Category Archives: On Miscellany

Getting Strong!

21 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in On Miscellany

≈ Leave a comment

I’ve always considered myself an athlete. When competitive sports stopped in college, I still went to the gym often to work out. But, I’ve never really had a goal with it. It lifted because I thought I should.

In March, we moved and I started my own company. Working at home and not living near a YMCA meant that it was no longer convenient to go to the gym. I figured I was doing alright by playing some golf and occasionally taking a run. But by the end of the summer, I knew that was wrong.

My back had really started to hurt. I had dealt with a bulging disk about ten years ago, but since then it had mostly been fine. My knee was hurting too, and walking up the stairs with a handful of groceries was tiring.

Things were not going well.

Two things happened at about the same time. First, a new chiropractor said my knee and back were structurally sound. The problem was an angry IT band. My hip was out of place a bit, one of the muscles there had completely turned off, and the IT band was compensating.

Second, my company released a website called Matfinder. To help promote it, I started following a bunch of fitness blogs so that I could find content to share on Twitter. I noticed that a lot of the posts were about power lifting and the benefits of strength training.

I decided I wanted to get strong. Why?

Why Every Man Should Be Strong – alright, count me in. But how? Barbells? Certainly not the random weight lifting plan I’ve used before. Ok, so heavy weights it is.

I asked my wife if she wanted to get involved after reading this and this. Also, those posts made me certain that we needed to start with deadlifts, squats, overhead presses, and pullups. Take the time to at least read the first one. It’s amazing stuff.

We set a goal to deadlift twice our bodyweight by the time we leave for Macchu Picchu on May 1st. For me, that’s a 400 pound deadlift!
We started on September 8th, 2014. The current workout we’re doing is:

Inverted Rows, 3 sets of 8-10.
This is to get ready for pull-ups, since neither of us can do them yet. We’re following this post to work our way up.

Deadlift, 3 sets of 10

Overhead Press, 3 sets of 10

Back Squat, 3 sets of 10

Each Monday is 10 pounds heavier than the previous Monday. Wednesday is the same as Monday, and Friday is 5 pounds heavier than Wednesday to try and bridge the gap. I’m sticking with this until I’m over 200 pounds, then I may start throwing in some different plans (10 reps, 6 reps, 3 reps or a day of just 5 rep for heavy weight, etc).

But, the main goal is to get to a 400 pound deadlift by May 1st. Adding 10 pounds a week will get me there by April. It will happen.

That’s it. By myself, it’s 30-45 minutes. The first day I tried this, I started at 45 pounds for the first set (just the bar), 65 for the second, and 85 pounds for the third. The next day, I was sore throughout my entire body, which was great. I knew the lifts were working more than just a couple of muscles.

Yesterday, I did a chin-up for the first time since middle school. My pull-up got my head up to the bar, so it’s almost there! My deadlift and squat was 145, 165, 185. Overhead Press is a killer, and I’m slowly working my way from from 110,115,120.

The effects were immediate. My back and knee pain dropped significantly that day. In fact, the first day I did this I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to because my knee and back hurt so bad. I made sure to warm-up and stretch a lot before I started, but the next day I felt amazing.

It’s stayed that way since. I no longer get sore after workouts, but I can feel the muscle building, and muscle creation has been quite evident for both my wife and I since we started. It’s kind of amazing to see after having accepted that getting older meant not being as strong as you used to be.

That’s a farce. You can get stronger. You should get stronger! Now go make it happen!

How about some pretty pictures? And perhaps in the future, I’ll show some body composition pictures. These come from FitNotes.

Screenshot (10-18AM, Oct 21, 2014)

Screenshot (10-18AM, Oct 21, 2014)

Screenshot_2014-10-21-10-12-49

Advertisements

The Pain and Suffering of a Kidney Stone

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in On Miscellany

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

So, I had my first kidney stone this month. I’ve had many sports injuries, and I naively thought that a 6mm kidney stone would be something similar. I was so, so very wrong. Below you’ll find a Facebook post that I wrote after dealing with the pain for thirteen days. The next day I was going to have a procedure to pummel that stupid little stone into oblivion.

The second half of this blog is an email I wrote to update my coworkers after the procedure was done.

It was a painful process, but I hope you find the following story painfully humorous and perhaps a bit helpful if you’re going through the same.

