It’s both with a heavy heart and anticipation for the future that I announce my retirement as a Cal sports reporter. From this point forward, I’ll just be a regular blogging Cal fan.

It’s a decision that had mostly been made a year ago, that this year would be my last. I wanted to finish going to every stadium in the pressbox and I wanted just one more year under the sun. At the same time, I knew how taxing the job was on the family and on me personally. So my wife and I made the decision that this year would be my last and didn’t really tell anyone, not wanting to ruin the experience of the last year.

Now that the year has come and gone, it’s still been hard to pull the trigger on making the decision, in part because I’ve really enjoyed the experience and know that once I step away it’s unlikely that I’ll ever get a chance to do it again. Nevertheless it is the right decision. That’s why it comes with a heavy heart.

As for the anticipation, there was much about the job that was a lot more laborious than I expected when I started in on it. There are no hiatuses when it’s your job. You’ve got to write your articles when you feel disgusted and want to walk away just as much as you get to write them when the times are good. Particularly living so far from Berkeley, the weekly drives down for the Tuesday press conferences, particularly frequently on the back of a long road trip the weekend before, were quite taxing. This year seemed worse than prior years because part of what I enjoyed the most was watching practice, something I didn’t get to do now that Tedford closed most of practice to the press.

And then there was the constant mental struggle of posting the same thoughts I put in my articles and columns on a subscription site, here on the blog. I’d find myself trying to come up with new thoughts to put on the blog so that I wasn’t revealing subscription content for free on the blog. That was frustrating as well, because I felt like the blog posts were a “shell” of what I really wanted to say. It was one of the things I liked about the OTRH podcasts, because I didn’t feel so inhibited about them.

Point of all this being, I’m excited about blogging again just as a regular guy where I can say what I want to say and not worry. I don’t have to worry about spending too much time writing on the blog and then being too exhausted or disinterested to write a bunch of articles as well. There’s freedom in not getting paid.

So, while I will miss getting to travel so much (as an aside, I’d recommend to everyone that loves the Bears that you make it a goal to visit every Pac-10 stadium at some point. You’ll have a much better appreciation for our conference once you do.) I’m very excited for what the future holds for the blog.

I’m back! 🙂

Please? Pretty please?

Here are the EBay auctions (one each for a set of 3):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250516430434
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250516430791

I’m starting bidding at half price and have a buy it now for what I paid for them ($50 a seat). The bidding ends Wednesday and I’ll get them in the mail to you so you get them Thursday if you pay me right away.

I’m stuck at a wedding next Saturday. Take advantage of my pain and buy my tickets!

There are times after a rough loss that I just want to curl up in a ball and forget that Cal football exists. There are other times when I feel like blogging will have a cathartic affect. The latter is true today. So expect a flurry of posts over the course of the day. Here’s what you can expect (not necessarily in this order):

• Reasons for dispair
• Reasons for hope
• Thoughts on Avinash’s post over at CGB
• Crackpot theories on reasons for Cal losses
• Re-watch and analysis of game
• Posting of OTRH podcast
• Plea to University regarding crowd control and safety

Stay tuned…

Just a quick admin note that I’ve updated the stats page so that it works for 2009. Now you can get my unique stats that allow you to benchmark a team’s stats versus what their opponents give up on average. Admittedly, there’s not much value in these stats until after a few weeks have passed, but I just wanted to post that they’re working now for whenever you want to use them. Just click on the “Stats” item on the title bar.

OK Bear fans… it’s time to sign-up for the best Pick’Em league for Pac-10 fans. None of this boring Top 25 stuff where, lets be honest, we’re picking scores for teams that we know next to nothing about nor do we really care about. I mean seriously, can you say with a straight face that when Cincinnati plays Southeast Missouri State, you actually care about the game?

None of that garbage in my Pick’Em.

