I am interested in the nicknames for sports teams. Some of the nicknames involve actual animals such as the “Eagles”, the “Panthers”, or the “Lions”.

Other nicknames relate to composite animals. One example is the “Bearcats”.
A bearcat is a combination of a cat and a bear. Another example is the “Bulldogs”. A bulldog is a combination of a dog and a bull. The final example is the “Bobcats”. A bobcat is a combination of a cat and a Bob!


Copyright (c) July 8, 2009
eMeRaLD Effect Enterprises

Touchdown Nightmare

I have a recurring nightmare that I am about to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl.

In football a touchdown is worth six points. Scoring a touchdown is the single activity that produces the most points at once. Players are often very naturally excited about scoring a touchdown. Players will celebrate a touchdown with great enthusiasm.

Sometimes players get so excited that they get carried away after a touchdown.
Sometimes a player will deliberately call attention to himself in the act of celebrating a touchdown. Since football is a team sport, excessive individual celebrations have caused officials to penalize teams. Even ordinary spectators criticize players for the way they celebrate after reaching the end zone. They say things like this: “When a player scores a touchdown, he should act like he has been there before”. The idea is that a player should act nonchalant after scoring a touchdown. If the player is good enough to score many touchdowns, then he should not be particularly excited about scoring another one. It is just his job to score touchdowns. It should be a routine matter.

However, since scoring a touchdown is the most valuable action in football then every time a touchdown is scored it should be considered to be an important event. This is often demonstrated by football game broadcasters. Some of the broadcasters are hired by a team to announce the team’s games. It is natural for these broadcasters to get excited when the team that is paying for the broadcast scores a touchdown. Even when the opponents score a touchdown the announcers get excited because of the negative effect on their team.

It is a different circumstance when the broadcasters are paid by an independent company to announce a game. Because the announcers supposedly do not favor either team it seems that the announcers should not be very excited if either team scores a touchdown. These announcers will still act extremely excited in response to a touchdown. I suppose the announcers are trying to make the game interesting for fans of the teams as well as other viewers and listeners, but it does not make much sense to be enthusiastic after a touchdown if, for example, one team is leading 35 to 0 late in the fourth quarter.

One successful head football coach was recently quoted as saying, “It’s all about scoring points”. If coaches, team owners, fans, and broadcasters can get excited about touchdowns, then why must the players show restraint?

Why do I have a recurring nightmare that I am about to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl? If scoring a touchdown is the single most important activity in football and many people value it, then I should be excited about scoring a touchdown in front of a stadium crowd of tens of thousands and a television audience of millions of people. My coaches and fellow players would enthusiastically congratulate me and my fans would be extremely happy, but the idea of scoring a touchdown frightens me. I have never scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl (or anywhere) and if I did I would be embarrassed because I would not know how to act. I’ve never been there before!


Copyright (c) January 29, 2010
eMeRaLD Effect Enterprises

Here is a story about Jerry West which may or may not be true:

In the 1956-57 season, several years before he became professional star with the Los Angeles Lakers, Jerry was a player on the freshman basketball team of the West Virginia University Mountaineers. He completed a successful season and he looked forward to the team banquet at the end of the season.

He was terribly shy and he struggled to get a date for the banquet. He finally had to settle for asking someone who didn’t know anything about basketball or his team mates.

While Jerry and his date were enjoying the meal Jerry was indicating the various coaches and players and telling her their names and talking about them.

Just as Jerry said, “and there’s Hot Rod Hundley”, his date exclaimed, “That looks like a panda to me!”

“It is a panda”, agreed Jerry, “but it is also Hot Rod Hundley”.

“How could a panda possibly be good at playing basketball?” asked his date.

“You might not expect it, explained Jerry, but that panda is a very talented basketball player. He is a senior and the team leader. We put him in a basketball uniform and do the best we can to make him look like a human being. To tell the truth the team wouldn’t be successful without him. He’s short and he’s slow, but he can dribble behind his back and between his legs. He often takes hook shots at the foul line and sometimes he hangs on the rim and waits for me to throw him a lob pass. He spins the ball on his fingers, rolls it down his arm, and even rolls it behind his back. In addition to all the daredevil maneuvers and antics he’s really a hot shooter so that’s why we call him ‘Hot Rod’.”

Jerry’s date did the best she could to accept what Jerry was saying about Hot Rod but she noticed what Hot Rod was eating and asked, “What is that strange stuff he is eating?”

“Since Hot Rod is a panda he requires a special diet, replied Jerry. It’s an especially difficult challenge to find food for him on team road trips because he just eats shoots and leaves.”

After the dinner it was the Mountaineer tradition to go to the gym and play a game of HORSE before the awards ceremony. Even though Hot Rod only took hook shots from the three point range he won the HORSE game. Later as they were moving back to the dining area Jerry’s date noticed Hot Rod shuffling down the hall on the way to the exit. She asked Jerry, “Isn’t Hot Rod going to stay for the awards ceremony?” “Oh no”, answered Jerry, “It’s Hot Rod’s tradition to never stay for the awards ceremony. He just eats, shoots, and leaves.”

Copyright (c) 2010
eMeRaLD Effect Enterprises

A Unified Field Theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

“In physics, a unified field theory is a type of field theory that allows all that is usually thought of as fundamental forces and elementary particles to be written in terms of a single field. There is no accepted unified field theory. It remains an open line of research. The term was coined by Einstein who attempted to unify the general theory of relativity with electromagnetism, hoping to recover an approximation for quantum theory. A "theory of everything" is closely related to unified field theory, but differs by not requiring the basis of nature to be fields, and also attempts to explain all physical constants of nature.”

For many years I have also striven to discover the unified field theory and now I have discovered it at last.

The Pauli exclusion principle is a quantum mechanical principle proposed by the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925. The Pauli exlusion principle, if I understand it correctly, can be summarized as follows “When in doubt, leave it out”.

In 1927 Werner Heisenberg published the uncertainty principle of quantum physics which he formulated in Niels Bohr's institute at Copenhagen while working on the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, if I understand it correctly, can be summarized as follows: “If you don’t know what to do then do nothing” or is it “If you don’t know what to do then do something even if it is wrong”? I don’t know which it is. I am uncertain.

The forgiveness principle is of unknown origin and, if I understand it correctly, can be summarized as follows: “It is better to beg forgiveness than it is to ask permission”.

Finally, the pleasure principle is a psychoanalytic concept originated by Sigmund Freud. The pleasure principle, if I understand it correctly, can be summarized as follows: “If it feels good then do it”.

Here’s how the principles are unified: the exclusion principle gets you to first base, the uncertainty principle gets you to second base, the forgiveness principle gets you to third base and then the pleasure principle gets you home free.

So there you have it: the unified baseball field theory!


Copyright © May 16, 2010
eMeRaLD Effect Enterprises