The College Life: Living With Engineers

         We’ve all heard the generalization that some people are math/science lovers and some are history/language lovers when it comes to school. While I think that that way of thinking is a stereotype that is more often wrong than right, it really fits me. I am NOT a science person. While I’ve always performed well in my science classes, I don’t take joy in performing chemistry experiments, peering through a microscope at tiny organisms, or learning about the scientific process. This is a confession, but my current “Physical Science” (that’s one of the GE science classes required for all you non-BYU folk) section of my notebook has about an equal number of basketball plays and pictures as notes. (Though in my defense, some of those are decorated chapter titles, which need to get on the page anyways, right?)

            Interestingly enough, I live with a bunch of engineer majors, and one computer science genius. (I figure I can lump him in since the major has "science" in the name). I for one cannot see why on earth they would voluntarily take classes about atoms, although I respect them for doing so. It hardly came as any surprise then, when our blender broke and we decided last night to take it apart and then fix it.

Well, at least that was the original plan. By the time the evening had finished, we had a fairly good-sized crowd of neighbors in our kitchen watching us blow up an old strand of Christmas lights one by one, using the blender’s electrical circuits. It was actually pretty epic. And you know what? I actually learned a lot about electricity and the mechanics of a blender, and I even enjoyed it!       

The Fed

(Disclaimer: For those members of my readership who do not play or watch tennis, I will be straight up and say that this post is entirely on the subject of tennis. That being said, I will attempt to the best of my ability to explain all of the tennis concepts so that you can understand them too.)

World, meet Roger Federer. Roger is considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, tennis players of all time. In his career, he has broken most of the meaningful records in tennis: (Grand slams won, time spent at #1 in the world, and number of consecutive finals reached in major tournaments, just to name a few).

I love him.

By now, you know what’s coming: this is unusual. That sentence above just made many people respect my opinions less, made a few visibly wince, and might have caused some genuine anger in any die-hard tennis fans in my audience. (By the way, if you are out there, feel free to leave a comment. At this point, I’ll accept hate comments, as long as it’s a comment.)  Here is my concession to these people: I completely understand why one would not like Roger Federer. Society teaches us to love the underdogs, and hate those who win consistently, which group will be hereafter referred to as “over-dogs” for lack of a better word. I condone this is in every case except when one has a personal tie to the team. So Alabama grads can be respected if they support Alabama, but it is perfectly acceptable for everyone else to hope that Nick Saban loses every football game he coaches for the rest of his life. That’s just how it works.

                Roger Federer, up until recently, has been the top dog of tennis for an incredible amount of time. It’s unreal how long he was the dominant force in men’s tennis—it is extremely safe to say that he is the prime case of an over-dog. Yet I make an exception for him from my general rule of “rooting against the favorites”.  Why?

                The reason that I cannot bring myself to do anything but admire and cheer for “The Fed” is that he has done something that no other over-dog that I know of has managed to do: he transformed an athletic competition into something completely different. Federer is more than just a tennis player. When Federer steps onto a tennis court, he doesn’t merely play tennis; he transcends the game, turning an athletic competition into something beautiful. Federer doesn’t compete with his opponent to see who is superior at the sport. His tennis is more art than sport, a showcase instead of a battle. It is for the pure beauty of Roger Federer’s tennis that makes him different than any other over-dog.

                Yet this “artistry over competitor” idea by itself is just a cop-out. It’s an ambiguous idea, and thus is really up to the observer. An explanation is necessary: what is it that makes Federer an artist? The answer is one simple word, which in terms of tennis, Federer has re-defined: control.

Sports in general are by definition, chaos. Throwing athletes into an arena with a ball and some rules, then tell them to figure out who is better is never going to end up with a result that is calm. Yet Federer has brought a peculiar order to the tennis court, due to his complete control of nearly everything on the tennis court. He controls the ball. He controls his own emotions. He controls the flow of the match. Sometimes, from the way events go his way it seems as if he even has control of opponents’ minds.