The Facebook Post

On Tuesday the 10th at 3am, I woke with some serious abdomen pain. Denise, my wife, has had appendicitis before, so we thought that’s what it was. We prepped for the emergency room, but by the time we were ready to go, it had faded. Denise called our doctor, and they told us to keep an eye on it and see about it the next day.

The intense pain didn’t come back, but a fever and a dull ache persisted. By lunch, we were at the emergency room and found I had a rather large kidney stone (6mm). The ER doctor was pretty sure it’d pass within 3 days, so he sent me home with some drugs and a urologist to call.

Not knowing what to expect, I went to work on Wednesday and had a decent day. It hurt some, but nothing crazy. I even worked out at the gym and played some racquetball. I followed the doctor’s orders and drank a bunch of water to get it to move.

Well, following doctor’s orders never hurt so bad. By 5am on Thursday, I took my first pain pill. By 7am, I was face down on the floor and incapable of doing much of anything. Turns out writhing is a literal thing. Thursday and Friday passed in a haze of pain, drugs and very little food.

By Saturday, it was getting better again. I rested a lot, took some meds, but figured the worst was passed. On Monday, I had my urologist appointment. He said it was good that it was moving. He also assured me the real pain was from the kidney to the bladder – I had been much more concerned about the final exit strategy, if you know what I mean. Either way, it wasn’t there yet. So he said keep drinking water, and if it didn’t pass, in seven days I would be able to have a surgical procedure to break the stone up via shockwaves.

SEVEN DAYS? Turns out a group of urologists share this very expensive machine, and they don’t always have access to it. Nor can they figure out who has it and refer me to them. Capitalism at its best. Bummer for me.

So Monday passed. I worked from home. I wrote code, I answered email, I felt good. I also drank a lot of water.

That made the stone move.

The stone moving made me very, very sad. On Tuesday, I was begging for more powerful drugs. I have since spent my days and nights on the floor. I’ve slept little. I’ve dozed a lot. I’ve eaten more than I did the first week, but mostly I’ve just waited for Monday.

The moral of this story is that kidney stones are not fun if they are over 4 or 5 mm. I actually imagine they are not fun if they are less than that. In fact, how could any sort of jagged, hard, calcium based object moving through a tube half its size within your body ever be fun?

The whole thing has been ridiculous, actually, but it’s just about over. The stone should be sent back to the nightmare abyss from which it has come, and by Tuesday, I should be good as new.

Any-who, thought you’d enjoy a Christmas story. I’m hopeful it turns into a Christmas miracle. Procedure is at 10:30 and I should be home and, mercifully, sleeping by 1pm.

Post-op follow up to my co-workers

This past Monday, I celebrated Christmas a little early by hanging out at the hospital and having a surgeon pummel my kidney stones with shock waves for an hour or so while I slept the sweet, sweet sleep of general anesthesia. I slept like a baby rest of the day, and on Christmas Eve made it outside on my own for the first time in 13 unlucky days.

I’m relatively pain free, though it feels like I went a few rounds with Tyson in his prime and couldn’t block the body blows. But as far as I know, should be good from here.

Things I learned during the last 13 days:

  1. Kidney stones are panned from the Acheron by Hades himself. Medical fact.
  2. It is possible to teach oneself to sleep on one’s stomach, if the pain is great enough and the only relief is the cold, cold floor.
  3. It is then possible to repeat that process for up to two weeks at a time, though it isn’t recommended as elbows and knees do develop bruises.
  4. The 0-10 scale of pain that the Dr. asks you when you aren’t feeling well is actually a base-10 logarithmic scale, much like the Richter scale. I reached 10 on the first day I was diagnosed, or so I naively thought for it was only a 7.
    From Dec 12 – 13, I hung out at 10 on the scale for hours at a time. I was wrong. It was only an 8.
    On the 16th, after a relatively productive day of work, and eating an entire Dominos small pizza myself (I was finally hungry!), I found a new 10 that lasted from 4pm until 5am the next day.
    Yet I was wrong again, and that was really only a 9, for in the early morning hours of the 23rd, a mere nine hours from scheduled relief of my sisyphean task, I found what a true 10 was like. I beseech Virgil that the pain I felt that morning was in fact the final circle of pain. I really don’t think I could take another level, but it’s pretty amazing what you can get through if you have to.
  5. To writhe. It’s a very real verb, and not just a literary turn of phrase.
  6. Communication mishaps are rampant in all organizations.
    To wit: On the 17th, while I thought I was writhing through a 10, which was really only a 9, my wife called the urologist to see if there was a way we could get in sooner for the procedure, for I had begun to bequeath my belongings to friends and family and that caused her great consternation.

