Hey all, this posting is for my Sports Media assignment – “Photo Blog Assignment”. If you didn’t know, I love lacrosse as well as help coach two college teams so I figured I should post photos on here covering lacrosse.

For the first photo, I selected the Inside Lacrosse magazine. If you love lacrosse, you gotta read this magazine. There’s a ton of examples in this magazine but the one I’ll use for this is sponsorship through companies like Warrior. You’ll see a ton of Warrior products throughout this magazine.

The second photo, I’m using the ESPN U Lacrosse game on TV. If you’ve never seen lacrosse before, catch one of the many games this weekend on the ESPN network. Catch the games this weekend and next weekend, also the Division 1 finals are Memorial Day.

The final photo, I’m using are our Monroe CC Nike uniforms, which is our Licensed Company for our home jerseys.

Inside Lacrosse Cover

ESPN U NCAA Lacrosse Game

Monroe CC Nike Lacrosse Jerseys

This photo is for my week #1 assignment.

Mobile devices

This is for assignment # 6 of my History of Sports Media course. I choose to watch the Colgate at Syracuse basketball game.

Here’s the video:

On October 18, 1924 the four horsemen from Notre Dame rode again. It was a “blue, gray October sky.”-1 A perfect day for college football.

“In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. ”

Army and Notre Dame were ready to do battle. Over 55, 000 fans were ready to see this college game. The first period of the football game was anything but exciting, as both teams were unable to score. The second period changed all that. The big thrill moved the crowd and caused a “wild flutter of flags that are thrown to the wind in exciting moments.” -2

The crowd let out a roar with a sudden cheer, out on field, Suhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden appeared for the first time together in this game. The four star backs were together on the field. There was a short flurry in the second period. Army’s Wood kicked out of bounds on Notre Dame’s 20 yard line.

Suddenly the crowd could feel the change, as they knew something great was about to happen. The storm was starting to gain streng

On the first series, Crowley was able to run for 15 yards and the storm continued to gain strength. Layden had another 6 yards to help the offensive continue to move the ball. Then Don Miller ran 10 more yards. The crowd could feel the storm getting stronger. A pass from Stuhldreher to Crowley had 12 more yards, Don Miller hit his stride and ran for 20 yards. Much of the crowd was thinking the same thing, Army can not stop these three guys. The Army defense wasn’t able to stop them. Layden and Crowley continued to pound the ball, then Layden ran for 10 yards and crossed the goal line “as if he had just been fired from the black mouth of a howitzer.”

During the second period, Army wasn’t able to get any first downs while Notre Dame was able to get 8. Notre Dame was getting stronger during the game while Army was getting weaker, shuddering in the power of Notre Dame.

The second period ended with Army’s Defense reeling. The third period was much of the same thing for Notre Dame, as they were able to move the ball. Crowley was able to run for 15 yards. Miller’s number was called next and he added 7 yards, then Layden continued to run the ball for 8 yards to bring the ball to Army’s 20 yards line. At this point, Army was thinking, who’s number will be called now? It was Cowley’s. He swung around then ran around the Army’s left wing and then cut in for a nice 20 yard run. Two TD’s in two periods for Notre Dame.

After this play, Army started to come alive and make a comeback late in the third period. They offense was finally alive after Army’s defense was getting destroyed like a heat seeking missile, by Notre Dame’s offense.  The ball bounced right for Army with a punt by Notre Dame’s Layden. Army’s Yeomans called for a fair catch, but was drilled by a Notre Dame player. Notre Dame received a 15-yard penalty on this play, with the ball now on Notre Dame’s 20-yard line. Opportunity was knocking on the door for Army. They needed to score here to get back in the game. You could smell it in the air. Army gave the ball to Yeomans three times in a row.

He was only able to move the ball to the 12-yard line. Facing 4^th down, it was all or nothing for Army. Army’s Harding next play was the “feature of the game. As the ball was passed, he faked a play to Wood, diving through the line, held the oval for just a half breath, then, tucking the same under his arm, swung out around Notre Dame’s right end. The brilliant fake worked to perfection. The entire Notre Dame defense had charged forward in a surging mass to check the line attack and Harding, with open territory, sailed on for a touchdown.” What a display, was Army’s offense finally alive? The cadets were going crazy.

Notre Dame prevailed today, beating Army 13 to 7. The stars of Notre Dame “ripped and crashed” through Army strong defense. As many witnessed Army was not ready for the four horsemen’s speed and power.

