Orioles Magic

Well, maybe not.  But I did tell my classes that the end of the regular baseball season is like nothing I've ever seen in 25 years of watching baseball.  To have one team (the Rays) come back from a 7 run deficit to win, another team lose in 12 innings and a third team winning in the bottom of the ninth--well, it can't get any better!

I would really love to see more of my students enjoy baseball.  There is a high level of "baseball ignorance" in my class, even among students that are football/basketball fans.  I hope MLB's Urban Youth Academy program, or something, will encourage more young urban youth to at try the sport out.

Catching Hell

I caught most of the ESPN documentary "Catching Hell," which focuses on one of the most famous fan-interference plays in baseball, the Steve Bartman incident at Wrigley Field in the 2003 NLCS.


One reason I remember that so vividly is working with a buddy at the time who was a full-blooded Chicago native and die-hard Cubs fan.  He was devastated when he walked into work the next day, and did not take kindly to teasing about the game.

I planned to record the doc as something to play in class at a random time, but after watching all of the security steps that Cubs took to get Bartman out of Wrigley that night, I'm beginning to think I'll play this during our section on security.  It's hard to find good material to relate to that section in Sports & Entertainment Marketing I, but this video may be as close as we can get.

Winning, Teaching-Wise

From: d-d-m.org


I had to call our district's technology service desk today and got a treat:  the voice on the other end of the phone belonged to one of my former students.  I had just found out last week he is working for our service desk.  This young man was one of my first students, and he was in the worst class I ever had--he wasn't bad, but the class was.  I'm sure my inexperience had a lot to do with that.

Anyway, it was great to see/hear one of my students "make it"!

Moneyball in Class

Attempting to tie in to the upcoming movie Moneyball, I used the book/movie as an excuse to do some Excel work with my students.

If you haven't read the book (and you're a stats geek), it's a wonderful recounting of the Oakland A's of the early 2000's, when they made the playoffs and competed with the Yankees and Red Sox, even though their payroll was a fraction of those two big-market teams' spending on player salaries.

What I took away from Moneyball was that the "Moneyballers" value different statistics than the rest of the baseball establishment.  Instead of valuing hitters by batting average, home runs and runs batted in, the Moneyballers emphasized on-base percentage, on-base plus slugging percentage, and a wide range of other stats.

Although it seemed like I talked for the entire 90 minutes of class, it was fun leading students through calculating baseball stats using Excel.  We also created some charts as well.  It saddens me to see students play games, etc. when they could be using something useful like Excel to make something useful and/or cool.  I hope I helped my students realize that Excel can be fun, too.

Here We Grow Again

1992: I remember sitting in the stands of a not-exactly-full 50,000 seat Lane Stadium in the early '90s, talking to my friends about how I wish Virginia Tech could get into the ACC somehow.  Like most people in Virginia, I grew up watching the local ACC schools on TV, like UVa and Maryland.  I didn't like being in the Big East at the time, what with one school (West Virginia) within reasonable travel distance, and a bunch of schools we had no culture or geography in common with.


Fast forward to 2010:  Virginia Tech wins the ACC football crown for the fourth time in seven years (while selling out its 66,000 stadium), and the basketball team defeats #1 Duke and makes it to the third round of the ACC tournament.  Perfect, right?  Across the country, the Big 12 nearly dissolved after losing Nebraska and Colorado, but Texas and its little brothers keep the league on life support.  The predictions of four 16-team superconferences seem premature.


2011:  Texas A&M wants out of the Big 12, which prompts some soul-searching among the remaining conference members.  Rumors begin to swirl about the Pac 12 and the Big 10 expanding again, while the ACC and Big East watch and wait.  But...the ACC makes its own moves by adding Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

I understand this makes some people mad, and it can make one do a double-take, considering that Syracuse was originally headed toward the ACC in 2003, until the Virginia legislature insisted on Virginia Tech's addition.  And, of course, what it all comes down to is money.  But a factor that may play an even bigger factor is a school's trust in the stability of its conference.  If Pitt and Syracuse were sure the Big East would be around in 10 years, they would have stayed.  If Texas and Oklahoma thought the Big 12 was going to survive, they probably wouldn't be meeting to discuss a move to a Pac-16.  The bottom line for me is, of all the conferences to make a move to ensure survivability, it shocks me (and many others) that the ACC made their move first.