The not-so-friendly nurse stated that if I was in such terrible torment, I could go to the ER, where they would ease my pain. This answer was not received well, and I did not take her up on her offer. I felt no desire to go to the ER once a day for the next week, at $250 a trip, just to make the pain go away.

No, I would suffer through the pain like a man: with tears, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, and terrible curses called down upon all the gods of all the pantheons that have ever existed. Pretty sure Odin would currently deny my entry to Valhalla. Sorry Odin, that was uncalled for.

On the day of the procedure, the urologist performing the procedure informs me that he had cleared his schedule on the 17th after hearing about my pain, expecting that I would be going to the ER. Had I gone, he would have put in a stent that would have relieved the pain and made the following six days bearable.

Excuse me? That’s not what we were told. My wife can get angry, that was kinda fun to see. I don’t think the nurse had a very Merry Christmas when the doc got back to the office. He was also not happy.
At least a website error doesn’t cause physical torment for weeks on end.

  • Pain meds can cause constipation. This can lead to complications. Strong complications. This one gets pretty personal, but I’ll tell you the story if you want to know it. It’s interesting and goes way beyond what is public knowledge.
  • When that kind of pain finally goes away, it is really exciting.

So there’s the story. I hope you enjoyed it. Who made it through without having to look up the references? Anybody?

If you did enjoy the story, go buy one of mine for your Kindle. They’re a buck each, they’re fun, and they’re short – if you like LOTR or GOT or Conan the Barbarian, you’ll enjoy them.

The Value of a Mistake

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in On Miscellany

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

We all make mistakes. They may be big mistakes with far reaching repercussions, or small mistakes that no one else sees, but we all make them. There are two ways to react to your own mistake; accept responsibility or make excuses.

When you make excuses, you aren’t learning how to get better. You are learning how to blame others. There is no growth in an excuse.

When you accept responsibility for what happened, even if it was not your fault or there are legitimate extenuating circumstances, you can then evaluate and learn from what happened.

At Mindscape, one of our core values is Make Mistakes. Now, it helps that we aren’t brain surgeons. Our work is digital, and digital is usually easy to fix. But the reason we embrace mistakes is to help our team grow. If we yelled at our team members every time they made a mistake, first we’d go hoarse, and then we’d have a lot of people unwilling to experiment, quick to blame others, and not learning from what happened.

By allowing our team to make mistakes, we encourage them to accept responsibility for it, figure out how to fix the issue, and learn about themselves in the process.

Try it out yourself. Instead of spending time and energy looking for someone or thing to blame, just take the responsibility. Own up to it, figure out how to fix it, and move forward.

Life is too short to spend it on excuses!

The Cost of Interruptions (Or how to get things done)

25 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by in On Miscellany, On Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

I found myself sitting at my desk the other day, and knew that I had to get some work done.  The problem was that every time I started, something else distracted me.  Each instance I was distracted, it took time to remember what I was doing, build up the context that I had my brain set in before I was interrupted, and get back in the Zone.

Interruptions today are easier than ever. Here’s a small list of the interruptions that can find me from where I sit:

  1. Email notification
  2. Instant messenger for chatting with co-workers
  3. Desk phone
  4. Cell phone
  5. Internet!
    1. Facebook
    2. Google Reader
    3. ESPN
    4. CNN
    5. USA Today
    6. Detroit Free Press
    7. Research for my next vacation
  6. Meetings
  7. A window
  8. A grumbly stomach

It’s a wonder I get anything done at all with all those potential interruptions.  So then, what is the key to being productive?  It is not necessarily eliminating the interruptions.  Your brain craves distraction, and sometimes the distraction is what triggers the creative idea that you were looking for.

Instead, the answer is focused, uninterrupted time.  Here’s a strategy that works well for me.

A) At the end of the day, I make a list of the 2 or 3 most important things to accomplish tomorrow. Often there will be a number of ancillary items under the main items. If I get to them, great. If not, they’ll wait for another day.

