Byrnes Tournament

Oh-fer

This weekend at the prestigious Byrnes Soccer Tournament things didn't go quite as planned for your beloved Razorbacks. Our first game vs. Blue Ridge, who we beat 4-1 last season at the Mauldin Cup, was scheduled for 8:30 p.m, already a late start time, but didn't actually kick off till 9:30 when temperatures had dropped from "cold" to "I can't feel my feet" celsius. Our attack was so pedestrian that due to lack of movement by their keeper, a blow torch had to be used to unstick him from the spot he found himself frozen to by the time the final whistle blew. Good thing we never got anything going because he was standing on the 18, all blue-lipped, waving his arms and pointing at his feet with still 15 minutes left in the game. That is just how brain-dead we were. Their keeper, frozen to the ground 18 yards from his own goal, and we couldn't even get close enough to chip one into the old onion bag. The final proof of how slushy our brains had become came when Henley Cothran threw out the old "double-dog dare" to his buddy Thad Estes on their way off the field. The whole crowd gathered around in silence while Esto poured hot coffee on his son's tongue to unstick it from the frozen goal post. Well, at least one of us tasted goal.

After Estocrates and I played a long game of "What if?" - as in, "What if we had Leo Messi on the wing, and Sergio Ramos at right back? And what if we could get Kaka and Ronaldo on loan from Real Madrid? etc. etc, we arrived in darkness back in Walhalla, scattered out into the woods to relieve ourselves, got the trash off the bus, got back on and headed back to Duncan. This was not a hugely popular decision but what else could we do? We had to be back on the pitch in two hours and we had an hour and a half drive. I've never been one for conspiracy theories, but something was definitely starting to smell fishy. I wondered, as I sat in the darkness marinating in the aroma of 16 unshowered soccer players, if we would ever be free from the nefarious clutches of OSLAP (Operation Squeel Like a Pig)(Refer to one of the earlier posts if you aren't familiar with it.)?

Our morning match was against a very good Eastside High team, but we came out in the first 15 minutes or so with some very nice stuff and actually got our only goal of the tournament off of a free kick, which we played quickly to Ovi Lopez who ripped a shot from the left side of the box into the back of the net. At half-time we were up 1-0. However, the No-doze wore off midway through the second half, and just as we were entering that all-important R.E.M. phase of sleep the final whistle blew with Eastside claiming a 2-1 victory. Could have been more, but since Joel Putnam, our lanky keeper, is prone to sleep walking, he actually entered his own dream physically, which happened to be the game we were playing, and made some unconscious saves. Thanks for keeping it respectable dude.

After a good hardy meal and a few large handfuls of gel on the hair, the hogs were ready to play again. Yes, we played Eastside totally gel-less, which is probably why we couldn't string more than 2 passes together at a time. We just didn't recognize each other. We finally came alive in the second half of our final match vs. Wade Hampton after much shifting of the line up and actually dominated the possession even though the final score of 3-0 did not reflect it. So out of 6 halves of soccer we played one good one. Hopefully we'll be able to build off of it and improve from here.

We'll be in Abbeville at 6:00 on the 18th, where hopefully we'll get our mojo back.

j

Walhalla 2, Seneca 0

Last Friday night in part one of three clashes with neighboring rival Seneca, your Walhalla Razorbacks came out on top 2 - 0 in a game that hopefully will be a preview of the dazzling brand of soccer the pigs are capable of playing. Apart from a 10 minute segment midway into the second half when several of our boys had to take a break to put a little more gel into their wind-ruffled fohawks, the Razorbacks set spark to the Bobcats windtunnel of a field which rose into a billowing blaze by the time the closing whistle sounded. Though the late February temperature by gametime was cold enough to make even Janet Reno seem hot, the sound of crickets could be heard in the winter silence as the Seneca faithful in the stands sat in muffled awe while their boys ran around like beheaded chickens. Eli Cothran started the scoring in the 15 minute with a powerful finish in front of net off a Walhalla corner kick. The scoring was then capped off with another great finish right in front of goal by Ovi Espino in the 68th minute. Though just a friendly, the game was played with the high intensity we have come to expect from the rivals, both of whom have high expectations for their respective clubs this season.