So you say, “You’re still talking in the abstract Aaron. Show me this in real terms.” I’d be happy to. In the last Australian Open, Federer played the up-and-coming Australian hometown favorite, Bernard Tomic, in the fourth round. Before the match, tennis analysts and experts were saying that it could be a match that marked the changing of an era, as Roger faded from the scene, and Tomic began his rise. The following pictures were taken from a point in that match.

(A little aside: The video for this can be found here, if you can stand the strange Spanish commentary.)

A little background: Up to this point, the two have hit a couple of shots to each other, and Federer has hit a drop shot and advanced up to the net. Even with my idolization of Federer, I can recognize that this was not a good shot at all. (Federer is in the red shirt, Tomic in white)

 

       

Tomic easily reaches it and now has a great opportunity. There is a reason why you don’t often see tennis players standing in the middle of the court where Federer is now: it’s because it gives your opponent a chance to hit a shot that will bounce at your feet. It’s really hard to get control a ball that is hit at your feet. This situation is especially bad for Federer since both players are relatively close to the net, and he will not get a lot of reaction time to whatever Tomic hits his way. Regardless of these mistakes, Federer plays it smart and stays in the middle of the court, closing off the center but surrendering both sidelines for Tomic to take. At this moment, it looks as if Federer is going to try to make Tomic hit close to either sideline, and hope that Tomic overplays the ball and hits it wide.

Tomic plays the ball very well. His shot lands at Roger’s feet, and he has not tried to do too much with the ball, yet he still places it right up next to the left sideline. Traditional tennis doctrine, or at least what I was taught, is to come in behind the ball’s path when one hits an approach shot, as Tomic has just done. In this case however, Tomic correctly realizes that at times, traditional tennis doctrine is a bunch of bologna. The net is lowest in the center, and thus takes the least amount of control to hit over. Given the sticky situation he’s just put Federer in, Tomic moves towards the center of the court to cut off the easiest option of Federer’s. If the ball somehow manages to get back, he’ll be in the prime position to slam it over to the right sideline, way out of Federer’s reach. The only way to improve Tomic’s execution here would be to have hit the ball a couple of inches closer to the left sideline to make the shot absolutely perfect, but otherwise he has just made a flawless play. After all, not every shot in a tennis match hits the perfect corners, and so for all intents and purposes, Tomic has just hit the best shot he could have.

                Now to Federer’s side of the court. It is a testament to his quickness that he even has a shot of hitting this ball at all. I, I’m pretty sure most of the tennis players I’ve seen, wouldn’t have been able to do anything other than hit a big whiff of air in this situation. Of course, Federer is a professional, and I’m not, and so maybe it isn’t that unusual that he gets to this ball. This shot is on Federer’s backhand side, which for most tennis players is the harder side to hit off of, for the simple reason that swinging your arm and rotating your wrist forward is more natural than arm-swinging and wrist-rotating backwards. (Try it right now—see what I mean?). The fact that this ball is right at Federer’s feet, (depth-wise) combined with the fact that it is at the extreme limits of his reach, and to his backhand side, all combine to make this one incredibly difficult shot to hit. Like I said, most tennis players wouldn’t even get to it. A fair number of professional players could get a racket on the ball, but only to hit the ball into the net. Few are the people in this world who could get this ball back into play. Those people would simply pray for Tomic to make a mistake because they would have to hit the ball back to the middle of the court, right where he is patiently waiting for the opportunity to cream the ball back. Federer doesn’t fall into any of these groups.  

Look at this beauty. Federer gets to the ball, hits it, and puts in back in play, not up the middle where the net is lower and the shot is easier, but he lofts it high enough to clear the net by the left sideline. Whether it can still land inbounds after being hit so high is yet to be seen. Tomic scrambles to get to the ball…

                …Only to watch in amazement as Federer’s shot literally lands on the intersection between the baseline and the sideline. The perfect shot. Tomic didn’t even get a chance to swing his racket.

