New kids on the blog...

So I finally got around to making a post. I promise Tony and I will try to make more posts, but last week was entirely way too busy with the regular paper and the baseball/softball preview.
I’m surprised I gave into this whole blog thing in the first place. When it comes to technology, I’m always way behind. Hey, I didn’t have an e-mail address until I was 17. So Tony convinced me, and with Greg Auman at the Times and Brett McMurphy at the Tribune keeping theirs pretty updated, I knew we had to be more on the pulse.
Besides, there are plenty of things we pick up on the beat that we know would be perfect for this…such as:

— I had an interesting conversation with Athletic Director Doug Woolard on Wednesday. What’s great about this guy is he’s always happy about something … at least when he’s talking to me. Even with a men’s basketball team on an 11-game losing streak — which is Doug’s favorite sport — he’s still smiling and still got a spring in his step. We got to talking about the renovations for the entire athletic complex on the west side of campus, which many of the employees of the Athletic Department have very rough artist’s renditions of what everything would look like.
The most promising-looking renovation on the map has to be the new location and designs of stadiums for both the softball and baseball teams. Surrounding the “road to nowhere” on campus — the dinky roundabout road parallel to 50th Street that was originally built for Greek Village 1993 — will be a stadium on one side and the other straight across from it. Whether those plans hold up, it gives that side of campus the most professional look compared to the rest of campus.
Woolard said — and I didn’t expect to hear this come from him — that most of those drawings would get better, making the renovations they are planning to give the facilities a “sexier” look.
Sexier? I’ve been at this school for five years and I’ve never heard anyone, student or faculty, use the word “sexy” to describe campus.
With the Sun Dome coming along with the new screen and floor, and the progress of the renovations taking some time, perhaps eventually the facilities will look sexy, even if the Sun Dome gets a powerwashing at the very least.
Or at the very least the new baseball field will have a press box — from which I’m writing this — bigger than most closets at Campus Lodge.

— Speaking of writing from the game, it’s freezing today, which is Sunday. High of 47, if most of us warm-blooded individuals are lucky. And if anyone deserves props, it has to be president of the Student Bulls Club, Chris Lau. Wrapped in more cloth than a burn victim, Lau is the only one of the club present at today’s baseball game.
He has to be the only person on campus who sees more USF sports than I do.
I haven’t figured out if that’s a good thing, but no one pays him to go to the games.

— Spoke to Brian Baisley the other day, and he gave me a quick update on his brother, Jeff, who reports to the Vancouver Canadians, Oakland’s single A club, on March 11. Jeff, who through 61 games batted .252, had six homers, 38 RBI, 28 runs, 15 doubles and a .413 slugging percentage, was named the team’s MVP. Among the handful of former Bulls players in the minor leagues — Myron Leslie, Tim Mattison, Kyle Schmidt, David Austen, John Raburn, Devin Ivany and Mike Eylward — Baisley seems to be putting on the best showing and probably has the best chance to move up the ranks.
It’s just getting rid of that other third baseman the Athletics have and maybe Baisley will get his shot.
What’s the guy’s name? Eric Chavez something?

— Stop the presses. Stop the presses. I have some urgent news for the Athletic Department. I need everyone to stop what they are doing and listen. The sports information directors are working their tails off to get the redesigned official athletics Web site up and running by the end of this week. Contract negations with the company running the Web site, XOS Technologies, Inc., were just stalled in getting the site up. I’ve seen it and just about anything would be a vast improvement from what’s up there now, but they way the site looks, which can only be described as, well, “sexy.” The site was supposed to be up early January, but talks have taken so long that super agent Drew Rosenhaus must have been someway involved.

— Got a chance to sit down with seasoned baseball coach Eddie Cardieri earlier in the week. What’s great about EC is after 21 years he knows what he can and can’t do as a coach. He’s been at USF longer than some buildings, and after nine NCAA trips, five Coach of the Year awards and 16 winning seasons people still talk about how the guy should be fired, say if he has a poor year in the poor Big East baseball conference.
The Bulls were picked to finish third in the conference in preseason polls, but if Carideri is worried about unemployment, he sure isn’t showing it.
He’ll still sit on the visitor’s bench, which he calls his office, sucking on a wad of dip, not worried about if anyone else besides he boys are on his side.
He said those things beyond the game are “out of his hands” and people will say whatever they want about him. He says he’ll keep doing his job — coaching young adults at the Red — until they, the Athletic Department, make him stop.
All business for EC, I guess.

— Speaking of Cardieri, his son, Nick, just hit an RBI single to drive home Brian Baisley in the bottom of the fifth to take a 7-6 lead over Northwestern. The Wildcats must be used to this 40-degree weather, because EC is on the sideline doing his best JoePa impression with the towel rolled up in the jacket to stay warm.
Thankfully, EC doesn’t need coke bottle glasses … yet.

— And last but not least, there is a rumor going around the west side of campus. Word has spread that women’s soccer coach Logan Fleck has made the switch.
A frequenter of Rocky’s on 56th Street has been sited two Saturdays in a row at the all-new Bull Ring Restaurant, housed in the old Hop’s building by Toys “R” Us. The Oracle wrote a story on the place, which I’ve visited, and it’s very classy inside.
Here’s the link to the story written by staff writer Tristan Wheelock: The Bull Ring enters the arena.
The owner, Jim Zmerich, attends every single basketball game and chats with Fleck and just about every customer.

— That’s enough for today. College baseball started this weekend, and I’ve barely watched the game I’m covering today, especially since Northwestern’s Antonio Mule hit a home run to tie the game in the top of the seventh inning.
As mentioned before, watch for more updates on the blog including a picture of the week’s feature, some new graphics and anything else we can put on here that will massage our egos.

Mike Camunas