The two teams will meet twice more this season on March 23rd at 7:00, and on March 31st at 7:00 as well. If Friday's scrimmage is any indication of the kind of nights those will be, you won't want to miss any of the action.

This weekend, the Razorbacks will travel to Duncan, South Carolina to take part in the annual pre-season tournament hosted by Byrnes High School. We will be playing at 8:30 Friday night against Blue Ridge High School and at 9:30 the following morning against Eastside. The winners of each bracket will then play in a championship match at a time to be announced later. If you love Walhalla soccer, don't miss out on a great chance to come and cheer us on.

j

Walhalla v. Christ Church Scrimmage 3-3

Proverbial Monkey Evolution

The common monkey found in the woods of the Blue Ridge, known in scientific circles as monkus appalachia, is a pesky little fella with a real penchant for mischief. Mischief not necessarily of the Curious George variety. When he finds a good perch he tends to do anything in his power to keep that spot for himself and for his future generations of monkeys. Unfortunately the perch they often choose is the back of an animal passing beneath a tree onto which they will jump and begin a parasitic relationship that almost always ends in the death of their host. Beastly little things really!

As a young girl, my beautiful wife, Lindsay, used to hike these woods with her family. She was taken in by the variety of nature all around her and was careful to pay attention to whatever gift the forest might offer up for her senses at any given time. One thing that she wished she never saw though, and which has haunted her dreams like a hockey-masked ax-murderer to this very day, is the sight of a huge, wild black boar-hog staggering like a drunk man through the trees with what appeared to be a small monkey straddling his powerful neck, and speaking into his ear. The monkey's expression has been forever etched onto the canvas of her mind. She almost never sees it without the banjo duel in "Deliverance" playing sweetly in the background. As much as the monkey's relationship to the wild boar was parasitic, the song and the monkey's half-wit, inbred expression, are hauntingly symbiotic, mutually benefiting each other like the oxpecker (a bird) and the zebra for the permanent habitation of a small cavern in Lindsay's mind.

We all know now that it is a "fact" that animals have evolved a common tongue in which they can speak to each other, and that they have begun to build a tower that Darwinists commonly refer to as the "tower of anibabel" located in a little known region in the mountains of Ecuador. We also know, because of extensive "research" done over many years that it is an unimpeachable "fact" that Monkus Appalachia attaches itself to a wild boar for the simple reason that it wants a joy-ride through the woods. The real kicker though, is that it is also a "scientific fact" that at the end of the joy-ride 92% of pigs die from "lack of self-esteem syndrome (LESIS)." This can be treated with a plethora of new and amazing drugs being developed and advertised ad nauseum between each segment of the nightly news with Brian Williams, if the pig is treated within a mere hour after he lies down to wait for the great buzzard (the animal version of the grim reaper) in the sky to take him away. Using a new technique for decoding the final thought that an animal is thinking before it dies, it has been "confirmed" that in 92 of the 100 cases of "pig-death-by-monkey" studied, the last thought that crossed the pigs complex brain is, "I'll never be a wild animal." So Lindsay, now that we know what that monkey was whispering, maybe we can get you some help.

For the last 8 months your beloved, wild razorbacks have been staggering through the proverbial woods with several proverbial monkeys attached squarely to their collective proverbial shoulders. I wonder if I should call Guinness and tell them I've used "proverbial" in a sentence more times than any other human in history? Maybe later. We're talking monkeys now. Darwin said, "it takes time for evolution to work its magic." In the case of most of evolution, like the small pig-like animal that evolved into the modern elephant, about 400 billion years - give or take a few hundred years here or there. But Darwin didn't think about "proverbial evolution" because Freud wasn't around yet to let him know anything about psychoanalysis or any of that stuff. Recent studies though, show that the "proverbial evolution," specifically, the change in species from monkey to gorilla, only takes at the most, 3.5 years. So now we get some clue as to why Pickens High School and the Alumni (hired assassins) were merely monkeys on our necks going for a little joy-ride while Christ Church had become a gorilla doing Chinese water torture on us while sitting atop our finely chiseled bellies. Do the math. It's been less than 3.5 years since our last victory over the first two teams, while at the same time going over 3.5 years since last beating Christ Church.

