Author Archives: Andy Boyer

A Story For Those of You Who Gutted Out Time at the End of the Bench

Posted by Andy Boyer in Creative Writing, Favorites, Personal, Sports

If you’ve had conversation with me lately, you’ve probably had to hear me tell the tale of Niki, the Senior JV player who got called up to varsity for the last game of her senior year for Senior Night, and got in a fun 15 minutes of play at the end.

Well, the story gets better.  Here’s a story from the Seattle Times from last night’s Girls High School State Tournament:

Defending Champs Skyline Advances | Girls 4A State Soccer

SAMMAMISH — Fresh off its ascent to the No. 1 spot in the nation, top-ranked Skyline immediately went out and validated that status.

Emphatically.

Two quick first-half goals and stout defense propelled the Spartans one step closer to their third consecutive Class 4A state championship with a 5-0 win over Mount Rainier in Tuesday’s first round of the state playoffs at Skyline High School.

Junior forward Michelle Bretl scored her first high-school hat trick and has four goals in the postseason for Skyline (17-0). She leads the team with 15 goals this season.

The Spartans’ depth showed, as well. Reserve Niki Gerlach, a senior playing in her second varsity match after a last-minute roster switch when Nicole Candioglos came up ill, booted in a rebound shot in the 78th minute. Gerlach, listed on the roster as a team manager, had been playing on the junior varsity.

“With Niki, it’s kind of a fun story,” said Skyline coach Don Braman. “On Senior Night, she had an assist and nearly scored a goal and was kicking herself, so it was fun to see her stick one in the net. She has worked hard.”

….

If you’ve ever sat on the sidelines and wondered why you are putting in all that effort for no guaranteed payout, this should remind you.

My Annual Stupid Idea for College Football

Posted by Andy Boyer in Sports

So I’ve seen way more college football than I expected to this year.  In addition to more Husky games than usual, accompanying a graduating senior on some college tours gave me the chance to catch games at WSU and Oregon.  A few quick notes:

  • Oregon fans – You have a cute little minor league stadium, in a cute little minor league town, with a team full of players who are a step away from prison, and a ga-billionaire benefactor who is willing to fund underwater treadmills and have his own little real-life fantasy football team.  Feel free to show a modicum of class and act like you’ve been there before.  You’ve had a good 15 year run, but no national championships.  Unless you actually work at Nike or helped recruit a kid from Houston Junior College, show a little dignity.  Oh, and to the guy in Sec 29, row 24, seat 14 – find a rule book.  
  • Oregon State Fans – How on earth have you guys not showed up at Adidas with a whiteboard and video projector to convince them to go pound for pound against the Nike money in Duck Country?  For that matter, where are you UW?  No one can convince Adidas that it would be a good thing to undercut Oregon?
  • WSU fans – God I hope revenue sharing works in your favor.  Otherwise, I just don’t see how you compete in the Pac-10 much longer.
  • UW fans – I never realized how bad Husky Stadium was.  Take away the view and it’s the worst spot in the Pac-10.  Your renovation is well-deserved.  And I hope it turns out nicer than Oregon’s little stadium with the huge pressbox.

Anyway, every year I throw out a stupid idea for the BCS, and this year I’m early.  I’ve shifted my opinions some for a simple reason.  College Presidents love the Bowl system.  Think about it.  If you are the President of Penn State, every year your team will make SOME bowl.  And for 2 weeks in the middle of cold-ass December/January, instead of being bunked up in Happy Valley, you get an all expense paid vacation to someplace warm.  For 2 weeks, you and your 100 closest friends get to live the high life in a place that isn’t under 12 feet of snow.  Why on earth would you ever give that up for a playoff system?

So my focus this year is not on the BCS schools.  It’s on the non-BCS conferences that always feel screwed.  Here’s what I say to you.

You need to be flexible.  And you need a “Champions” League.

If you want a National Championship shot, you need to make sure all your top teams have a harder schedule.  But the big guys won’t play you.  So you need to get creative.

All of you non BCS conferences need to split into 6 team mini-conferences for football.  So you play 5 “conference games.”  Then, all the top non-BCS conference teams roll into a 7 team “Champions League.”  So your schedule looks like this:

  • 1 game non conference – Try to get a BCS team on your schedule.
  • 5 game Conference schedule.
  • 6 game Champions league (or non-Champions League) schedule.

Why do this?  Well here would be the 7 team gauntlet for the non-BCS Champions League if we implemented that today: 

  • TCU (10-0)
  • Boise ST (10-0)
  • Utah (8-1)
  • UCF (7-2)
  • Houston (5-4)
  • Temple (8-2)
  • Northern Ill (7-2)

Now tell me that if Boise St or TCU runs the table with all the best teams from all the best non-BCS conferences, that they don’t deserve a spot in the Big Show?

Anyway, that’s this year’s dumb idea.

Support Prostate Cancer Awareness with “Mo-vember”

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

Sometimes over here at AndyBoyer.com, we get to turn our pages over to someone else, espcially if they have a compelling story to tell.  So, we’re handing the content reigns over to our friend Luke Lawson, with a special article about Mo-vember.