We're Going to Write Right, Right?

From: controlyourdestiny.wordpress.com

Every year, I have my students do a final project.  The project is due in chunks throughout the semester, and (most of) my students turned in the first section today.

I don't think that I ask a lot in terms of using proper English and grammar.  Is it too much to conjugate verbs and figure out when to use "their" as opposed to "there"?  In no way do I want to blame this on English teachers--I'm sure they all do their jobs very well.  If there's any blame to go around, I have to point my fingers at my students.  When the only thing they enjoy reading is misspelled, abbreviated text messages, it's trouble.

I guess I just get frustrated reading papers that are dramatically bad.  C'mon, people!  Find something to read in your free time!  I promise, the more you read, the better you'll get at writing!

Taste Test

Tomorrow I'm doing one of my favorite activities in class--the taste test.

Background:  we're covering the seven functions of marketing, and the first function is Marketing Information Management.   Part of this function is surveys and taste tests, and my students don't have a good idea of what a taste test is.  I guess they weren't around for those old "we've switched Mrs. Johnson's brand of coffee, let's see if she notices" commercials.

One reason I like this is that my students are so surprised that I'm actually bringing things in for them to drink.  Gosh, am I really that strict?!

New for this year:  instead of doing Coke vs. Pepsi vs. store brand, I'm going to try this with clear sodas, like Sierra Mist, 7 UP and Sprite.  Let's see if they can tell the difference amongst those three!

Making Videos With Vimeo

Untitled from DrOldman on Vimeo.

Making videos doesn't have to hard--you don't even have to have videos to do.  The video above this post was done using Vimeo.  My colleague took photos I had shot at a football game, added music and a voiceover and...ta-da!

I don't have a Vimeo account, but I do have an account with another similar service, Animoto.  My district's instructional technology department turned me onto to this site.  If you sign up for the free version, you can only make 30 second videos, but hey, it's fun!

I haven't had my students use either one of these web sites in class.  In fact, I believe Vimeo is blocked in our district.  I may have my students try Animoto, but there's that pesky matter about requiring an e-mail address.  Using a site that requires e-mail addresses to sign in often seems to more trouble than it's worth when 25 students are all trying to log in at the same time (but maybe that's just me).

Cell Phones, Again

From: onlineparentingcoach.com

My favorite sports talk radio host, Steve Czaban, blows it up in regards to cell phones and teenagers. One year, one of my freshmen told me she was already on her fourth cell phone!

Since cell phones have begun popular, I've seen people pay more attention to what's on their phone than anything around them, including me, when I'm trying to teach.

I could go on and rant about this (and I'm sure you could, too), but I'll let my man Czabe close this post out about the "benefits" of giving teenagers cell phones:

- You can then start calling your new teenage boyfriend at any time, from anywhere, without your parents knowing anything about it.
- You can discuss when and where to lose your virginity together.
- You can text him naked pictures of yourself that will be used later for internet humiliation, retaliation, blackmail, and perhaps lead to suicide.
- You can become a self-absorbed Facebook generation dope, with little intellectual curiosity or awareness outside your social media "bubble."
- You now have a phone number where internet predators can reach you directly, at any time.
- You can text while driving, and possibly kill yourself and your friends.

Let There Be...College Football!

From: appstate.edu

After all of the scandals of the offseason, which seemed to drone on continually, college football finally arrived this week. Fore me this is a time of celebration: my students play College Football Ticket Roulette, I give out football-shaped Reese's, and the games begin. Some of my students ask why I don't get more excited about the NFL. Really? There's nothing like cheering for you alma mater!