So, while getting the proverbial monkeys and the huge gorilla off of our backs and bellies in beating Pickens, mentally destroying the Alumni, and not losing to Christ Church, we also inadvertently proved the great Howard Cosell's revolutionary theory of "proverbial evolution," which is in my humble, uneducated opinion, much more probable than actual "Darwinian evolution." Because we have the facts to prove it... Right?!

The only draw back of getting a thousand pound Gorilla off of our bellies onto our own turf the other night is that... what are you going to do with a huge gorilla in Walhalla? We only get carnies in here once a year. We'd have to feed him and keep him housed. Christ Church couldn't fit him onto either of the special "short buses" they commandeered from one of the "special" programs at the private school in order to get him back to the zoo they stole him from. So I guess we could use him as our mascot and dress him up like a pig. I don't think we play against any Gorilla-pigs. No I actually don't think anyone has chosen that mascot for their school yet. The Walhalla Gorrilla-Pigs. Whadaya think?

Tonight your Walhalla Hogs, along with our little brothers, the mini-pigs, are in action. JV at 5:30, and then at 7:00, the main event versus the Bobcats at their place down in Seneca. Paint yourself an obnoxious shade of deep purple and come over to the big city and wreak some havoc.

j

Alumni Game 2010

OSLAP

I told you that we were to play an alumni game last Friday evening. Sorry, I lied, unless the definition of Alumni is: a group of hired mercenaries with no national loyalties, giving out their black services to the highest bidder. James Powell, who played in the game, was quoted as saying, "I swear I didn't recognize one of those guys." As everyone knows, just as Haiti is the main hub for the distribution and filtering of cocaine to the rest of the world, Walhalla is the hub for trafficking ex-Mexican national team soccer players to teams that need a little more "skill" on the field. It's been going on for years right under our noses, but now it comes to our own field, and it has made us bleed our own blood. And you thought Walhalla was only a hub for the best fish tacos (Puerto Nuevo rocks!) on the eastern seaboard. Those curious pictures of Brook Scott and Glen English with Dick Chenney in a poppy field are beginning to make more and more sense.

There is the government that we see, a group of smiling puppets that are nothing more than actors on a stage given scripts on teleprompers that tell them what to say and when to pause. There is also a "Shadow Government," an entity that rules from secret places that extends its dark fingers of invisible power to obscure places across the globe in an attempt to consolidate control over the whole planet onto the plates of a very elite few. You may have heard some of their names bandied about from time to time, names that send shivers down the spine. Names like Rockefeller and Rothschild. Elite groups like the Bilderbergers, the Bohemian Club and the Trilateral Commision. These groups and families sit atop the pyramid. They have agendas, and those agendas must be carried out by someone. That is where we come face to face with Scott and English and the organization they were inducted into in the early 70's after being successfully used as lab rats for the government's sinister MK Ultra program that sought to use psychotropics and hypnotism to program CIA and MI6 operatives to become walking WMD, fully capable of carrying out even the most preposterous sounding schemes, all designed ultimately for the take-over of the entire world. These schemes are referred to as "Black Ops," and your Walhalla Razorbacks have been the target of one particular "black op" for some time now.

"Operation Squeel Like a Pig," or "OSLAP," not to be confused with Backy Mestizo's favorite phrase, "Oh shnap," is something the CIA has had in the planning stages ever since Esto took over the coaching duties at Walhalla. The mastermind behind the plan is none other than the infamous Henry Kissinger, a proponent of eugenics, and the architect of many other "black ops," such as the Bay of Pigs and Gulf of Tonkin Affair. The success of the plan hinges on effectively planting MK Ultra trained coaches into the realms that Razorback soccer is played so as to create havoc and nullify any enlightenment that the people who watch, and those who we play against might recieve. "Estoccer," the brand of soccer invented by Estocrates after a 40 day fast upon the dunes of the great Sahara desert, when played in a state of Nirvana, is known to break the shackles of media spun government propaganda and hollywood brainwashing in peoples minds, and set them free to see the truth of what is really going on in the world. Imagine what would happen if too many minds were set free. The elite's spell would be broken and they would lose everything they have worked so hard to attain over the last thousand years. It is clear now that the hiring of the dubious "alumni" team, the use of Patriot Act cell phone tapping and weather altering technologies in an attempt to get the Razorbacks down and off their game, therefore squelching the Nirvana experienced by their fans and opponents alike, are all part of the Kissinger crafted, but so-far fruitless, OSLAP (Operation Squeel Like a Pig) plan.

