Quarterbacks in the NFL

Every week, I plan to write something about a player or subject I feel I should give my opinion about. I plan to talk about Alex Smith of the San Francisco 49ers.

If you love football, you know everything starts with the quarterback. Without the a calm, cool, and collected quarterback, you have instant mayhem from the beginning. They could mishandle the snap, hold the ball to long or throw an interception. I hope to unleash a secret to the public. It's not always their fault!

Now, I'd like to start with my teams current quarterback, Alex Smith. Smith was the number one overall draft pick in 2005. Smith was drafted out of the University of Utah and was a junior in college when he left. Smith left Utah with a 32-4 touchdown ratio and winning the Fiesta Bowl against the University of Pittsburgh.

Smith would appear in 9 games in his rookie year and put up okay stats with throwing for 875 yards a with one touchdown and 11 interceptions. The Niners finished 4-12.

2006 would be Smiths biggest year to date as he would throw for 2890 with 16 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. The team would finish 7-9

Being a huge 49er fan and seeing my team be so down for so long, I was excited to see Alex Smith finally take off and lead the Niners to the playoffs. It would be the oppposite.

2007 he would have a season ending injury against the Seahawks and in 2008, he would never strap up the pads due to a season ending injury in the offseason.

2009, Smith found himself on the bench. He entered the game against the Houston Texans and threw for three touchdowns and one interception. They would lose, but Smith is now the starting quarterback.

I feel Smith will do great for the niners. His rookie year, the entire team was terrible and were not very successful. Analysts and fans, I think are to harsh on Smith. He has only played 33 games and hasn't really been given the chance to excel in the NFL. He has had to deal with a new offensive coordinator every year he has been there and has gone through 2 different head coaches.

We as a fan base, need to give Smith another year or 2 before we start throwing him in the fire. Sure he has been hurt and makes mistakes. And sure he was the number one overall pick. We should remember though, he is still human.

X-Japan

Led Zeppelin? Black Sabbath? Deep Purple? These bands I just mentioned are bands that led the Heavy metal music that started in the late sixties. These bands paved the way for other Heavy metal bands. One band in particular is a band not from the states, but from somewhere foreign. That band is X-Japan.

X-Japan was formed in 1982 and hit the big times in 1989. They broke up in 1997. The band has gone through many line up changes and the only members that have been involved the entire time are the lead singer (Toshimitsu "Toshi" Deyama) and the drummer/pianist (Yoshiki Hayashi).

So I first heard of this band after playing Rock Band 2 with my brother. When we first played I.V. by X-Japan, I absolutely fell in love with how great every part of the song was. I liked the vocals, the drums, the bass and the guitar was totally sick. We did really well on the song and I always choose to play it whenever I can.

I.V. is one of their newer songs. They recorded the music video on October 22, 2007. All members of the band before the break up came to perform. The only member missing was their lead guitarist Hideto "Hide" Matsumoto. Hide passed away May 2, 1998.

With X-Japan being from Japan, it was hard to find their music on Itunes. I turned to YouTube and they didn't let me down. Every music I watched just made me like them more and more. My favorite song by them has to be "Rusty Nail". It's everything I look for in a song and it's just plain awesome to listen to music in a different language.

If your into music and listen to almost anything, I highly recommending listening to this band. You will definitely be blown away. And if your not, I'm sorry for misleading you:)

3 possibilities on who to do a story on

One of my old high school teachers

A teacher at LBCC

My old football middle school coach

One of the reporters for the Jefferson Review

Seth Godin

At a glance:

Who: Seth Godin

What: Presentation

When: February 2003

Why: For further understanding

About: How to be successful in promoting something.

Are you good? Very good? Well, if you answered yes to those questions, then you need to answer one more question. Are you, Remarkable?

Seth Godin is man with a head for business. He has the most popular marketing blog in the world and has written 10 books that have been translated in 20 different languages.

For more on Seth Godin, check out this site.
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/bio.asp

This is what Mary Kuntz of Business Week had to say about Seth Godin.

"Seth Godin may be the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age," Mary Kuntz wrote in Business Week nearly a decade ago. "Instead of widgets or car parts, he specializes in ideas -- usually, but not always, his own."

Godin starts with talking about a man named Otto Rohwedder. Rohwedder invented sliced bread. Godin notes that sliced bread at first was a failure. It was a failure because he did not get it spread out.

Godin goes on to say, “That people who can spread ideas, regardless of those ideas, win.”

Most Americans have a TV and watch that TV for x amount of hours. That’s the way companies try to get their idea out to the public.

A problem with newer brands trying to get their idea across is the fact that there are so many other products like it.

Godin gives an example about the medicine he chooses for himself. He talks about having used it numerous times and does not have time to look or try the other brands.

