Zipsrifle

I hear RI is trying to recruit a few guys with enough guts to go in there and put up new vinyl. They will be heros in Akron! They will sing songs about them!

I used to be firmly in the "their pay is the free education they receive" camp. Now, not so much. For me it boils down to these points. First, it is a very physical game where your career could be ended at any time. Those kids take quite a beating out there. Second, there are millions (Billions?) of dollars spent each year on this sport and LOTS of people are making money off of it. The kids who are required for this thing to work are caught in the middle. A kid could do everything he is supposed to for 4 years and in his final bowl game, bam, gets a nasty injury. He's pretty much done. What is he supposed to do, go off and work for some firm in an office building with his degree? He may have sold $500k worth of jersey's for the university, but now he's making 40K a year. Really? Additionally, these kids are young, there are lots of temptations for these kids and when the adults who are there to "Lead" them are trying to get part of the $$$ these kids are raking in.....well, anybody else see some conflict there? The system is broken. I could go on, but I for one am open to suggestions of how to reorganize NCAA football. Maybe basketball too. The whole situation is a mess. I also recognize what this will probably mean as an Akron fan. I don't have an answer for this situation, but I do think it is time to take a look a revenue generating sports in college and see how things can be reworked for the players. I'm not saying they get paid, that is one option, but it is time to try something new.

Hopefully with whatever upgrade the do, we can get a new rifle range stuck in there too. I don't think it would require a lot, and it would be a big improvement to the range in the basement of Schrank South now where they get water leaking in from the parking deck above. When you consider all the lounges and upgraded facilities some of the other sports have, it would be nice to get something for a team that recently produced a national champion. I'm probably dreaming, but hey, it would be nice.

Well, in the spirit of this thread, my wife and I had a great time in Akron last weekend. We went to Stan Hywet in the morning, stopped by Bricco for a very good, very reasonable lunch, and then took a ride down the toe paths in the afternoon. We're probably going to head back and do it again sometime this summer.

What about the other 49? Great! I'm on my way to Montrose auto group tomorrow to get your standard, run of the mill three day test drive.

WOW! This is huge. I spend a lot of time in Columbus for work and I listen to his radio show a lot. These guys are about as big OSU Homers as you are going to find. For them to be jumping ship really says something.

Awesome! Great story.

With Sherman looking to make a fresh start, a school close to home might be a good fit. Should Akron take any interest in this kid? I believe Can't State thinks this kid is a lock as long as Senderoff is made HC. I suppose this all is dependent on how our scholarship situation plays out, but if we end up with an extra one this kid could provide Zeke the backup many people are searching for. A lock for sure: http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketbal...s-to-notre-dame

Hoping someone can help me out here. I go out of my way to support companies that support the Zips. I am looking for a list of corporate sponsors, does anyone have a link to a list of corporate sponsors? Any help would be appreciated.

It isn't luck. From the Clarrett "gettin' his goose on", to Troy Smith's $500 handshakes, to telling Erik Howard, a Zips commit, to back out and go to a Prep school, everyone knew Tressel would eventually get exposed in a big way. OMG, that is one of the funniest things I have seen in a LONG time! AWESOME!

Nobody leaves college soccer early without a GA contract, unless they followed some really bad advice. What's great about that is they can come back to school and get their degrees at a later date. Also, our soccer team has such great academics that I don't think the NCAA would be able to do much. The Zips GPA was one of the highest in the country in their sport. I believe everybody leaving is in good academic standing. It won't hurt us all that much. Besides that, college soccer doesn't have that many scholarships to take away in the first place. Most of our players get by on various types of academic scholarships and parental support, which the NCAA is powerless to take away. Because I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist, I see this a different way. Before I start my rant here is my, possibly flawed, foundation: Because of so many Zips soccer players leaving early to go pro, the Zips soccer team will have a low graduation rate causing the team to be "Noncompliant" in some manner with an NCAA regulation. Now, onto my conspiracy theory: Lets be honest, despite being the best college soccer team in the country, the Zips monetarily, are nothing in the world of college athletics. If the statement above is true, this presents the NCAA with a PERFECT situation to "Prove" it is "Tough" on institutions that are non-compliant with it's regulations. Think about it, the NCAA could come down HARD on Akron for not meeting a requirement and it would not hit the NCAA or it's supporters in the least. In fact, it would only serve to bolster the schools that do make all the cash. Think about it, if the NCAA were to take out Akron soccer, they could hold this example up as how the NCAA is serious about ensuring students get an education. Other soccer powers such as Indiana, NC, etc. would have a major competitor eliminated and the NCAA Soccer championship would return to the "Major" schools. It would relieve some of of the heat being put on the NCAA for favoring the "Major" schools as they could show they were not afraid to hit a Major program. As Akron supporters are a very small slice of NCAA athletics and we only have one newspaper that regularly covers the sport, the backlash would be almost non-existent. I fear that our success may be our downfall if the NCAA is as crooked as I think it is.

AWESOME! Hall of fame material IMHO.

let me summarize how this usually goes down Random zn member) our band needs to do more. random band member who has a 6th sense for when someone is talking smack to the band on the internet("band kid" for short)) we work really hard!! it's hard to do what we do. we put a lot of time into it! zn) ya'll should dance. why don't you dance? band kid) we play music, and work hard. R4R) I hate the band and everything it stands for. band kid) you don't even know what your talking about R4R's GF) I marched in the 110 and am therefor better than everyone on Gods green earth, and everyone in Ohio's Pride should be ashamed of themselves for being the worst human beings on the face of the earth hundreds of band kids come out of the wood work and 20 pages later we all agree to disagree. I know this because I used to be the one with the 6th sense. You forgot to mention that, without fail, OSU bashing would somehow take up 5 of those pages.

