My 11 Favorite Memories in the History of Women's Sports (Part 2)

…And here’s part 2.

5. July 10, 1999: Brandi Chastain Reps America and The 408

I’m pretty sure this was the first time I had ever watched a women’s soccer game from start to finish: USA vs. China for the 1999 Women’s World Cup Final. I remember being really pumped up about it, so much so that I went up to the yogurt lady at my local Yogurt Delite and asked her who she was rooting for because she was a native Korean and I knew nothing about the dynamic between China and Korea (even though I lived in an Asian-themed house my junior year of college and loved it, please don’t ask me about China-Korea relations today, either).

I don’t remember really anything from the game nowadays besides two of the penalty kicks taken- the one that Brianna Scurry saved and the one by San Jose’s own Brandi Chastain. Chastain taking off her jersey after converting the penalty kick that won the ’99 Cup is probably one of the most iconic images of women’s sports and at least partly contributed to the creation of the WUSA (CyberRays 4 Lyfe). 

And San Francisco STILL has the gumption to call itself “the city”??? SMH…

4. January 28, 2012: Battle of the Boards in the Battle of the Bay

Rozzle-Dozzle (Rosalyn Gold-Onwude, for those who don’t know her diva name) and I were really starting to get into a groove with our Pac-12 women’s basketball web series “In the Paint” by the time the first Stanford vs. Cal game came around. We were ready to break that game down and watch it like nobody else (here’s the breakdown- jump to the 3:53 mark). Ros came up with that alliteration of a title because the game featured five of the top 15 (approximate) rebounders in the conference at the time in Cal’s Gennifer Brandon, Talia Caldwell and Reshanda Gray and Stanford’s Ogwumike sisters. Top two rebounding teams in the conference, two of the top five rebounding teams in the nation, if I remember correctly. And for real, my favorite thing to watch is a team that can rebound the basketball. I was in for a treat.

Stanford led by 14 with less than eight minutes to play, but Cal’s Layshia Clarendon went silent assassin on everyone and got her team to overtime. Stanford’s D was too much in the end as the Card held on for their 66^th consecutive conference triumph thanks to Chiney Ogwumike’s career-high 27 points and 18 rebounds. It was the pinnacle of Pac-12 basketball in 2011-2012.

3. March 8, 2012: Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, don’t- GREAT SHOT!

But it wasn’t the pinnacle of exciting Pac-12 basketball for 2011-2012. Ahhh, conference tournaments- one of my favorite times of the year, and this year was special because I had finagled my way into calling four of the Pac-12 women’s games in the first and second rounds for the Pac-12 YouTube page. The second game of Day One featured the 12^th-seeded Arizona Wildcats and a banged up fifth-seeded UCLA Bruins team that had Markel Walker, one of my favorite players at the collegiate level.

Arizona had gone 3-15 in conference, but they had enough offensive ability in Davellyn Whyte, Candice Warthen and Shanita Arnold to give anyone a game. Although they fell behind 15 points rather quickly, Niya Butts’ squad scrapped and clawed its way back into the game, trailing by only three at the half.  Down seven with 4:55 to play, the Wildcats held the Bruins scoreless the rest of the way, this coming from a team that had trouble guarding anybody.

The climax came in the final half-minute, when Markel Walker missed a contested layup with 26 seconds to go. Candice Warthen took the Aley Rohde outlet pass and instead of holding for the last shot said to her coach, “Niya, I’m gonna race ‘em” and banked in a runner after sprinting the length of the court with the rock to put Arizona up two with 20 seconds to play (2:08 mark in the video). I was basically encouraging Warthen on-air to slow things down as she charged past half court and breathed a sigh of relief when it went in not because I was rooting for the Cats, but because I didn’t want to see such a big mistake in such a critical part of the game. What a gutsy/ill-advised/amazing play by Warthen- worked out quite wonderfully for Arizona as the Wildcats scored the 61-57 upset over UCLA. 

Sometimes you gotta race, I don’t know.

2. July 10, 2011: The Cross of a Lifetime

This game features my biggest mark-out moment in the time I’ve spent watching women’s sports over the years. You know, that moment when you just lose your mind and go bonkers over an amazing play?

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking about Megan Rapinoe’s cross to Abby Wambach in the 122nd minute to send Team USA into penalty kicks against Brazil in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Women’s World Cup (go to the 5:15 mark).

