Appalachian @ MindSay

Hello everyone, I'm new at this.  The main reason for me to be doing this is it's a way for me to keep in touch with my son and his friends who are away at college.  It's interesting to see how people you' ve known for a while adapt to different colleges.  It would be hard to call them all every week to keep in touch and this seems to be the answer.  I will be writing sometimes maybe about sports.  I am a diehard fqn of UNC, Appalachian State, Atlanta Braves, Oakland A's, Kansas City Chiefs(go figure), Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bulls, Carolina Hurricanes, Tony Stewart, and Jeff Gordon.  The Tarheels, Braves, Chiefs, and Bulls all won the first game I ever watched of each respective sport, so hence they became my favorites.  The same with Richard Petty in NASCAR.  All this over 30 years ago and they are still my favorites.  I learned to like the A's in the early 70's when all the players grew their hair long and grew mustaches just because the league told them they couldn't.  Rebels!!!!!   The Panthers and Hurricanes are favorites because I live In North Carolina, Appalachian State because that is where my son is a student, and what the heck, they do have an awesome football team.  When Richard Petty drove his last race at the Hooters 500 in Atlanta in 1992, Jeff Gordon drove in that race in his first Winston Cup race.  He was already a star driving quarter midgets and in the Busch series and I could see the potential.   By the way, I used to work with NASCAR in a way and I have from that 1992 race a Winston flag that flew over pit road autographed by Petty, Gordon, and 1992 Cup Champion, the late Alan Kulwicki. Tony Stewart shares my last name and he is just a great driver.  I look for him to do great things with his own team starting next year.  As for myself, I'm happily married with a son at Appalachian and a daughter who is a senior at West Forsyth High school In NC wanting to go to UNC-Charlotte.  She is also captain of her high school cheerleading squad.  My wife and I both graduated from the same school as our children which I think is really special.  The whole family is involved at our church, Center Grove Baptist, in different ways and are not ashamed to say that we are Christians.  Anyway, I think this is long enough for the first blog, hope to hear from people!!!

Well, classes have started and everyone is back.  I'm looking forward to my last year here.  The football team opens this Saturday with a trip to Baton Rouge, LA to play the defending national champs, LSU.  Except App is THE defending national champ. 4 years at school, 4 national champs?  We'll see!!!