And We're Out

Moving day has come. We'll be over here at Eers To You. Come join us.

Mild TBI and Sports Related Injuries

We here at Mountainlair care as much about the athletes that wear the Old Gold and Blue when they leave as when they get here. It's important to remember the person as much as it is the athlete that wore the uniform. Otherwise, the young men that play for WVU would just be hired guns, disposable after their eligibility is used up. That's unacceptable, because once a Mountaineer always a Mountaineer. Just as I'm sure it's true all over the world of college football.

I bring all this up because I was contacted by CareMeridian about posting something regarding Traumatic Brain Injuries. Whether one person reads this or a million, the important thing is that our university has an obligation to the men that put on the uniform. An obligation to provide them with the best possible equipment and treatment to make sure they remember every second of their time in Morgantown.



Mild TBI and Sports Related Injuries

Athletics are a fun and healthy way to stay active that millions of people take part in each day. However, some of these activities can take a toll on the physical body of the individual. Contact sports like football, boxing, soccer, and hockey can cause damage that can change a person’s entire life and sometimes can even be irreversible. An example of this type of sports injury is traumatic brain injuries. A TBI can permanently alter someone’s life and can even require long-term rehabilitation and care from special facilities like CareMeridian and these injuries are often too common when taking part in sports.

According to the Brain Injury Resource Center, an estimated 300,000 sports related brain injuries occur each year. Most of these injuries are not classified as severe. Many of these mild TBI’s or concussions may appear unthreatening, but in fact they can often cause significant damage if not treated properly. The hidden danger of a concussion comes from the fact that it is usually passed off as nothing more than pain and soreness inflicted from the sporting activity, which is why they can easily be a repeatable injury. Consequently, concussions are often regarded as very hazardous and should be given thorough and constant attention.

Concussions are head injuries that are caused by blows to the head that usually cause the brain to move violently within the skull. For a sport like football this type of injury is common and unfortunately, at times ignored. Many athletes shake off the pain that’s caused from the head injury, because the immediate effects are often unnoticed. Yet, without treatment, a simple injury can cause a lifetime of suffering. The NFL has a concussion rate of 61% and this type of injury not only sidelines the player impacted, but can end their career. Some NFL players, like quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Steve Young, retired from the game rather than take on the risk that comes from the injury, but others are not so lucky. Many retired football players and athletes battle memory loss and constant migraine headaches that result from head injuries.

Participating in athletic competition (football, soccer, basketball, etc…) is inherent in many different peoples’ lifestyles, but comes with risk of injury. Mild TBI is among the most common forms of sports related injuries, which also include fractures, tears, bursitis, sprains and more. As an enjoyable means of human interaction and competitive lift, sports will always be an integral ingredient of modern day society. Ultimately, it’s important to be aware of mild traumatic brain injuries (symptoms, treatment, etc…) and the frequency of occurrence on the field of play.

Moving Day is Almost Here

We'll be moving to a new blog in the next few days. We'll have a link and all that when things are ready. It should be fun, the new site will be loosely based around drinking and sports. Two things that go great together. Until then, here's some moving music.

Talent Show

In my waxed up hair and my painted shoes
Got an offer that you might refuse
Tonight, tonight, we're gonna take a stab
Come on along, we'll grab a cab

Seriously, these things just write themselves. If you haven't seen Joe, Jonnie, and Da'Sean doing the Night at the Roxbury dance yet, here's your moment of Zen. via Deadspin

Color Me Impressed With Truck Bryant

If you asked me what I thought would happen in today's game, the last thing that would have come to mind was how impressed I was with Truck Bryant. Looking at his stats for the game tells you very little about how important he was. Missouri earned the respect I had for them coming into this game by leading the nation in turnovers forced. In my mind, I could just see him getting his pocket picked over and over. Instead, what I saw was someone that just focused on ball security and running the offense. He had a lot of help from Joe Mazzulla and Da'Sean Butler. But West Virginia did a great job with ball security and patients in the offense once they beat the press.

I've bagged on Truck a little bit since I first saw him play for West Virginia. I've been driven to madness by watching him rush down the middle amongst the trees. I may be wrong with that, though. For instance, I don't know that Huggins hasn't asked him to do that. It's just been hard to watch at times over the past couple years. But today I thought he did exactly what he needed to do to help the team to win, and if you're going to mention the bad you have to see the good as well.  Well done, Truck!

