders in Batting and Doubles. We'll try to keep tabs on his progress.

Jessica Savitch

I'm not a YouTube addict (really, I swear!) but it's amazing what you can find there. Something got me thinking about the famous NBC News update where anchor Jessica Savitch went on the air while under the influence of drugs. I searched and found the clip, although 19 seconds have been edited out. (Interestingly, the YouTube clip linked at the end of this Savitch bio has been pulled.)

She was a talented anchor considered a "superstar," but she battled personal demons which affected her career. Her story is kind of fascinating, and sad, and this clip is eerily fascinating, and sad. Savitch died tragically in a car accident, unrelated to her drug use, a few weeks after her infamous broadcast. She was the subject of a Lifetime movie in 1995.

More Blog Stuff

As mentioned in this post, we upgraded the blog last week. Specifically, we transferred over to "Blogger in Beta." There's some new behind-the-scenes techie stuff which simplifies things when making future layout changes to the blog. It's more flexible, and many of the upgrades should be invisible to the reader.

But some of the changes are visible to the reader. I already talked about how I can "label" my posts. Another thing I like is the way they added flexibility to the blog archives. Before, you could click on a month and it would display all my posts for that month. You can still do that, but now, by clicking on the little arrow next to each month, you can "preview" the month by seeing the titles of all my posts for that month. And you can then target a specific post. I really like that!

Am I just a little too interested in this? Yeah, probably, but it's sort of given me a second wind as far as this blog is concerned. And the original version of Blogger has had a bunch of outages this week, so I'm glad I switched to the new beta version!

Hamilton adjusting

Nice job by Jen Toland, who snagged a quote, albeit short and sweet, from Kevin Hamilton. In her "Colleges" column in today's Telegram & Gazette, Toland reported that Kevin "checked in this week from Poland, where he is playing for the Polpak Swiecie team. Hamilton said things are going well and that he is playing point guard. 'It's a little different from school,' Hamilton said, 'but I am adjusting'".


So Poland's "a little different" than Mount St. James? SHOCKING! Seriously, we were big fans of KHam from day one, and wish him the best.

Also of HC note in her column, Jen writes that "former Holy Cross sports information director Gregg Burke has been appointed interim director of athletics at Rhode Island. He had served as acting AD since May, after Tom McElroy resigned."

Pearl of Wisdom #20

"(After the loss to Mercyhurst Saturday) we talked about simplifying our game and not making the types of mistakes we were making. We just want to make simple plays and do the things you do when you have a third-period lead, like getting the puck deep and making plays."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Steve Kendall's game story in the Wednesday, October 25 edition of the Telegram & Gazette, after Holy Cross held on in the third period to defeat Merrimack, 2-1, in a big early-season non-conference victory. A great outing for goalie Ian Dams!

Fittest College Campuses

I heard about this story over the weekend, when Boston TV mentioned Boston College being in the top five, but only today did I see the entire list of Men's Fitness magazine's top 25 fittest college campuses.

Two PL schools made the top 25, with Colgate coming in at #2 and Lafayette at #17. Associate member Georgetown is listed at #18.

And how 'bout those Banana Slugs slotting in at #13! Slug references on back-to-back days! I hear a "blog label" coming! (Sorry, should've issued a geek alert.)

The list:
1. Dickinson College
2. Colgate University
3. Boston College
4. Wheaton College (Illinois)
5. University of Vermont
6. Gustavus Adolphus College
7. Grove City College
8. Texas Christian University
9. Baylor University
10. University of Richmond
11. University of Virginia
12. University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse
13. University of California-Santa Cruz
14. Washington & Jefferson College
15. Albertson College of Idaho
16. Santa Clara University
17. Lafayette College
18. Georgetown University
19. Roanoke College
20. California Institute of Technology
21. Virginia Tech
22. University of Denver
23. Ithaca College
24. University of Mary Washington
25. Gonzaga University

I've never heard of the schools listed at numbers 6, 7 and 24. Gustavus Adolphus? Am I alone?

Geico

This commercial has been out for a while, but for some reason I can't get the jingle out of my head today! The brilliance of Burt Bacharach, even in a parody.

Blog Updates

I'm working on some changes to the blog. My main goal was to make it easier to track posts by topic without having to scroll through the archives.

Of course, you can search my blog by typing your search word(s) into the box at the very top of this page and clicking the "Search this blog" button.

