He has tremendous upside.

Get ready to hear that sentence repeated time and time again this weekend as the NFL Draft is quickly closing in. This is Mel Kiper's Super Bowl as for this weekend 40 times, shuttle cone drills, vertical leaps and other physical attributes become more important than how someone plays football. The NFL are actually much better evaluators of talent than the NBA (the word of the month of June is "potential). These characteristics are important, but if you can play, know how to play and know how to win, that's more important in my book than if you benched 225 pounds 2 more times than the other guy. But, as I said earlier, this is a welcome distraction from baseball boredom and I'm looking forward to it. I just don't want to hear the words, "The Chicago Bears select Cadillac Williams from Auburn University." A running back or wide receiver, preferably Ronnie Brown/Braylon Edwards. I'd be happy with Mike Williams, I'd be ok with Cedric Benson.

Anyway, what else is going on:

• Last night, I joined up with some friends and went to the Reds/Pirates game. We got some club level tickets off the street for $15 each ($50 face value). It was nice, let me tell ya. We had food orders taken for us, we were right behind home plate and it was a beautiful evening, couldn't beat it. I don't mind going to baseball games, it's fun to chill and be outside. It just doesn't make me jump out of my seat like Illinois's comeback vs. Arizona, Ted Ginn's Alamo Bowl run, or Tiger Woods chip. Baseball lacks that sense of urgency that is present in other sports, and I love feeling the sense of urgency when I'm watching a game.
• Tonight's Reality TV recap begins with Janu's quitting Survivor, allowing Stephenie to stay alive. Here's a question: Why do you give up a 1 in 8 shot of winning a million dollars??? Did Janu already have her own tv show/book deal lined up??? I'm not a big fan of people like that, people who say "I'm satisfied" when they realistically could've done more. If you give it everything you've got and there's nothing else you can do, then you can say, "I'm satisfied." But she was going to be kept in the game, Stephenie was gone, but she still quit. Stephenie did a good job of persuading her, evidenced by the little look she gave Coby afterwards. You've gotta do what you gotta do. She lives, what else can you say. The other three girls are deadweight, they really don't deserve to win.
• We're down to the Final 4 in the Apprentice after Bren got the can. Again, Alex and Bren got taken to school in how you meet the consumer's needs. The boys didn't go meet with the Staples people, then Bren didn't know how to form a focus group. You think they would've learned by now. It's going to be tough for Alex to beat Craig, Tana, and Kendra, who are all 2-0 as project managers I believe. Craig is sneaky smart. He's not very communicative, but he's very calculating and shrewd.

Along with the NFL Draft this weekend, I've got some old friends coming back to Oxford this weekend, specifically from our Symmes Shady staff of a couple of years ago. In honor of that, here are some grand RA stories:

• Reid Hall, Spring 2002, Staff Development. The idea of a Staff Development is to go somewhere and learn something. Well, we didn't really feel like learning anything that night, so after dinner at T.G.I Friday's we went and saw "The Sweetest Thing" featuring Cameron Diaz. You had to have been there to enjoy it as much as we did. That movie holds a special place in my heart.
• Symmes Hall, 2003. Oh goodness, after this semester you would've thought I was a communist RA, writing people up left and right for underage drinking. But, it took longer than usual for the residents to wise up and not get caught. There was the night we had our "hat-trick", 3 alcohol writeups involving more than 80 cans of beer. I made two trips to the hospital. One night, I decided to take a bullhorn on duty and scare everyone. It was a good time. There was the night we went to 105 W. Central's 80s party and Mackenzie, drunk, had her head out the window, yelling as we went by a cop. In addition, the high school kid walking, or more like wobbling down the hall and into the girls' bathroom while holding a bottle of Bud Light. When asked why he was holding the bottle of Bud Light, he replied "I'm just holding it, this is my Bud Light, you can't take it away from me."
  
• Emerson Hall, 2004. Ahhh, my Pit boys, a great bunch of guys. Let's see, we played mud football and I let them make a mess of the 1st floor, getting mud everywhere. But they showered and cleaned it up, so it was all good. We had our bonding moment. There were the nights at McDonalds when Beth became obsessed with my enunciation of the word, "luscious". Then there was the drag race to Columbus for Rent, and on the way Katie Dutton decides to stop in the exit ramp in downtown Columbus, on the interstate. That same day, I decided to dance in a downtown parking lot as we waited for some parent to pick up their kid, so it was my way of relieving stress. Then, that same night, I was caught dancing to some song while I was driving by another resident. There was also the slaying of the stuffed dolphin that got the stuffing everywhere and yours truly had to clean it up. And finally, there was one of my guys, passed out on the basement couch, who once walking back to his room, started rapping out of nowhere. Another one that you had to be there for.

If anyone knows of any other good stories I've left out, please let me know, this is all the memory can conjure up as of now.