Greivis Vasquez scored a career-high 41 points to lead Maryland to a 104-100 double overtime win over Virginia Tech last night in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Eric Hayes added 12 points and 10 assists for the Terrapins who got their fifth straight win and improved to 21-7 and 11-3 in the ACC.
For the rest of the article, see http://www.examiner.com/x-37753-DC-Sports-Headlines-Examiner.
After a great Olympics, and excellent Olympic coverage, I’m disappointed in NBC’s coverage of the Olympics today. Chris Klug, the only athlete ever to compete in the Olympics after getting an organ transplant, finished seventh in the men’s parallel giant slalom snowboarding event. This story, about a liver transplant recipient competing in the Olympics, was tailor-made for NBC to do a feature, but they didn’t do anything on it. The commentators barely mentioned it, and talked more about a competitor who was a blueberry farmer and another one who sold sausages to raise money. When they did mention it, it wasn’t even in prime time.
On the one hand, it’s not a big deal in the sense that Klug, like many transplant recipients, is now living a normal life. But it’s a story that is interesting and that probably would have been told had it been any number of different illnesses.
I think that our American me-first culture, along with a lack of interest in education, or call it a lack of intellectual curiosity, and a low attention span are contributing factors to why we don’t hear more about stories like this. About 15 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant, and two-thirds of those are waiting for kidneys. Everybody has two but only needs one, and donors can be out of the hospital within a couple of days. Risks are minimal for healthy donors. But only about 6,000 Americans donate each year even though 84,000 people need kidneys in the U.S.
We have about 300 million people in America. So you figure, take away those under 18 and over 60, and then take away those not healthy enough to donate, and there are still about 200 million people left eligible to donate kidneys. So with 6,000 people donating each year, only about one out of every 33,333 eligible people donate.
Now take a look at health care reform. A majority of Americans are against it. Part of it is that they don’t understand it, but I think a lot of it is just that a majority of people – let’s say about two-thirds – do have good health care, so why should they care about those who either don’t have health care or have less than adequate health care? Some people get dropped from coverage for pre-existing conditions, but again, most people — well more than half — don’t have pre-existing conditions, so it’s no problem for them.
So, we’re just generally selfish, but we make fun of countries that invest in health care and education.
As an aside, with snowboarding’s popularity, it was strange to put so little of this event on prime time. When most people snowboard, they do it down a hill, not in a halfpipe.
Snowboarder Chris Klug will compete in the parallel giant slalom today at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Klug is a World Cup snowboarder who had a liver transplant ten years ago. Klug won a bronze medal in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, becoming the only organ transplant recipient to compete in an Olympic Games.
Klug is the author of “To the Edge and Back: My Story from Organ Transplant Survivor to Olympic Snowboarder.”
I had a chance to meet Klug at the Johns Hopkins Annual Transplant Conference last summer. He delivered the keynote speech. He’s definitely a great example of someone who hasn’t lost a step after a transplant. Klug is 37.
The Chris Klug Foundation for organ donor awareness is at http://www.chrisklugfoundation.org/.
See a video of Klug training at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McuXm3peDV8.
My website is www.mikeneedsakidney.com.
I have some great websites for sale:
George Washington University alumna Elana Meyers and teammate Erin Pac won a bronze medal in the women’s two-man bobsled competition at the Olympics last night.
Canadians Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse won the race at the Whistler Sliding Center, and the silver went to Helen Upperton and Shelly-Ann Brown, also from Canada.
For the rest of the article, see http://www.examiner.com/x-37753-DC-Sports-Headlines-Examiner.
I love the Winter Olympics. I’m going to write just a little bit of a rambling stream of consciousness.
I like the different sports and the fact that a lot of the smaller countries that we normally don’t hear from (Norway, Finland, Switzerland, etc.) do well. Right now Norway (4.8 million people) has 18 medals and the U.S. (300 million people) has 28. Ok, they have more snow. But a lot of our medals are in the newer, less traditional sports like snowboarding. The variety of the sports is pretty impressive.
Anyway, for the same reason a lot of sportswriters don’t like the Olympics — because the sports are different from what they are used to — I like them. Not all of the events — I can’t get into curling, and the shooting part of biathlon doesn’t seem like a sport though interestingly, there were some cool spy missions back in the day in Northern Europe, so that was an important skill. I think it’s cool to see these sports. I respect the athletes who worked hard their whole lives to get here.