It’s just Pac-10 games (it includes non-conference) and nothing else. Additionally, you pick a score for each game, not a winner based on either the “confidence points” that some leagues use or the betting point spread. Nope, you’ll be judged straight up on your ability to pick a good score for the game and whether you can pick the actual winner (50% winner, 50% score).

It really is the best Pick’Em league out there for us Pac-10 fans (and feel free to have your friends from rival Pac-10 schools sign up too).

Sign up by clicking on the Pick’Em link on the title bar!

I’ve updated the blogroll.

For the most part, this was a year of attrition, not a year of expansion. Gone are Bear Necessity, Rose Bowl Before I Die (don’t we still hope for this?), Cal Football Fan and Cal Bear Wire.

In their place only two new blogs were added. One, is the very impressive The Bear Will Not Quit that I’m not sure why it didn’t make the cut in years past other than an oversight. So in the big picture, not a new addition to the Cal blogosphere. The second is not so much a sports blog but a sports information blog, Erin’s Cal Goodies. While it has good and unique info, not a “mainstream” Cal blog.

So, it’s been a bad year. 4 lost and effectively zero gained (with the above caveats).

Part of that can be “blamed” on how good some of the Cal blogs have become, particularly California Golden Blogs. Particularly with their ability for participants to make their own blog posts, it takes a lot of the wind, at least from the perspective of acting independently, out of those who would just like to post on occasion. CGB gives them a forum for that without having to go it on their own. Then when you add in the quality of posts from guys like The Bear Will Not Quit (and if I can be so bold, this site) and it’s hard to keep at it when one can’t put in that level of effort.

In any case, if I’ve overlooked your blog, please add a comment with a pointer to your blog. If you’re thinking of starting one, there’s definitely room for you and feel free to let me know when you go online!

Just an FYI, if you go to the Sacramento Grid Club meeting on September 9th you’ll get the privilege of hearing Jonathan Okanes speak. He needed to change days because of a conflict that recently came up so I switched with him.

If you’re foolish enough to prefer hearing me speak, you’ve got to come on Wednesday, September 16th.

UPDATE on 8/20: My speaking date changed to Weds. Sept. 16th. Please come on that day if you want to hear me speak.

Every once in a rare while I get invited to speak at some Cal related function. One in particular is the Sacramento Grid Club that has asked me to come speak at their meeting on September 9th. If you’re in the Sacramento area and want to up your stalker credentials, coming to hear me speak should be on the top of your priority list.

The Grid Club is a Cal football fan club. I guess there are a number around the state. They have weekly meetings to go over the previous game and have speakers come in. In the past they’ve just asked me the weekend before their weekly event, but this year they’re filling out their schedule early. I’ll be speaking about how the team is coming together, particularly how the change from Cignetti to Ludwig is going and what to expect from the offense for the rest of the season. I’ll also be talking about year two of the 3-4 switch over, which will work out well since the Defensive Coordinator Bob Gregory will be making a call in appearance just before my talk.

More details about the Sac Grid Club are available on their website, which is www.sacgridclub.com. The meeting is open to anyone, but they do hope that if you attend and you like what you see, you’ll consider joining (annual cost is something like $50-$60). They request that you join if you come to more than two events a year.

The location of the meeting is at the Sterling Hotel, which is located at the corner of 13th and H Streets in downtown Sacramento. The meeting starts at 5:00 PM with a review of the Maryland game film, Gregory is on at 6:00 PM and I’m on at 6:15 PM.

Come on out on Wednesday September 9th!