This game had controversy up the ass: There was the penalty kick that needed to be retaken because the official thought Hope Solo came off her line to make the stop, eventually evening Brazil up with Aunt Samantha; there was the pass to Marta, seemingly coming from an offside position, that gave the Brazilians a 2-1 lead in extra time; and of course, the Brazilians stalling like worldwide mob figgas in the second extra time period, eventually costing them the three minutes of stoppage time that allowed for the American equalizer.

That cross by Rapinoe is one of the best crosses I’ve seen in any level of soccer, and given what was at stake, I probably consider it my single favorite play in any soccer match I’ve ever watched. As soon as Wambach headed it into the net, I jumped out of my chair and yelled no fewer than 1,000 expletives, in one form or another telling the Brazilian soccer team that I had two words for them.

It’s a shame that game, and the World Cup Final one week later, had to be decided by freakin’ penalty kicks. I wish FIFA would just go golden goal, even if it did take 180 minutes and kill the athletes; I wanna be entertained.

1. December 30, 2010: The Streak is Over

This had to be one of the biggest pre-season non-conference games in the history of women’s college basketball. UCONN rolled into Maples Pavilion with an NCAA record 90-game winning streak, and many figured this was the Huskies’ best chance to lose in the last 32 months (though Baylor damn near beat ‘em in Hartford that November). After tying UCLA’s 88-game winning streak, Geno famously made a comment about the “miserable bastards who follow men’s college basketball”, which in turn sparked one of the most sexist columns I’ve ever read, which in turn led to me putting the writer of the article on blast on a radio station that had probably 10 listeners at the time. I’ve never teed off on an individual so much before, or since for that matter.

Anyways, I didn’t see UCONN being able to escape The Farm with its winning streak intact. The Cardinal had recently dropped a couple of games to DePaul and Tennessee on the road, but Tara’s Team was and still is close to impossible to beat at Maples, sporting a 51-game home winning streak at the time. 

The crowd for Stanford women’s basketball games is always loud, but it was the most electric I had seen the building in years. When Stanford got out to that 17-4 start, there was more insanity than a Shaun T workout. Of course, UCONN didn’t go down without a fight and cut the lead down to 34-30 at the break, but the Huskies never got over the hump. Maya Moore was defended as well as she had ever been, Jeanette Pohlen played the game of her life and the Stanford Cardinal knocked off the Connecticut Huskies by a score of 71-59 (David Lombardi has a helluva call on this). There was nothing like being able to watch that game courtside. At a time I was seriously missing Stanford and the Bay Area (this was when I was back for Christmas from Northwestern), this game came through for me.

_________________________________________________________________________________

That’s the list. Now excuse while I go rock my Candice Wiggins Minnesota Lynx jersey to Campbell Park and jack up NBA range threes, play at-times suspect defense and give up offensive rebounds like it’s my job (that’s not me knocking Ice’s game, that’s actually how I play basketball).

My 11 Favorite Memories in the History of Women's Sports (Part 1)

I love women’s sports. Why? Outside of the fact that I get monies to broadcast them, I do genuinely enjoy the competitiveness that I see on a regular basis when I have the chance to call basketball, soccer, volleyball or whatever. 

Without Title IX, my paychecks would be cut in half, and the involvement I had with the Pac-12 and WCC this past year would have been pretty close to zero. I’m not quick to forget that while Title IX has provided countless females the opportunity to get a higher education and the chance to compete against the best of their peers, it has also afforded people like me the chance to get into the broadcasting world. For that, I am forever thankful.

While watching the Minnesota Lynx-Chicago Sky game this morning, I realized that a) today is the 40^th anniversary of Title IX and b) I should come up with a list of my favorite women’s sports memories. It started out as a top-5 list, then a top-10 before becoming a top-11 because my method of determining order (playing each memory against each other in a round-robin format) yielded a tie for 10^th. I broke the tiebreakers on my own arbitrary math that I won’t get in to right now, but you’ll learn more about it in a later post.

A couple of qualifiers before we get to the list: My top 11 embarrassingly has zero WNBA moments on there. Year after year, I promise myself that I will get more into the WNBA and watch more games; heck, I even get Minnesota Lynx score updates on my ScoreCenter app. Despite this, I rarely watch the WNBA, and I’m ashamed to admit it. But just you watch- this summer, I promise to watch more WNBA.  Secondly, this list also doesn’t accurately reflect my love for volleyball, softball and field hockey. There aren’t too many sports I enjoy to broadcast more than volleyball, and no, it’s not because the athletes wear short shorts, so stop right there. Trust me, I might have a dirty mind (ok, I do have a dirty mind), but it doesn’t translate over to women’s sports one bit. That’s a fact, Jack (or Jill).

