Well this weekend was pretty uneventful. Friday after practice Matt, Melissa & I went to Tequila's for dinner, but we so exhausted from the week that we ended up just going home and going to bed for the night. Saturday I spent most of the day at Hearnes. We hosted Southern Illionois University-Edwardsville in volleyball. We swept them 25-8, 25-21, 25-22. SIU-E is a team that is transitioning from DII to DI. They are a scrappy team and after game 1 played us pretty tough. Saturday night Melissa and I went downtown and met up with some other friends for a pretty low key night. Football had a bye this week, and from all the craziness that occured it was a great week to just sit back and watch games. We moved back up to #4 in one poll and #3 in another.
Sunday I gave the girls the day off, we didn't have practice and I didn't schedule any treatments becuase it was the first day since two-a-days that we haven't spent together. I figured after a 2 win week everyone deserved a day to themselves and sometimes rest is the best treatment. I got up and went with Neisha & Harper to church. It was so nice to go and worship and just spend the day reflecting. I got some house cleaning done and did some laundry. Sunday night we had family dinner at Melissa & Drew's apartment. Tara wasn't back from Nebraska yet, but Melissa made pepperoni and bbq chicken pizza for us all. It was great.
Another whirlwind week has already begun. We host Iowa State on Wednesday and go to Texas A&M on Saturday. A&M is an exciting trip for me because I get to see one of my former students & athletes, Will! :) Football opens Big 12 play at Nebraska. Mizzou hasn't won in Nebraska in 30 years, but we are fully expecting to snap that losing streak and bring home a Tiger victory. The FB game is on ESPN at 8 pm. I am hoping to catch the end of it when we get back, but no worries, I love my DVR and will be recording the game (I'm a dork, I know). Soccer's home all weekend, so I am sure I will be catching at least one of those games.
Monday, September 29, 2008
An Uneventful Weekend
Thursday, September 25, 2008
WE WON!!!
Yeah, we got our first conference win! We swept Tech last night 25-18, 26-24, 25-15. It was a much needed win. We are now 6-6 overall and 1-2 in Big 12.
Going to Lubbock was GREAT!!! I got to see my parents and Katie and visit with some other people I used to work with. I was sad that I didn't get to see Pam, Robert or Rebecca. Pam decided she wasn't strong enough for the stairs, which I totally understood, but Mom & Dad were going to bring Robert with them. Unfortunately, he woke up Wednesday morning with a fever and throwing up and hadn't felt good for several days, so Pam took him to the doctor. While at the arena I got to visit with Jon who helped get me a job as a student trainer at Tech and kept me in the profession my freshman year of college. I spent many a days in his office, crying and wanting to quit because I wasn't happy mainly due to my supervisor, but he assured me that I was doing a great job and things would get better. Thankfully, I stuck it out and had a great experience after that. After our pre-game serve & pass, the parents, Katie & I went to Rosa's. I love that place and it was so nice to have GOOD Mexican food. I really miss that stuff. After that we went over to the football facility so I could visit with Buzz. Of course, Tech was in the middle of practice, but I walked out on the practice field fully decked out in Mizzou gear. Only a few guys who had no idea who I was gave me crap about it. When I explained to them I used to go to school and work at Tech and I was there to see Buzz they decided I was ok. It was so great to catch up with him and several other people that I worked with there. I even got 3 new pairs of scissors out of the deal (hey it's the simple things that make me happy, especially when one pair of my good scissors were stolen out of the locker room). In the middle of the game I looked up and saw another fromer boss of mine Ken (Jon's dad). It was so great to see him and talk with him. He is an amazing man that I have known since high school, who also helped me get the job at Tech. I told him I had no idea what I was going to do after this year, and he said, "Well let me help you when the time comes." It is so great to know that people at Tech still want to help me successfull. I still have a few months before I have to decide what I want to do after this year. I love Mizzou and everything that it entails, but everytime I go home I miss Texas even more. I know I have a tough decision to make in the future.
On a side note---GO VOTE for Chase. He has fallen to 2nd place behind the Georgia runningback in the fan poll, but he still leads most of the other predictions (SI.com, ESPN, etc...)
Sunday, September 21, 2008
A Quick Update
Just a few things to update the week. Pam won the battle and the baby's name is Rebecca Ann Cooke. There's a good chance I will get to see her on Wednesday when I go to Lubbock and I am SUPER excited about that. I got her the cutest little Mizzou dress for her to wear and of course I got Robert another Mizzou Tiger shirt. I'm very excited to spend part of the day with my parents & Katie as well. And Stephanie & Jake are coming to the game and brining friends to cheer on the Tigers. We might end up with more Mizzou fans than Tech has ;)
It's been a rough week for Mizzou Volleyball. Wednesday we played OU and lost in 4 and then finally played a home game today against Baylor and lost in 4. We travel to Texas Tech on Wednesday and then take a break from conference play and host SIU-Edwardsville on Saturday.