There was a lot more dairy goodness to speak of. Particularly Da'Sean Butler. The dude is just a machine. It's hard enough to bring the ball up the whole game under pressure. It's even harder to get involved with the offense after the ball crosses the time line. Butler got WVU into an offensive flow to start the game and kept them ahead the whole game. The more I think about this game, the more I'm really impressed with everyone. The only thing that was odd was all the offensive rebounds the Tigers got. But we'll take it. Survive and advance.

Unsatisfied

 Look me in the eye and tell me I'm satisfied

Headlines tomorrow will question the validity of the Big East. This much is sure. All of it will be deserved. What we don't know is if someone didn't dance themselves onto the hot seat. I don't have anyone in mind. That picture up there is totally random and without premeditation.

The bad news is that the Big East was 1-3 today, and that one isn't anything to brag about. The good news is that there are four more teams playing tomorrow and no one should sneak up on them. That message should be loud and clear. I hope the Mountaineers stayed up late enough to see the post game interview with Thompson. You never ever want to make your boss look like that. Seriously, ESPN News is calling it "Georgetown's Historic Upset" right now as I type this. How bout Ohio's historic upset? You know, a little something for the effort.

We're using Replacements song titles as a lead in for all of our posts during the tourney or until we use them all. You'll have to jump to the 40 second mark for the song.

Let's Dance

It's the most wonderful time of year for any college basketball fan. I love it and I think collge football could learn a lot from the way CBB crowns it's champion. Having said that, I have almost no interest in picking winners, brackets, etc. It's just not my bag, baby.

Having looked at Morgan State and what they did this year, I don't know how useful a statistical breakdown would be. I know there are people out there that do those sorts of things. God bless their little hearts, because I have no desire to get into it. But being in the tournament has to have some sort of special posting angle. And the best that I can come up with is to have a mini bracket of some of my favorite bands. You pick the band and I'll wrap each post around the title to  songs of the band you choose.

Your choices are:

Pink Floyd





Midnight Oil

























The Replacements





Spoon





Ovada-Who? This is my band and I think we have enough song titles that I could do three weeks of posts and have fun with the tournament.



Leave your choice in the comments below and we'll pick a winner.

Hey! Big East Champs!

I wanted to hold off on this until I had something to say about it. I still don't. But in a good way. For this team, this year, despite the record there seemed to be a lot of close games and I was never quite sure they deserved the ranking they were getting. I would be lying if I told you that I haven't been a glass half empty guy through the snopocalypse of 2010. Luckily, I've kept that to myself.

I saw a tweet from another Big East blogger that said, "WVU beat the #11, 8, & 7 teams to win the BE tourney. Two locks and one bubble team. Take that every other conference." You have to see that as a positive. Sure we didn't get to play the higher ranked teams. But shit, those teams came to play all year long and I don't know that anyone else could have beat them given the way the top teams performed in the tourney. Other than the losses to Purdue and Syracuse I felt like we had a chance to win all those games after falling behind. WVU played one of the tougher schedules in the country this year. Certainly one of the toughest we've seen in a long time, and came out relatively unscathed. Having said that, I think we do deserve the ranking. Plus, Country Roads playing after the game was pretty awesome! It got better when I considered how painful it was for Pitt fans. Yeah, I'm thinking about the ones that bought tickets for the whole tournament.




And you knew this was going to happen...



Looking at our bracket, you can't be too disappointed.There's some chances there. I don't want to say anymore strictly out of concern for messing with the Basketball Gods. Anyhow, WOOOOOO!!

Good Enough To Win Is Better Than Losing

I've done enough poo-pooing on Elmo to last a life time. So let's instead remember that on a day when the high seeds were going down left and right, West Virginia found a way to win. Maybe it's the two days off, or maybe it's the Moon's orbit. It doesn't really matter. Yesterday was a day for upsets, and the only rule on days like this is survive and advance.

Hopefully WVU got all the bad shots out of their system, because they won't win shooting like that against Notre Dame. And we can't expect the Irish to shoot as poorly as Cincinnati did last night. That was a third grade sandlot bad performance by the Bearcats. Why anyone plays anything but zone against that team is beyond me.

Anyway, these late games are going to be the death of me. Let's end this by giving it up for Da'Sean Butler and his savvy use of the backboard. Yeah, there are probably better videos out there of this moment. But there's something about this one we really like.



Update: It's not like we never beat UC with at bankshot 3 in the post season before.