After the game, Notre Dame’s George Stickler, Head Coach Rockne’s publicity student was a big key in coming up with the Four Horsemen name. After the team came back from the Army game, he posed and dressed the four players in the football uniforms and had them on the backs of four horses. Many wire services picked up on the photo and “legendary status of the Four Horsemen was insured.”

My podcast file:

Two great sources that helped me with the coverage of the Four Horsemen:

[1] – Source from: UND, ‘The Four Horsemen’

http://www.und.com/trads/horse.html

2 – Source from: Rice, Grantland Rice, “The Four Horsemen” http://archives.nd.edu/research/texts/rice.htm

LinkedIn now has a new feature in the groups area. If you haven’t been on LinkedIn for awhile or in the groups area, go check it out. Click on “Statistics for this group.”

As you know I love stats. I am not sure how we can use this information, but I think it’s great that they provide this type of information. Will more be coming from LinkedIn?

Here are some of the screenshots for my Digital Marketing group.

The LinkedIn Group Statistics Summary:

Find out how many members that are in your group, Seniority of group, Location, as well as how many comments have been posted in the group.

LinkedIN Group Statistic Summary

The LinkedIn Group Statistics Demographics:

Find out what type of job function of people are in the group, and breakdowns of Seniority, Function, Location and Industry.

LinkedIN Group Statistic Demographics

The LinkedIn Group Statistics Growth:

See a chart of the growth in the group and how many new members there was last week and the week over week growth rate.

LinkedIN Group Statistic Growth

The LinkedIn Group Statistics Activity:

See how many comments, discussions, jobs and promotions there was in the last week.

LinkedIN Group Statistic Activity

Have you noticed the new feature? What do you think?

Here’s the video of my summary of the Immaculate Reception:

Here’s my article:

Since I was born in the 70’s, and I grew up a Steelers fan, I had to write about the “Immaculate Reception”. I researched and learned more about the Immaculate Reception and the news coverage of the story.

On December 23, 1972, during the fourth quarter of the Pittsburgh Steelers – Oakland Raiders AFC Divisional Playoff game, The “Immaculate Reception” happened. Many football critics and fans called the play “the most fantastic finish in the history of professional football”.

The game between the Raiders and Steelers was a very defensive game. At the half the score was 0 – 0. In the 3^rd and 4^th quarters, the Steelers were able to get a field goal in each quarter to make the game, 6 – 0. This seemed to wake-up the Raiders offense and they were able to finally drive the ball down the field to score a touchdown. The score made the game 7 to 6 in favor of the Raiders with only 1:13 left in the game.

The Steelers weren’t ready to give up. Pittsburgh Quarterback Terry Bradshaw moved the Steelers down the field. Bradshaw with time running out, fired the ball 20 yards down the field to John “Frenchy” Fuqua on fourth down.

Raiders defensive back, Jack Tatum, hit Fuqua the same time the ball was coming towards him. The ball bounced off Tatum and Fuqua causing the ball to go back 15 yards back towards Bradshaw.

At first many Steelers fans thought the game was over and that was the game. However, just before the ball hit the ground, Franco Harris caught the ball off of his shoestrings and rushed towards the end zone. – [1]

Harris scored the winning TD, rushing 42 yards after catching the ball. The Steelers took back the lead, 13 to 7. Raiders players and coaches couldn’t believe it, much less the fans at the game. Harris scored the winning game with 15 seconds left in the game. That was the final score and was later called “The Immaculate Reception”.

Photo from: http://www.profootballhof.com/photos/immaculate-reception/2009/12/2/

Here’s a great video link that I found of the Immaculate Reception:

Video of the play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xMDIcsUMmA&feature=related

From the NY Times: “Starting from his 20-yard line, Bradshaw threw five straight passes, two broken up by the ubiquitous Tatum, one of many defensive stars in this playoff contest. The fifth pass, blindly thrown down- field in the general direction of Fuqua, was the play that won the game. The football whistled over the head of Harris and then took its big bounce backward. “Sure, I was damn lucky,” said Harris. Chuck Noll, the Steeler coach, never saw the touchdown.

“But I could tell from the crowd noise. We never gave up and that was the story of our year. The pass defense was getting tired and that is how Stabler broke out and scored,” he said.” – 1

How the Story was covered

It isn’t very well known that many Steelers fans that were not at Three Rivers Stadium did not see the Immaculate Reception. The game was actually blacked out in Pittsburgh so many Steelers fan in Pittsburgh didn’t see the play. Also, many fans who were at the game, left after the Raiders scored the touchdown late in the fourth quarter because they thought the game was over. They never saw the play.