I suspect some have wondered where I’ve been the last few weeks, seeing how my last post was on July 13th. The answer is two-fold:

1. I was running my annual regatta called the Dinghy Delta Ditch on July 25th, which requires a ridiculous amount of preparation. As some of you know, my other big hobby is sailing. Every year I organize a regatta to do my part to make sure there’s lots of good regattas for people to sail in. This year was a particularly challenging one because the wind didn’t fill in at its normal time and the tide turned later than the tide tables said it would. So as a result, instead of people finishing between 6:00 and 8:00 PM, they were finishing well after dark between 8:30 and 11:00 PM. You can find the results here (if you care). Note that if you click on the word “score” for each fleet you’ll get detailed break downs on start and finish times and the such. For those who are asking, yes, the regatta is purposely scheduled to be a couple of weeks before Fall Practice starts so I can wrap it up and call it done before things get rolling here and on BearTerritory.net.
2. I was on vacation with my wife. Her family has a cabin by Little Grass Valley Reservoir, so we left the boys with Grandma and Grandpa and spent the week relaxing. No internet, no cell phones, no responsibilities. I managed to read 3 books, watch 12 movies on DVD, go for a daily bike ride in the mountains as well as spend lots of time with my wife. Heck, I even had 4 beers in one week, which has to be some sort of record for me since my 21st birthday.

All of this is just a long way of saying that I wasn’t purposely ignoring the blog, it was just a casualty of everything else going on.

But never fear! We’re back in business. Here’s what is coming up in the next few weeks leading up to the start of the season:

• I’ll finish off the 2007 looking back series (I’m going to do the 2008 looking back series not in chronological order, but do one game each week during the season matching each look back game from 2008 to who’s being played that week in 2009. (So, the order will be Maryland, Colorado State for this years weakest non-conference game (Eastern Washington), Michigan State for this year’s Big 10 opponent (Minnesota), Oregon, USC, etc.))
• Practice reports from Fall Practice
• Podcasts with player interviews from Fall Practice
• Game-by-game predictions for the season
• Updated blogroll (if you want on the roll, read my criteria and then post a comment)
• Enable the 2009 Pick’Em league

We’ve started a new tradition at the Spring Scrimmage, take a picture of the entire family!

(You’d be surprised how much photoshop is in that picture)

OK, we’re in for the longest, most painful stretch of the year. No college basketball to distract us. No recruiting signing day to wet our appetite. Heck, spring practice, even for those who couldn’t attend was like heaven compared to what we’re about to endure.

FEAR NOT! I’ve got you covered. Here’s what you can expect from me this off-season:

• Looking back series from the 2nd half of 2007
• Looking back series for all of 2008
• An early prediction for each game of the season (after the rest of the Pac-10 spring ball’s wrap up)

So, you’ll be seeing posts from me every week between now and fall practice (only 14 weeks away!) Those 2007 looking back posts will start by next week with the Oregon State game.

UPDATE: A request for my readers… does anyone know where I can get video of some of our older Tedford games? I have every game since 2005 (my own copies that I recorded) but in particular I would like to add the following games to my collection:

2002 Big Game
2002 USC Game
2003 Big Game
2003 USC Game
2003 Oregon Game
2004 Big Game
2004 USC Game
2004 Oregon Game
Other’s I’m looking for:
1982 Big Game (not abreviated version, I’ve got that one)
1991 Big Game

You know the economy is bad when even I don’t renew my tickets right away. I’ve made a habit of trying to be on of the first to renew. This year however I said to my wife. “If I’m still employed at the end of March, we’ll renew.”

Well, it’s the end of March and nobody has stopped by my cube and said “Ken, can you come with me to a private meeting room?”

So, whether or not I’m gainfully employed in September, I’ll be attending Bears games in my same seats as always.

I was reviewing my viewing statistics and realized that sometime early last week, EMFMV’s blog crossed the 100k view boundary since we came into being in August of 2007.

Also, for the whole website (including the pick’em and other stuff), 2008 was the first 1 million hit year. (Hit’s being different than views (a view will include a bunch of hits).) So the numbers keep going upward!

In any case, the reason I bring this up is because I wanted to say thanks to everyone who reads and keep the comments and thoughts coming. I just came to an arrangement with the BearTerritory.net folks to cover the away games again next year and am looking forward to another good year of blogging and reporting.