In the football world, Mizzou pulled ou another win over Buffalo 42-21. It was a sloppy game, but a win is a win :) Chase Daniel passed for a career high 439 yards and set a big 12 record with 20 consecutive completions. He even got a tackle in the game~Jmac had the ball stripped and fumbled it, Buffalo recovered, but Chase wasn't very happy about that and knocked the ball carrier out of bounds. It was quite the highlight all last night on ESPN, as the announcers claimed Chase could do it all. DWash (Derrick Washington) already has 9 touchdowns on the year as starting tailback, with at least 2 every game. We dropped to #6 in the AP poll, but stayed #5 in the USA today poll. Tech broke into the Top 10 this week, so that puts FOUR Big 12 teams in the top 10. Pretty impressive if you ask me. Football has a bye week, and then they open conference at Nebraska on October 4th.
I'm copying Sherri in putting a link to the 2008 Vote Heisman (it's on the right, under my picture). We've got two Tigers up for the award, Chase Daniel & Jeremy Maclin. Visit daily to vote. The player with the most fan votes will get one official vote in the actual Heisman voting. Chase is leading right now, so help him & Jmac out!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
SHE'S HERE!!!
After many months of waiting Baby Girl Cooke is here! She's still nameless, which none of us are surprised, as Robert didn't have a name for 2-3 days. Her name is still up for debate. Mom likes Rebecca Ann and Dad is pulling for Rebecca Dallas. So I guess Rebecca is pretty much set. I'm still pulling for Rebecca Brooklyn (Cooke said Rebecca Brooke didn't sound good, I personally think it sounds great!) Anyways, after an unexpected C-Section due to the baby's blood pressure dropping, she was born healthy at 6 lbs 9 oz and 19 inches long on September 17th. She is her mom through and through in the picture above, but they say she has her daddy's little legs.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
And We're Back...
For a little bit anyways. This past weekend was spent in Reno, Nevada. Traveling there took forever. Nothing too exciting happened this weekend. We flew out of Kansas City to Phoenix, where our plane was delayed like an hour and a half, then finally onto Reno. We went 1-2 in the tournament, making our overall record 5-4. We lost to Nevada & Pepperdine, but finished out the tournament beating UC Davis in 3. We looked like a totally different team against Davis, definitely for the better. I think the girls are finally finding their place on the team. Sunday we spent ALL day traveling. We left the hotel at 5:30 am (PT), had a 7:25 flight, had an hour layover in Vegas (which I am sad I didn't get to ENJOY Vegas) then finally landed in KC about 2:15ish (CT). After getting our bags we headed home. We didn't get back to Columbia til like 5:30. I was WORN out from that day. I'll post pics of Reno later, I haven't put them on my computer yet, maybe I'll do that while in class this afternoon ;) (don't worry I take notes at the same time!)
Tomorrow we play at OU. Yet another road trip, only these are better, we fly there in the morning, practice, eat, play and fly home. Only one more overnight trip (ISU) until NCAA tournamnet. It's our first conference game, so that is always exciting. OU and Tech played last weekend in a tournament at Tech (long story...Hurricane Ike cancelled some tournaments and caused some rearranging) and the conference let them count it as their conference game. Tech took OU to 5, but OU prevailed and won. OU is 5-4 overall. We really need to go into Norman and beat OU. We were picked several spots above OU in the pre-season Big 12 rankings...so we are hoping to uphold those expectations. If you are bored on Wednesday night...get on GameTracker & cheer for us.
We FINALLY have a home game on Sunday vs Baylor. I'm not sure exactly what time we have practice on Saturday yet, but I am hoping for a morning practice so I can make it to the entire football game. Either way, I am super pumped about getting to go to the game.
Speaking of football, Mizzou put up another stellar performance on Saturday vs Nevada. We won 69-17. We broke numerous records on Saturday so that is always exciting! Polls came out and we moved up to #5. YEAH! GO TIGERS!
Oh yeah, my aunt & uncle are in Missouri right now--they spent the weekned with Emily & Kyle and are now at a cousin's house, but they are coming to see me Thursday afternoon :) I'm excited to see them and then I get to see my parents (and maybe Robert) next week!!!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Gold for a Friend
This post is somewhat delayed---and stolen from my sister, but I am so proud of Jeremy as well, I had to make my own post! A good family friend of ours recently competed in the paralympics in Beijing. Jeremy has had a prosthetic leg since a baby but has never let it hold him back. He was an all-district athlete in basketball, football, and track for 3 years. He had the opportunity as a 17-year old to move to Seattle and begin training, but chose to stay with his family until graduation. (when he moved to CA to train full time) So now at 21 years old, he is competing in the pentathlon and discus in Beijing. In the trials he won first in the pentathlon and was 16 points off the world record.