But better than that, Blogger has introduced "labels," which means I can tag a post and file it under various topics. And you can click that label and find all my posts on that topic. So it'll be a piece of cake to find all the "Pearls of Wisdom," for instance! All the labels are listed alphabetically on the right side of the page.

I held off on these changes for a little while, but today I decided to take the plunge. I'm excited about being able to label my posts, but unfortunately, my cool "We Are Crusaders" logo has been sacrificed in the process. Actually, it's been moved from the top of the blog to the bottom, and I have to figure out how to integrate it back at the top as my main title logo. That's for another day.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy the upgrades. I'm still tweaking things here and there. And don't be afraid to write comments!

Neutral Site?

We're not necessarily advocating for this, but when was the last time Holy Cross played a football game at a neutral location?

Actually, we have the answer. It was 11 seasons ago, on October 28, 1995. Holy Cross travelled to Bermuda to take on Fordham.

Prior to that, in 1991, HC played its penultimate game of that season in Limerick, Ireland, also against the Rams.

Are these "exotic" locations any different than heading to San Diego or south Florida a few years ago? Would it benefit Holy Cross to seek a game outside the States in coming years?

Banana Slug connection

Who knew? Holy Cross Football has a connection to the UC-Santa Cruz Banana Slugs! Yes, the same Slugs made famous by a T-shirt worn by John Travolta's character Vincent Vega in the 1994 Tarantino classic, Pulp Fiction.


These are the things you discover when picking up and getting sucked into the annual football media guide. According to the guide, senior DB Marc Crosby's "brother, Michael, played basketball at the University of California-Santa Cruz."

Career Day for Dom

What a day for the emerging star, sophomore QB Dominic Randolph! In the impressive 38-28 Crusader victory at Lafayette, Dom set personal highs with 4 touchdown passes, 352 passing yards, and 34 completions (34 of 46). The 34 completions broke Brian Hall's school record of 32 completions from Holy Cross's 63-53 win over Lafayette in a wild game in 2001. Some Leopard symmetry, perhaps?

Incidentally, that Brian Hall game was the last time a HC player won the Dr. Eddie Anderson Family Weekend MVP trophy, presented by the Holy Cross Club of Greater Worcester. It's been five years. The upcoming Lehigh game would be the perfect time to break the streak of visiting players taking home that trophy on Family Weekend!

All the single-game and year-to-date Dom Randolph numbers make you wonder if he's on his way to eventually entrenching himself among the QB greats who dominate the HC record book: guys like Wiley, Ciaccio, O'Neil and Hall, with the occasional Muldoon, McCarthy and Stapp thrown in for good measure.

We'd love to see it happen. The man can play.

Idiot poster

This probably falls in the category of "You shouldn't dignify this with a response," but it irks me that an idiot poster on Crossports can say "fags" and actually have other posters DEFEND his comments! What the heck is this? You can bet your behind that if the poster had said the "n" word instead of "fags," the thread would be gone and the poster permanently banned.

I don't care if he was trying to make a joke. He lost me at "fags."

And as for the thread itself, we get it, Ed Walsh '69 is a great guy and Donna Hanover is a "witch." The thread had gone on too long before our enlightened poster reacted terribly to sader1970's clever response to his misuse of "alumna." Thankfully, some posters rightfully wanted to kill the thread, and hopefully it's permanently dead. But I sort of doubt it.

Pearl of Wisdom #19

"It was an unbelievable accomplishment, but the best thing we can do is cut off last year and move on. Last year is last year. This year is this year."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Jen Toland's season preview in Friday's Telegram & Gazette, discussing the hockey team's incredible and dramatic 27-10-2 season last year.

Unfortunately, the Crusaders twice blew three-goal leads last night at Niagara, losing 5-4 in the 2006-07 season opener. With the loss of experienced seniors Tony Quesada and Ben Conway, goaltending figured to be a critical factor this year. But a quick glance at the box score makes it seem we can't pin this loss on young goaltender Ian Dams. There will be some bumps this year, for sure, but with Coach Pearl at the helm, leading Bubba Sixsmith (below) and a steady crop of talented players, it should be an entertaining season.

Quick thoughts on the football team

So it wasn't the prettiest of wins. But HC won the game in overtime at Dartmouth yesterday, and is now 5-2 on the season. Yes, I realize the five wins haven't come against traditional 1-AA powers. But two of them have come against Ivy League opponents, and the two losses were competitive.

