Senior Night

Senior Highlights: Thanks Jerel, Dominic, Wesley and Dwight for making my 4 years at Marquette so memorable!




Buzz "That's my guy" and Dwight talking




Wes, Jerel and DJ the Best Trio in College Basketball

A Sad Day for Marquette Bball

I was on Twitter today when one of my followers CrackedSidewlks posted a link from a Louisville blogger. At first when I started reading the entry, I thought this blogger was going to be inconsiderate about Dominic James "DJ" and his career ending injury; but after reading the entire post, I appreciate his thoughts from one sports fan to another.

Zakem2002, the Louisville blogger, describes DJ's best traits. He explains that his traits were:

1. DJ established himself as the floor leader of one of our more bitter rivals in Marquette
2. DJ did it as a freshman, solidifying his place alongside Laettner, Prickett, and Diener as a guy who would seemingly take a decade to graduate from college
3. DJ was a pretty good ball player on both ends of the floor; lightning quick, good handles, good defense, decent shot
4. DJ always seemed to have better than "pretty good" games against Louisville

Zakem2002 continues by saying "Yes, I despise Dominic James for all the reasons outlined above, but venturing deeper into my soul, I come to find why I like him even more. The reasons to like James are far more obvious than the reasons not to."

Zakem2002 concludes with "I hope that on Sunday Dominic James is on the floor when his team is warming up an hour or so before the game. If he is, I might take the time to walk down and tell him all the reasons that Cards fans hated seeing him check into games, but why they hate seeing him on the sidelines even more."

I feel like Zakem2002's loyalty to UofL and his passion for sports is equivalent to my loyalty to Marquette and my passion for sports. I would appreciate to meet Zakem2002 and if DJ attends the game Sunday, I would personally introduce him (Zakem2002) because DJ is one of my friends.

Thanks to Marquette Head Coach, Brent "Buzz" Williams, I will be traveling to Louisville for the first time to attend the "Whiteout." Buzz was generous and provided me with 4 tickets to the game for being such a devoted Marquette fan. I have traveled to 5 MU away games this season (NCstate, Rutgers, Notre Dame, DePaul, Georgetown) am 5/5 on MU victories. Hopefully my attendance Sunday will bring MU another victory.

We are... MARQUETTE!

Traveling to Our Nation's Capitol

With another win last night, the Men’s Basketball is currently tied with Pitt at #2 in the BIG EAST. We are only a ½ game behind the first place team UConn and have a tough challenge this weekend at Georgetown.

I am originally from Arlington, VA which is located across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. As a result, I always travel to D.C when my school competes against the Hoyas.

My organization is planning for a huge turnout of support from current students and alumni. They are anticipating this support because my school has a program entitled Les Aspin Center which is a program to prepare current students to serve the public effectively and ethically and to provide opportunities to enhance public policy awareness through educational programs. In addition, there is large population of alum’s that live in the DC area. This is why my school reserved Clyde’s, a very popular restaurant bar, adjacent to the Verizon Center.

The Alumni Association and the Blue and Gold Fund deserve credit for planning and creating this event. The event will begin at noon, Feb. 21. Because this is a private event organized by my school, no Hoya fans are welcome!

Also, Friday night my friends and I are planning to go out in Georgetown supporting my school’s colors (blue and gold). Anyone is welcome to join us as we hop around on M street!

We are... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _!

The Big East Conference

The Big East Conference is a one of the major conference in D1 intercollegiate athletics. There are 16 universities in the Big East ranging from private to public state schools. “The league aims and expects to compete at the highest level and does so with integrity and sportsmanship (www.bigeast.org).” The Big East represents 18 different sports but none are bigger than Men’s Basketball. The Big East is arguably the best conference in Men’s Basketball in the country. 8 Big East teams are ranked in the top 25; 4 of which are in the top 10 (ESPN/USA today poll).

I am currently a senior at one of these Big East schools writing this blog for my PR-writing class. The organization which I am apart of has a simple mission:

“Our mission is to strive for excellence in academics, athletics, leadership, and service to others in the Jesuit tradition, while embracing equity in opportunity, good sportsmanship, and ethical conduct.”

I personally have friends who compete for my university and they are living examples that athletes at my school follow this mission. My friends that compete and represent my school are competitive, loyal and extremely genuine which not only makes them great athletes but great leaders in society.

Across the country there are stories about student-athletes who forget the real reason why they are at school… to get an education. Some student-athletes let their athletic abilities go to their head and ignore the student aspect of the meaning of student-athlete. At my university, our athletic department stresses the importance in academics and requires all students-athletes to attend mandatory study hall sessions where tutors are available to help students with homework and projects.

My school’s athletic department also devotes a lot of time and energy promoting our athletics. For every basketball game they seem to have some promotional deal which headlines the game, for example: free t-shirts for the first 10,000 fans. This is a great way of marketing our school name and attracting fans to come to our games which provides revenue for our athletic department.