Ohio | Uncle Crappy

Mar 19 2013

why not?

Because:

1) I always like watching Ohio State beat Michigan.

2) We’re about to embark upon the most fun three weeks of basketball all year (starting tonight, when Robert Morris hosts Kentucky in an NIT game).

3) We’re just about 45 hours away from the start of the Eighth Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Bocktown). Entries are just now starting to trickle in. With a Bocktown gift card to be awarded to the winner, make sure you’re not missing out — get your picks in soon, boys and girls. Need details? They’re here.

Tagged aucnffc, hoopage, team up north, woo-hoo

Mar 18 2013

1 Comment

Pittsburgh, Ohio, Sports, Food and Drink, Social Media

aucnffc wall of champions.

I can’t think, off the top of my head, of a more prestigious award in all of sports than to be named champion of the Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge.

And starting this week, you have a chance to add your name to that illustrious list (which you can do by participating in the Eighth Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Bocktown).

Here’s a year-by-year recap of our contests — and our champions.

2006: AUCNFFC had a modest beginning. So modest, in fact, that it warranted just a single paragraph in an entry that was mostly about our cat. The modest start attracted a modest field; just seven people, three of whom were badgered by me into participating and a fourth who flat out refused but was entered by me against his will, entered. Of course, that tiny field resulted in a three-way tie for the championship: Mr. Burns (you’ll be hearing his name again shortly), Fred and Yours Truly. I think Mr. Burns and Fred each got a fabulous prize* of some kind, and I may have bought myself a beer.

2007: This was the year that I learned to hate the entire state of Florida; not only did my football Buckeyes lose to the Gators in January’s national championship game, but the basketball Buckeyes lost to UF for the hoops title as well. But it was a good year for Mr. Burns, who won a share of the AUCNFFC championship for the second year in a row.

Fabulous.

2008: We had 18 entries, and if I recall, a whole bunch of us picked North Carolina to win that year’s title. Kansas was the champion, and the Most Reverend Father Spoon was one of the few to pick the Jayhawks making it to the title game. I don’t honestly recall what all of the fabulous prizes* were over the years, but because I took a picture of Doug, I know he won a trophy, pictured above, and an autographed, circa-1984 picture of me, which I’m sure he still cherishes.

2009: We bounced to 24 entries, including the by-then standard paragraph-long annual opus by Kewyson and the first year that Gina allowed her pets to make her picks for her. Mrs. Crappy was a winner, in the sense that North Carolina won the title — something she didn’t actually witness, because she went to bed early — but Kewyson was our FAUCNFFC champion.

2010: This was the year that the prizes became actually fabulous — because this was the year that Chris Dilla began offering up a Bocktown gift card to the AUCNFFC winner. Who got the first one? Out of 37 entries, Mr. Burns — who would have made me draw his picks for him again, until I threatened to write him down for all 15 seeds — won an unprecedented third AUCNFFC championship.

2011: Another year, another Bocktown gift card — and another increase in the number of contestants, up to 38. This was the year that I swore off ever picking Pitt to win an NCAA tournament game again (good advice for this year, boys and girls); it was also a close one, with Tim and Ted both picking the correct champion — UConn — and Bocktown regular Tim winning on the tiebreaker.

2012: And hooboy, would that tiebreaker thing become important. Three people — Barb, Otimemore and Casey — not only correctly picked Kentucky as the eventual NCAA champion, but Barb and Casey both picked the same total — 151 points — as their tiebreaker. Fortunately for both, Chris Dilla stepped up and gave both a Bocktown gift card, making both Barb and Casey happy and setting a potentially dangerous precedent for the future.

2013: We’re in our eighth year, Bocktown is on board again — and although it’s already Monday, I have exactly zero entries for EAUCNFFC. If you’re not sure how it works, you’ll find everything you need to know right here.

Get your entries in soon, boys and girls — the fun is about to begin.

*Prizes weren’t actually fabulous at that point. That started in 2010, when Chris Dilla began Bocktown’s sponsorship.

Tagged aucnffc, history, hoopage, internet fun, woo-hoo, yum

Mar 17 2013

21 Comments

Sports, Elsewhere, Ohio, Food and Drink, Pittsburgh

EAUCNFFC (BTYBB) time.

Aaron Craft can’t wait to torture Iona.

Sure, my blogging has almost completely gone to hell, but that will never be an excuse for not holding the Eighth Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought to you by Bocktown).