Also, remember that these are my personal favorite memories- it has nothing to do with how momentous the occasion was for women’s sports as a whole. It’s solely based on how much I enjoyed each of these events.

One last warning: There is going to be a ton of Stanford events on this list; it’s not hard to figure out why.

Without further ado, here’s the part one of the list in ascending order, because as Daisy Fuentes taught me while hosting the Top-20 countdown every Saturday morning on MTV, you always save the best for last.

11. April 29, 2012: Stanford vs. UCLA, MPSF Women’s Water Polo Championship Game

When I got the word that I was going to be broadcasting the MPSF women’s water polo championships from the semifinals on, I was stoked. I always love doing new sports, and besides doing PA for a couple of fill-in spots at Avery Aquatic Center, I had never really observed a water polo game of any persuasion before. Lemme tell ya though: by the time I finished my first water polo broadcast- Stanford vs. Cal- I was hooked.

When the time came for the MPSF championship bout, I was more than eager to provide the call for No. 1 vs. No. 2: not only in the conference, but in the nation (though let’s be serious, the MPSF practically IS NCAA women’s water polo). Stanford entered the game with a 23-1 record; its only loss of the season coming against the No. 2 Bru Cru, led into the pool by former Team USA goalkeeper Brandon Brooks (really cool dude, by the way).

The game was everything I had hoped for and more. No team led by more than a single goal the whole way through and both goalies- Stanford’s Kate Baldoni and UCLA’s Caitlin Dement- were absolutely SUPERB. Of the grand total of four water polo games I’ve called, I’ve never seen better netminding in the sport. Dement stopped two 5-meter penalty throws, including one from super Frosh Kiley Neushul, who ended her first collegiate season with more than 50 goals.

UCLA ended up winning the game in overtime, but Stanford would go on to win its second consecutive national championship; this time, they did it without two of their best players who were off training for the London Olympics with Adam Krikorian and Co.

10. April 18, 2012: Gonzaga’s Victoria Fallgren wins the 2012 WCC Golf Championship

I had the pleasure of being one of the two wccsports.com reporters (free John Nash for being my partner in crime) for the WCC Golf Championships at San Juan Oaks in Hollister, and I was assigned the women’s tournament. To nobody’s surprise, Laurie Gibbs’ Pepperdine Waves won yet another conference crown. But the individual crown was to be decided by a playoff hole and to my surprise, neither competitor was donning orange and blue. Rather, the 55^th and final hole of the tournament was to be played by Caitlin McCleary of Seattle U (yes, the Redhawks are in the WCC for golf, but not for much longer since they are about to become a member of the WAC, for however long the WAC stays alive. Praise the most high that the Spartans got out of that sinking ship!) and Gonzaga’s Victoria Fallgren. 

Before and after each round of the tournament, I interviewed two golfers, trying to spread the love out as much as possible. So before the final round started, I chose to interview Fallgren because a) I hadn’t talked to a Bulldog since day one of the tournament and b) I figured I wouldn’t be interviewing her after the round. She was close enough to the top to be considered in contention for the title, but I assumed some Wave- either Alina Ching or Somin Lee- would just run away with the damn thing. 

I could tell that Fallgren was very focused on improving upon her tie for 8^th in 2011, so much so that she forgot to take out her earbuds when we started the interview. It paid off: She worked her way into a playoff hole with McLeary, hit a BEAUTIFUL third shot on the par-5 ninth that got her within six feet of the cup and made her birdie to win the WCC individual women’s golf championship.

Afterwards, I butchered her last name in a post-round interview.

9. December 20, 2011: Nneka Ogwumike Goes Greg Jennings on Tennessee in Stanford’s 97-80 win

She put her team on her back, tho. From her freshman year, you could tell that the elder Ogwumike was going to be a very good college player. By the time her sophomore year ended, you knew she was going to be special. Not only was she such a beast on the floor, but she was probably the most mature athlete I’ve spent considerable time covering.