I expected this season to be a step back from last year. They graduated many seniors on offense, and I thought the Crusaders would struggle this year. Looks like I was wrong! And I'm happy with that! Two years ago, HC was getting pummeled in the second half of games, even as the first halves were tightly contested. Last year, HC went 6-5 and had some tough 4th quarters. Look at the Delaware game as an example. HC was losing 21-17 after three, and got trounced in the fourth, eventually losing 35-23.

This year, Holy Cross has had some late-game fades, but they're hanging on to win! The conclusion? Depth. The gradual increase in depth from two seasons ago is paying dividends. If this trend continues next year, I expect we won't see the late fades at all. Coach Tom Gilmore has turned this team around. He's acquiring the right pieces, and I'm excited about the coming years! I don't know how he got a talent like Aaron Jones to commit to HC instead of Lehigh, but whatever he said, it worked. Holy Cross football is finally on its way back to glory. Let's win these last four games!

Coach Pearl - Back Again!

After a close call with Milton Academy a few years ago, men's hockey coach Paul Pearl re-signed with Holy Cross this offseason, and is back on the hill for the foreseeable future. We're ecstatic about that! We've previously posted our thoughts about Coach Pearl and his place here at Holy Cross. Our opinion hasn't changed since then. Good luck to Coach Pearl and the entire hockey team as they begin their AHA title defense!

The photos above and below accompanied Jennifer Toland's T&G feature article on Coach Pearl from the Wednesday of NCAA week last spring.

More Fordham pics

Special thanks to a friend of ours from the Holy Cross Class of 1970, who sent these Homecoming day photos to us the old-fashioned way - via postal mail!

First up is a picture featuring a few of our hoops players. Left to right, it's sophomore Pat Doherty and frosh Zach Paterick and Adam May going up for a bomb on the baseball field, prior to the game. IIRC, the pass was tossed by Greg McCarthy. Or maybe it was Lawrence Dixon. On crutches. Or not. Honestly, I don't remember who threw that particular pass, but several of the younger guys were having fun throwing the ball around. Pat looked fine, I think! I'd say it was a good thing Coach Willard wasn't around to see these guys horsing around, except he was standing nearby watching them!




Another one of Dave and yours truly, tailgating prior to the game:



Finally, a couple shots of the actual game, taken from the Fordham side of the bleachers. HC on offense, then on defense. Expand to your heart's delight - you might be able to pick yourself out on the other side of the stands.

New Mascot - Named?

Holy Cross unveiled its new mascot this week. Mr. Mascot is seeking a name. In this Crossports thread, our friend CHC8485 suggested "Benny" and "Iggy" among other names. pitt65 went with "Rick," which had us chuckling. We actually sort of like "Iggy" as a mascot name, but we're not sure it fits the look of this Crusader.



So here's a suggestion, one that came to us last night: "Joe Knight"

Yep, it just works.

And is this guy available to wear the suit?

Fordham pics

We're guessing sader1970 sent these photos to Crossports for posting over there, but we received them, too, and figured we'd post them here! Not sure who made the ESPNU sign (it was passed to us by some nearby football family members who had similar signs), but it looks sharp.

Holy Cross won the game, 28-21! Here are three pictures from the day:

sader1970 and his wife, along with their niece on the left, and footballwoman75 (frosh gridder Don Matheney's girlfriend) on the right:


"We Are Crusaders" blogger Jon, with footballwoman75:


Non Alum Dave (fresh off his morning visit to the Hart Center) and Jon, on the 50-yard line:

CROSS77 Stayed

Thanks to hchoops for taking the opportunity in this thread on Crossports to follow up on our inquiry below. CROSS77 answered the question - turns out he stayed on campus, and in the following weeks attended the NU and Harvard games.

Hope you're enjoying your time on campus so far! And thanks, 'hoops!

CROSS77, did you stay or go?

I don't know what reminded me of this. Remember incoming freshman CROSS77, hailing from Nebraska, posting in this thread over on Crossports asking for advice about staying on campus or traveling to Georgetown his first weekend at college?

"We Are Crusaders" wants to know the outcome! Did you stay on campus, or did you visit your friends down in D.C.? I didn't chime in on that thread, but I thought he should stay at Holy Cross. I have great memories of my first days on the hill, and I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.

