Now, I’m not going to say that I thought Croyle was going to do well and I’m not going to say that Cassel would have won the game for KC against San Diego. All that game proved to me was that San Diego is good, Norv Turner annoys me and that Croyle is an utter disaster as both a leader and a quarterback. Also, the play calling in that game was really confusing. But I digress…

I’ve had it out for Cassel since the beginning because I haven’t been able to see that he is a great quarterback. He has always been OK, maybe even good, but to call him great seemed like a stretch to me. We’re talking about a guy who never played in college and helped the Patriots when their golden boy went down a few years back. I don’t think there was anything in his resume that suggested he was going to be a high-level performer in the pros.

His statistics suggest otherwise:

• 212/354, 59.5% completion percentage (23rd)
• 24 TDs (7th) to only 5 INTs
• a rating of 98.4 (5th highest in the NFL)

I suppose that despite all that, for him to have the level of success with a bunch of young, not-very-fast, bad hands receivers should impress me. Even with what he’s done through most of the season, I still felt like he missed a half-dozen passes almost every game…easy ones…ones that were critical 3rd-down conversions or would have extended the clock. Now, up to this point, I don’t know how much those misses have been detrimental to the Chiefs’ success. After all, we are leading the AFC West by one game with two to go. If you’d have told me that during the off-season, I would have said, “I’ll take it.”

And Cassel has been solid. Despite those few misses per game, he hasn’t turned the ball over, which, with a rushing attack like the Chiefs’, should be your primary goal.

So here I am, ready to relent my constant online harassment of Matt Cassel. Watching the difference that he made on the field against St. Louis, one week after the embarrassing San Diego loss and I am finally a believer. Call me a Cassel Enthusiast. I hesitated throwing my support behind him until he led the Chiefs to the win in the playoffs that has eluded us since 1993, but I have to pay respect to what the man has accomplished in a season that I all but thought would be another rebuilding year.

So here’s to you, Matt Cassel. I tip my virtual cap to you and wish you well through the rest of this season. I will be rooting for you even harder now that I’m convinced that you’re much better than I thought.

It’s me asking you to support my wife, sister and their dance team, the Gardner Edgerton Blazerettes as they will be featured performers at halftime of the Orange Bowl tonight.

The game will be shown on Fox WDAFat 7:30 p.m. and the halftime show features Kool & the Gang. The routine is choreographed by the ex-Mr. J-Lo, Cris Judd.

The Blazerettes will start in the front row on the 50-yard-line facing the press box all the way down to the right end zone. Keep an eye out for the girls. They have worked extremely hard to get to this point and they appreciate your support!

This is a really cool opportunity for this Kansas City school. Be sure to watch out for them.

I got this tattoo when I was nineteen years old. I was home from college for the summer working a horrible job as a roofing contractor in LaCygne for Boone Brothers Roofing. It was 12-15 hour days in the blazing Kansas summer sun working with 550-degree tar and a foreman who was addicted to speed.

But we made decent money, especially with all the overtime, some of which I blew on my tattoo.

I went to Skin Illustrations in Lenexa and worked with a guy named Clayton to design my tattoo that I had in my mind. I’d been focusing on the word persevere a lot. I thought the word was cool and I loved how I could apply it to nearly every part of my life.

Besides hanging out with my friends and school, my life really focused on one other thing.

Volleyball.

At the time when I got my tattoo, the significance of the word and they ball were very connected. I’d had a disappointing first year at Graceland, but had really re-committed myself that summer to working hard (persevering, natch).

When Clayton gave me the first design, it was bigger than I expected. After waiting for him to reduce the size, I endured the four hours of tattooing. It wasn’t too bad, just like someone scraping my leg for four hours in the same place with a safety pin.

Now, over a decade later, I’m still happy with the tattoo, even if my volleyball-playing days have passed. I’m even ready to get another one. But I’ll save that story for another post.

It’s that time of year.

Golf is a sport that I only got into in the last ten years. I started while I was in college by taking a golf class for a couple of semesters. When you play at a municipal course in a tiny Iowa town, it’s difficult to improve your game very much.

As I’ve gotten older, I still don’t get out that much and I’m still not very good, but I really do love the game. I play as much as I can, most times with my father-in-law, who gladly whips me up and down the course at every opportunity.

Despite my shortcomings as a golfer or my body breaking down or my huge tub that I carry around, I’ll golf whenever I can. In fact, I’m ready to tee off now…

I’ve been playing volleyball competitively since I was about 13. I played in college and then played club ball on an off since I graduated. A few years back when Perceptive Software got big enough to participate in the Kansas City Corporate Challenge, I jumped all over it. We had a couple of really talented guys, including one of my good friends from school that I had recruited to come work there.

