Welcome to the newest feature on the Go Cobbers website. This part of the website will be dedicated to taking Cobber fans inside the ropes of Cobber athletics.

This blog is being written by Concordia Sports Information Director Jim Cella and will hopefully be updated on a regular basis. The opinions and views in this blog are not of the athletic department as a whole or of the college itself. It is merely one person's one viewpoint of what goes on behind the scenes of a college athletic department.

I hope you enjoy the feature and feel free to drop me an e-mail and let me know what you think:

cella@cord.edu

Next Update: Live blog from the Cobber sports Saturday fiesta or "You must be crazy to be an SID!"

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This Update:

October 29: I'm A Fan!

Subtitled: I Got Your Impartiality Right Here

First off let me explain the reasons for the blog. These are in no important order but might help explain where I am at in my position of Sports Information Director.

No. 1 - I am tired of seeing college athletic websites pop up with "blogs" to keep up with the trend of the technology wave to capture info and send it out to the fans/potential students, etc. I might not be so sick of them but most of the time they are useless and only regurgitate the best info that the college has to offer. As in, "our football team is really on a roll right now and they are playing the best they have played all year," Blah, Blah, Blah. 95-percent of all college athletic blogs are either retread info from the box score or are written by a coach or SID that wants you to know how great the kids on the team are, how much heart they have and how they work hard everyday. I know that is true for most every DIII program - that's what makes this level so fun to be part of - but I don't want to hear it every time I open a blog.

I read one blog that was being highlighted by a college as a new technology to help fans stay up with their football game. In theory that would have been great if the blog contained things like, "the quarterback is having a hard time throwing over the huge defensive line," or "our offensive line is getting thrown all over the field and that is why we have only 3 rushing yards." No, this blog merely repeated what the play-by-play from the game file was reporting. Give me a break. Please - time to stop doing things for the sake of doing things! (Hint - this blog will never publish things you see anywhere else on this website).

No. 2 - Most time fans don't get the real story behind the game or what really happens behind the scenes. They only get the watered down PC version that SID's and coaches want you to read. This usually occurs following a game when the game recap reports that the team had a chance to win late in the game but came up just short. What they don't tell you is that the wide receiver dropped an easy pass, a middle hitter completely whiffed on an easy kill at the net or, heaven forbid, the referee made a bad call.

No. 3 - I am tired of writing the same old recap, preview and stat info over and over again and I want to freshen my palate by writing from the hip (which could get me into trouble sometimes - oh well).

Now that you know part of the reasons for starting this blog, I hope you will enjoy what is written and maybe it will open your mind to what happens in college athletics or make you think about what other people have to put up with or maybe even make you laugh!

Now to today's blog topic. SID's are supposed to be impartial observers and do their job without any regard to what team is playing. There is even a code in the MIAC handbook that pertains to SID's that states: "Shall supervise press box/press row areas where appropriate and ensure that a professional and impartial work environment is maintained at all times."

Yeah right!

I am here to tell you that if you ever get the chance to walk into the football press box during a game or at a basketball game or any other Cobber home event you will not see me being a mutant robot stoically reporting statistics and covering the game. Oh, I'll do my job and make sure all the stats and info from the game are recorded fairly and correctly, but that's where it ends. I spend way too much time with the coaches and players not to have an interest. When Cory Johnson breaks off a 70-yard run for a TD, I'll be up in the box cheering like I'm holding a $100.00 ticket on a long shot to win the Kentuck Derby. I have even raced down the length of the press box to make sure that one of the Cobbers got on in the end zone. And when St. John's wide receiver Kyle Gearman (whose name I can't ever say without wanting to gag) caught a last-second TD to beat the Cobbers in 2005, I dropped to my knees and beat my fists on the ground.

You see I am a fan of all Concordia sports. There, I said it and I am proud. I follow every sport and want them all to win and do well. I am happy when they do well and feel like someone kicked me in the gut when they lose. Some people have the Vikings, Twins, Packers, etc. I have the Cobbers. I actually don't root hardcore for any team outside of the Cobbers (ok, once in awhile Duke basketball and maybe USC football) because I spend so much time with CC athletes and teams.