B) When I get to the office, don’t check your email right away! A day’s worth of distraction awaits you there. Turn off the email client and put it away until later.

C) Turn the instant messenger to Busy so your co-workers know not to bother you.

D) Put your head down and work until at least 1 of the items is complete. If possible, complete them both.

E) Now that the day is rolling along, and you’ve completed enough that you feel productive, check your email.  I like to check it at 11 and 4pm, and do my best to avoid it the rest of the day.  If it’s an emergency, they’ll call, but it rarely is that important.  What is important is getting substantive work complete, and not just checking off small tasks that do nothing more than move a ball forward.

Give it a try sometime! I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how much work you can accomplish by focusing on 2 or 3 of the important tasks each day.

Researching why we get fat

21 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in On Books, On Miscellany

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

Everyone knows that if we eat more calories than what we expend, we will gain weight.  That’s easy and irrefutable, right?

We also know that if we exercise and cut out the fat from our diet, that will make us lose weight faster.  The government tell this to us, our doctors tell us, tv shows and commercials say it.

Has that worked for you?

It has not worked for me.  I work out 4-5 days a week, I play sports often, and I do my best to avoid red meat and pop.  I don’t always do it, but all that effort I put in has to balance out on my side of the equation.

But it has not. I continue to gain weight, I can’t drop the spare tire, and I have a very hard time staying away from sugar.

So is that the answer to the obesity epidemic? That America lacks the willpower to make itself lean? That is surely the message that is given to all of us.

But what if that is wrong?  What if the calories in / calories out doctrine that has been preached all of our lives is wrong?  What if exercise for the sake of losing weight is not the answer?

What if it is not how much we eat, but what we eat that makes us fat?

I read Why We Get Fat, and What To Do About It, by Gary Taubes on a suggestion from a couple of friends, and his argument will surprise you. It will also make you wonder why you never thought of it before.

According to Taubes, and innumerable sources he cites, it was not until the 1970s that our current way of thinking about nutrition took over our collective minds.  Before that time, everyone knew it was bread and beer and pasta and sugar that made you fat.  That is, the culprit was carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates now form the base of the nutritional food pyramid. If carbohydrates are in fact the reason we get fact, our government, which decries obesity, is in fact what is pushing us to get fatter.

Taubes shows how and why we came to believe the calorie in / calorie out idea of weight loss.  He gives historical evidence of why it doesn’t work, why eating the way the government prescribes makes people fat, and how all of those carbohydrates affect the body.

He also discusses how carbohydrates play a big factor in health, including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.

I strongly recommend you read this book. At the very least, you may answer the question of why you work so hard at losing fat, but it never happens.  And if your question is answered, you just may be convinced to change your diet.

I was. I’ve had very few carbs since September 10th. I’m going to stick with it a few months and see what happens, and I’ll be sure to let you know how it works for me.

Oh, you may be wondering what I’m eating now instead of carbs.

Fat. Yup, beef and sausage and cheese and eggs.  I’ve lost 4 pounds in 16 days.  Think that’s crazy?  Read the book and then let me know what you think.  You may just be crazy for eating spaghetti with a side of garlic bread.

90 Day Challenge–The Finish Line

18 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in On Miscellany

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

90 days goes by quickly when you are having fun.  I expected this diet to be much more difficult than it ended up being.  A shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a normal dinner. In between, I grew to love almonds and banana chips, and ate more yogurt than I had in years.

The final result? Down 15 pounds and 4.5 inches off of my waist.  I had to ditch all of my pants and buy new, so that was a hidden cost I was happy to pay.

Along the way, I taught my stomach to be happy with much less food, and tamed my sweet tooth so it is not quite as voracious as it once was.  Yay!

90 Day challenge–2 week checkin

01 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in On Miscellany

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

Eighteen months ago, both my wife, Denise,  and I were leading a life just a bit too sedentary for our own good. We spent most nights sitting around watching TV while eating cookies, and our waistlines were showing the fruits of our (lack of) labors.

That November, my friend Tim got us an early Christmas present. He paid for our signup fee at the local YMCA.  Denise and I dropped our cable service and started going to the gym five nights a week to play racquetball, volleyball, run and lift weights.