Yes, we lost the so-called "alumni game" Friday night 1-0. However, what English and Scott and their devious programmers have yet to understand, and will never understand, is that Estoccer goes beyond the numbers to the essence of all that exists. They thought that by the hogs losing, that our shackle-breaking essence would be sapped, therefore rendering our mind-bending game powerless in setting people free. They don't understand that the game itself is "the game," and that the essence is released when each game is played beautifully, which even in defeat the Hogs did.

Tonight at 6:00 we will play Estoccer against the crusaders from Christ Church who beat us twice last season. Come out and get your fix. You won't regret it.

J

Alumni Game tonight at 7:00

A to B and Everything in Between

Some people talk of going from "point A" to "point B" when making goals in life. They are ordinary mortals. For the Hogs, we must go from "Point A," a lesser dimension known also as "prepubescent JV Zone," to "point A.A," a dimension more aptly described as "Class 2A, region I-AA," to "point A.A-STATE," a dimension between dimensions sometimes equated with nirvana, which will then shoot us to "point A.A-A," or "Dimension Class 3A," in the hopes of someday, after accomplishing a plethora of other herculean tasks including the addition of a sky-cam to the beach, get us to "Point B," which is actually a planet called Nebiru, or Planet X for you lay people. This journey is what Estocrates refers to in his NY Times best seller, "Peanut Butter: It's What's Between the Bread That Counts," as "treading on rice paper." For you cynics out there, no, he did not get that concept from Kung Fu. He actually lived Kung Fu and the real life story that inspired the t.v. show. David Carradine, the actor who played Estocrates' older metaphorical self, sitting in the directors chair barefoot while on set during the third episode, "Take the Pebble From My Hand," said of Esto, who was only 13 at the time, "For someone this young to have a t.v. drama of his life and the future he is yet to live speaks volumes about the depth of his character." Yes, and so does the fact that Esto sat Indian style in a cave up in Pisgah National forest for two whole months prior to this season without food or water, in preparation for the final push to point A.A-State...the dimension where titans clash. NPR's newest yet most seasoned reporter, Ron Burgandy, best known for his work interviewing the great Estocrates, and for his pioneering work as a news anchor in San Diago during the
70's, sat down yesterday with the ever-exuberant Estocrates at his manor in Northwest Walhalla to discuss with him the Alumni game to be played tonight and the upcoming season. What follows is the official transcript of their rivetting conversation:

Ron Burgandy (RB): Hola Senior.

Esto: Hola?

RB: You've lived and you've loved, but tell me Mike, where does your unbridled and omniscient passion lie, now that you've been to the top of Everest and seen the world from the Pope's perspective?

Esto: Hmmm, that's quite a dramatic question there Ron, but I'll answer it the best I can. First of all, you can never reach the top of a game that is always evolving. So I don't know if that part of your question is relevant. However, as far as passion goes, it's where it always has been: seeing players reach their full potential in the game, and as men.

RB: Since you mentioned evolution, don't you think that it would be easier to just get a degree in robotics and form the perfect player out of steel, wire and brawn? Then you could put your passion into film-making, or MMA or something. You would be a beast in the cage.

Esto: I guess I didn't reach the ultimate place of patience in my cave retreat this winter. You drive me nuts Ron. I just told you my passion is developing players. Why would I want to build a robot you buffoon?

RB: Wow....you really are a passionate giant Mike. There's something that puzzles me about you though. Why would you want to build robots that would take away these poor players jobs and probably consequently cause their families to starve without an income? It doesn't make sense Mike.

Esto: You've got to be kidding me right? You're joking right, Burgandy? These are high school players. They don't get payed for this. They do it for fun you idiot!

RB: Hmmm. Agree to disagree? Now, on to the topic at hand. When you take the field tonight against the decrepit and ever-wrinkling alumni squad, will you be employing your usual strategy of breaking some one's leg right out of the gate to send a message that the Hog's ain't to be messed with?

Esto: I've never employed such a strategy and never will. We rely on skill, teamwork and heart to defeat our opponents.

RB: So you will be using goon tactics to completely demoralize an already downtrodden group of men that were never able to accomplish their dreams as soccer players? Is that really the zen thing to do Mike?

