Rough and Tumbly

In the last couple of weeks one of the most interesting secondary stories in sports has been the case of Elizabeth Lambert, the New Mexico soccer player who is seen on video being--what's a good word here--"aggressive" with other players. She punches, kicks, charges, and yanks, among other things. After she was suspended, she apologized and said she got carried away. You can see the video of what she did here or watch it below:





Added bonus: you get to watch Julie Foudy, one of the greatest American soccer players of all time, and probably the funniest (though not in this clip).

In Tuesday's New York Times, there is an interview with her by Jere Longman. Here are a few of her comments, and I'll give my thoughts at the end:

1) "At the same time, she said other moments of aggressive play — in which Lambert elbowed a Brigham Young player in the back, received a yellow card for tripping, seemed to throw a punch at an opponent’s head and made a hard tackle from behind — came during the forceful, insistent play that routinely occurred in women’s soccer but might be misunderstood by casual fans."

2) "And she said she believed that the incident was blown out of proportion because it occurred in a women’s game. "I definitely feel because I am a female it did bring about a lot more attention than if a male were to do it,” Lambert said. “It’s more expected for men to go out there and be rough. The female, we’re still looked at as, Oh, we kick the ball around and score a goal. But it’s not."

First item: Now, as longtime readers of this blog--both of you--know, I'm a big fan of women's soccer. I've been paying attention to the US Women's National Team for at least twenty years. I played with and against girls growing up. I can vouch for the fact that play on the field is often "forceful" and "insistent." I don't have a problem with that. But to try to say that throwing elbows into other players standing in front of you, punching them in the head--I don't believe that was accidental like she says--and yanking ponytails are not routine occurrences in women's soccer. Well, maybe the elbows.

Second item: There is no doubt in my mind that this received so much attention because she's a woman and not a man. Not because it's okay for men to do these things, but because it's so rare for us to see women doing them on the field of play. Female basketball players don't rack up technical fouls yelling at referees like the men do. Softball players don't get ejected from games for arguing balls and strikes with the umpire. There's very little staring down your opponent after a hard tackle in women's soccer. The level of aggressiveness in the game is comparable, but there's just a lot less theatrics about it in the women's game.

An added bonus to women's soccer is that diving is extremely rare. A youtube search for "soccer dives" returns over 2,300 results. It's one of the least attractive parts of watching men's soccer. There's even a mocking wiki page for "How to Dive in Soccer" that tells us:

Things You'll Need

A soccer game
Opposition players
A referee
No sense of fair play

I don't think that Elizabeth Lambert is really that terrible, but what she did on the field is pretty bad, and she should have been thrown out of the game long before she ever got to execute the ponytail takedown. The referees need to control the game, and her coaches need to tell her to cut that stuff out.

For her to claim that people criticizing her don't understand the physical nature of women's soccer is a bit silly. I played soccer for ten years, and throwing punches and pulling hair wasn't part of the game. If you don't want to take my word for it, then listen to Julie Foudy, whose right pinky knows more about soccer than Elizabeth Lambert ever will. If she says there's nothing like this in the women's game, I believe her.

I Know, You Know I Know, But I Know You Know I Know

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Last night LSU and Auburn renewed their SEC West rivalry with an exciting and much-too-tense-for-me football game. All LSU-Auburn games for the last decade or so have been nail-biters than leave the caring viewer exhausted and trembling when it was all over. The game even has its own Wikipedia entry (arbiter of all that is true and right). The home team had won eight in a row, and the four most recent games had been decided by a total of 14 points. LSU fans hate this game, mostly because there have been times when LSU was ranked higher and favored to win, only to come up on the short end.

LSU won 26-21 in another great game with a late drive that featured aggressive playcalling and good execution. There's a couple of scoring plays for each team I want to talk about that concern Auburn's defense being so familiar with LSU's offense. (You can see an LSU-based recap of the game here)

The first was an awful play by Jarrett Lee late in the first half. He double- and triple-clutches on a flare pass out left to Keiland Williams, an Auburn DE makes a nice play to intercept it, and he brings it back for a touchdown. Last year, Keiland Williams burned Auburn bad on this same play, which can be seen here. So when Auburn sees Lee in the shotgun with Williams to his left, they're ready. Even before the hesitation by Lee, about five Auburn guys are headed over to cover Williams. The pass never should have been thrown, but it was still a nice play by the defender to gather in the pass and head in for the score. It was a case of Auburn knowing what LSU knew.