It’s interesting to think about how certain sports are huge in certain countries — cross country skiing in Norway, speedskating in Holland, ski jumping in Austria, hockey in Canada (Look at this map of where hockey players are born. Why so many from the Czech Republic and Slovakia? http://www.quanthockey.com/Maps/MapsCoB.php?CoB=Global&mapType=0). Just like there are a lot of great marathon runners from Kenya.
I have good memories of watching the Winter Olympics — the skiing, the speed skating, and the hockey. There is always heartbreak — like the speed skater who went into the wrong lane, or redemption stories like Bode Miller winning three medals.
I’m glad I went there last week. I saw Nordic Combined, men’s and women’s cross country, the women’s downhill, and three hockey games. The one other event I would have like to have seen was speed skating but it was hard to get tickets.
Yes, there were problems — the usual ones you heard about such as poor planning — there were only outhouses for bathrooms at Whistler — think of thousands of people going to the bathroom without washing their hands — they could have built some actual bathrooms especially since you would think they’d use these venues for future international competitions; they didn’t allow food at the events but the only place to get food and drinks had long lines and closed after the events closed; many of the volunteers couldn’t answer basic questions, but mostly, things went well.
Vancouver is a great city — a perfect size to walk. It’s surrounded on three sides by water and mountains. One of my best memories is just walking through the city at night and seeing thousands of revelers singing “Oh, Canada” or chanting “Canada.”
As for some of the Olympic sports – I have a suggestion. For cross country skiing, ski jumping and alpine skiing, it seems like the uniforms do not necessarily correspond to the colors of the country. Not only that, but they rarely listed the country on them, so it’d be more fan friendly to fix those things.
Alpine skiing is great because if you’re too aggressive you fall, but if you’re too conservative your time is too slow. Short track speed skating is great because of how quickly people can be passed and how easily you can wipeout. Bobsled, luge and skeleton are just unique. At first the snowboard and ski cross seemed cheesy but they are pretty exciting, you have to admit.
I just think it’s a cool atmosphere. The Summer Olympics are great too, but they are so massive – you’re not sure where they begin or end. I think after a rough start these games have gotten better, and it’s cool that it’s been snowing at Whistler and Cypress in the last few days because it should be snowing at the Olympics.
A couple of years ago at 2008/12/05/most-beautiful-tv-news-women-2008/, I wrote this about Hannah Storm:
“She is very sharp. She’s gotten better in sports knowledge and looks as she’s gotten older. I didn’t expect to include her but now I can’t keep her out. Her work is absolutely stellar, way better than it was years ago.”
Hannah Storm
As for Kornheiser’s recent comments about Storm being too old to wear what she wears, I think she looks amazing even though I usually favor women who are a few pounds overweight rather than a few pounds underweight. But one thing is certain. If I had a choice between a woman in her 40s (like Hannah Storm), her 30s, or her 20s, nine times out of ten I’d choose the one in her 40s, especially if she were like Hannah Storm.
The Maryland Terrapins won their fourth game in a row, 88-79 over the Clemson Tigers at Comcast Center in College Park.
Sophomore guard Sean Mosley led four Terps in double figures with 20 points and senior guard Greivis Vasquez had 15 points and 13 assists.
For the rest of the article, see http://www.examiner.com/x-37753-DC-Sports-Headlines-Examiner.
The 11th-ranked Georgetown Hoyas broke a two-game losing streak and defeated the Louisville Cardinals 70-60 tonight at Freedom Hall in Louisville.
Junior guard Austin Freeman led Georgetown (19-7, 9-6) with 29 points, including 24 in the second half. Freeman shot five for six from beyond the three-point arc. Sophomore center Greg Monroe added 16 points, 14 rebounds and five assists for the Hoyas.
For the rest of the article, see http://www.examiner.com/x-37753-DC-Sports-Headlines-Examiner.
After watching the Olympics, I decided to go skiing in Denver at Loveland. It was nice. Lots of powdery snow, long, wide slopes — actually easier to ski than where I had skied before — in Pennsylvania and in New Zealand. Photos courtesy of www.mikefrandsen.net.
Ski slope in Loveland, outside Denver.
I can almost hear that guy from the U.S. Ski Team yelling.