Incidentally, we're also curious about the "77" part of his posting name, because it's pretty confusing given all the names like HC62, Sader81, sader1970 and sader1998. Number implies grad year, for the most part. Sometimes it's year of birth, but he wasn't born in 1977. Maybe it's a uniform number?

Delaware Football Pics, 2005

I could've sworn I posted my photos from the Holy Cross game at Delaware held September 24, 2005, but as I'm in catchup mode here, I went through the archives and couldn't find any pics from that game. Delaware won that game 35-23, but Holy Cross made them work for it. It was 7-7 at the half.

I had fun at that game. It was also "Band Day," so after the game we were treated to a show by area high school bands and the UD band. Good times at Tubby Raymond Field.

There's nothing overwhelming here, but it's interesting to see the excitement of the player intros for the Delaware team, along with the stat progression in the last quarter of the game (seen on the scoreboard with a breakdown in passing, rushing, and total yards). Specifically, UD ran for 94 yards in the 4th quarter, Holy Cross only 18.

The first four pics were taken during pre-game. And how can I forget, the fifth photo features Holy Cross basketball center Tim Clifford on the very right, wearing his homemade hat with the Steve Silva cutout. Gotta give Tim credit, he stuck it out and wore his hat long after his buddies discarded theirs.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

I didn't want to dwell, but...

Yeah, I know. I said in my previous post that I didn't want to dwell on the events of 9/11. But with the 5th anniversary, I've been thinking a lot about that day and the subsequent weeks. It sticks with me. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

For the music fans out there, here are a couple videos I found that remind me of the days and weeks following 9/11.

The first one is a video of Bruce Springsteen singing his powerful song, "My City of Ruins." This version is actually a live duet with Sam Moore of "Sam & Dave" fame. There are other versions on YouTube (including some post-Katrina versions, another event for which this song became an anthem), but I like the raw energy and soul displayed here.

The entire Springsteen album, "The Rising," draws from 9/11, and it's one heck of an album. This song in particular, for me, simultaneously captures the anguish and the hope of the days following the tragedy. Sam Moore and Bruce Springsteen, Asbury Convention Hall, 12/7/2003:



Another video I'll always associate with 9/11 is Maxwell's "Lifetime." After the 11th, MTV halted regular programming for a few weeks, and returned to its roots by almost exclusively airing music videos. One video in heavy rotation was this great neo-soul song from Maxwell. I don't know if it's the song's slow groove, thoughtful and optimistic lyrics, or the video's blurred images of NYC, but this one made an impression. I always think of the strange tepidity of September 2001 when I hear or see it. A favorite of mine.

Five Years

Among the thousands killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 was my Holy Cross classmate Todd Isaac. Todd was working for Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower of the WTC. I wasn't really friends with Todd, mainly because he was a Wheeler kid and I was a Mulledy kid, and those paths didn't cross very often. But I was introduced to him at one point freshman year, and he was as nice as they come. After that, whenever we saw each other on campus, he always had that smile and a friendly "Hi Jon!" He was a genuine, good guy.

Todd played basketball at HC during our sophomore year. I'm almost positive he was a walk-on that year. Maybe someone could confirm this. John Young and Reece Horton were the other players from my class, and they lettered all four years they were at HC.

I don't want to dwell on 9/11, as the whole event conjures up all kinds of memories and emotions for people. But every so often I think of Todd, and I can't even imagine what he must've endured up in that tower. Rest in peace, bud.

Random Sader Spottings

If I randomly bump into a current or former Holy Cross athlete around town (I'm not counting sightings on campus), should I post it here? I thought it would be kind of funny, but then I started to think I'd become the "Crusaderazzi" and I don't think that's an objective of this blog. I'm not snapping photos or anything, and I guess I thought it might be interesting to mention seeing these folks as they go about their lives, but you could certainly argue it's an invasion of their privacy.

For instance, a few years ago I was grocery shopping at my local Stop&Shop in Worcester, and the next thing I know, I spot Neil Fingleton (he was on HC's roster at the time) in the deoderant aisle. I know, it's personal and all that. But it was funny just the same. It was strange seeing this 7'6" guy by himself at Stop&Shop trying to find some toiletry item. The store employees and other customers were in awe of him. When I checked out, the cashier said "I wonder if he plays basketball," and of course I provided her the details.