He makes the point though that if somebody wants to grab his attention, that that something has to be remarkable.

Godin give four examples for his reasoning of if something is remarkable, that it will be successful.

His first example was about the soymilk brand Silk. He says that what got people was at a supermarket, there would be lines of milk. What grabbed peoples attention was the Silk because it was the only one that was not “milk”.

He then talks about an artist who made a 40” dog out of bushes in New York. He says that even though you might not like it or care, but that you will notice it because it is remarkable.

The third example is about a man named Frank Gehry. He managed to change a museum to where everybody from around the world wanted to go see it.

He concludes his speech about a place called Soap Lake, Washington.

This place had a lake and people came to it, but activity has stopped. He says that at a meeting they were having, somebody suggested that they build a 50” lava lamp.

Godin finishes “I don’t know about you but if they build it, that’s where I am going to go.”

If you would like to watch the entire speech, click this link.

http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread.html

Alisa Miller

Have you had enough of foreign news? Well, according to one person, you haven't seen very much of it.

Alisa Miller, President and CEO of Public Radio International, gave a speech about foreign news in Monterrey, California in February 2008.

Miller would explain about what the biggest media coverages of 2007 were. They were about North Korea, the flooding in Indonesia and the IBCC news report on global warming.

She would go on and explain (with a map of different countries) that most coverage was taking place in the United States. Iraq was a close second with 21 percent and countries like China and Russia made up the 1 percent.

In a country like Africa, Miller would state that having no network news in a place as big as Africa is something that shouldn't happen.

There is a 50 percent decrease in the the Foreign Bureaus . Miller would go on to say "why todays college graduates and less educated Americans know less about the world then there counterparts 20 years ago."

Other matters she brings up is that news go for cheaper news then what actually matters. She ends with "I know we can do better and we can afford not to."

Bulldogs run over Lion's

Who: Jefferson Lions (2-5)vs. Creswell Bulldogs (2-5)
Score: Creswell 57, Jefferson 28
When: Friday, Oct. 16
Where: Jefferson High School
Why: Battle for Pacwest league placing


Friday's game turned out to be a long one, especially for the Lions as they could not stop the running of Creswell, which defeated Jefferson 57-28.

This would mark the seventh game of the season for the Jefferson Lions (2-5). They would take on the Bulldogs of Creswell (2-4). This would be a PacWest game and would play a factor in league placing.

Creswell would have the ball the majority of the time throughout the whole game. Especially in the fourth, when they held the ball for 10 minutes.

"They were a smash-mouth team and we just couldn't stop them," Coach David Bailey said.

That would prove to be their nail in the coffin as they would lose 57-28.

The first half was basically a shoot out with Creswell scoring 50 and Jefferson scoring 20.

Things would slow down in the second half as the Bulldogs only scored 7 and Jefferson only scoring 8.

"It's hard to score when you don't have the ball," Bailey said. "We were on the verge of scoring in the fourth, but we had a turnover and they kept the ball basically for the rest of the game." Creswell rushed for over 300 yards in the game.

One run in particular summed up how bad the run defense of Jefferson was. Creswell would score on a long run play only to have that play taken back due to a penalty. The next play, Creswell did it again this time adding 15 more yards to the run.

This has been one of the biggest problems with the Lions throughout the season. The smash-mouth teams are taking advantage of the Lions inability to stop the run.

Some of those problems could be due to the experience and age of the players he has.

“We need to just win some of the 1-1 battles,” Bailey stated. “We just need to get back to the fundamentals which are blocking, tackling and catching the ball.”

There were a couple of bright spots in the game. Alex Ortiz threw for 330 yards with four touchdowns with only two picks.

With the playoffs coming soon, the Lions feel that next weeks game against Harrisburg is a must have if they want to make it to playoffs.

“We can make playoffs,” Senior Alex Ortiz said. “We just need to continue working on our offense and defense.”

The Lions also made a move that Bailey feels like they should’ve made earlier. Senior Ryan Montgomery is being moved to the receiver position instead of playing running back.

“I just do what coach tells me to do,” Montgomery said.
To build team unity and to show their devotion, the Lions meet on Saturday and sold tickets for a raffle and watched game film.

“I think it was good for us to see who was devoted and serious about making the playoffs,” Montgomery added. “It’s just good for the team and it’s something we’ve never really done.”

The Lions next game is against PacWest foe Harrisburg at Harrisburg. Game time is 7:00 and it is on Friday, Oct. 19.

"Zombies in Plain English"

This Halloween, don't expect the cutesy kids walking around asking for candy. This Halloween, expect dum dum duuuuummmmmmm, zombie attacks.