—

What is Movember you ask? No, it’s not a political site or get out the vote pledge. While both are great motivators to visit the Movember site (and I encourage you all to vote Nov. 2nd!) Movember’s purpose “is to change the face of men’s health”.  How and why you might ask? Please read on! Taken from a great recent article written by Dan Zenka, Vice President of Communications for the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF).

In ten countries around the globe, men will soon be letting their hair out to support awareness and raise crucial funds for finding better treatments and cures for this disease that affects more than 16 million men and families around the world. Since 2004, Mo’ bros and Mo’ sistas have raised more than $40 million dollars to support research for men’s diseases. What’s more, in the U.S. they are changing the way prostate cancer is viewed.  The Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG are the beneficiaries of Movember efforts in the States. In its first three years in the U.S., Movember raised $2.3 million to support prostate cancer research through PCF. This year’s goal is $2 million. That’s a whole lotta mo’s and mo’ola.

Literally and figuratively, Movember is definitely living up to it tagline: Changing the Face of Men’s Health. The teaching moment starts the moment anyone asks a participant, “What’s that on your face?”

The annual Movember campaign is fun, quirky and purposeful. It’s also proof that one should never be too quick to dismiss a good idea that might arise on a weekend afternoon while having a few beers with your mates. Interested? More information on Movember can be found at www.Movember.com.“

For me, it’s personal. I lost my father to Prostate Cancer when he was only 51. That’s too young. My father stood a near 100% chance of being cured had he gone in for a check up earlier in life. If growing a mustache for a month or, posting to my Facebook page, or continuing to fund cancer research, or writing this email helps just one person- I will be satisfied. Please consider joining me and/or my team “El Bigote” (the mustache) at: http://us.movember.com/mospace/534202/  make a donation or help spread the word further by directing your friends and family to the site. You don’t have to grow a mustache to join (or donate) and we need Mo’ sistas just as much as Mo’ bros!

Thank you for your time,

Luke

Busy Seattle Technology Marketing Week

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Seattle, Social Media

If you’re in technology marketing and advertising, this is going to be a busy week.

Tuesday: Social Media Club October Event “Building Ambassadors Using Social Media” at The Canal in Ballard, 5300 34th Ave NW, Seattle, WA 98107 (6-9pm)

Wednesday: TechFlash Meetup at Spitfire Grill, 2219 4th Avenue Seattle, WA (5-8pm)

Thursday: NWIAG.com October Event at Havana’s Social, 1010 E. Pike St, Seattle, WA 98122.  (5-9pm)

See you all there.

Excellent Article on Parity in the MLS

Posted by Andy Boyer in Soccer

I was going to sit down and do a quick comparison like I did last year, comparing the records of the teams in the MLS to the teams in England.  If I remember right, the last year the EPL had a huge spread between the best and worst teams, while the MLS clubs were really pretty closely bunched together.  

But before I spend time doing that, you should read this excellent article by Jeremiah Oshan at SBNation.com.  It’s one of the better researched and more interesting sports articles I’ve read in a while.

Incumbent Invisibility

Posted by Andy Boyer in Politics

I’m not a big fan of paper.  I don’t like direct mail, flyers, and god forbid a company puts something on my windshield.

So, as I walked to my front door the other day, I was startled to see the 3 – count ’em 3 – flyers placed at eye level, shoved into the crack of my front door.  Was it from another overzealous landscaper? Perhaps a local neighborhood insurance guy?

No, I was blessed with three new pieces of literature from Patty Murray.

Now, I’m no Patty Murray hater.  And I know it’s election season and the “book” says to canvas liberal neighborhoods like Wallingford and make sure each one of the residents has talking points and material to share in the office.  I get the whole thing.  And there’s nothing wrong with candidates employing 1984 marketing tactics.  Most of these folks, including Murray, are politicians not business majors.

From the headline of the collateral, which was the only thing I read, I learned that these flyers were going to tell me about all of the reasons to vote for Murray.  But something suddenly sprang to mind in my head.  

After 18 years in the Senate, shouldn’t everyone in Washington be able to name 18 things Patty Murray has done?  Heck, let’s say she accomplished ONE thing every TWO years.  Shouldn’t I be able to name 9 things?  5? I’m pretty well educated, I listen to KIRO 97.3 and both the right wing and left wing AM stations.  I should be able to rattle off a litany of things she’s done, right? After all, I can tell you 10 things Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln have done, so why not Murray? 

It suddenly made the idea of Incumbent Marketing so ludicrous.  Think about other product purchases you might make every 2-6 years: cars, vacations, furniture, computers, etc… Each time, you can explain in pretty uncertain terms the benefits and weaknesses of the product you chose.  Shouldn’t it be the same with politicians?  Isn’t an incumbent’s NEED to market with door spam a pretty telling story about how much she grabbed my attention the other 17.9 years she’s been in business?  It just made me wonder.

Pics of Nick Foles Injury

Posted by Andy Boyer in Sports

I happened to be shooting pics at the UA/WSU game this weekend, on the exact play Nick Foles had his knee rolled over. When you zoom in on them, you see it unfold frame by frame.

Watch the left side of the defensive line. One of the lineman loses balance, and then seems to dive and roll directly into the knee. You can see Arizona’s #6 start on top and cut across the field making the pass reception. He’s already turning to run upfield by the time Foles gets hit.