                Let’s take a review of this point for a second: Federer makes a pretty costly mistake. Tomic capitalizes nearly perfectly on that mistake, and it does not make one little bit of difference in the end result. Federer does the near-impossible and hits the perfect winner from a terrible situation. In contrast to the other athletes of this day, who can’t tie their shoes correctly without showing off, Federer doesn’t go crazy after this shot.

I kid you not, this was his reaction. He put his head down! He almost looks depressed in this shot, what with his lowered gaze and slumped shoulders. He just hit an incredible shot that 99% of all tennis players could spend their lives practicing and would never quite replicate. This picture is utter control of emotion. Not even a fist pump escapes Federer’s emotionless on-court persona. He’s long since realized emotion only clouds his game, and so he takes emotion entirely off the court, even after such a dramatic winner.

To me, that is total control. During this point, he has taken a terrible situation and turned it to his advantage by his control of his racket, the ball, and his emotions. This play speaks for itself—it’s simply beautiful. Masterful, even.

That’s artistry. That’s Roger Federer.

Lose Yourself In the Music, the Moment... The Roads?

The other day in our Elder’s Quorum (for the non-Mormons in my audience, that’s the hour of church that we meet as just boys), we had a lesson on marriage. Surprise, surprise: this is BYU. This is completely off-topic from what I’m going to say, but I would like to take some time to point out that with two exceptions, the Church would disapprove if anyone in that room got engaged. I can’t help but feel that the time would have been better spent in instructing us how to be good missionaries, not good husbands… Alas, such are the tribulations of a student at BYU.

            Anyways, back to the topic I was going for. At one point in the lesson, our instructor was trying to demonstrate to us how men and women are good for each other. He used the example of getting lost, asking how many of us would stop to ask for directions. Two or three of my peers raised their hands, at which point he chuckled and told them they were girls. He then asked who would say they “weren’t really lost in the first place”. The rest of the class raised their hands. The lesson continued on.

            I kept my hand down. Neither of those descriptions fit me. When I’m driving and realize that I don’t know where I am, I’ll admit that I’m lost, and then I’ll smile as wide as I can. I love getting lost.

            In fact, I love getting lost that I specifically set up opportunities to do so. As I mentioned in an earlier post, most of my favorite memories with my beloved car involved me driving around, lost and directionless.

            I realize that this is a bit of anomaly. (Then again, is anyone reading this surprised? I’m Aaron Wilson. EVERYTHING I do is an anomaly. Sometimes I wonder if this is too much of a problem.) So once again, I’d like to try to open my mind to the general public about this issue and see if I can truly explain myself. Without further ado, why it is perfectly acceptable to like getting lost while driving:

            First off, you have to take the whole “time crunch” issue out of the equation. I hate being late to something important, and getting lost while you desperately have to be somewhere is a terrible feeling. However, if a job/grade/eternal salvation isn’t at stake in some form, few things beat being lost. I think that one of the primary reasons I feel this way is that I’m a big fan of mazes. I’m pretty sure my subconscious would be partying like it's the end of the world if someone invaded my dreams, Inception-style. Basically, I see a city as being a massive maze, except a little bit easier. I mean, there are signs! The thrill of the hunt, plus that little bit of stress because you know you can’t just walk away, makes a car-sized maze an adventure.  

            Secondly, I love the feeling that comes from being un-lost (and this is my blog so I feel pretty justified in making up my own words). It’s a nice combo of relief and satisfaction of solving the puzzle. Think of the good feeling of solving a difficult math problem, minus the unpleasantness of actually doing math. Not bad, huh?