It was a lot of fun, although since PSI was a smaller company, our very solid team wasn’t challenged very much, rolling through the G and F divisions pretty easily.

Smash cut to the two years I spent at SunBridge Capital. No volleyball. No Corporate Challenge. I got fat(ter). I tried to stay in shape. I did. I was round.

Smash cut to 3 months ago. One of the first things that I did was check to make sure that I started before the March 13 cutoff date that would allow me to play in the Corporate Challenge with Cerner, an A-division team, pitting me against some of my good friends at Sprint and some of the best volleyball players in Kansas City.

So for the past several weeks, I’ve been practicing with my new team at my new company. My knees are not happy. The amount of weight that they have to support as I jump around on the court over and over again is daunting. So the ice has come out each night to soothe the aches. Stairs aren’t very fun.

But my knees could be saved a lot of pain if I would just lose 10, 20 or 50 pounds. I don’t want to have surgery on both my knees like my dad just went through (one last fall and one a couple weeks ago). But man, do I love playing volleyball. The time off in between volleyball stints has been killing me. I really love the game and wish I could play more than just during Corporate Challenge.

Now, if my knees would just cooperate…

The Ryder Cup was filled with so much drama this year, but Hunter Mahan’s putt on the 17th hole against Paul Casey that ended up halving the match…it was amazing.

I really enjoy watching the camaraderie of the players…how after they finish their matches, they go back and cheer on those behind them. Plus, it’s fun to cheer “U…S…A!” when watching golf.

I could have paid attention to the Chiefs game, but honestly, let’s be honest…watching paint dry is more exciting than the Chiefs offense. But I’d watch the Ryder Cup over just about anything.

• The players don’t play hard enough
• The players are paid too much
• Free agency gives you no ability to root for teams because players move around
• The dunk contest is boring

Don’t deny that the last one is a reason the NBA has gone downhill. The dunk contest lost its luster after Cedric Ceballos dunked blindfolded. There haven’t been any really innovative dunks in probably 5 years. That is, until last weekend’s All-Star Weekend.

The dunk contest was between Orlando’s Dwight Howard and defending champion Gerald Green from the jump. Both of them had brilliant dunks in the first round and really it was a contest between the two of the them. When Howard pulled out the Superman cape, you knew it was over. Still, Gerald Green’s “Birthday Cake” was one of the most creative dunks I’ve ever seen.

Just before the trade deadline, the Cavaliers, Supersonics and Bulls managed to work out a blockbuster trade that sent Big Ben Wallace and Wally “Don’t try to spell it” Szczerbiak to the Cavs to help out LeBron James. A sidenote of the trade is that it sent former Jayhawk (and Cavs contributer) Drew Gooden to Chicago, where he’ll be reunited with former teammate Kirk Hinrich. Two Jayhawks on the same NBA team? I may have just found someone to root for. Now if they would have only managed to get Nick Collison from the Sonics to the Bulls, we would have really been in business.

Got the year started by watching the Chiefs lay another playoff egg in Indianapolis. I don’t care that Manning and the Colts went on to win the Super Bowl…the Chiefs plain sucked in that game. I considered going Martha Stewart on my home office, but decided against it, having the gift my parents gave me for Christmas 2006 (a custom California Closets desk) installed. Alli spent a lot of time in January in Ohio with her mom and her ailing grandma. We spent 11 days apart, the longest since we’ve been married.

February was Oscar month. Scorsese finally won his Oscar, which was awesome. I also spent some time in the ER because of chest pains that fortunately turned out only to be Costochondritis. Phew. Alli and I both visited the hospital that month. I struggled to read much of anything early in the year because Kyle Smith’s awful Love Monkey kept me down.

March had both sad and happy moments. Alli’s grandma passed away and we visited Ohio for the funeral. Jake and Kelly got engaged early in the month. I considered getting braces. I professed my newfound coffee love.

April contained a lot of posting on the blog because a lot went on. Alli and I took the church Senior High group to Branson for Young Christians’ Weekend, the Jayhawks lost in the tournament again, the Chiefs made a great first-round draft pick (who I met in December), Alli and I finalized our Italy plans, and the producers of American Idol raised over $70 million for the ONE Campaign. We also made another hospital trip in perhaps one of the scarier days of my life.

May happened.

June did too. Alli had an art show at Starbucks. I went to Atlanta for the HOW Design Conference and saw a 7-foot, 9-inch tall man. We left for our 3-week trip to Paris and Italy, which also took up over half of July. It was the best trip I’ve ever taken. For a review, read this post.