Eight year should be enough time that most of you guys to know the AUCNFFC drill. But we seem to attract new people every year, so it’s worth taking a spin through the setup, in handy bullet-list form:

Find yourself a copy of the bracket. If you can’t manage that, I should probably disqualify you from the EAUCNFFC (BTYBB) right now. But I’m feeling generous, so I’m happy to say you can find a nice PDF version, provided by the crack legal team at the NCAA. Print it and fill it out.
After consulting your bracket, pick the four teams — one from each region — that you think will win the regional championships and travel to the Final Four in Atlanta.
After consulting your bracket again, pick the two teams you think will win the national semi-final games on April 6.
Consult your bracket once more, and pick the team from your semi-finalists who will win the title game April 8.
How do I figure out who wins? You get two points for picking a correct Final Four team, four points for a correct semi-finalist and six points for a correct national championship pick. Assuming I can add correctly (and that can be quite an assumption, boys and girls), the entry with the highest point total is our winner.
Yes, there is a tie-breaker and, yes, as we saw last year tiebreakers are important. When you submit your pick, please also include your project score for the championship game. If it’s necessary, the entry whose score is closest will be our winner.

Still confused? Given that ~~I’m writing this in a hurry~~ I’m mostly copying and pasting from past AUCNFFC intros, that’s entirely possible. Here’s a purely hypothetical example of what an entry from this year’s bracket could look like (Note 1: this is NOT my entry. Note 2: These are the lowest seeds in the tournament; if you want to make this your entry, feel free, but do so knowing the risk of being Blutarskied):

Final Four: North Carolina A&T vs. Southern/James Madison vs. Western Kentucky

Championship game: Southern vs. James Madison

Champion: James Madison

Tiebreaker: 130

Simple, right? As you begin to mull your picks, here are a couple of other things to keep in mind:

One thing to make sure you don’t do: Send me money to enter. As has always been the case, AUCNFFC is free.
In the first four years of the contest, we were competing for cheesy trinkets and I usually included a disclaimer that our FABULOUS PRIZES weren’t actually fabulous. And then Chris at Bocktown Beer and Grill blew that out of the water by putting up a gift card to the contest’s winner — as she’s doing again this year. All together, boys and girls: “Thank you, Chris!”
The tournament’s first-round games get underway around 12:15 Eastern Thursday; I’m not a huge stickler, but I’ll need to have your entries by noon that day for you to be eligible (see the Melo Rule below).
How do you enter? Comment. Email. Twitter. DM. Text. Facebook. Smoke signal. Please feel free adding whatever commentary you wish regarding how you arrived at your picks; each entry will be listed in a comprehensive post that’ll show up at some point early Thursday afternoon.

And finally, a couple of fine-printy things:

The Juan Rule: As is tradition, Juan will once again be entered against his will, using either the Phil’s Mom Method or, if Phil’s mom isn’t picking this year, the Penny-Flipping Method.

The Melo Rule: Should an unforeseen thing happen with a player, a coach or a booster that might, in your opinion, have an impact on your already-completed entry, fear not. You may tinker as much as you like until I close the entries at noon on the tournament’s opening day.

The Crappy Rule: I don’t think I’ve ever specified this, so let’s take care of it now. If I were to come out on top of my own contest (and believe me, boys and girls, there is very little chance of that happening), the Bocktown gift card would be awarded to the first runner up (although I retain full bragging rights, which I would exercise almost daily until next year’s contest). Mrs. Crappy, should she remember to get her entry in on time, is eligible to win the card (as long as she uses it to take me to dinner).

To summarize:

Free.
Easy.
Deadline is noon Thursday.
Bocktown gift card for the winner.

Have any questions? Let me know. Otherwise, good luck to everyone — especially me Mrs. Crappy.

Tagged internet fun, yum, hoopage, woo-hoo, aucnffc

May 12 2012

9 Comments

Ohio, Pittsburgh, Sports

on your mark.

Not yet.

I know a ton of people who ran in the Pittsburgh Marathon last weekend — full, half, veterans and first-timers. And I’m proud of each and every single one of you. No matter what the time, you all killed it last week.

And let’s be honest: I’m also jealous as hell.

I was supposed to be among you last week, and it’s still irritating that I wasn’t. I think I made the right decision, vis-a-vis my ailing groin; but feeling smart didn’t help me much as I watched all of you running by my spot on the Seventh Street Bridge Sunday morning.

No worries, though. I’m coming back.

I’m approaching a week without pain in my pesky groin; I promised myself that as soon as I got through two weeks without so much as a twinge, I’d start running again. I’m not quite there yet, but I may bow to impatience and take a brisk walk in the next day or two, just to see how things are feeling. And if that goes well, I’ll start a walking/running mix.

And if we’re good with that, I have something else in mind.

As we’ve discussed before, I need a goal in order for the running thing to work. I had good schedule — with decent results, at least until I hurt myself — as I worked toward the Pittsburgh half; before I decided to run that one, I was kind of drifting — my runs were sporadic, and it was way too easy to talk myself out of getting out of bed in the morning and putting on my running shoes.

So how do I keep my motivation going? Easy — I run once race every month for the rest of the year.