When the Lady Vols came to town her senior year, she put on a virtuoso performance. Her jump shot, which had been solid her last couple of years, went to a new level in this game. She was hitting turnaround jumpers with hands her face and uncontested 18-footers as if the degree of difficulty between the two was equal. She also got the rack whenever she so pleased- it’s not often you see a post player of any size in women’s college basketball that can straight up beat you off the dribble from the perimeter. Trying to be as unbiased as possible, Nneka Ogwumike was the best player in women’s college basketball last year. In this game against Tennessee, she scored 42 points on 19-27 shooting from the floor after missing a breakaway uncontested layup with the game well in hand on her last possession of the game. And oh yeah, she also grabbed 17 rebounds.

Not too shabby.

8. December 6, 2009: Christen Press, Stanford women’s soccer get jobbed out of a perfect season

I know the Cardinal won the NCAA title this past year in Kennesaw, and that this year’s Cardinal team was probably the best overall team Paul Ratcliffe has fielded, but the 2009 version of this squad had by far the most firepower. They ran through teams like the bald dude on Human Giant ran through corn chowder. They finished the regular season undefeated and drawless, scoring 71 goals in their 20 games before the NCAA tournament while allowing just 12 (and only seven in the last 17 games). They were SO. FREAKING. GOOD.

The NCAA Tournament came around and the scores were closer, but the end result was all the same for Stanford: win, win, win, win, win leading up to the NCAA Championship game against the vaunted North Carolina Tar Heels. The title bout wouldn’t go the way of the Cardinal, but not before the school’s all-time leading scorer Kelly O’Hara got red-carded (deserved) and the team’s second-leading scorer Christen Press had two goals called back for offsides. The first one was probably offsides, the second one definitely wasn’t, and if I remember correctly, that second one came in the final minutes of the game with Stanford playing a woman down.

I hate it when people blame results on officials- seriously, nothing was more annoying than hearing every Heat hater say the refs gift-wrapped Miami the NBA Finals despite the fact that LeBron James tortured the Oklahoma City Thunder on both ends of the court, Erik Spoelstra out coached Scotty Brooks (not that I would actually know) and the Heat straight up outplayed OKC in the fourth quarter down the stretch to close out games 2-4- but for real, this was pretty bad. The offsides call has to be one of the hardest to make, and I certainly don’t want to be a soccer official because I would blow at it, but that was pretty poor.

I have tried to figure out how Stanford didn’t win the title that year because they were so dominant up until that final game; 25-0-0 going into the North Carolina contest. Through yesterday, I couldn’t understand why…

And then I went through their results from that season earlier today and found out that they scored six goals in a game three different times. It’s not the last time we’ve seen this play out either- the week before losing to Iowa State in overtime and costing them a spot in the BCS National Championship Game, the Oklahoma State Cowboys beat Texas Tech 66-6. Moral of the story? Don’t worship Satan.

7. April 3, 2011: Kevin Danna, meet Skylar Diggins

Truth be told, I haven’t ever met Skylar Diggins (though I do follow her on twitter!). This was the first time I watched Skylar play- the 2011 NCAA Women’s Final Four in Indianapolis, and I was sitting courtside after having been the on-site engineer/stats guy for the KZSU broadcast of Stanford-Texas A&M (another fantastic game).

We knew UCONN wasn’t quite as good as they were in 2009 and 2010 when the team won back-to-back championships, but with Stanford (the only team they lost to in the last 100-something games) now out of the picture, I figured Maya Moore was about to end her collegiate career on a three-peat.

But Skylar Diggins and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish had other plans. Playing in as close to your backyard as you can get for a women’s basketball championship site when your school is located in a college town, Diggins unleashed her wrath on the Huskies in a way I hadn’t seen done before. She didn’t put up 40 points (28, six assists and four rebounds and two steals to be exact), but she was absolutely spectacular in getting to the rack, finishing through contact, and swagging out on the court unlike anyone else in the women’s game.

She was truly in the building and feelin’ herself, leading the Irish to a 72-63 victory over the Fighting Genos and landing a spot in the national championship game against the Blitzkrieging Gary Blairs (Texas A&M won).

6. November 13, 2010: Ramblin’ Women say goodbye to Alumni Gym with an upset Dub-Sack

The only women’s volleyball game on my countdown, I had the opportunity to broadcast the final women’s volleyball game in historic Alumni Gym on the campus of Loyola University Chicago for the Horizon League Network. The Ramblers weren’t having a good season from a wins and losses standpoint (they missed out on the Horizon League Tournament that year), but they had one last chance to end their season on a positive note. However, it would have to come against one of the top teams in the conference in the Valparaiso Crusaders.