A year later, I had dropped down from a high weight of 235, to a low of 205.  I’ve been there since, not able to shed the last 15 pounds I’d like to lose. 

Early this year, a number of co-workers started a 90 day challenge using Visalus called the Body by Vi challenge.  Each one of them had great results. They’ve seen losses of 25 to 45 pounds over a 90 day period.  Some of them picked up the exercise while they did it, others just switched over to the food plan and lost the weight without any additional exercise.

I decided to start it myself on May 16.  It’s been really easy so far.  I weighed myself on the 17th, and I was at 210.  On the 24, I was 206.  Yesterday, I was 200.5!  I haven’t been below 205 since I was a sophomore in college 14 years ago.

I am surprised with how easy it has been. If you know me, you know I love to eat. I thought I’d be starving and craving more food.  The first week was a bit tough, but week two was simple. The cravings have just gone away. Here’s how a typical day goes.

Morning:

I make two shakes by adding 4 scoops of Visalus and a teaspoon of unsweetened Hershey’s Cocoa with fat free milk. I put it all in a Nalgene bottle and shake vigorously. Then I head off to work.

I drink half of my shake (which is one serving) at 8 am.  It’s less than 200 calories, but has lots of protein and nutrients.

At 10am, I have a Danon light and fit yogurt. They are delicious!  If I find myself hungry again, I drink a glass of water and eat a few raw almonds.

At 11:30, I drink the other half of my shake. I then fill my Nalgene bottle to the 16oz mark with water, shake it up to clean out the shake, and down the water. It cleans the bottle and hydrates the body – the ol’ two birds with one stone.

(Some days I eat lunch at work, and have a shake for dinner instead.  That actually seems easier to get through the day.)

Afternoon

Around 2pm, it is time for more almonds and water.

4pm – I grab an applesauce, a carrot, an apple, or more almonds. Almonds are pretty good. I found some Emerald almonds that have a light coating of dark cocoa and mint. Tasty.

Evening

Time for dinner!  I haven’t shied away from anything yet. I’ve done 2 chicken cordon blues, Buffalo Wild Wings, Ucellos for pizza, a Memorial day cookout, and pancakes. Pretty much whatever I typically would do for dinner. I’ve even had soda a couple of times.

Snacks in the evening

Did you know a whole carrot only has 35 calories?  I’ve been munching on whole, unpeeled, organic carrots. Yum.

My new favorite snack is slicing an apple and sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on it.  It’s lovely.  We’ve done popcorn, rice cakes (which are pretty good, actually), a slice of ham or a hunk of cheese.

That’s it. 10 pounds in two weeks doing that.

I used to dig deep in the house for chocolate every night. Just before I made the decision to try this out, I found myself melting bakers chocolate to drizzle on ice cream. That’s what we call a low point.  (It didn’t work that well, either).  Since I’ve started this, my sugar cravings have dropped to almost nothing. I may cave in for a tootsie roll once in a while, but I find myself getting sick of the soda I’m drinking half way through a can.  Interesting.

If you’ve had trouble losing weight or sticking to a diet, I think you should give it a try.  The shakes cost about $1.67 each, so it is not expensive, especially if you are cutting out going to lunch like I am. Oh, and they taste like cake batter.  Tasty cake batter.  And if you want, you can blend it with a scoop of peanut butter and half a pouch of sugar-free, fat-free chocolate pudding to make an amazing meal while only adding about 100 calories to it.

You can learn more here: http://aaronbrander.bodybyvi.com

A new look and new focus – Aaron-Brander.com

09 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by in On Miscellany

≈ Leave a comment

Thanks to all of you have read “Judging a Book by Its Cover” over the last 2 years. I really appreciate it.

Things are going to change just a bit on the blog. There’s a new look, a new address (http://www.aaron-brander.com), and a new focus. There will still be book reviews, and I’m hoping to stay on the once a week book review kick. There’s one more currently scheduled, and a backlog of about six books I need to review.

Stay tuned though, because you’ll now also receive posts On Writing, On Travel, and On Technology. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find some On Sports posts too.

Head over to the new site and check out “About Aaron Brander” for the full story.