            Third, it’s a break from routine. One of my friends wrote an excellent paper about the nature of humans to have habits. One of her conclusions—to the best that I can understand it—was that as humans we want the comfort of habit, of continuity, but at the same time we yearn for the unknown, for a new experience. I agree with this, and I think this is especially true as far as places we visit. In my weekly routine I visit certain places, and day in, day out, I go back to those same places. Why? Because I know them. They are comforting to me. Being lost completely breaks that mold. You get to see new sights, experience new things. If you know exactly where you are going—even if it’s somewhere you’ve never been before—that doesn’t necessarily happen. When you’re lost, you are outside of your world, the places you inhabit, and for a second, you are in somebody else’s. When I'm lost, I look at things differently. Someone probably drives on that road every day, and for a minute, I'm in that person's world. That feeling, of breaking out of one’s world and experiencing another's is by far the greatest part of being lost in my book. It don’t think that it’s a coincidence that people enjoying traveling to new places, and yet traveling is the time that one is most likely to get lost. It's new, it's different, it's an adventure, and thus, it's awesome.

            Fourth, well, having a little extra time to belt out the strains of whatever CD is in the player isn’t so bad, is it?

Blogspot has me FOF'd

I told a couple of people today that I was about ready to post again. For the record, I worked on a post for about an hour and half, only to have it deleted by blogspot when I hit the "undo" button. BEWARE of the 'undo' button! The moral is, I am working to re-create, but it might be a while. My apologies if that disappoints anyone, but I would be surprised if it did.

Hop onto the Bandwagon!

I'm not entirely sure how prevalent it is throughout the rest of the country, but in my circle of friends, the youtube craze for videos on "Stuff (that would be my substitute for an expletive) _____ (Insert your stereotype here)____ say" has not gone unnoticed. An example of such a video, and one that is personally my favorite:

Today I figured that I'd get up onto that bandwagon. Without further ado:

Stuff Boys from 177 Carroll Hall Say

"Dirty"-- Used to express confusion or bewilderment. Most commonly heard while watching a roommate play Skyrim: "What the dirty is that thing?", "You just died? What the dirty? How did that happen?"

"It's chill"-- The new way to say 'no thanks'. Most commonly heard when trying to get someone to buy milk. As in "Hey, will you go buy some milk?" "Nah dog, it's chill."

"F-O-F" (A shoutout to any Carliles reading this)-- Standing for 'Full of Frustration', FOF is only used the rarest of circumstances. Most commonly heard when discussing September 10th, 2011, which is the day that BYU football fell apart against Texas, only to be followed by a heartbreaking overtime loss in girl's soccer. And it was the day we discovered Carly Payne had a boyfriend. "That day was so FOF'd!"

"LTTB"-- An acronym for the worst punishment known to us. (Lick the toilet bowl) Most commonly heard in the following exchange: "Alright, it's monday night, time for you to clean the bathroom." "Nah dog, it's chill." "Oh no, you better get in there NOW or you'll be LTTBing by tonight." (Don't worry, it's never actually been sentenced on anyone).

The Streets of Wilsonville Will Never Be the Same...

My first impression of the bronze, 2004 Honda Civic when it was driven into our driveway the first time was very positive. Being young, a complete stranger to the world of cars, and inheriting my parents’ utter lack of care for the “image” of a car, I only had eyes for the open sunroof on top of the car. To me, any car with a sunroof was just as cool as the latest Ferrari. Then of course, I got inside the car, and soon realized that sometimes, length in a car does matter. (Those of you who have gotten into the backseat of a civic or any other miniature-sized car understand). I came to dislike having to get into the backseat of the Civic, and I admit that for a while I hated the car. Thankfully, I eventually graduated to the front seat on sibling trips when my older sister Emma jetted off to college, and my memories of belting out songs on the way to seminary with Isaac behind the wheel turned my feelings towards the car around, as I made more and more memories with it.

And then I actually started driving. Overnight, my feelings towards the vehicle took a dramatic shift. No longer was the Civic a burden to be borne, but it became a dear friend. Critics made fun of the complete lack of power (my mother called it “the moped”) and lack of space, but I was always quick to point out the bass, which was half-decent, and the sunroof. Throughout my driving years, the Civic was almost exclusively my car, and together “The Golden Bullet” and I made tons of memories.

