UCSB 1 Wofford 0

I think I have frozen my ass off for the last time this year, though I don’t know about 2010. But I wasn’t as frozen since I took the precaution of wearing a pair of sweat pants under my jeans, though that made for some issues in the going to the bathroom department.

The UCSB soccer team managed to beat Wofford College one to nothing. It was a cleanly played game with very few fouls; people were not littering the field in various states of pain, as has previously been the case. And the referees called a good game. The first half was back and forth. UCSB played like it was in mud. But they came out in the second half attacking, took charge, and scored their single goal with about 10 minutes to go. That was a relief since I didn’t want to sit through an overtime.

goal.jpg

Afterward we stayed to congratulate “the guys.” Their next game is this Sunday down at the University of San Diego, a Catholic school. The guys are a little beat up and have been struggling with the sniffles. They didn’t think they had played all that well. Though clearly victory is better than the defeat.

At the end the Wofford players were lying flat on their backs utterly depleted. They had come clear across the country from Spartanburg, SC, to Southern California to play their opponent on their opponent’s home field and the lost by 1 goal.

I spoke with a Wofford professor, I believe, who was accompanying the team. I am sorry I did not get his name. He was a little aggravated–I mean they had just lost–at the way UCSB students throw tortillas (like flaccid frisbees) onto the field after the team scores a goal. I don’t like it either. For one thing it’s a waste of good food. For another, I have seen players slip on those damn tortillas. The guy sitting behind me though in the stands said it was better than what students threw at Colorado. Marshmallows–that given the conditions–were frozen like rocks.

The Wofford professor immediately recognized my Honea Path sweat shirt, and said he knew where that was since he had gone to Erskine–which does not appear, on Google Maps–very far from Honea Path. He knew where Clinton was too. I said goodbye to him and wished them all a good trip home, trying in my own way to extend a little Southern Hospitality. 

H1N1 Again

I have lots of coughing students.

We all got an email from the administration:

We have received reports that Student Health is getting inundated with students who are ill with the flu in search of written excuses for missing class. Please remind all faculty, lecturers, and instructors in your department that Student Health does not have enough staff to provide any written excuses for ill students; all faculty and instructors have been asked to not require a written medical excuse until further notice.
Thank you for your immediate assistance with this situation.

I don’t know what H1N1 is exactly, if I mean it is worse than your normal flu. But it surely seems to be hitting more people at once. I have never received an email of this kind before…not in 30 years; of course 30 years ago there was no email.

Meanwhile on the soccer front, the soccer team had to cancel practice yesterday because 10 people on the team were going to a Dance Concert downtown required for Carol’s classes. Carol has two lecture classes in Dance with a total of around 700 students with no TAs to help her out and no secretarial support.

Below students in Carol’s classes do a “Victory Dance” (African in origin) after one of them scored a goal in a recent soccer contest.

victory dance.jpg

And for streaming video of this goal.