The Ramblers were undeterred, staving off a 2-1 set deficit by taking the fourth 25-23 and fifth 16-14. Senior Mallory Curran recorded her 1,000^th kill in her final collegiate match, and the Ramblers closed the curtains on Alumni Gym (until the men’s season started two months later) with a W while finishing the season on a two-game winning streak (they also beat those pesky Penguins in five sets).

The one thing that sticks out to me the most about this match was that I got into a really bad habit of pronouncing Valpo player Katie Britton’s last name like I was Ken Harrelson calling a Carlos Quentin home run. So every time Britton went up for a kill, I would say “Briht-in!” (barely pronouncing the “t”). I had recently become a Hawk disciple, but I never really wanted to call games like him. Though it was the first time I had ever seen the Ramblers play, I hammed that broadcast up as if I were a Loyola University employee.

Enough reading for one day. Part 2 in the morrow.

Welcome to Backpack Basketball (and other Olympic genres)- an introduction

If there’s one thing I took away from journalism school, it’s that the lede is everything. Well, not everything, but “everything” just sounds more attention grabbing, don’t it? Hook ‘em in with something catchy, or lose ‘em with something soft, bland, or whatever.

Luckily, a strong lede has eluded me in the first post of my new blog, surely sending away an infinite proportion (0/0) of my reading base. Now I can just start spewing at the mouth. Hopefully all of your dying questions about Backpack Basketball (and other Olympic genres) will be answered in this Q&A format of an introduction.

What the hell is this blog about?

This blog is no different than what every other one is at its core- some dudette/dude waxing poetic on her/his passions (I learned how to put the female noun first thanks to my Chicana/o studies classes at Stanfurd lol!) in life. Generically, that happens to be sports and music for the Dannaman, not unlike hundreds of millions of other people my age.

More specifically, I’m a huge basketball and hip-hop fan (really zeroing in something here)- I have been since the age of four for basketball , ever since I first laid my eyes on Isiah Thomas, and seven for hip-hop, the first time I saw the “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” music video playing on MTV, back when the “M” was an accurate description of the channel.

But as I grew older, the mainstream of both societies wasn’t enough for me. By the time 2002 rolled around and I was heading into my sophomore year of high school, I had just about given up on hip-hop. I could barely listen to the radio, save for Beanie Sigel and Freeway’s “Roc Da Mic” cut; everything else disgusted me. I had heard about “underground” rap thanks to the “Discover” section in Napster, which had led me to my first encounters with Zion I, Dilated Peoples, Juice (the Chicago freestyler, not the dude that was with Black Wallstreet for a fleeting moment), Reks and Edo.G. And then one night, I happened to turn my alarm clock radio to the San Jose State student station just in time to hear “Magnificent” by Epidemic. Alas, a song that wasn’t talking about the tired theme of booze, blunts and booty! I kept the station on and over the course of that summer was introduced to Slug, Brother Ali, Aesop Rock and a ton of other “backpack” rappers. I would never look at music the same way. When I got to college, I would turn my love of the underground into a local hip-hop show at the community radio station, and interviewing all sorts of entertaining MCs who were pretty tight and for the most part also pretty high.

On the other hand, I was always a big fan of the NBA and could barely stand college hoops before tournament time…until I enrolled in Stanford and became a volunteer with the basketball team my freshman year. Volunteer turned into paid student-manager, which turned into being the only head manager in history to have both served under Trent Johnson and Johnny Dawkins (good to know I’m the only one in something). As I became more deeply involved with the Stanford basketball team, so did my intrigue with the then-Pac-10…and the Mountain West, and the WAC, and the WCC, and the Big Sky, and the Horizon League, and the Colonial Athletic Association, and the Big South, and the SWAC, and the MEAC, and the Great West…you get the point. It got to the point where I’d be sitting in class and instead of taking notes, I’d be streaming the Summit League Championship game on ESPN3. It got to the point my senior year when, making the Big Dance was out of the question, I checked NIT bracketology websites five times a day and prayed for one-seeds of low-major and mid-major conference tournaments to win their tourneys to improve my team’s NIT chances.

Hence the name Backpack Basketball. Not to say that I only listen to underground hip-hop- that couldn’t be further from the truth; my favorite MC of all-time is Eminem. Not to say that I only watch games played between the likes of South Dakota State and Eastern Kentucky in some guarantee-game bracket tournament in Cancún every November; my favorite time of the year is still the NBA Finals. But I do tend to follow these things more closely than others.