Esto: Again, I want to make it clear for the record that we have never used these kinds of tactics and that we respect and honor the former players we will take the field with tonight. Is that clear Burgandy?

RB: So would you say, "When in Rome?"

Esto: I wish you'd go to Rome and stay there.

RB: So there you have it folks. A man intent on destroying everything in his path with his purple marauders disguised as a traveling family band. A pied piper piping a tune of wanton violence and Machiavellian policy in the futile pursuit of the coveted Palmetto state title. Thanks for your time and I wish you and your team all the success you so richly deserve. Great Oden's Raven! Steakhouse is about to close. Sorry to run. Bye now.

The Razorbacks will storm the beach at 7:00 tonight for a friendly with the Walhalla Alumni team in an attempt to avenge the loss they suffered to the alumni in last years contest. Come out and enjoy a taste of the past, the present and the future as you continue to faithfully support Walhalla High School soccer.

J

PS. Totally random video clip. This video shows that Diego Maradona is the only man in the world who deserves to wear pants this tight. Feast on the feats of the greatest to ever play the game!

Varsity Final Roster

The English-Scott Affair

For all those who doubted the more dubious implications that the Patriot Act would have on their privacy, recent happenings in Greater Oconee County have proven that the miracle of instantly accessible information comes with a sword that is to be sure, double-edged. There are also some very dark technologies being developed by the military, stuff that not even the most cutting edge conspiracy theorists including Noam Chomsky, Alex Jones, or even the great Webster Tarpley have the stones to mention aloud in public. Most of you have heard of MK Ultra, but who of you has ever heard of, or would give a second thought to the fact that the most powerful militaries in the world have learned how to harness the weather in an attempt to control the conditions of the battle field and even to create natural disasters. WAT (Weather Altering Technologies) have changed the ways the superpowers wage war. And for a few soccer coaches in the upstate of South Carolina, it has changed the way in which they go about trying to beat the state's greatest soccer power. The cold war between three of the states great teams is still being waged behind a curtain of smiles and handshakes. In the last week-and-a-half both of these aforementioned factors have been used by unsavory blackguards in an attempt to divide and conquer your beloved Razorbacks for the purpose of thwarting Estocrates' ingenious pre-season training regimen, which as you know, last year included a trip to Siberia for a Rocky IV-style workout complete with icy haylofts, huge logs, waist-deep snow and Vladamir Putin's Grandmother. What better way to make impotent your worst enemy than to create a situation where they can't even take the pitch to hold try-outs and decide who this years team will even be. And if that wasn't diabolical enough, to create an evil alliance with a coach from another class, (ahem, Brook Scott of Emerald) but still a natural rival with your vaunted enemy, knowing that Scott wants to keep the Razorbacks, the only team capable of beating Emerald, from standing in the way of winning the 2A state title, is simply nefarious.

So the plan, as we have come to find out was to - just as the CIA and MI6 do in Afghanistan and every other country they've gone into - use the age old Machiavellian ploy of "divide and conquer": first, using WAT to create conditions on Walhalla's soccer fields untenable even for Esto, the most hard-core coach that ever lived this side of the Chatooga river. Bear Bryant once said of him, "He eats lightning, and craps thunder." Or was that Mickey when describing Clubber Lang to a washed-up and complacent Rocky Balboa before their first fight? Either way, it's a good description so we'll keep it. The strange thing is, that in Seneca, just 10 miles away, the weather was balmy and dry, while here in the Garden of the Gods we experienced earthquakes, torrential rain, and, as reported by Jorge Gomez, a small tornado that almost ripped his tiny body from the arms of his terrified mother. The second, was to use wire-tapping technology, introduced after 9/11 by George Bush's patriot act, to scramble text messages sent to Razorback players telling them when and where practices were to be held. One message received by 4 of our most promising prospects told them that practice was to be held at midnight on the Oconee air strip. You should have seen their faces when we bailed them out of jail at 2:00 that morning. Needless to say, we could only get together at most four players at once at any given location for a whole week. Where English and Scott got access to these technologies one can only guess, but a picture has surfaced on the Internet showing them, quite a bit younger than they are now, standing next to a smiling Dick Cheney in full battle regalia with a vast poppy field in the background.