And no, I didn't talk to Neil that day. It just didn't seem right. "Hey Neil, what's up? I'm Jon, and I'm a season-ticket holder at Holy Cross. Say, are you going to go with the Right Guard or the Old Spice High Endurance?"

No, thank you.

I bring this up because today I was at the gas station, and I looked up and a few cars over was a former HC women's basketball player. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to say hello. She didn't see me (I don't think), plus I was almost finished filling up, and there was a line.

Are these sightings worth posting? What if she had a blog? How would I feel about her posting that she saw "Jon" at the gas station? I'm probably blowing it out of proportion by doing this big writeup as opposed to a short-and-sweet post saying "Random Sader Spotting #2: 9/10/06, 'Player X' spotted at gas station on Grafton Street".

And feel free to guess the player. The prize for the correct guess is four straight trips to the NCAA tournament.

Colin Comp #6

I might as well start counting these, sort of like the Pearls of Wisdom, right? This is our 6th suggestion for a lookalike for now-sophomore Crusader hoopster Colin Cunningham. A classmate of mine suggested this one to me months ago, but I didn't get around to posting it back then.


Vietnam-era John Kerry. Not too bad, 'eh?

In case you need a refresher, you can find the Ricky Nelson comp here, the Robbie Benson and Andy Kaufman comps here, and the Vinnie Barbarino and Dan Abrams comps here. And let's keep them coming!

As an aside, Colin strikes me as the men's basketball team "social director." Maybe Torey's occupied that role to some degree the last few years, but Colin is next in line. He's going to end up being the guy that figures out what the team's going to do after practice when they're on break, what movie they're going to watch while they're on the road, etc. Yesterday, Colin was sporting the aviator glasses and working the tunes during the basketball team's tailgate on the baseball field. You can tell he likes his music - Motown, Prince ("Kiss"), you name it. He seems to have a great personality and he'll be fun to watch, both on and off the court, while he's at Holy Cross.

Another HC Clip

This one isn't sports-related, but I thought it was sort of interesting nevertheless. Someone shot video at this year's Commencement ceremony at the College and posted it to the web. The lyrics in the background song aren't 100% clean, but it's not a vulgar song in my opinion. Sounds like the Fugees.

HC Hockey Video

Here's a YouTube video of the HC hockey team's AHA title game victory over Bentley from this past spring. This win sent them on to the NCAA's where history was made! (That just doesn't get old.)

Begging for a Caption

Props to Non Alum Dave, who easily identified everyone (save the managers) in the 1993-94 men's basketball team photo. Dave, I forgot to tell you there was a prize. You win a trip to Texas to go fly-fishing with Nate Lufkin! Get your waders ready! Click on the b**bies for more details (haha).

Okay, time for something a little different. I'm not going to call this an official "Caption Contest," but you have to wonder what was going through Ralph's head at this moment. I believe this photo is from the HC-Kansas NCAA tournament game from 2002. It's Classic Ralph Willard.

Friday Trivia?

Is my hiatus over? Technically, yes, but I have no idea how frequently I'll be updating the blog this summer. That was a two-and-a-half month break! I hate to say it, but I was probably spending more time on the blog than I should've been, and frankly I haven't missed it that much.

That said, I'll try to post updates more than once every three months! So here's a little something for the Crusader fans out there who are still reading "We Are Crusaders." (And thanks for sticking with me!)

Since "Friday Trivia" has been popular over at Crossports, here's some trivia of my own: Name the year of this photo, along with the coaches and players. I don't think I can identify everyone, so your assistance is needed! (The photo contains a dead giveaway on the year.)

Click on the photo to expand it. Then you may be able to expand it further by putting your mouse over the photo and clicking on the "expand" arrow that shows up on the bottom right corner of the photo.

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter Sunday.

Introducing Adam May

Here's Holy Cross incoming recruit Adam May:

Oh wait, that's not Adam, that's Chris Potter. I got confused. Here's the real Ohio All-Star, Adam May:


I have to admit, based on everything I've heard and read, I wish I saw Potter play. Some of his numbers are astounding:

• Tied with NBA Hall-of-Famer Tommy Heinsohn for 5th in career scoring
• Third in career rebounds (1019) behind Heinsohn and Togo Palazzi
• Fourth in career assists (470), slotting in between Roger Breslin (475) and Dwight Pernell (430)
• Most assists in a Hart Center game (16 vs. Iona, 12/7/1977). Wow, that's amazing. HC was ranked at the time, 15th in the country, and stomped Iona 105-83.
• Third in single-season FG%, .591 in 1978-1979

Maggie Dixon: 1977-2006

A little over a week ago, and about a month shy of her 29th birthday, we lost Maggie Dixon. The sudden passing of Coach Dixon, who led the Army women's basketball team to their first Patriot League title, has been well-documented. But we haven't been able to do much blogging lately, and wanted to post a little something in her honor.