Long Jump - 2nd w/ 6.4m
Discus - 1st w/ 52.3m
BEIJING, China - After falling just 16 points shy of the world record in the men's pentathlon (P44) at the Paralympic Trials in June, Jeremy Campbell (Chula Vista, Calif./Perryton, Texas) came to Beijing with a plan to break it once and for all. Tonight he succeeded - winning gold and setting a new world record with 4,662 points (4,447, previous WR).
Monday, September 8, 2008
East Coast Adventures
I must say my internal clock hates me right now. I've gone from central time, to mountain time, to central time, to eastern time, to central time, then on Thursday I change to pacific time, then back to cental time on Sunday. I am definitely ready for a regular schedule.
Friday night we played Maryland and won in 3. Saturday morning we played Kentucky and got swept--bad game, we'll just leave it at that. Saturday evening we played St. John's. That was a long and hard fought match. We eventually lost in 5, with 59 lead changes and 27 ties. Complete craziness. It was great to finish the tournament out on a positive note with a record of 2-1. This brings our overall record to 4-2. The ComCast Center is AMAZING. It's HUGE. They house many sports in there as well as academics, their hall of fame and many other offices. I'm not sure exactly when they built it, but it's fairly new. Also in celebration of their 150th anniversary, they have 50 terrapins around campus, the town and neighboring towns that are all painted different. That's the one outside the ComCast Center. On it's shell are faces from the 2002 Men's National Championship Team. Pretty neat idea if you ask me. Monday, September 1, 2008
JMac
My good buddy & Mizzou football player Jeremy Maclin has been nominated for Pontiac's Game Changing Performance of the week with his awesome 99 yard touchdown return for a TD!
Click here to vote for JMac & the Missouri Tigers to win! :)
He is also nominated for the AT&T National Player of the Week. If you text VOTE to 51234 you can vote for JMac to win (yes, I realize Graham Harrell is as well, but hey I'm a Tiger right now. Both are friends of mine though!)
M-I-Z...Z-O-U GO TIGERS!
Tagged-6 Quirks
So Sherri tagged me...thanks a lot...to come up with "6 Most Interesting Quirks" about myself. I've known this since Thursday and have been trying to come up with 6 quirks. It's a lot harder than you think. So here goes nothing:
1. My closet has to be color coordinated. Strange I know, but I think it's inhereted...my mom's is too. It's even divided into short sleeves, long sleeves, work clothes, pants, dress clothes, etc... My work clothes are even divided into sports medicine, volleyball, Gatorade & everything else.
2. To go along with No. 1, I am a super organized person. Maybe even have OCD. Everything has a place and it drives me nuts if it isn't in its place. Whether it be my training kit---it drives me crazy when the girls get stuff out and don't put it back where it was---my desk, things at my house, etc...
3. I hate when people call me and don't leave a message if I don't answer. Clearly if someone calls they have a purpose, but if they don't leave a message I have no idea what that purpose might be.
4. I'm a creature of habit, I find something I love at a restaurant and I stick to it. Adam makes fun of me because I order chicken strips at 3/4 of the places we eat, but hey, I LOVE chicken strips. Maybe it's the little kid coming out in me ;) Or I find something I like to eat at home and I cook it all the time....I absolutely LOVE poppyseed chicken so I usually cook it every other week. (In fact, that's what I cooked tonight for supper)
5. No matter how bad of a day I am having a Dr Pepper and a big hug can always make it better. If it's a Sonic Dr Pepper that's a double plus :)
6. I love dance movies and could watch them over and over and over. I have yet to find one I dislike. I also love to dance, especially if I have a great dance partner. Oddly enough, I never took dance as a child, I've just always been intrigued by dance. Maybe it's another one of those inhereted things--my mom has wanted to be dancer since she was a little girl....and an athletic trainer.
I tag Emily, Melissa, Doug, & Andreia! Have fun!
