Category: college

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USC over Washington in last 2 seconds!

USC Beats Washington in the last 2 seconds! NOTICE: everyone stayed well past the end of the game to celebrate!I’ll leave all the forecasting and second guessing to the ‘pigskin prognosticators’ and the ‘experts’ everywhere. All I can say is that it was a great game to watch… especially if you were lucky enough to be in the historic Los Angeles Coliseum!

I took this picture right after the game ended and if you check out the giant screen, you will see a close up of the two opposing coaches after a tough fight.

I guess the picture of Coach Pete Carroll really impressed me… in fact, most ‘SC coaches show real class in handling victory or defeat… of course, at a top division 1 school like USC and Washnigton Head Coach after the Game‘SC, you don’t get your contract renewed if you don’t win…. and as they said in ‘Ghostbusters’, “I’ve worked in the private sector… they expect results!” Nevertheless, having coaches who show class and win is a real credit to the guy doing the hiring.

It does look like Pete Carroll is giving the Washington Coach a kiss on the nose… but the noise level necessitated close contact. It felt like row 2 in a Rolling Stones Concert… only louder!

There were plenty of complaints from bloggers who thought some of the new rules sucked… but then it was their team that lost. Some complained about the officials… but I observed something else.

Southern Cal has been hampered this year by a wide range of penalties… and it just seems to me to be a way that officials are using to ‘level the playing field’. If you add ‘SC’s penalties back into the mix… the games aren’t close. For example, if you were a Washington offensive lineman, you never got called for ‘holding.’ Hmmmm…. I haven’t seen this sort of thnig since the ACC officials won the Florida game for Florida State some years back.

Here’s what others think:

Fight On!

Roger Freberg

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On the Internet…. there are no more secrets!

A rather rabid Trojan FanIt is amazing what stuff people will put on the internet… whether it is a simple web site, an email or — as we have recently discovered in the Foley case — an instant message.

Recently, top GOOGLE executives “warn politicians of internet power.” The article opens with the provocative statement :

“Imagine being able to check instantly whether or not statements made by politicians were correct. That is the sort of service Google Inc. boss Eric Schmidt believes the Internet will offer within five years.”

Has the world come to this? Politicians that HAVE TO tell the truth??!! Sheeeesh….

Telling the truth is just good business, good for relationships and an excellent way to develope healthy bonds within a family and between people. This does not mean being untactful… as in… “yes, hun, those pants really do bring out the whale in you!” What it means is telling the truth…. don’t exaggerate… don’t evade or avoid… just say what you mean and mean what you say. It may seem difficult at first, but as it becomes habit…well… it is the only way to live and life becomes so much less complicated this way.

INTERNET SEARCHES

I remember once I gave a political speech and an eager beaver reporter decided to see what dirt he could find out on me… so he asked me about myself, primarily to see if he could ‘catch me’ in a lie. Soon I recieved a phone call that he had discovered I was a fraud… a trickster!…. a scoundrel! Hmmmm…. how’d he figure that out sooo fast?

What the Tribune reporter had done is call the then Los Angeles Rams and see if anyone remembered me… no one did, but then I was part of the ‘great forgetables’ that pass through athletic turnstiles each year…. besides, it wasn’t the receptionists fault anyway… it was her first day. Today, he could have zipped along the internet and found me. He busted a gut, but he did apologize.

EMAILS

My wife sued Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and over 1000 documents — mostly emails — were used in setting up her case written between 1991 – 1999 … it still amazes me what people write in a medium that is not confidential. Too many people look at emails as coversation and forget they are evidentiary. Let’s just say that the emails were enough to turn even a hardened stomach …  and the university settled seven years ago.

What amazed me most about Laura’s experience was how so many basically ‘good people’ could go so wrong. Philip Zombardo did a ground breaking experiment years ago placing Stanford Students into two groups — prisoners and guards — and over time watched as they morphed into everyone’s worst nightmare.

Today he has a new book entitled: THE LUCIFER EFFECT: Understanding how good people turn evil. The book costs about $18 not including postage and provides a real insight into the evil that can be seduced and rewarded even in the best of us.

WEB SITES / Instant messaging

What can and can not be placed on web sites and in blogs is continuing to be a point of discussion. Where does the rights of an organization stop and an individual’s free speech begin? Here are a couple of today’s articles in the Daily Trojan on a couple of aspects:

New facebook Stalkers: YOUR parents?

Parents are taking more of an ‘inspect what you expect’ approach to watching their ‘adult children’… especially if mommy and daddy are still paying the bills. Parents just want to know what they are paying for.

Students Ignore web danger at their peril

The jist of this:
“In the meantime, students should be aware that the Internet is and always has been a public space, and anything that crosses its connections could end up on the news tonight.”

Here’s some sites you may not have seen:

“SETAC ASTRONOMY”

In a Robert Redford movie in which he actually looked young entitled ‘SNEAKERS”, someone invented a code breaking device that unlocked all codes… the code name was ‘Setac Astronomy’ which incorporates all the letters needed to spell out something like… ‘No More Secrets.”