I’ll take it easy to start, and give myself some time to get back into shape; I’m thinking a July start will be perfect. I even have a schedule in mind, although just a couple months are carved in stone at this point:

July: TBD, yes. But having a t-shirt from the Whiskey Rebellion 5K in Canonsburg on the Fourth of July would be really cool. I think that would be a fun run, too. The July Fourth parade in Canonsburg is a big freaking deal, and as this race is a precursor to the parade, I think there would be a built-in audience.
August: Again, to be determined. But I’m intrigued by the Brookline Breeze 5K on Aug. 11. This race is part of an annual community party, and I would hope to get some support — and perhaps some post-race beverages — from the Burghseyeview crew.
September: This one is carved in stone, as in I’m already registered: The Great Race in Pittsburgh (Sept. 30). Watching all of yinz guys have fun in this one last year was the reason I started running last fall, and this race was my original goal. With that in mind, when Mrs. Crappy and I saw that discount registrations were available at the marathon expo, we signed up immediately. A nice bonus: the race takes place on a road-game weekend, so we don’t have to miss any football in Columbus.
October: Next payday, I’ll register for the Columbus half marathon on Oct. 21. I’d still love to have Pittsburgh as my first half, but I’m not going to wait until next year to run one. Columbus in October is a perfect second choice. All I have to do it is pray that the Purdue game is a noon start. This will also be nice because I’ll have a built-in support team at the ready.
November: I love the idea of running to make room for Thanksgiving dinner, and the proximity of the YMCA’s Turkey Trot 5K downtown makes this race a natural.
December: As I found last year, there is a surprisingly large pool of December races to choose from; in the interest of symmetry, though, I’ll probably run the Jingle Bell 5K, just like I did for my first race ever in 2011.

Ambitious? Maybe. Stupid? Definitely. But once I get started again — and keep in mind this schedule is subject to change; I’m now very aware that injuries can make a mockery of plans like this in an instant — I know I’ll need goals and dates to keep going through the summer heat. And a schedule like this would be the perfect way to do that.

C’mon, groin. Get better quick.

Tagged i'm an idiot, ruuuuuuuuun, woo-hoo, yet another dreaded bullet update

Apr 30 2012

1 Comment

Ohio, Pittsburgh, Sports

decision.

What I want to do next Sunday: Run the Pittsburgh Half Marathon.

What I will do instead: Not run the Pittsburgh Half Marathon.

What I’m doing is otherwise known as the Smart Option, but it’s definitely not the one I wanted to choose. After I completed my first 5K in December — and screwed around for about a month instead of running regularly — I knew I needed a reason to train. And by January, I knew that reason would be the half.

I was making great progress, and having a blast on a months’ worth of Saturday long runs with friends in North Park. But somewhere along the way, I pulled a muscle in my groin — and I didn’t really do anything about it. I went ahead and ran 8.5 miles a few Saturdays ago, and even though I complained about my nipples more, the groin hurt like a bitch afterwards; I also went ahead with a 10K in Florida, and my groin was not pleased with that either.

I’ve tried a few times since, hoping that some rest as I ticked off the days until the half would help.

It didn’t. The pain flared a few steps in each time, enough that it was a struggle to finish a mile. I even stopped recording the attempts on Daily Mile, because I didn’t want to turn my timeline into an endless stream of grumping, especially when most of my friends there will be running on Sunday.

I’ve thought about trying anyway, walking and jogging and somehow struggling through 13.1 miles. I could probably make it, but I’m not sure where that would leave me for the rest of the summer. There are other races, and other half marathons out there, and I don’t want to chance missing out on those because I’m nursing a six-month-old groin pull.

So I’m going with the Smart Option, a name I chose in hopes of making myself feel better about not running on Sunday. I’m going to sit out for a while, maybe with an eye on walking with the March of Dimes thing in late May before I start jogging again. If that goes well, I will ease back in. I think using a Couch to 10K app would be a good way to make sure I’m ready for the Great Race in September and whatever else comes along.

I am not happy about this. I’ve come to really enjoy running, and for me, its benefits are too numerous to list. I’m not going to stop, and I will run a half before 2012 is over. But this is discouraging. Depressing. Frustrating. I so wanted to do this, and do it now, this May, and here, in my the city that is solidly my home.

But I will do it, maybe on the Montour Trail, maybe in Columbus. That’s still the goal, and I will reach it this year.

If you’re running on Sunday, I hope you have a great morning on the streets of our city. I might wander over to the start, to get a feel for everything and to see as many of you as I can before you begin.

I’ll see you other places in a few weeks too. North Park. North Shore Trail. In Brighton Heights or Bellevue. I promise.

Tagged now i'm reeeeaallly mad, ruuuuuuuuun

Uncle Crappy

words. pictures. beer.

Category Archives: Ohio

EAUCNFFC (BTYBB) time.

on your mark.

decision.

Follow “Uncle Crappy”