Happy New Year!

May God be grant you and your family grace and peace in 2006! Forget the typical resolutions: losing weight, learning a second language, blah, blah, blah... Set God-honoring goals to become more Christlike and to extend His kingdom by His grace and for His glory!

Longhorns Will Beat Trojans

I've been saying for well over a month now that Texas will win the National Championship this year. Why? Well, for one, USC is not as good as everyone thinks. They were beat by Notre Dame, but a no-call allowed them to win. Second, as weak as the Big 12 is this year, the Pac-10 is weaker. So, Texas has dominated the competition in a better conference. Third, you have the hunger factor. Don't tell me USC is more hungry for a title than Texas. Fourth, Texas will not be intimidated. Fifth, according to this USA Today story, Hollywood is jumping on the USC bandwagon. I find this to be the most compelling reason of all. Pretty much anything Hollywood throws its lot in with is a guaranteed loser. Poor Trojans. Well, they had a nice run.
Who do I want to win? I really don't care. I guess I'd like to see the Trojans make history with the 3-peat. I just don't think it's going to happen. We'll see.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

To Santa or Not to Santa? Your opinion?

We need some major league help here...asap. The wife and I are in a big dialogue about whether or not to do the Santa thing the way our parents did it back in the early 70s or whether we should use a less traditional approach in order to protect our children from confusion. So far our 3-year-old believes.

All right all you experienced parents, help us out here. Please. Time is runnin' out.

A Prayer for Tony Dungy's Family

The Indianapolis Colts head coach's son was found dead in his apartment just outside Tampa, Florida.

Tony is a brother in Christ who needs our prayers at this time.

I'm Martin Luther by a Hair

According to this quiz, my theology most matches Martin Luther:

You scored as Martin Luther.

The daddy of the Reformation. You are opposed to any Catholic ideas of works-salvation and see the scriptures as being primarily authoritative.

Martin Luther 80%
Jonathan Edwards 80%
Karl Barth 67%
John Calvin 60%
Anselm 47%
Augustine 47%
Friedrich Schleiermacher 47%
Charles Finney 40%
Jorgen Moltmann 27%
Paul Tillich 7%

I was given a tie breaker question to clarify if I was Luther or Edwards.

HT: Matthew Westerholm

The Declining Popularity of Large Vehicles

High gas prices have made their mark.

About three years ago I was driving past our local elementary school right before the children were dismissed. A long line of cars, scratch that, SUVs and vans, stretched along the side of the road. I decided to count the number of cars (think Accord, Corolla, etc.) vs. the number of large vehicles. I counted only 4 cars out of over 40 vehicles. So the ratio was roughly 9:1.

The other day I decided to do a similar count. This time there was a ratio of about 4:1.

I've noticed that more and more men in our church are driving small cars while their wives continue to drive SUVs and vans. Of course, most of the men have fairly long commutes to work, while most of the women are stay-at-home moms carting their kids to school and events.

Our family fits the mold. I drive a Civic and my wife drives an Odyssey.

I Agree with Don King (on at least one thing)

According to the Drudge Report(http://www.drudgereport.com/flash9.htm), Don King thinks that President Bush is a revolutionary...a great President...a man who does what he thinks is right and sticks with it.

Could the USC Trojans beat the NFL Houston Texans?

Foxsports.com's Eric Moneypenny (http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/5152628) argues yes. Gimme a break.

A team of College All-Stars might be able to beat the third string backups of the worst NFL team, but to think that the Trojans could take the Texans or Jets or 49ers is naive.

Moneypenny doesn't understand just how significant of a jump it is from one level of competition to another. Through a strange series of events I had the opportunity to play college basketball my sophomore year. I could have stayed on for the season, but after two days of practice, I concluded that: (a) my job at the church was worth keeping, and I couldn't have continued doing both (2) I was only going to get into games that were blowouts, and (3) I really didn't deserve to be on that level. Two guys on that team went on to play professionally, one drafted into the NBA, the other playing in the CBA or in Europe or something.

I've played against and watched players who absolutely dominated on a certain level, be it high school or college, and yet they ended up being mediocre or couldn't cut it at the next level.

Moneypenny's article assumes that several USC players will succeed on the NFL level. That remains to be seen. Even Reggie Bush will have to prove himself on the next level. Think of all the great players, including Heisman winners, who didn't live up to the hype in the NFL: Brian Bosworth, Andre Ware, Gino Toretta, Peter Warrick, and you can probably name others. Other sports are this way, too. For basketball, think of Ralph Sampson, Sam Bowie, Tony Kukoc, Billy Owens, Pervis Ellison, Raef LaFrentz, etc.

Moneypenny's logic assumes too much.