Today, secrets can still exist… even within the C.I.A. (sometimes)…  but with the internet, ‘secrets’ can be leaked from whistle blowers at Eron or displayed by Drudge’s popular Report introducing America to our favorite cigar maiden Monika Lewinsky…. it’s hard for the good old boys and girls to keep a lid on bad news. Gosh, I guess they thought that no one would ever know.

Thanks to the internet, the world is becoming more open, freer and more data can be reviewed by the average person.

Information is power.

Roger Freberg

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You left just when you were getting interesting…..

 Kristin in Iraq 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Back in 1997, my eldest daughter graduated from high school and entered the united States Military Academy at West Point. Her summer after graduation was spent doing the cadet version of ‘basic training’.

Kristin had entered the academy with a few challenges. Although stronger than many men, Kris did not like to run. It is to her credit that she conquered that and eventually ran in two Washington D.C. Marathons.

Some people think that she owes a lot to her McFee ancestors who never gave up, others feel it was all due to a unconditional love and acceptance of her mother…. but few knew the real truth as I do…. Kristin loves a challenge.

About this time, the New York Times magazine published an article on the summer basic training of the cadets referred to as ‘Beast.’ I wrote the following:

The Beauty of Beast Barracks

Published: November 2, 1997

As the father of a daughter who survived this year’s Beast experience, I enjoyed Winerip’s article on West Point’s technique for breaking in plebes.

A big plus for parents: my daughter now knows how to clean her room (in fact, she can clean anything), and her academic work actually gets done!

It was a wonderful article.

Roger Freberg
San Luis Obispo, Calif

The letter had some unintended positive effects.

While many parents and others whined about this or that, my letter engendered sympathy for my daughter… and a protective brotherly nature from the often hazzing upper classmen. They thought that she had already been through enough having to grow up with me as her dad! ha! 

Funny, not much Kristin can’t do now.

Roger Freberg

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Athletes do better before, during and after college

Preparing athletes for their next life

 

There has been a discussion on college campuses on what is considered a viable major for students and student-athletes. It is basically a smokescreen for falling standards overall.

There have been majors that many athletes gravitate to…. it may be because the subject is interesting… such as Psychology or Business…. or maybe…. gasp!… because it is easy.

USA Today reported that athletes do tend to congregate in certain subjects:

“When the Auburn football team’s defense heads into the huddle, the players probably don’t talk sociology. But seven defensive players on Auburn’s 2003 football roster are majoring in that field. Overall, 10 of the 38 Tigers football players whose majors appear in the team’s media guide are in sociology.”

Another article describes a similar tale:

“A review of ASU’s 2003 football team revealed that the most popular major is interdisciplinary studies, a degree program widely considered by students and faculty to be among the university’s easiest. A full 18 percent, or 17 of 94, team members were in the program this past fall.”

Some folks on and off campus grumble about any efforts to give athletes what they consider ‘preferential treatment.’ You know these guys, they were picked last in grade school:

“NCAA Commissioner Myles Brand announced sweeping academic reforms, aimed at increasing dishonesty, cheating, and preferential treatment for student athletes.”

Well, bad stuff happens….. but for most student-athletes this is a rare experience. With the changes in NCAA rules, athletes can continue their athletic performance in graduate school…. for those academically gifted to continue.

It should not escape anyone’s notice that many of the top academic schools in the country are also the top athletic powers as well. The reason for this is obvious, a rich alum makes a donation to their athletic program and then turns to donate funds for a new Physics building. it happens all the time. Some of the best college presidents have recognized this from the beginning… athletics brings in the supporters that can be massaged into donating something more.

Take a trip on U.S. News and World Report and check out the top colleges… you may be surprised to see how many big bowl colleges are top ranked academically!

Research Medical Schools:

# 3 — University of pennsylvania
# 6  — Duke university
# 7 — Stanford
also #7 — University of Washington
# 10 — Baylor Continue reading “Athletes do better before, during and after college”

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For Some… it’s Back to school!

Karla whipped up this little diddy to wish her mom a good day on her first day of school in over 6 months…. yes, Karla thinks of her mother as a ‘hummingbird.’

Mom back ni class again!

At Cal Poly, professors are contracted — in general — to teach 3 of the 4 quarters a year. Laura always enjoyed teaching over the summer as it allowed us to travel in the spring for college graduations and track meets.

Laura took off Spring as usual then elected not to teach this past summer… which accounts for the 6 months off. Rough life?

Ah yes, the paychecks keep rolling in… which has my daughters convinced that being a college professor is the only way to go! Kristin and Karen were razzing their mother a bit as they have — let’s just say — very busy lives, too. The point wasn’t lost on the girls either, work hard in your youth and you may live to enjoy an easier life when you too are 54.

Sometimes it’s not how much money one makes that’s important… it’s how much time off one gets to do other valuable things… like wave at the neighbors as they go off to work. However, Laura did ‘invest’ her time well as she revised her “Discovering Biological Psychology” textbook for it’s second edition.

Have a good day, hun. I’ll keep the coffee warm for you.

Roger Freberg