"This Halloween is foretasted to have high zombie attacks," Lee "living dead" LeFever said. He does comfort us by saying, "We're here to help you survive."

The first thing you need to do is identify the zombie. Zombies should be easy to detect as they will have an unnatural face with there body be twisted into different shapes.

Their skin is also gray and they will have red eyes.

There will be pretenders dressed up as zombies this Halloween. LeFever states that if they eat candy and/or are dancing with Micheal Jackson, then they are not a zombie.

Most people brains have two responses when they see a threatening things coming at them. Fight or Flight.

If your of the flight variety, make sure to run to a Costco instead of a business building or your home. This is mainly due to having enough resources at hand.

If your of the going down swinging type of person, make sure to know what zombies can and can't do.

Zombies are surprisingly fast so don't under estimate them. Also, if you live in the colder part of the world, zombies are slowed down by the cold.

Now, the final step to the fight is killing the zombies.

Anyway that you can take the head off of the zombie will always be your best option.

LeFever suggests Large caliber bullets and then go in for the decapitation of the head with either a machete, a chain-saw or an ax.

He puts emphasis on being careful when using napalm because a zombie that is on fire is just as dangerous as a zombie that isn't on fire.

For more tips on how to survive, check out these sites.

http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-survive-a-zombie-attack
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zombies+in+plain+english&search_type=&aq=0&oq=zombies+in+pla

Event Happening

Jefferson High School football game

The head coach

Some players

Some fans

Who they played?
What was the score?
When it was played?
Where they played?
Why they played?

Games

Oregon has a bye. Cougars play San Diego State University. Niners also have a bye.

Interview with Eve Bruntlett

Friday, October 9 was the day I was given the chance to interview somebody in my class. That somebody was........... Eve Bruntlett.

Eve Bruntlett was born in Corvallis, Oregon. She has had a great start as a student. She graduated High School at the age of 16. Bruntlett was home schooled for 4 years. She has been attending LBCC for the past three years.

"I chose LBCC because my parents didn't want me to move away because I was only 16 years old," Bruntlett said.

Bruntlett plans to further her education at the LA institute of fine art.

Bruntlett likes most things. When it comes down to it, she really likes the simple things.

"I like colors," Bruntlett commented. "Anything with colors like flowers." She also likes any types of art and loves to draw.

Eve doesn't have much dislikes. "I really don't like ignorant people," she said with a smile. "I also really don't like anything right-handed because I'm left-handed." She also really doesn't like florescent lights.

When it comes to food, Bruntlett mostly likes her fruits and veggies. She likes her cucumbers and apples. Also, a surprise that even I didn't expect.

"I'd take an apple over ice-cream," Bruntlett said.

There is a first time for everything I guess.

49ers, Cougars and Ducks

They all won during the weekend.

LBCC athletics program

At a glance:

What: LBCC athletics program

For Schedules: Check out http://www.linnbenton.edu/go/athletics

Sports: Volleyball, Mens and Womens Basketball, Baseball

Conference: NWAACC- Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges

Who to contact: Athletic Director Jim Bell @ (541) 917-4547.

“They’re tight," Ryan Taylor said. “The atmosphere is great," Bram Davidson piped in.

These are what some students are saying about LBCC’s athletics program.

LBCC is one of 35 schools in the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges (NWAACC). For more information on the conference, check out this link. http://www.nwaacc.org The schools involved in the NWAACC community colleges in Oregon and Washington. LBCC currently competes in four sports. These sports are:

(Fall): Volleyball

(Winter): Mens and Womens Basketball

(Spring): Baseball

Jim Bell is the athletic director at LBCC. He also teaches geography and anthropology.

In the past, the LBCC sports program had had six sports in its history.

“Track and wrestling just kind of fell to the way-side," Bell said. “Just due to budget problems, they had to be cut.”

The sports program here at LBCC has had great participation. Of course, it takes some pocket change to be able to support an athletic team. One of the requirements of being on the sports team is to be a full-time student.

“Since students have to take a minimum of 12 credits to be considered full-time, the students just kind of pay for it”, Bell said with a smile.

In addition, when referring to the players on the teams, Bell likes to think of them as student athletes instead of just athletes.

Another great thing about the LBCC athletics program is how the players get involved with the community and to with the other sports teams.

“It’s great when at a home game that the other sport teams come and support the home team," Bell said.

Something that gets the athletes involved in the community is a canned food drive the basketball teams do.

This started last February and they got great support. Bell plans to continue this for a long time to come.

Also, don't be surprised to see a couple new sports in the future.

"I have been pitching for a boys and girls soccer team for the last three years," Bell said. "I will continue to pitch it and hopefully it will fall through sometime."