The Houston Texans, bad as they are, would annihalate the Trojans. After all, USC is barely undefeated in the college ranks, and imho will lose to the Longhorns in January.

Vince Young Seals Heisman Loss...with His Mouth

Did anyone else see Vince Young's interview on ESPN? He hoped the voters would remember that he spent half the games on the bench, because the Longhorns were blowing everyone out. He emphasized how he would have had even better numbers had he played whole games. He failed to point out that Bush has to share the ball with fellow running back LenDale White and reigning Heisman winner Matt Leinert. Young also said that if the voters want big highlights, then Reggie Bush will win. He quickly added that Reggie was a great athlete and all. Talk about self-promotion. I guess you can credit the guy for honesty: he really wants to win this thing.

ESPN seized the opportunity and lined up an interview with Bush, obviously seeking to set up a verbal match prior to Saturday night, borrowing a method from the boxing world to increase viewership of the Heisman show. They quoted Young but Bush didn't bite, remaining humble and speaking respectfully of his top competitor for the award, thereby sealing his victory Saturday night.

2005 Greenback Awards

In the spirit of the Awards given in MLB last month, I decided to invent my own awards. These awards are given to teams (really their owners) and are based on their payroll and their season results. In general, the teams that spend more money have more wins, but it's always interesting to see how those numbers actually come out. For instance, among the top ten teams in payroll, only three had losing records (#7 Giants, #8 Mariners, and #9 Cubs). But, the two teams to make it to the World Series were the #12 Astros and the #13 White Sox. Obviously money well spent. No team in the top five in payroll had a losing record. On the other end, among the bottom ten payrolls, only #22 Oakland and #26 Cleveland had winning records.

Introducing the first annual Greenback Award winners.

Clark Howard Award – given to the team that has been the most efficient in spending money; these clubs would make Clark Howard proud.

2005 Clark Howard Award – AL : Cleveland Indians
This year's run away winner. Only four teams spent less money, yet they won 93 games. The Indians spent $446,263.44 per win. The Yankees spent $2,192,703. 23 per win and got only two more than Cleveland.

2005 Clark Howard Award – NL : Washington Nationals
For a while there it looked like they were a legitimate playoff team. Not a bad showing for $48 million.

Kevin Costner Award – given to the team that acts like it's a baseball team. They put the minor in MLB. Like a cheap roadside motel with a few letters out on the sign, they are low budget and it shows.

2005 Costner Award - AL : Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Edged out Kansas City simply because they cannot draw more fans than a screaming preacher on the corner. The first time I watched the Devil Rays on the Sunshine Network it reminded me of a Major League Soccer game. There couldn't have been 100 people in the seats.

2005 Costner Award– NL : Pittsburg Pirates
Don't you hate to see a nice new ballpark wasted on this team? At least if there is nothing worth seeing on the field, the fans can enjoy the scenic views.

George Steinbrenner Award – self-explanatory. These clubs need consumer counseling…yesterday.

2005 Steinbrenner Award – AL – New York Yankees
Who cares if you win 95 games and make the playoffs? Nobody…when you spent twice as much as every other team in baseball (save Boston, whom they still outspent by $84 million). Dumping out this level of money demands absolutely nothing less than a World Series title. Anything less requires a big sign in front of your stadium that says in all caps (and bold print), "WE STINK!"

2005 Steinbrenner Award – NL – Los Angeles Dodgers
The only reason they beat the Giants out of this award was because a large percentage of San Francisco's money was sitting on the bench most of the year. Wait a minute, maybe that's a good reason to give the award to San Fran…nah. With the 11th highest payroll in baseball, you've got to do better than next to last in the worst division in the majors.

- Payroll figures from http://www.onestopbaseball.com/TeamPayroll.asp

BCS Breathes Sigh of Relief

Well, the BCS avoids another year of controversy as #1 USC and #2 Texas both dominate in their final games of the season. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I thought USC was the best team in the country. But for the past couple of weeks I've been thinking that Texas is probably going to run away with the game. I hope I'm wrong. I've never been a tu fan.

The disapointment of the year was my team, the UT Vols. People ask me what happened. I say four things: (1) Overrated from the beginning. I felt that they were a top 15 team at best, yet nearly everyone had them in the pre-season top 5. (2) No clear leadership, at quarterback or on either side of the ball. (3) No chemistry. Great teams usually have players who like each other on and off the field. Though hard to gauge from watching TV, it seemed these guys didn't seem to care much about each other. Maybe they were all just in a bad mood because of their losing ways. (4) Apathy. The high expectations came crashing down after an early loss to Florida, and they never recovered. Except for an exciting comeback in Baton Rouge against LSU, this season stink...stank...stunk.