Later on in the game, LSU knows that Auburn knows what they know. LSU seems to run a particular play with Keiland Williams about once a game. The formation includes a fullback in front of Williams. Hike, and the QB fakes a dive handoff to the fullback, then pitches it out the other way to Williams. The first time I remember seeing this play was from San Diego with LaDanian Tomlinson a few years ago. Some teams use it regularly. LSU seems to use it more often than most, and Keiland Williams gets it more than anyone else. Auburn knows this well.

So when LSU is down on Auburn's 22 yard line and Williams is lined up behind a fullback, Auburn is ready again. Fake dive handoff, pitch outside to Williams. But instead of running with it, Williams gathers it in and throws a halfback pass to a moderately-open Demetrius Byrd, who had gotten behind two defenders. LSU was able to use Auburn's knowledge of the play against them, showing them something they'd seen, then showing them something else. Nicely done.

Women's Soccer

I was a season ticket holder for all the seasons that the Washington Freedom were in the WUSA before the league folded days before the 2003 Women's World Cup. After the first year the team drafted Abby Wambach out of Florida. Lost in the finals the second year, won the title the third year. The league will be replaced by Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) in 2009. Player allocation of National Team members was a few days ago, and Wambach is back with the Freedom, which makes me happy.

The Freedom are the first and only team I've ever had season tickets to, so I feel like the connection I have to them is different than any of the other teams I root for. Definitely not stronger, but different in a way I kind of like. I think I'm going to get season tickets again, even if I can't go to any games. I'll try to find a way to make one or two, though how I'm going to get to the Germantown Soccer-plex is beyond me. RKF it ain't. I'll probably send someone the tickets to had out as they wish for the games I don't get to.

Interesting note: The NBA logo features a silhouette of Jerry West. The new WPS logo will feature a silhouette of Mia Hamm. That's a nice touch.

By the way, the Chicago team is called the Red Stars. Doesn't that sound like it should be an old Soviet team?

At another level of women's soccer, I've had the chance to attend a few Lady Demon soccer games recently. They're held at the Demon Soccer Complex, which may have been in its infancy when I was a student. It's turned out to be really nice, and is much nicer than any place I ever played. I'm very pleasantly surprised at the crowds that turn out for the games. I told my dad that if you added up all the people who ever watched my league teams play, they wouldn't equal the crowd there. Where did all these people come from? I used to feel like I knew pretty much everybody in town who was interested in soccer. Verily, things have changed.

Come on, ship...Come on, ship...Come on, ship...Come on in.

The biggest news story in this part of the state the last few months has centered around a geologic formation known as the Haynesville Shale. It's really far underground and contains natural gas. Lots of it. Maybe enough to be the fourth-largest deposit in the world. It was long considered too hard to access, but a new drilling technique has opened things up. So if you own a few acres in the right place, you could be looking at a nice chunk of change. If you own more than a few, you could probably retire. Consider (with the warning that I may have no idea what I'm talking about):

Say you own a section of land, 640 acres. You get paid a fee per acre just for the company to drill. I've heard of fees ranging from eight thousand to twenty-five thousand dollars (not too many people own a whole section, I think).

The price of natural gas is based on per thousand cubic feet produced in a section. Recently the price has been about $7 per thousand cubic feet. Some of these wells can produce more than ten million cubic feet per day.

You get a percentage royalty of the overall production, around 16-25% (one-sixth to one-fourth royalty).

Let's do some math with relatively conservative numbers. The exception is owning a whole section. I don't know an example of anyone who does, though I'm sure they're out there.

640 acres with a $8,000 per acre leasing fee: $5,120,000
7 million cubic feet per day at $7 per thousand cubic feet: $49,000 per day
$49,000 per day times 30 days: $1,470,000 per month
$1,470,000 times 12 months: $17,640,000 per year
$17,640,000 with a 1/6 royalty: $2,940,000 per year

The leasing fee is yours, independent of any royalty. You still have to pay taxes on all this, somewhere in the neighborhood of 42%. Whatever the details, good luck to all the landowners who are in line to take home a nice piece of cash. Some of these people have only ever owned land and not had any money to go along with it. Those are the ones I feel pretty good for.