Many of us are soccer fans here at TOC, as evidenced by our live blogs of the 2010 World Cup along with Bless You Boys. My girlfriend and I were watching it in an Irish bar in Chicago (a real Irish bar run by real Irishmen mind you), going through the ups (own goal WOO), downs (red card BOO), more downs (refs BOO), and two final exhilarating ups (goal and penalty kicks WOOOOOOOOOOOO). The USWNT play France at 11:30 (espn3.com has it if you're at work), and you can use this space to comment on the match if you so desire.
The next battle in the Favorite Spartan Athlete Bracket involves two cagers -- Shawn Respert and Antonio Smith. While Respert is MSU's all-time leading scorer, I have a feeling some of you will vote for 'Tone due to his hard-nosed play and general nostalgia. You can't go wrong either way, and as always, vote or die y'all.
Links? We've got a few:
Wood gets another shot at Michigan State - College Basketball - Rivals.com A nice article detailing how Brandon Wood made it from Southern Illinois to Valparaiso to Michigan State. "Brandon Wood once played for Valparaiso" is one of the favorites to be the "Drew Neitzel is ambidextrous" or "Matt Trannon plays football" of the 2011-2012 season, with "Draymond Green played in the Spring game" and "Delvon Roe acts" being good bets as well.
Goin' Green: MSU stadium gets a facelift after U2 show | Lansing State Journal | lansingstatejournal.com Pictures of Spartan Stadium being sodded, and why the grass had to be grown in Colorado instead at MSU.
Achtung -- long post - LSJ Blogs: Hey, Joe Rexrode's back! Joe recaps the last few weeks of news, and there's not much new except that Joe Tate earned a promotion to 1st Lieutenant. Congratulations Mr. Tate, and stay safe in Afghanistan.
College Sports | WMU hockey to follow Notre Dame's lead in search for new conference | The Detroit News As expected, the formation of a Big Ten hockey conference has thrown everything in disarray. Brian knows more about this than we do, and he predicts how the conferences might sort out here.
Keith Appling ready for larger role at MSU - College Basketball Nation Blog - ESPN Appling didn't get a great share of time in Latvia, but it still sounds like he was able to gain some valuable experience. He also talks a bit on last year's disappointment and how the team will try and avoid it this year.
State of college sports perturbs Tom Izzo - College Basketball Nation Blog - ESPN When a coach can't even talk to his players in the summer yet he still is held somewhat accountable for their actions, something's a bit off.
MLive.com is looking for a Michigan State Spartans blogger | MLive.com It could be YOU! It's a paid position, and hopefully some enterprising commenter here will make a run at this position.