A young Terp who shines for the Blog of Funny Names

My University of Maryland basketball team has a tough freshman in the middle this season. The young man making noise for my alma mater is Diamond Stone. Yes, that’s his real name. Precious, I think. Says the university media guide: “Father named him Diamond because a Diamond is the hardest rock on the planet ……

neither rain nor hurricane nor turtles, can stop the wolverines.

As I feared, it wasn’t much of a game. Beth’s Michigan stomped my Maryland at Byrd Stadium. This will not be a good second season in the Big Ten for my alma mater. Too many interceptions thrown and passes dropped. And this Saturday my Maryland faces defending national champ Ohio State. Oy. Take it away,…

A friendly bloggers’ wager on the gridiron

The day has arrived for the third in a series of BloggyVille wagers regarding the success of the sports teams that Beth of I Didn’t Have My Glasses On and I. Just as a refresher, and not to rub it in at all, I won the season series wager between my Triple A Syracuse Chiefs…

It’s time to kick off college football, finally

On Monday night at some point, I’ll click over the widescreen to check out how defending national champion Ohio State is making out in its season opener at Virginia Tech. Yeah, the Big Ten squad has many good quarterbacks, but the Hokies of the ACC is a very sneaky squad at home at night. Friday…

A Facebook tag takes me back to a newspaper office in 1979

I recognized the face immediately when it popped up on my Facebook page, a mom smiling between her two daughters. We’ve been friends on social media for … well, since the advent of people telling journalists that social media just might be a good way to prop up the work life. Oh, say, a decade…

Go Terps Go, onto the Super Regionals

I stayed up until 2 this morning, watching my Maryland Terrapins beat the UCLA Bruins on the baseball diamond in an NCAA Tournament elimination game on ESPNU. My squad beat the defending national champion, the No. 1 team in the country right now, too, for the second time in three tries in a four-day stretch,…

I think of the button-wearing Johns Hopkins fans and I’m not too merry

The Final Four of men’s Division I college lacrosse will roll up and down the green turf of Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia today, a Memorial Day Weekend tradition. The game born centuries ago by Iroquois tribe athletes is still popular here in the Syracuse area’s Onondaga Nation and upstate New York. Yes, I live…

Student reporter’s paradise

“What happens when you fly over Los Angeles?” the stewardess asked me. Yeah, me, I thought, attempting to come up with a winning reply. “You land, I hope,” I said, lamely, not being quite that slick yet and never to see her smiling face again as I was getting ready in 1978 to begin another…

Crowd storms look pretty from the comfort of home, but …

As I get set to watch my Maryland Terrapins host the Michigan Wolverines at the Xfinity Center in College Park on my flat screen at noon today, I’m still smiling abourt the way my squad handled the No. 5 team in the country on Tuesday night. Yes, serving Wisconsin just its third loss of the…

My journalism teacher once again sends me a real letter

A week ago the letter came in the mail, and I immediately recognized the handwriting on the envelope. A little early for the annual Christmas wishes from journalism teacher at Morrisville Agricultural and Technical College from 1975 to 1977, I thought, but as I tore open the envelope, the familiar type font on his printed…