Michigan State Spartans – One Win Away

05 Sunday Apr 2009

Posted by in On Miscellany

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

This blog was started with the intention of keeping track of the books that I read. The initial goal was two-fold; it would help me remember what I read and my friends that borrow books from me would be able to see what books I liked.  Although those goals still stand, I have found that I enjoy writing these blogs, and only wish that I could write more frequently. Alas, although I read quickly, I don’t read quickly enough to kick out more than a review every week or two.

Over the last few days, I have had thoughts that I’ve wanted to write down, but wasn’t sure where to put them.  Well, I think the time has come to expand “Judging a Book by its Cover” to more than just a book review site.  At the very least, I’m going to write about the Michigan State Spartans today, and we’ll see in the future if other non-book related thoughts spring forth.

I’ve zealously watched Spartan basketball this year. I think part of it has been my lack of interest in the NFL, thanks to the Lions for perfecting losing, and the transformation of the NBA from a basketball league to the something akin to the WWE, just with basketballs instead of pile-drivers.  That leaves the Red Wings and Spartan basketball to fill my sports fix during a long and cold winter.

The team clad in Green and White has had an up and down season.  They’ve shown flashes of brilliances and stretches of complete mediocrity.  The typical game goes something like this.

First Half:  Play as many players as possible in as many odd and seemingly useless combinations imaginable. If a player starts to do well, immediately substitute for them.  Do everything you can to keep from building a lead, but at the same time, keep the game tight.  If possible, throw the ball away or forget to dribble.

Second Half: Continue the strategy from the first half for the first five minutes.  With fifteen minutes to go, realize that the game is on the line turn on the defensive pressure. Utterly shut down the opposing team’s offense for the next ten minutes of the game, while finding a different player to step up down the stretch and make plays on offense.  Let the game get close at the end before pulling out the victory.

The games against Louisville and Connecticut exemplified this strategy, and somehow it just keeps working.  Not only that, but they are doing it better now than they have all year.

The great thing about this team is that they don’t have one or two star players that have to perform well in order for them to win.  Kalin Lucas is probably as close as they get.  At the least, he has to not turn the ball over and get other people the ball so they can score.   But look at the unlikely heroes that have turned up this tournament.  

Travis Walton scores a career high against USC.  Goran Suton destroys everyone in his path during the Sweet 16 weekend.  At the same time, Draymond Green came out of nowhere and has been playing exceptional basketball during the tournament.  Who wasn’t excited to find out last night during the Connecticut game that his nickname is the “Dancing Bear”?  It should be another three great years watching him with that knowledge.

And to cap the run of improbable stars, Korie Lucious, the pint sized freshman who to this point in the tournament had started more fast breaks for the other team than for the Spartans, dropped in a floater when there wasn’t anyone on the floor that was looking to score, and followed it up two threes and a three shot trip to the free throw line.  

But that wasn’t all. Raymar Morgan emerged to, for at least this one game, play up to the hype.  Although many proclaim him the leader and star of the team, I just haven’t ever seen it.  Last night, though, he stepped up and played wonderfully.  Let’s hope he keeps the mask, ala Rip Hamilton, and it leads to another great game against North Carolina.

The experts continue to discount the heart and desire that this Michigan State team has.  They aren’t loaded with future NBA starts like UConn, Louisville, and North Carolina.  What they do well is play to the other teams weakness. They play slow when the opposition wants to run. They run when the other team wants to go slow. Did you see how many times Thabeet was still at halfcourt when a Spartan raced by him to score last night?  That wasn’t an anomoly. The Spartans look to run off of made baskets and have done it all year.

 They will pound the offensive glass and wear you down with hard-nosed man to man defense.  It isn’t always pretty. It isn’t even always exciting.  But the last three games have been very memorable.

It also doesn’t hurt that this is the 30th anniversary of the NCAA title game that helped propel college and pro basketball to new heights.  Having the living legend, Erving “Magic” Johnson, on your sidelines and in your practices can only be a good thing.  

I don’t know who will win on Monday. I certainly hope it will be Michigan State. They’ll have a loud crowd on their side, and the experts against them, so there is reason to hope.  Someone will step up and have a great game.  It may be Walton, it certainly could be Lucas.  Perhaps Summers will dunk over Hansbrough like he did over Stanley Robinson.  I have a feeling, though, that when State needs someone to step up, they will.  And they will give North Carolina all they can handle.

 

Want to learn more about Bird and Magic, check out “When the Game Was Ours.” coming out in November.