Watching the guys grow up

I’m back living in Boston again, I came home to California for a few months and started my job but have moved back to work the same job out of an office out here – one bonus with that is being much closer to “good” pro sports teams. We’re in a pretty big drought in the Bay Area right now, so it’s nice to be in a town where people never expect to lose a game. That being said, this could be a very ugly rest of the season for the Patriots unless they turn something around – the offense looked bad but the defense looked bad and old – not a good combination.

Anyway, it was a fun day to watch football and reflect on all the people at Boston College I followed during my four years there and watch them make it into the big leagues. It’s an interesting school because it’s produced a pretty fair number of quarterbacks and linemen in the NFL, and it’s starting to have more success in the NBA as well, not to mention Hockey. What’s maddening to me is that if Tyrese Rice somehow gets drafted in the first round next summer, our basketball team my sophomore year would have been starting four first-round NBA draft picks (Rice, Sean Williams, Jared Dudley, and Craig Smith), and yet somehow we didn’t make it out of the Sweet Sixteen. Oh well. We’re not ever going to have a real stud in the NBA, but we’ll have some decent spot-starters.

The NFL is different – stars can come from anywhere. I’m not going to pretend for a second Matt Ryan is a sure-fire thing, but he’s sure played great so far. He threw an absolute bomb today seventy yards, and he’s on a team that was in complete disarray a year ago and now looks halfway decent. He’s actually got a pretty high potential as well – he’s not mobile, but he’s got an arm, he’s got guts and he’s smart with the ball. There’s going to be some more ups and downs this year – 2 and 1 looks great now but they’d be lucky to win seven games total. But hey, I bought a Matt Ryan Falcons jersey a few days after he got drafted, so I’m hoping for the best.

Sports are more fun when you’re actively pulling for the players because you have a school connection with them – I guess that goes for more than just athletics, people are always looking for fellow alumni during a job search, and people who see strangers in their school’s colors will often stop them to ask what their connection to the school is. I think there’s a good chance Matt Ryan / Mathias Kiwanuka / Mark Herzlich will be anchors of their respective NFL teams for years to come. Go Eagles.