Last week, my parents sold the car, and it has now moved on to a new owner heading to San Francisco. This is not meant to be a sad post however. While The Golden Bullet has moved on, so has much in my life recently, and by now I can accept change with a minimal amount of mourning. The key, as I find it, is simply to focus on the positives. And with The Golden Bullet, there were a ton of positive experiences.

Some of the most memorable for me were as follows, in no particular order:

·         The moment during the drive back from Oregon this past January, wherein both Emma and I were simultaneously trying to explain to Emma’s friend Mindy that no, she really had to COMPLETELY floor it in order to get up to freeway speeds.

·         Belting out along with the Backstreet Boys in the complete 5 am darkness on an empty 1-5 while heading to work last summer.

·         The many drives back from playing basketball at church, windows rolled down and sunroof open, despite freezing temperatures.

·         The classic bumper stickers during the 2008 election. They read; “Brandon and Greg. More Basketball, Less Politics”. (It still has been my regret that I never bought matching Blazer symbols to compliment the ever-present BYU “Y” on the rear bumper.)

·         Getting lost on the “wrong side of Burnside” in Portland with Kelsey on a Saturday morning, and driving around the same  block 3 times before we realized that the signs to I-5 really were going to lead us across the river 3 or 4 times before we saw any freeways.  

·         All of the many drives to piano lessons.

·         Isaac and I shamelessly trying to out-do each other in terms of volume while hitting the high note in Jesse McCartney’s “Beautiful Soul”. (Which is at approximately 3:32 in this clip) I pretty loosely use the term “hitting the high note”, as I don’t recall either of us actually getting halfway up to the lofty height that Jesse does. But what we lacked in pitch we definitely made up in volume.

·         The one time when my knowledge of Wilsonville’s roads finally paid off: I absolutely burned speed-demon Jake Dickson off the line at a red light without even reaching the speed limit, forcing him to get up to 60 in a 35 zone in order to beat me to seminary.

·         The 45-second drive across the high school parking lot to get my car over to tennis practices on sunny spring days that only Oregon can produce. That was one of my favorite drives.

·         Absolutely freaking out the first time I got pulled over, and then learning that the only reason was because one of the headlights was out.

·         Killing an hour by getting myself intentionally lost in Beaverton, and then proceeding to attempt to find my way out. 

·         The Reunion between the Civic and I after my first semester of college, where just the sound of The Golden Bullet coughing to life made me so inexpressibly happy that I laughed to myself for a solid 3 minutes.

Goodbye to the best first car one could ever wish for! I hope the new owners treasure you as much as I have!     

Overheard in Provo...

A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to go play tennis. Due to the fact that BYU’s courts are closed, I went and played at Timpview High School nearby, located in the middle of a neighborhood. The tennis was surprisingly pretty high-quality and I had a fun time, but the best moment came when I overheard two young girls talking. They had been riding around on scooters by the courts, and they had stopped to watch for a minute when this priceless talk happened:

Girl #1: “I want to play tennis!”

Friend: “Me too… Except we don’t have any tennis balls. And I don’t know how to play.”

Girl #1: “Yeah. I would’ve learned how to play tennis, but last time I was going to learn, I peed my pants.”

Oh to be young and innocent again!

The Joys of Education...

I am a weird kid. That much is obvious to me, and anyways who knows me. I've always been just a little quirky. There are times, however, when I feel like the college experience has made me just a little bit more random. Today, that became very apparent to me in a conversation I had with a friend over text.

As far as background goes, besides the fact that we are both conservatives, I think that the only thing that you need to know over winter break, I found out via a huge genealogical book that I was a descendant of King Duncan I of Scotland (Who features as the first victim in Shakespeare's Macbeth), and when I shared this with my friend, he claimed that he was actually a descendant of Macbeth. Needless to say, we haven't communicated since that information came up.