I just got done looking through the pictures UofA took during the National Championship match. One thing that stood out was how Coach Porter was never front and center in the pictures. He let the kids enjoy the moment and made sure others got their time in the spotlight.

WOW, that was amazing. We were so lucky at the end. The entire match I was wondering how we would lose this (NE Ohio curse). I don't know how, but we pulled it out. A little payback from years of frustration???? I'm far from a soccer fan but this is awesome! Great job! I hesitate to say anyone deserves anything, but I think the Zips deserved this one!

Put it across Rt. 8!

WOW. What a humbling experience for TW and RI to have to actually sign each of these letters. Makes me wonder, who came up with this idea, TW, RI, or LP?

I have been delinquent in giving updates for the Rifle team. Anyway, the team has lost to both OSU and Morehead state in the past few weeks. I'm really pretty bummed about this because these are the two teams I like the least. The Buckeyes are our in state rivals and have had the better of us for the past few years. I don't know if it is recruiting or the name, but we just can't top those guys recently. Morehead state gets under my skin because of the attitude of some of their shooters back in my day. Even though both Akron and Morehead were evenly matched (I think we were slightly better), they belittled us routinely and that has stuck with me. Anyway, the match against OSU seemed close, but not really. OSU posted 7 of the top 10 shooters in Smallbore and 4 of the top 6 in Air Rifle. Against Morehead, it was pretty evenly matched with Akron winning Air Rifle but dropping Smallbore and the combined score. I think Akron has beat Morehead the past several meetings, but not this time. As usual, the Zips are rather deep with a lot of shooters posting similar scores. This is good, and bad. It is good in that it indicates a lot of intra-squad competition which tends to drive up scores. It is bad in that it makes picking a team hard. One interesting rule change this season which should help the Zips is how the teams are picked. In previous years, the coach had to pick the teams of 4 shooters prior to the match. The Akron Gold team would be the "Best" 4 shooters and the "Blue" team was the next 4 top shooters. Now the Gold team is comprised of the top 5 shooters, with the top 4 scores for that team counting. As the Zips have a lot of close shooters, you would think this would buffer the scores against the one shooter who has a bad day and serve as an advantage but I don't know that this has been the case. For the past two matches, Akron's top shooters still haven't been on the same team. It still wouldn't have mattered, however, as if we did take all the top Zips shooters they would have still lost both matches. On a personal note, we made it to the Turkey Shoot last week. It was a good time and it looked like they had a nice turn out. They had a lot of fun little competitions and prizes for everyone to participate in. In talking with coaches, they commented on how the skill level of the team just keeps increasing year over year. Newt and Brian really put a lot into that program and they are still as motivated about the future as ever. The link to the Rifle page is below. http://www.gozips.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_...amp;SPSID=47843

No use in arguing over the attendance. It was a bone chilling day with two horrible teams with the only thing on the line being a winless season. The fans that were there yesterday are the true fan base. I don't think I'll ever move near the South endzone again during a game. I did that during the GW game and we blew it. After visiting the team shop to warm up, with the game "out of reach" with about 3:00 left, I stood near that end and we started to blow it. I quickly moved near midfield and things started to get better. Maybe UA should just upgrade my tickets to midfield and we'll go 13-0 next year? I'm just say'n........ Thank you to the Seniors. If this is the coach to build the program, then remember, you guys are the foundation. It wasn't easy to go through the turmoil of a new coach AND have a horrible Senior season. But, you stuck with it and in my book, those are the people you want on your team throughout life. I will remain optimistic for next season and give this coach some time. I hope these kids have that fire deep down inside and really get after things in the off season.

Put me in the "We win by 2 TD's" column.

This is bad news. Not unexpected, just bad....

Well, I didn't really get into UA football until well after I graduated. I got my BS at Akron and had a blast while I was at school, but I was just too involved with other activities to really follow the football program. Actually, I was a Michigan fan growing up and scored season tickets to UofM football after graduation. I got a job in Michigan right out of school and I figured it would be awesome until... I started going to the games. The people at those games are what really got under my skin. I think it started when they played Miami, which was a solid MAC team at the time. At halftime, I remember Michigan was up by something like 10 points and EVERYONE was complaining, including the 30% of the people who showed up about 5 minutes before halftime. They won by like 3 TD and walking out of the stadium still EVERYONE was whining and moaning. I remember wondering "why?" They won handily, they should be HAPPY!. This was the atmosphere for almost every game with the exception of the big games. It was depressing. I also don't think there was a real connection with UofM....it wasn't my school. During this time, when my wife and I came back home to see family, we would hop on over to UofA to catch the football games and I had a lot of fun even though we sucked. One day we picked up a camp stove and a card table, got a bunch of friends to come to the lower lot of the RB and tried tailgating and that was it, I was hooked. Ditched my Michigan season tickets and grabbed Zips season tickets, expanded my tailgating equipment drastically and started following the Zips everywhere. Now, there just isn't another option. I like sports too much and I don't think I could ever ditch the Zips. Akron is MY SCHOOL, and if I'm going to follow college athletics, it will be the Zips. I take a beating at times, but I can handle it. Deep down, I have this belief that Akron will be great someday. UofA is on the rise, I want to be a part of that rise.

Listened to the game on the radio and did some painting. Got some work done on the house and Andy is doing a hell of a job. I loved listening to that guy, well done.

I'm done with Pat. Man, this guy is blowing it. WTF! We CAN win this game and we are (He IS) throwing it AWAY!

One thing I will be looking forward to again is listening to the Zips on the radio, over an actual radio. I am very happy that the Zips Radio Network has expanded, makes my Saturday afternoons much more enjoyable when the Zips are away. Now, some smilies picked by my daughter.