Maybe There's a Hole in Your Gas Tank
The title is much funnier to Wayne (VB head coach), Tom (VB SID), and me than anyone else. It's one of those you had to be there moments. Let's just say we had an adventure getting back from the St Louis airport last night. It was definitely a long weekend by the time we returned at 8:30pm. We left Thursday morning at 9 and headed east to St Louis. We had an hour layover in Albuquerque after flying through the worst turbulence I've ever flown through. Our flight was delayed, but only about 10 minutes, so it wasn't that bad. We landed in Salt Lake City about 5:45 MT got our bags and headed to the rental car counter. Of course this ended up taking about 30 minutes, they don't have the vans we have reserved and are completely unorganized. We finally end up with 3 mini-vans and a large car. We drive about 45 minutes to Provo, head straight to the gym & practice from about 8:15-9:30ish and finally get to eat supper around 10. The weather in Utah is amazing. The mornings were cool and the afternoons were hot (it was in the 90s while we were there), but there is no humidity, which I absolutely love. The mountains provided a beautiful back drop and there was little wind. Friday morning we practiced in the morning and then played Tulane. We won in 4, 23-25, 25-20, 26-24, 25-14. It was great to get that first win. Saturday morning we had an early game vs Utah State, which we won in 4 also, 20-25, 25-19, 25-20, 26-24. A quick side note on that game, Jules (the girl who tore her ACL last September) had 23 kills in the game. That is only 3 off her career high. Saturday night proved to be a little tougher. We played No. 20 BYU. We ended up losing in 5, 25-20, 19-25, 25-10, 22-25, 17-15. Game 3 was pretty ugly as you can tell by the score, but we came right back at them in game 4 to push for a 5th game. It was exciting to see us fight back and put ourselves in a great place to come away with a win and heartbreaking to lose especially when we were that close. We finished 2nd in the tournament and Jules & Wendy were both named to the all-tournament team. Due to our late game time on Saturday, we stayed the night and flew back on Sunday. Things were going great, we got to sleep in, had an afternoon direct flight back to St Louis, no delays, turbulence wasn't bad at all, landed safely and had all of our bags. When we got to the shuttle for our parking lot, there was only one van and we were all so ready to get back all 18 of us (plus the other 3 people already on there) piled into the one van. This wouldn't be as big of a deal, but you must remember there are 18 people and all of our luggage. I claim the award for most bags though--my personal bag, training kit, equipment bag, game ready & my backpack. We make it safely to the vans and head out. We leave the parking lot about 6 pm in our 3 Mizzou Athletic Vans. In my van is Wayne, Susan, Tom & me, then in each of the other vans there are 6 players and 1 coach. They chose to ride that way, which was fine with me because I had a whole bench seat to myself. Well we are about in Warrenton when Deng Yang (assistant coach) calls Wayne. She says she has run out of gas. Let the laughing begin. We are all a little confused how she has run out of gas, because we still have half a tank left. So we ask if Chen Feng (her husband & assistant coach) is behind her and she says yes, he went to get her some gas. Susan is talking to Deng Yang and asking her all these questions and telling her to watch her temperature gauge and several other things while Wayne, Tom & I are busting a gut laughing about the whole situation. Then comes the ultimate comment, "maybe there's a hole in your gas tank or something." We lose it at this point. Susan is trying her hardest to not laugh and keep a straight face, but in the midst of all our comments, she got flustered and that was the first thing that came to mind. So we kept driving and told her to call if she needs anything else, because we are about 15 miles ahead of them. So about 15 miles down the road we get another call. The van won't do anything and there is no power. They have added gas, but still nothing. There wasn't even a click when she turned the key. The 4 of us are thinking battery or alternator. So the 7 people in the broken down van all pile into Chen Feng's van. They are headed our way, so we pull over at the Hermann exit and wait for them so some of them can switch vans. I still don't think the 4 of us had quit laughing when they finally arrived. It was pretty funny to see the van pull up with 14 of them piled in. Apparently the air conditioner wasn't working either; it was just blowing hot air. So they were all hot, sweaty, cramped & griping when they arrived. After a little rearranging we finally get back on the road and headed towards Columbia. We arrived at Mizzou Arena around 8:30 pm without further problems. I'm not sure about the other van, but we laughed the entire rest of the way home about the incident as well as the other travel mishaps we have encountered with the volleyball team. Hopefully next weekend will be uneventful as far as mishaps. Below are some pictures of the weekend
As for the football team---YEAH!! GO TIGERS! I didn't get to watch the game, because we played at about the same time, but did get to see a few drives on Tom's computer on media row, and got to watch about the last 7 minutes of the game. I did get to see Spoon run back his interception for a touchdown. I recorded the game and watched the first half last night before going to bed. JMac's 99 yard kickoff return was AWESOME! It's nominated for the Pontiac Game Changing Performance this week....so go to espn.com & search for pontiac to vote for us to win! I can't wait to actually get to see a game in person...just 3 more weeks :)
It's off to Maryland on Thursday to play Maryland, Kentucky & St John's. GO TIGERS!
The BYU campus. Notice the Y in the mountain side. The middle picture is their fairly new athletic building housing mainly football & administration.
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