I spent much of August reviewing our trip on the blog. Alli turned the big 30. She dealt with it much better than me. I predicted a Larry-Johnson-less Chiefs to go 5-11. Not a bad prediction. They showed how awful they were going to be by going 0-4 in the pre-season and gave us a glimpse of how dysfunctional they were through Hard Knocks. I finally got around to reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I loved every moment of it. Alli and I also got totally addicted to Big Love on HBO.

September marked the arrival of my first niece, Ireland. The Fall TV season started up with some good new shows that will ultimately be cancelled. I worked a shift at the Cowboy Boot Carnival. Apple, as they do, released another wave of ipods. This post was my favorite of the year.

October is usually a great month, but it was marred by awful Chiefs play. Helping to raise my spirits was Alli’s second art show of the year, this time at Terrace on the Green. I went pink for October on the blog and saw a couple of excellent movies. The Sprint Center opened and we got to check it out for the So You Think You Can Dance show. I also helped Luke announce the launch of his KCDiningSpecials.com website.

I returned to Atlanta for about 36 hours in November for a brief industry conference. I also discovered an absolutely brilliant comic website, The Superest. I railed on the Chiefs quite a bit in November. Who would have known that they wouldn’t win again during the whole season? I visited Allen Field House for the first time in my life. The Slap Countdown timer expired. KU lost a close one to Missouri at Arrowhead. I initiated the first annual ‘Complete this Sentence‘ project. I was thankful.

December is my favorite month of the year. Especially when it snows. The Chiefs continued the longest losing streak in team history. We launched some awesome new technology at work. I turned 31 and got 15 comments on my birthday post (a new personal best!) and saw some movies. I tried to fix my back problems. We rang in the New Year with Jake and Kelly.

As for my favorites of the year, I’ll try to be brief:

• Favorite Movie: Across the Universe (not even a contest)
• Favorite Book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Favorite New TV Show: The Big Bang Theory
• Favorite Reality TV Show: Top Chef
• Favorite Existing TV Show: Either Lost or The Office
• Favorite Album: Either the Across the Universe Soundtrack, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, or OneRepublic’s Dreamin’ Out Loud
• Favorite Event: The birth of my niece
• Favorite Trip: No contest here…it was obviously France/Italy 2007
• Favorite Restaurant: Caffe Leonardo in Rome

Overall, it was perhaps my best year yet. Hope yours was great as well. Here’s to an even better 2008.

I made this badge for bloggers who root for the only real school playing in the so-called Border War this weekend. Feel free to put it on your site if you are a Jayhawk.

Sports Illustrated just ran a photo essay called “10 Cities in a Sports Slump“. Here was their list:

1. Philadelphia
2. Atlanta
3. Buffalo
4. Cleveland
5. Minneapolis-St. Paul
6. New York City
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Los Angeles
9. Seattle
10. Cincinnati

Look, I can appreciate how frustrating it must be for New Yorkers to have unlimited means at their disposal and to have their baseball team win the World Series only once every 3 years, but…no wait…I CAN’T. Kansas City is perennially disappointed when it comes to sports, both professional and collegiate. The Chiefs haven’t won a playoff game in almost 15 years, the Royals are…well, THE FREAKING ROYALS, and our college teams take quality basketball teams (I’m talking only THIS side of the state line here) almost there, but never all the way.

My last post was a rant about how coastal bias keeps the Midwest out of a lot of consideration and I think this is just another example of that. Why else would LA and NY be included in the list? Poor LA. Only 2 NCAA football titles, 3 Final Fours,  1 National Basketball Championship, 3 straight NBA titles (2000-2002) and that’s only since 1995. New York’s arrogance is proven by what SI had to say:

Even though there are some winning teams, the headlines are filled with the Knicks’ front-office issues and the Yankees’ bloated payroll and their recent split with Joe Torre. The Mets had a historic collapse this season, the Rangers are struggling despite spending lots of money in the offseason, and the Jets’ collapse balances out any success the Giants are having.

Apparently their successes are outweighed by their failures because they have SO MANY TEAMS. Must be rough.

And SI’s reason for including Atlanta: “The Braves made the playoffs for the last 14 years and missed them the last 2.” Really? That’s your argument? OK, I’ll let it slide because of Michael Vick and the Hawks, who have sucked since they lost Dominique Wilkins and Spud Webb.

Is it comforting that we aren’t on this list or is it just another slap in the face, telling us that if you aren’t a major market, you don’t matter? You decide.