But I also love the “Olympic” sports, largely because I started getting paid to broadcast them and have developed a deep fondness for college soccer, men’s and women’s volleyball (two totally different sports, both equally exciting in their own right), water polo, lacrosse, softball and field hockey, not to mention gymnastics and wrestling (though I still struggle to understand what the hell is going on in either of the latter two). 

Additionally, I’m not just a fan of hip-hop, but have also become a decent follower of genres of music that don’t get Top 40 buzz, like chillout electronica, drum ‘n bass, 2 step/UK garage, house and mid-‘90s alternative rock (which did get Top 40 buzz back when, well, I’ll save you from a “I used to walk five miles a day to school, uphill both ways” statement for now).

Hence the phrase in parentheses after Backpack Basketball- and other Olympic genres.

If you need any more explanation, just give me a call at 408-781-1922 and I’ll hold your hand a little tighter.

Sounds awesome/mildly intriguing/more boring than the movie “Open Water”. What the hell are you going to post?

A variety of ish. Everything from my play-by-play clips to interviews I’ve done that I’m not embarrassed of- that’s on the video/broadcasting side. On the print side, I’ll probably do some editorial-kinda stuff and have some list countdowns for you- I love lists. The print stuff will probably be more musicy, the video stuff will probably be more sportsy (unless I’m posting a music video from YouTube, which I will certainly do).

Cool/lukewarm/same tired thing. Who are you, anyways?

My name is Kevin Danna, and I live in San José, California. I got my bachelor degree in Spanish from Stanford in 2009 and my Masters of Science in Journalism from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism in 2011. I am currently a play-by-play broadcaster for Stanford Athletics webcasts, as well as a basketball writer for Stanford’s Scout website- thebootleg.com. If you visit the Pac-12 website much, you may have seen me as a co-host alongside future ESPN Superstar Rosalyn Gold-Onwude for a weekly women’s basketball show entitled “In The Paint” and as a feature writer on current and former Pac-12 athletes. I have also done radio work for Sporting News/Yahoo Sports Radio and Fox Sports Radio as a game-update dude at 49er and Stanford football games. I got my start in radio at the Stanford radio station- KZSU- as a sports talk co-host and play-by-play and color commentator. As I began to mention earlier, I also “DJ”ed a show at KZSU called “408’s Finest”, a local hip-hop show. In addition to that, I worked with the Stanford men’s basketball team for four years; my freshman year as a pseudo-manager, and my last three as a paid student-manager (the last two of those as the head manager).

*turntable scratch* Hey Whoo Kid, bring that ish back! 

While all of the above is true, here is a more honest depiction of myself:

I am 25 years old and live at home in a really comfortable part of San José. My middle name isn’t Clarence, but my parents have a real good marriage and I have pretty much lived off them completely for the last quarter century. I went to private school from 6^th grade on up, and my parents paid for every dime, including Northwestern and Stanford. So while my educational background might look tight, it’s only because of my parents. Thus, I really don’t take much pride in my degrees (though I am probably more proud of my Northwestern one than my Stanford one) because, although I put in a decent amount of work for them, I basically just had to show up to class and turn in my work to get some extra letters after my name. At the very least, I didn’t blow away my parents’ money by snorting lines of yola off girls’ stomachs at frat parties, but that’s about as high as it gets on the redeeming side of things.

Yes, I do webcasts at Stanford, and yes, some of those other things I mentioned do pay me, but it isn’t close to full-time. If it weren’t for my family support, I wouldn’t be able to support myself. So while I like to think of myself as an idealist who won’t give in to capitalistic pressures, it’s only because my family capitalized on the system well enough for me to be so idealistic. I am attempting to obtain more broadcasting work and am finding out years behind other kids my age that hey, maybe everything won’t be handed to you, after all. Woe is me.

So, what do I do? What any other privileged and underemployed kid would do- start a blog!

Since coming back from the Chicago area last June, I have grown to despise marketing, but I realize I have to market myself in this world, I have to network, yada yada yada. This blog is one such attempt to “put my name out there”, so to speak.

In reality, I’ll probably stop posting things to this blog when either a) I get a full-time-ish job in the broadcasting world or b) I get lazy and forget to post stuff, whichever comes first.

Enjoy it while you can.

Ooh-ooh! One more thing I forgot to add: a special thank you goes to Dominic Delfino, Stanford '12, who suggested I start a blog called "Mid-Major Hip-Hop". A very catchy name, but I didn't feel like biting off him, so I decided to go with something along those lines. He was a big inspiration to me starting this. Thanks, bruh.