Back in the 70’s, there wasn’t as much TV coverage as there is now, so many news outlets were not talking about the catch until hours after it happened. Even during TV coverage, people weren’t able to see Franco Harris’s catch because it was 15 yards behind the play and the camera wasn’t able to catch the play in enough time. Many people just saw Franco running down the field for the TD.

If that happened today, it would have been easily seen, with the different game cameras, as well as social media coverage. Many fans would pick up on it a lot quicker.

Photo from: http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/release.aspx?release_id=762

How the way the story was covered impacted the story itself

The Immaculate Reception is still talked about to this day. Amazing that this happened in 1972 and football fans and analysts still talk about the play. The Immaculate Reception really transformed the Steelers franchise into a winning team.

Many people think that the Immaculate Reception name originated from Myron Cope, a longtime Steelers announcer. Moments before Cope was going on the air to talk about the catch, Sharon Levosky called the TV studio and told Cope that her friend Michael Ord suggested that the play should be called the “Immaculate Reception”. Cope loved it and the rest is Pittsburgh Steelers history.

The Historical Impact

The Immaculate Reception was an amazing story for the Steelers. Not only have they been associated with this historic play since it happened, but it really turned the Steelers franchise around. The Steelers had a very long losing streak. After the Raiders game, they went on to lose against the Miami Dolphins, but after that season, won the Superbowl four times in the late 70’s to change from a losing team into a very successful franchise. It’s amazing to think what could have happened if Franco Harris didn’t catch the ball.

Also, there is a life like statue of Harris in the Pittsburgh Airport catching the ball on his shoestrings (see photo below). He started the Steelers success and that will never be forgotten in Pittsburgh.

Photo from: http://authorandartist.blogspot.com/2008/04/immaculate-reception-statue-at.html

Before Three Rivers was torn down to make room for the new field, The Immaculate Reception ranked #1 on the list of all time past plays in Three Rivers Stadiums.

http://www.steelers.com/history/three-rivers.html

Two great sources that helped me with the coverage of the Immaculate Reception:

[1] – Source from: Wiiliam Wallace, The ‘Immaculate Reception’ http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/sports/year_in_sports/12.23.html

2 – Source from: The Immaculate Reception http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/release.aspx?release_id=762

For all my friends that said they think I have a radio / tv voice and personality check out my work for my History of Sports Media assignment, “On-Camera Lead-Ins”. Here’s the stories I covered:

1. Feature Story – Michael Jordan winning his 4th NBA Title
2. Game Highlights - “The Catch” – Joe Montana to Dwight Clark
3. Breaking News – Hank Gathers
4. Commentary – Michael Jordan winning his 4th NBA Title
5. Current event – The Buffalo Bills 2011 win streak

Here’s the video:

Let me know what you think

My take on the Kevin Garnett vs Charlie Villanueva incident from November 3, 2010.

Hi all! It’s been quite awhile . Sorry for the huge amount of time between postings, but I am working on having more frequency. I wanted to let you know that I will be adding more posts on Sports and Social Media. There are two reasons for this:

1. I love sports
2. I decided to start working on my Bachelor’s Degree in Sports Marketing & Media and will be doing more research in the sports field over the course of the next two years.

I found two great research tools for sports stats that I wanted to share with you:

@ESPNStatsInfo – A variety of sports stats throughout the day.

Statsheet.com – Tons of sports stats from your favorite team. For example, check out the website for the Pittsburgh Steelers, herewegostillers.com. Tons of awesome information on the Steelers. You know me, I love stats.

Two great tools for your sports stats research. Let me know what you think!

Have you noticed some of the new changes on LinkedIn lately? One of the new features that is currently in beta is the “Skills and Expertise Area“.

I just found this late last week and I have to say I’m really impressed thus far. Here is a screenshot below, if you haven’t seen the new feature yet. In the screenshot, I have “Video Editing” as a skill. This is something that I currently do for our lacrosse team and want to learn more about. It is a great way to find groups related to a particular skill, as well finding people and companies that do this skill set. On the right side, there is a section titled “Video Editing Jobs”. Can you imagine the benefit to not only job seekers, but people that are looking for a new career and of course, college students looking for their first job? The possibilities are endless!

LinkedIn New Skill And Expertise area

On the top right of the page, it also has the “Relative Growth” of that skill and expertise. This way you can see if your skills are hot or not. As Dickie V. says “Awesome baby!”

If you have checked out this new feature, what do you think about it? As you can tell, I love it. Think about the possibilities for people looking for a job, searching out a new career, college graduates and the list goes on.