Anyways, the conversation went something like this:

Aaron: Did you hear about Scotland?

(This is a reference to the referendum declared yesterday)

Friend: Free at last, free at last! Thanks God Almighty, they may be free at last! Though I wouldn't want to live there because the economy would collapse. But you know. Wales next!

Aaron: That's what I was getting to. We talked about it today in class. It's all about the national pride though- forget the economy and defense and all that stuff. Alaska is totally going to be next! AIP (Alaskan Independence Party) all the way! Sarah Palin as the first president!

Friend: I had forgotten about that! Alaska's economy would be fine, oil and all, and as for defense... grizzly bears and wolves would have to do. I think the best move for Scotland, because of the cultural connection and similarity to the USA, is to apply for statehood!

Aaron: Agreed. Let's finally get this nation across the pond once and for all. We all can clearly see that Europe could use a bit more of America's conservatism-- you just can't leave the liberals alone for too long. Annexing Scotland is a great way to give our ideas a foothold on the continent.

Friend: Exactly. And it would give the US economy the boost in exports that it needs by doubling the wool production and giving the US the rights to the distinguished title of Scotch Whiskey for Whiskey produced on the isle!

Aaron: Genius! Let's do it. Sell Texas to pay off the debt once and for all and then annex Scotland and use the whiskey to solve all of our economic problems!

Friend: I can't really see the sale the Texas. But what I can see is the USA adopting more liberal economic and social policies looking to appear more attractive to Scottish Nationals. This leads to many conservative Americans to become upset and when the inevitable war breaks out between the US and the UK the southern states realize that the US is weak and decide to once again secede. The South would win that war pleasing the angry states rights southerner, the US would beat the UK, and Scotland, whiskey and all, would be a territory, and the huge wars would give the economy the WWII treatment resulting in another 1950's economy with a large middle class. Everyone is happy. Well, except the UK... but who cares?

Aaron: Dang right! The Brit's had their chance. I vote that you and I go over there, and on the graves our ancestors, bury the hatchet once and for all, uniting the power of both Macbeth and Duncan to usher in a new chapter of Scottish History--a chapter ruled not by the upstarts in London, but by the free kilt-wearing peoples of the highlands. We won't stop until we have a kilt in the White House, and the world knows and fears the power of the caber-tossers!

Anyways, that's me. If you followed that, or thought that was amusing, I will pray for your soul.

Disclaimer: I don't believe most of that stuff. I am not a liberal-hater nor do I blame them for Europe's debt crisis, I like Texas (After all, my roommate is from the Lone Star State), I think the United Kingdom is an invaluable ally for the US, nor am I actually in favor of Scottish independence.

Alaska however... Well to be honest, I would be highly entertained to watch them try to secede. No apology there.

Adventures in the Kitchen: Pork Chop Edition

When selecting housing at BYU, one has two options: Helaman Halls or Heritage Halls. Helaman offers the timeless two-roommates and a cafeteria option, while Heritage groups it's residents in apartments of 6 that share a kitchen and a bathroom. Under parental pressure, and with a misguided opinion that I could just get a meal plan that sponsored me at the cafeteria anyways, I chose Heritage. I have not regretted that decision, as the apartment style living has fit very well with me.

Well, with one major exception: food. As anyone who knows me can attest, few people look as out of place anywhere as I do in the kitchen whilst attempting to cook. President Obama would be more comfortable at a Tea Party rally than I am when confronted with any kind of ingredient and a recipe. Last semester, I managed to overcome my inexperience by becoming rather adept at cooking frozen pizza's and ordering subway, and buying Frosted Flakes by the pound. No I'm serious--literally by the pound. It was during winter break that I realized that probably shouldn't be the long-term solution. So along with the New Year and the new semester came a resolution to attempt to cook for myself much more.

