OGL Weekly Roundup (No football talk, we promise)

While we’ve all been cringing about the gridiron freefall the last few weeks, there’s been big news elsewhere in JMU land, both incredibly good and unbelievably tragic.

First, we want to send our thoughts and prayers out to the family and friends of fifth-year senior cheerleader, former Duke Dog, and incredible JMU fan Nick Keatts.  We didn’t know Nick personally, but many of us remember him painting his face and dressing up as a purple-and-gold version of The Joker during the magical 2008 football season.  We’re also not the ones to describe his impact on JMU, so we’ll just leave that to The Breeze.  But all you need to know about his impact on JMU and JMU athletics is that his memorial service was held tonight in The Convo.  With all of our gnashing of teeth and whining and complaining, events like this should make us all step back and appreciate the unparalled sense of community that Madison gave, and continues to give, to each of us.

Your MLS Rookie of the Year in his purple and gold!

There’s no proper segue, so we’ll just move to the other end of the spectrum to send a HUGE congratulations out to former Dukes soccer star C.J. Sapong, who was today named MLS’ Rookie of the Year.  I know soccer doesn’t move the JMU sports meter all that much and Rob and I just don’t have the bandwidth or motivation to cover it regularly, but we’re both huge soccer fans and it’s actually kind of unbelievable that a kid from JMU was just the named ROTY in national sports league!  Sapong’s Sporting Kansas City team made it to the Eastern Conference finals this year while Sapong became a star on the field and off (google CJ Sapong/Hope Solo for a great laugh).

Just to stick with soccer, the men’s team is hosting this weekend’s CAA Tourney as a decent favorite with a solid shot of not only taking the title, but maybe advancing to the Big Dance as well.  If you’re headed down for football and making it a weekend, the semis are Friday night and with a win the Final will be Sunday early afternoon.  In fact, Sunday could be one of the best sports days at JMU in a long time as the CAA Final precedes the men’s hoops opener against Canisius which has been moved to 4 p.m. to accomodate the socccer match.  For all of concern the last few weeks, it’s seriously not out of the question to think you could get to town Friday evening at 7, watch JMU Soccer win twice to take the CAA and punch their ticket, see new stud AJ Davis and the basketball team come out of the gates with a strong win, and even catch a victory on Saturday (hopefully accompanied by a Lehigh victory over Georgetown and a Texas St. upset of Central Arkansas)!  Just couldn’t resist.