
People that know anything about me know that I have an obsession with sports, specifically the St. Louis Cardinals, Southern Miss, and Auburn athletics. I spent three years working as a student athletic trainer at Southern Miss and three years as a graduate assistant athletic trainer at Auburn. I still follow both programs regularly. Amy and I have tickets to Southern Miss home games, and try to go to at least one Auburn game a year. Well, what happened last night to Southern Miss really made me mad. In case you don't know, they lost a football game to UAB, 30-17. Now, UAB is a good university with a wonderful medical school. But they are not a football powerhouse. Never have been, never will be. They've only been playing football for about 15 years. Southern Miss had never lost to UAB in 9 previous games, and beat them 70-14 last season. I tend to overreact whenever one of the above mentioned teams lose (ask Amy), so I remained relatively calm last night. But I just can't get over the fact that we lost to UAB. That just should not happen. I know that it was a "trap" game, and probably the biggest game on UAB's schedule. But good teams are able to overcome this and still win. I'm not sure what will happen with the rest of the season, but playing like USM did last night just won't get it done. Hopefully the coaches and players will regroup and come out strong next week against Louisville. And, I have to give some credit to UAB. They were trounced by Texas A&M on Saturday and were able to bounce back.
On a more positive note, the baseball playoffs start next week, and the Cardinals are back in it. Hopefully they can recreate the magic of 2006 and go all the way. They definitely have the pitching, but I'm not sure about the hitting. Auburn is 4-0, and plays at Tennessee this weekend. Five years ago, when I was working at Auburn, we went into Neyland stadium and beat the Vols 34-10. That is one of my top 5 favorite games from being a football athletic trainer. I have never heard 100,000 plus people as quiet as they were that night. Hopefully Auburn can keep rolling and move to 5-0.