The best way to explain this is to examine last Saturday's Concordia sporting events. I sat in my office and listened to the Cobber football game and watched the live stats from the CC volleyball match against Carleton. I was screaming at the radio when the Hamline kicker hit a 42-yarder to take the lead in the final two minutes. I was yelling at the computer screen for volleyball coach Tim Mosser to take a timeout when the Knights closed the gap in the fift set. I then got on my knees and chanted "Come on Jesse, you can do it, I've seen you do it in practice over and over," in order to help CC QB Jesse Nelson lead the team down the field for a winning score. And when Carl Hauser lined up for the game-winning field goal I had my fingers crossed, the lucky horseshoe on the desk and was rubbing the good luck helmet. When he hit the field goal I ran around the office screaming and yelling. If there was anyone passing by in the hallway they would have had me committed!

I came back to earth to watch as the Cobber volleyball team rattled off the final points in their win and I gave another Tiger fist pump.

I do the same thing for the soccer teams, the cross country teams and all 20 sports at Concordia.

I also challenge any other SID at a college to deny that he/she does the same thing. We love our jobs too much and put up with long hours for one reason: we like being around the people involved in college athletics.

That's what's been on my mind lately. I won't apologize for being a fan and when it comes to getting respect and honors for the Concordia athletes I won't be quiet and sit idly by as others get the PR.

This week was a great instance of a Cobber athlete getting slighted for Player of the Week honors.

(Sidebar here - I am the type of person that also realizes if a CC athlete gets an award and doesn't deserve it, I will also speak up and say that justice wasn't served)

So back to the Player of the Week fiasco. I will lay out the two players and you can decide for yourself.

Player 1 - Hitting Pct. - .253; Kills - 23; Blocks - 7; Digs - 13. Helped her team beat two of the bottom teams in the MIAC

Player 2 - Hitting Pct. - .451; Kills - 27; Blocks - 10; Digs - 8. Helped her team post a 2-1 record with a non-conference win, a win against a playoff contention team and a loss against a nationally ranked team.

Who Ya Got?

If you said player No.2 you chose against what the league went with. Player No.1 was awarded the Player of the Week honors while Player No.2 got nada. You can probably also guess that Player No. 2 was a Cobber. So congratulations Abby Scheel you are the recipient of this week's MIAC Most Overlooked Athlete.

(Another sidebar - sometimes the weekly awards are very misleading because there is no cut and dry formula for finding a winner. There is a lot of gray matter on this one. And sometimes not a lot of gray matter is used to choose the most worthy recipient)

Well, that's the first blog. I hope you enjoyed reading my ramblings. I didn't even get into the fact that while I am a fan of Concordia, I also dislike some other schools in the conference. That's what you get for playing in the MIAC, having been an assistant coach, a head coach and an SID in the league. You develop relationships with other coaches, players, fans and come to like or dislike certain schools. Once again, I just said it but I guarantee that most SID's, administrators feel the same way about specific coaches, players, administrators, etc. They just won't come out and admit it. However, that is what I am going to do on this blog. Let the truth come out and see where it gets me. Might be a cold winter in Devils Lake!!!

It's now 3 a.m. and as the O.A.R. song goes, "it's 3 a.m. and I want to go to bed!"

(One last sidebar - if you haven't listened to the group O.A.R. do yourself a favor and pull them up on You Tube or google the name. They are a tremendous band from Ohio whose lead singer went to THE Ohio State University - Go Bucks! I put that last line in there for my former worker Kendra Lee who is now a big star in the Ohio State sports information department.)

One final thought - You now may refer to former Cobber baseball star Chris Coste as World Series Champion Chris Coste! That's right fans; Concordia is now the only school in the MIAC that had a former player win the World Series! So to all the other MIAC school - neener, neener, neener!

Next blog update: follow me around on Saturday when we have nine Cobber games. There will be a football game at 1 p.m. at home against St. Olaf. From there it is over to Memorial Auditorium to cover the volleyball match at 3 p.m. against St. Ben's. Finally, I will head over to the Moorhead Sports Center for the men's hockey game against UW-Eau Claire at 7 p.m. In btween all of that there will be the men's and women's cross country conference championships, the first swimming and diving meet of the year, men's and women's soccer on the road and the women's hockey team at UW-Superior. Just another ho-hum day in the life of an SID!

YouTube Video of the Week: Chris Coste hitting a three-run homer against the Marlins. Oops, I should have written World Series Champion Chris Coste hitting a three-run homer against the Marlins. The great thing about the video is that it was taken by a Phillies fan - gotta love Philadelphia fans! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-1TE591hLw