It's a great concept that I'm thrilled over. However, execution becomes a real problem for that goal, because intentions mean nothing to a burner. I found that out today with an experiment in Pork Chops. Pork Chops and mashed potatoes was my favorite food growing up, and recently Emma attempted to show me how to make it. The way she said it, it seemed foolproof. Full of innocence, I decided to attempt the dish tonight for dinner, but whatever my expectations, the curse of the kitchen found me tonight: the pork chops were burned, the sauce was overcooked as well, and I did not find the right consistency for the gravy. After my fortieth question to them, my roommates were outright chuckling at my misfortune.

Thankfully, they turned out decent. The kitchen might have had it's victories tonight, but I think that in the end the two of us ended up in a draw. I'll be back next week to tackle some a new dish, and then the never-ending struggle between me and the kitchen will resume in earnest.

In Defense of Brock Zylstra

This is not going to be a sports blog, but rather just the random thoughts from the mind of Aaron. Today’s thought just so happens to revolve around one thing which I love.

Brigham Young University Basketball.

I love just about everything about basketball, including watching a good game. I very much enjoyed supporting my high school basketball team, but the environment in the Marriott Center blows the high school experience out of the water. The student section is always packed with students eager to support the team, and who aren’t afraid to be loud in that support. It’s always fun to be hooting and hollering with random strangers as we cheer on the cougars. Occasionally though, you get stuck around people who rather than support the team, start tearing down our players. Such was the case with me yesterday afternoon as the fans behind me started heckling one of our players, Brock Zylstra. This is no new concept, as I’ve heard the crowd pick on him multiple times in my experiences with the cougar basketball this year. Yesterday, the fans were more murmuring than anything else, but made several comments in the first few minutes about how Zylstra needed to get out of the game and go back to the bench.

This has me puzzled, since Brock is one of my favorite players on the team. I can hardly claim to be an expert in all things basketball, but I do have a decent feel for the game—after all, it is my family’s sport, and I’ve played it for as long as I can remember. So I am left wondering what the students see that I don’t. When I look at Zylstra play, I see someone who resembles my brother, Isaac. To me, Brock plays like someone who knows his role on the team. He is a 6’6 small forward on a team with two very good posts (Noah Hartsock and Brandon Davies) and a lot of great three-point shooters. In essence, it’s a team with a lot of scorers, and it’s fairly obvious that the team doesn’t need to have Brock score a lot. Rather, they need his defensive prowess and they need his hustle. He gives 110% of his effort in both of those categories. He averages a decent 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal in every game. And yet his major contribution on the floor is completely absent on the stat sheet; his defense. I watched him closely in the BYU-Baylor game, and he anchored the top of the 2-3 zone. His combination of length, speed, and effort disrupt the flow of his opponents’ offenses and cause them a lot of problems on the perimeter. When I see Zylstra play, I see the epitome of a role player. Here is a skilled player who understands that he has a limited role on the team, and acts accordingly (He averages only 6 shots a game, the lowest of the starters). Without getting the glory that comes from being a prolific scorer, Brock does his limited jobs to the best of his ability, night in and night out, and he does them well. I see that as the reason why Coach Rose has him starting every game. Much like a lineman in football, Zylstra does the dirty work on the court, yet the work that is crucial for the team’s success. A player who puts the team before himself is someone who I will always respect and admire, and I believe that Brock Zylstra does just that.

And thankfully, sometimes he gets a chance to prove his worth to those in the crowd who don’t always believe in him. Yesterday, Brock scored 22 points by shooting 100% of the field, including six three pointers. Later in the game, I thought I heard the familiar voice of that same heckler shout out:

“Give the ball to Zylstra!”

The Blog Life

Around comes a new year, a new semester, and of course, many new changes. I've decided to get back into the swing of things and join the wave of the future with this blog. After all, writing has always been something I've enjoyed, and what better way to practice writing while I don't have an English class than to fire up the ol' blog and see what comes of it. So here it is:

Cool Air From A.C.

It's official.

It's the real deal.

Enjoy!