Most teams would have assumed the fetal position and posited their thumbs squarely into their mouths after receiving two such foul blows; but as you know, the mighty Razorbacks are not such a team. In order to get back on track and make up the training missed on account of the cowardly attacks, Estocrates had a temporary make-shift, green-certified geodesic dome constructed over the beach to combat the tempestuous weather. And to make sure each player was informed of practice times he employed a flock of messenger pigeons trained by the former champion of the world, Mike Tyson, who he became good friends with during the time he was his sparring partner for the infamous Evander Holyfield "ear-bight" fight. Iron Mike made a personal call to Esto praising him for his "impetuous style" and his "impregnable" defenses. He also offered his services in other ways telling coach, "everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth. They must be ludicruth to think they could mess with a friend of me, Iron Mike Tyson." Indeed they are Mike, but who knew the great Esto was so well connected.

So, after 5 straight days in which we practiced from morning till night, skipping school and stopping only to shave (in Estes' case) and to change beards (in my case), we finally arrived, after painstaking deliberation, at the roster for this year's Walhalla Razorback Men's soccer squad. Here is the list:

2010 Walhalla Men's Soccer Roster

Carlos Aguilar - Sophomore
Keegan Bodiford - Junior
Richard Cantero - Sophomore
Eli Cothran - Junior
Alejandro Cruz - Junior
Giovanni Cuevas - Junior
Ovi Espino - Junior
Jorge Gomez - Senior
Jose Herrera - Junior
Ovi Lopez - Senior
Aaron Lucas - Freshman
Backy Mestizo - Junior
Graham Metalik - Freshman
Christian Romero - Sophomore
Humberto Segura - Junior
Jesus Soto - Junior
Hayden Wilson - Sophomore

Mike "Estocrates" Estes - Head Coach and back-country trailfinder
Joshua "The Professor" Steele - Assistant Coach, team meteorologist, fashionista and head of anti-spy operations

This year's team is young, talented and well manicured and has two goals in mind: the coveted 2A state title, and as always, finding the key to all that exists along the way. Come out to our games and experience a state of nirvana with our mind-bending brand of soccer. In the words of the great Pedro: "We will fulfill all your wildest dreams."

j

2010 Try-outs

The Great Pinata Fiasco

For this season's theme Coach Mike "Estocrates" Estes, otherwise known in his days playing professional soccer in Brazil as simply, "Esto," has chosen the word, "unconventionalism," from his huge bag of motivational vocabulary words. To kick off this radical idea, or what would be more appropriately called an ideal, with a bang, we hired a huge crane to show up at our field yesterday at 3:30 to suspend a jumbo tron-sized and shaped pinata, which would display the score of our last game with Emerald on it. The idea was that in order to find the players with the most desire we would select the sixteen players, after depriving them of food and water for three days, with the most candy in their sacks at the end of the free-for-all. No rules, just have at it.

Unfortunately, on the way to the field the driver of said crane, Mr. Gettys Cobb, stopped at Last Chance and had a few too many Natty lights resulting in a horrifying wreck at the intersection of Catherine and Main street where the unsecured pinata smashed into the stop light and broke open, scattering more candy than the Shriner's on Christmas day. This resulted in absolute pandemonium descending on our little village. There is now a severe milk, eggs and bread shortage at Ingles and some are saying that this could be the worst disaster since the Exxon Valdez spilled black gold into the ocean off the coast of Alaska. Too much sugar in the blood stream of the population can have dire consequences. Anyway, since our scheme was a total surprise and we had told no one about it, and because the driver was so drunk he couldn't remember his own name and therefore forgot who had ordered his services, the fiasco couldn't be traced to us and we have luckily retained our jobs as coaches. And since no one reads this blog I think it's safe to relay the story.

Needless to say, we had to scrap the whole theme for the season and revert back to the more conventional method of just having the players play soccer and whatnot. Not very creative, but hopefully we'll be able to locate sixteen winners who will take us to the coveted state title and get us back on the path of finding the key to all that exists. I'll update you on who makes the team and of any and all ensuing shenanigans that await us in our quest for enlightenment and decent fast food. Oh, and if any of you need 20 t-shirts that say "UNCONVENTIONAL" on the back, let me know.

j