Intro

Welcome to my blog.  I am an avid sports fan who fancies himself an amateur writer.  I’ve had many half-baked ideas for books over the past few years but have never actually taken the leap to putting something out there.  That is why I’ve finally decided to take some initiative and find a creative outlet for all my thoughts.  If nothing else, this will save the inboxes of all my family and friends who I incessantly email or text before, during, and after important games.  So you’re all welcome for that. 

This blog will be focused on Syracuse Basketball, but I make no promises that it will not veer off the tracks many times over the course of the season.  There may be entire posts that have nothing to do with Syracuse basketball.  Other interests of mine include the Buffalo Bills (sadly), Atlanta Braves, cooking, general trivia, and Denzel (both my dog and the actor).  And there certainly will be random unrelated rants within my posts about Syracuse.  I write the way I think, which is to say I take three times longer than necessary to get to the point, but hopefully I make it fun for you on the way there. 

Having spent my entire life in Upstate New York and forming an unusually strong passion for college basketball at an early age, it is natural that Syracuse has become my favorite team.  What is not natural is how strongly they dominate my train of thought year round, but especially from October to March (and hopefully April).  My wife is a fan as well, but even she has been forced to perfect the “glazed over, nodding her head, I can’t believe he still has more to say about this team…” look over the past couple years.

I've probably been asked if I went to Syracuse about 7,325,043,189 times over the years due to the number of Syracuse hoodies, t-shirts, and hats I wear throughout the year.  But at least that makes it easy on my family and friends when they are at a loss for birthday or Christmas present ideas.

I’m extremely superstitious.  I have switched seats, stood for entire halves, politely asked roommates to leave the room (ok, more like yelled), and worn the same shirt during each game for the last five years, all in the name of helping Syracuse win.

When the team lost to Oklahoma in the Sweet 16 a few years ago, I had been at a charity dinner-auction.  When I got home and flipped on the DVR, I was devastated as I watched Blake Griffin devastate our defense.  I knew that, surely, if I had been watching it live Blake would have blown out his knee on his first dunk attempt and we would have coasted into the Elite Eight (Turns out he only needed to be drafted by the Clippers for that to happen). 

I’m not old enough to remember Keith Smart’s jumper (my nine-month old memory was not as sharp as the current one), but I hate him anyways.  When Kentucky beat us in 1996, it sent me to bed crying.  And only 15% percent of that was because I was overtired from staying up wayyyy past my bedtime.  I still hate all of them and that program to this day, never mind that they were heavily favored.  Especially you Tony Delk.  Damn you and your G-Mac like performance from 3-point range. 

Kansas, on the other hand, is a blue-blood program I can get behind.  I will forever be grateful to them for studying Syracuse’s free-throw shooting technique before the big game in 2003 and aiding us in our quest to give Jimmy B his one and only national title. 

And that is where we come to the title of this blog.  I wanted to pay homage to the 2003 team in some way, and what better way to do that than to name it after our favorite whipping boy from that team, Craig Forth.  I’m not sure if he’s the best big white stiff to ever man the middle for a national title winner, but he’s our big white stiff and that’s all that matters.

So with that introduction out of the way, I’ll send you on your merry way.  Hopefully you enjoyed what you have read so far and are interested in coming back for more.  I make no promises about how regularly I will post, but I am going to try to post a few preview pieces over the next couple weeks in the run up to the Battle of the Midway, and then I'm sure the posts will become much more frequent as I have actual games to react to.  Check back regularly and enjoy!