We'll remember watching her enthusiasm at the Hart Center, as she guided her visiting team to a regular-season victory over the Crusaders. We'll remember commenting about her bright future as a head coach. We'll remember watching her on CSTV, as her team captured the PL title and she was taken off the court on the shoulders of cadets. We'll miss her.

Victory

A few player quotes from Rich Garven's game story and sidebar stories in today's T&G:

Tony Quesada:
"This is the best day of my life."

"I feel like I didn’t have my best game or that I was challenged as much as I expected coming into tonight. Going against a team with all that offensive firepower, I expected I would have to make a ton of stops. I just felt like I made normal saves. They weren’t desperate ones where you’re diving around."

"We’re definitely enjoying the moment right now. But we’ll wake up in the morning and be focused on the next game. That’s what we’re here for, to win hockey games."

Tyler McGregor:
"We came in confident. It was confidence in our system and confidence in what we do."

"I just shot it on instinct. I saw it go pretty much right in the middle of the net. When you get a chance like that you don’t want to screw it up."

"I saw everyone coming over, and I was just hoping I didn't get killed." - This quote is not from the T&G, but is taken from the post-game press conference, where McGregor was asked about his team's reaction after he scored the winning goal.


Updates since last night:
We posted last evening, soon after the game, and offered our thoughts on the "Save of the night" and "Goal of the night." Today's paper has this to say about that critical Quesada save:

With 4:52 to go, a screened Quesada made a tremendous glove save on a blistering shot by Andy Sertich, who cut loose from the left circle. Quesada then stopped four shots in the final two minutes as the Golden Gophers swarmed the Holy Cross zone.

Not only was Tony screened by Gophers, but there was a lot of traffic from both teams in front of him at the time. How he spotted that puck is beyond me.

As for the McGregor goal in the second period, it came in the midst of a scoring flurry in the middle of the period, but only half-a-minute after Minnesota scored a short-handed goal to tie the game at 1. The McGregor one-timer was a quick response, putting Holy Cross ahead, and showed this fan that Holy Cross was in this one for real.

Pearl of Wisdom #18

"Good players have puck luck."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Rich Garven's game story in today's Telegram & Gazette, referring to Tyler McGregor and the winning goal in overtime, as Holy Cross defeated Minnesota 4-3 in the first round of the NCAA Hockey Tournament.

By the way, kudos to the T&G for sending Garven to North Dakota for coverage of the tournament. I would've been surprised if the newspaper hadn't sent a reporter, but nevertheless, it's been fun reading the daily features and notes columns the past several days.

Pearl of Wisdom #17

"I think the thing I like the most is the relationship with the kids, that and the challenge of getting good players. I like working here - and I know this may sound corny - because I went here and I really believe in Holy Cross as a school. The Jesuits do a great job and I like the whole spiritual aspect of the place. I just think this is the right spot for someone to go to college. That makes it easy to be here. I like the work environment. There are a lot of good coaches and people to learn from here. I like being a college hockey coach, but no, I did not envision this at all. It's been really neat."

-Coach Paul Pearl, in another quote from Jen Toland's feature story in Wednesday's Telegram & Gazette. And it may be the quote of the year.

I think we've said it before, but we're lucky to have Coach Pearl leading the team here at Holy Cross. He understands the limitations and the advantages that Holy Cross may offer a recruit. There's a special story at Holy Cross, and Pearl gets it. We sincerely hope that Coach enjoys it here enough to stay on for many years to come!

Pearl of Wisdom #16

"We're not North Dakota and we're not Minnesota, but we want our guys to act like it is and to buy into the program, and I know they do. There's no evading the academic rigors here, but the second thing in their lives is hockey and training for hockey. They've bought into our picture of 'We want Holy Cross hockey to be this,' and they know it's not going to happen just by saying it. It's going to happen with hard work and they've done all the work."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Jen Toland's excellent feature story on the coach, which ran in the Telegram & Gazette of this Wednesday, March 22.