My Thanksgiving Weekend

The Thanksgiving weekend means a variety of things to a variety of people. For me it means a couple of things: stomach aches from eating too much, trips up and down the Garden State Parkway, and sports lots of it from college football to the NFL to college basketball to maybe a little NHL.

This year has been no different. Starting with the Lions and ending with Josh McDaniels saying "winning Mother Fucking game" and Brian Dawkins playing like an animal. Also on the plate was a sock that had a hole in it as well as watching various college basketball games that featured coaches in camping shirts, for some it was a good look while for others it was a fashion disaster.

Day two of the weekend started in freezing weather on the golf course. Sure I played the whole round in a woolie and under armor, I did not hit the ball that poorly. The rest of the day was more of the same college football. To end the day I listen to Mark Jones call the WVU/Pitt game and I'm dumber for it right now.

Day three has been a little calmer. It Started with the Premier League and then moved on to college football which was good but the only negative is that Matt Millen has followed me again. On Thanksgiving night he called the Giants and Broncos and on Saturday he called Georgia Tech, make him stop. He is the worst.

Day four has been full of stress, mostly from the eagles but it all worked out in the end as they beat the skins. The day started by watching the premier league game between Arsenal and Chelski, thanks gunners for helping me out. The Heels also beat Nevada for Ole Roy's 600 win wrapped up the day.

It's been a long weekend. I have watched so much sports that my eyes hurt. Also my fingers hurt from sending a ton of text messages. Just look at the labels on this post and you can tell how busy a weekend its been. I'm happy to head back to work just so it slows down my sports watching for a couple of days.

A new way to recruit

For the last couple of year the world of recruiting has started to change. Instead of players keeping their views on their recruitment underwraps, players are taking all of the their thoughts to the public, while others are coming up with tech savy ways of announcing which programs they will play for.

St. Patrick's Guard Kyrie Irving has been at the front of using social media during the process. Irving, who has signed on to play at Duke, has been keeping people up to date with his views with his twitter account. In October, Irving let the world know that he was hanging out with fellow top recruit Tobias Harris at Kentucky. In addition to the twitter, Irving also has a ustream channel that he takes questions from different fans. The twitter aspects of recruiting appears to be growing with 2010 basketball class: Will Barton (Memphis), CJ Fair (undecided), Josh Shelby (undecided), and Kendall Marshall (North Carolina) all have accounts, some of them are open to the public while others are protected. These few just show how much social media is growing when it comes to recruiting.

On Friday, Harrison Barnes took announcing his college pick to a different level. After giving a speech about the final six six schools that were involved in the recruiting process, Barnes said he would Skype the college coach that he was committing to after a couple of seconds Roy Williams face popped up on the screen. I guess the days of just picking a hat up and putting it on are almost over.

Social media is continuing to grow and over the next couple of years many other top high school players wilil be turning to social media.

Selection Sunday: Lets hope it ends like this

As the hours tick down to the selection show lets hope that it ends with ole Roy winning it all and crying, just like it did in 2005. ""There is a new dean of College Basketball, North Carolina takes the title,'' there were no sweeter words.

I do not care if you have a credit card deal, Mike

This sums up the spat between Coach K and Good Ole Roy over injuries. I'm glad that Coach K looks like a gay super hero. Thanks to AOL Fanzone for alerting everyone to this.

Roy is going to run out Jerseys at this rate

Last week the Wear twins and John Henson pledged to be part of the Tar Heel Nation, this week Roy Williams is at it again as he signed St. Pats' point guard Dexter Strickland for the 2009 class.

"We have seen some stellar recruiting classes, but a four-man class of juniors and a two-man class of sophomores, all of five-star caliber, is on the verge of mind-boggling - especially considering that five of the commitments occurred in a two-week period," Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Jerry Meyer said in a story posted on the site.

At this rate the Tar Heel 2009 class might rank up there with the Fab Five of Michigan and the Felton, May, McCants class that Matt Doherty brought to Chapel Hill as one of the best ever.

Roy is at it again

This year, Roy Williams decided not to bring a freshman class in at North Carolina. But in preparation for the next couple of years, Roy has really done his work. According to Rivals.com, Roy is bringing in six 5-star recruits and a 4-star recruit in the next couple of classes.

"Carolina has assembled an incredible group of high school players," national recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons of All-Star Sports, told the Charlotte Observer.
"Roy Williams already has classes that will be among the tops in the country and it is just January."

For the 2008-2009 season Roy has brought in:

• Tyler Zeller, C, Washington, IN
• Larry Drew, PG, Los Angeles, CA
  
• Ed Davis, PF, Mechanicsville, VA
  

For the 2009-2010 season:

• John Henson, PF, Round Rock, TX
• David Wear, SF, Santa Ana, CA
  
• Travis Wear, SF, Santa Ana, CA
  

For the 2010-2011 season:

• Kendall Marshall. PG, Arlington, VA (this story is from 2003 about who good he is)
  
• Reggie Bullock, SG, Kinston, NC.
  

As this current group of Tar Heels moves on, Roy will have another great generation right behind them waiting to make an impact.