I’ve thought for a long time that a valuable added feature to this site would be chat sessions at various times. Of course, it won’t be available all the time, but perhaps once a week during Spring Practice we could have a chat session. If it works well we could see about doing it during the season.

Would people be interested in that?
(And please make sure you leave a comment if you’re interested. If there’s not interest, I won’t be spending the time to setup the chat software for the site.)

Spring Practice starts on Saturday. I’ll be going down to cover it on 5 different occasions over the course of the practice, the first being next Tuesday, March 17th… hey that’s St. Patricks Day. Luck ‘O the Irish to you from an Irish Catholic!… In any case, I’ll be doing podcasts on each of those 5 visits, so check back here over the next 6 weeks for approximately weekly podcasts from Spring Practice.

Well, the football season is over. Here’s my off-season blogging plans:

• Handful of season wrap-up articles in next few weeks
• Pickup 2007 “looking back” posts on 2007 games, starting in February
• coverage of signing day and the 2009 recruiting class
• Cover spring ball/practice
• Do a complete 2008 “looking back” series probably starting in April/May
• When I feel like it, cover some basketball

So, you should see a post about once a week or so, but it won’t be nearly that consistent with some heavy sections and some light sections.

Just an FYI.

I just wanted to wish everyone out there a Blessed and Merry Christmas. Christ is amongst us!

As for the Cal blogging, yeah it has been slow ever since the Washington game wrap-up. I can’t speak for Jason, but for me I just needed a break. I will be live-blogging the Emerald Bowl from the pressbox however and expect a couple posts between now and then.

Merry Christmas

What a game… what A GAME! I’ve never been so happy to be soaked to the bone. Although I suspect if I’d dragged the wife and kids to the game I wouldn’t have been so thrilled about it.

In any case, the Bears won a key game for meeting expectations for the year. Here’s a list of posts that you can expect today from me:

1. On The Road Home podcast posted
2. Early look at bowl game scenarios
3. Video/Picture post on run game issues/success
4. Review of game

Well, my post on the Cal vs. Oregon history must have gotten linked on some Oregon site, because I’m getting a lot of Oregon commentors, which is great. I just have one request:

This is not the site for nasty trash talking. If you want to do that, go to one of the many over the top message boards. On this site, only reasonable analysis is welcome. Slightly biased analysis, including commentary on why you think the Ducks will win, is fine, but it should be supported by reasonable arguments.

Unfortunately just about every year we here at EMFMV get a commentor or two during the week of the Oregon game who is just out to make noise and spout ridiculously over-confident statements, things like:

If you think Oregon is going to score only 24 points over the coarse of the entire game, you don’t know anything about Oregon. They will score 24 points in the first quarter.*

*Funny thing about that 24 points he was complaining about, it turned out to be the final score for the Ducks last year.

There’s no need for that type of stuff and it is not welcome here. Please keep your comments respectful (and that goes for Cal fans too, although most who come here regularly have been reminded of that before).

So welcome Duck fans! I’m glad you visited… but please keep the commentary respectful.

My 2nd spotlight article from the game is now posted over at BearTerritory.net:

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=865091

It is a subscription article. Just as an FYI, here’s what you should expect to see from me this week:

1. BT: Article with full list of player quotes (today)
2. EMFMV: Posting of YouTube video of my College Football NOW appearance last friday (tonight)
3. EMFMV: On the Road Home Podcast for Arizona with player quotes (today or tomorrow)
4. BT: Practice podcast with player quotes (Weds)
5. EMFMV: detailed photo or videoanalysis of why Arizona was able to seal the edge against Cal (Weds or Thurs)
6. BT: Statistical preview of UCLA game (Thurs or Fri)

Finally, a shoutout to California Golden Blogs writer ragnarok who went on the road trip to Arizona with me. He made the trip a lot more enjoyable, particularly what would have been a REALLY long drive home after the loss and cut my gas costs in half. Thanks for coming along rag!