Today was the first day of preseason practice. That means lots of running and meathead motivational sayings like “Back to the Basics” or “Earn Every Inch” slapped on the backs of XL shirts. As always, Rocky training montage for your enjoyment.

- Last week, the Baseball team really stunk it up, losing at #4 South Carolina on Wednesday, and dropping two this weekend to #6 Virginia before pulling one out on Sunday to salvage the home series. This turn of events drop us to 26 - 13 overall and 11 - 7 in ACC play. Granted we lost to teams ranked higher than us, but it’s time to start accepting the fact that we just aren’t as good as we were this time last year. We’re not playing poorly, a lot of other teams are just having outstanding seasons. You can’t win em all. I am impressed with our bullpen, after they were kind of written off at the beginning of the year. I think we should be happy with what we’ve got going on right now. We are consistently a top ranked team and we consistently send a players to the majors and farm leagues almost every year. I think Jack has done a great job with our program and it’s just so damned hard to hate him. We’ll win a CWS soon enough with him at the helm. Hey, at least the baseball season hasn’t turned into a disaster like the football season did… yet. This week we play five home games as follows:

Elon, Tuesday @ 7:15
South Carolina, Wednesday @ 7:15
Georgia Tech, Friday @ 7:15
Georgia Tech, Saturday @ 7:00
Georgia Tech, Sunday @ 2:00

- Our Men’s Track team came in second at the ACC Outdoor Track & Field Championships with 118 points. Florida State won it’s third straight ACC Championship with crazy mad score of 166.5 points… I think it’s safe to say they blew everyone else out of the water. On an interesting note, Boston College scored a four. FOUR POINTS. Should they even have a Track team??? I think that they should just pack it in and replace the team because that is just shameful. In individual notes, Jacoby Ford was disqualified in the 100m due to a false start while CJ Spiller was a 100m dash all-ACC performer. Travis Padgett continues to burn through free Nikes as he took home the ACC 100m dash title.

- I must send out apologies for my lack of posting. Chili has been carrying the blog on his back once again. Reason being, I had an allergic reaction to a drug with Sulfa in it that I was taking for a skin infection. Long story short, I got Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and nearly died. Yadda, yadda, yadda, saw the light, etc. Needless to say, Chili was ever vigilant during my hospital visits. In fact, when I finally came to, he was there by my bedside. You remember the scene from Rocky II? That’s EXACTLY how it played out. I told him to go “Win” and well, there was no fight… so, I think he broke doctor’s face in. I’m not sure. All I know is that this will be the last time I ever go through the doors of Redfern Health Center under my own free will.

I figured with our boys going through exams and training for the bowl game just around the corner, they could use a little motivation.

Willy Mac: rocky had no chance in that movie
Willy Mac: not only is he fighting a beast man russian, its a beast man russian on steroids
Chili: and a clemson alumn
Chili: so I just turned down an offer to coach at Alabama. they’re really getting desperate.