I believe this media we are blessed with called the blog is so flexible that there are so many different things you can do with it.
I like what Mark Titus decided to do with it and a few others have too. Read the Yahoo sports review of it. To some sitting on the bench for games at a time can be torture if you are on a team but Mark makes the most of it and has since created fans who see what he does outside of the court. Goes to show you how much of "life" is online now.
Reminds me of Archie Moonlight Graham http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8423741/
Doc Graham was an interesting case. He really existed even if Field of Dreams was only a movie. His stat line made the author baseball junkie W.P. Kinsella curious about him to add him as a character in the book Shoeless Joe. Watch him in celluiod action below.
There are some people who do not equate fulfillment in life with time on the floor or the diamond. Life is not sports although sometimes you have a hard time believing it coming from me.
Ed
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=jn-titus121908&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Buckeyes’ benchwarmer one in a trillion
By Jason King, Yahoo! Sports Dec 19, 10:11 am EST
Yahoo! Sports
An odd thing happened to Mark Titus during an Ohio State home game earlier this season. The Buckeyes guard grabbed a rebound – and people booed.
The reaction might have been puzzling to a few folks in the stands, but for the religious readers of Titus’ popular blog, the good-natured jeers made perfect sense. By snaring the rebound, Titus, a seldom-used reserve, had ruined his chance of achieving a “trillion.”
“A trillion,” Titus explains, “is when you play one minute but don’t record any other stats. So when you look at the box score you see a ‘1’ to the far left followed by a bunch of zeros – just like the number 1,000,000,000,000.”
The scenario provided the inspiration for Titus’ website. After two months, Titus’ hilarious writings about life at the end of Ohio State’s bench have made him one of the most popular players on the Buckeyes’ squad – and one of the most well-known walk-ons in the country.
On Wednesday more than 40,000 people clicked on clubtrillion.com, where they could read about Titus’ favorite pastime during games (gawking at cheerleaders), his nickname for the trendy, long basketball shorts that hang below the knees (shants) and his crush on ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews (or, as he calls her, “Erin Andrews-Titus”).
“Everyone hears about the guy that scores 20 points each night,” Titus says, “but no one talks about the guy at the end of the bench. I can tell people about the game from a perspective they haven’t heard before. Still, I never thought it would get this kind of attention.”
The buzz is only increasing.
When he looked into the stands during Wednesday’s game against Jacksonville, Titus saw four people wearing his No. 34 jersey. A reader has offered to make Club Trillion T-shirts and strangers are sending him emails telling him he needs to become a professional blogger after graduation.
“Just the other day,” Titus says, “I was standing in line at the cafeteria and someone walked by and said, ‘Love the blog. Keep it up,’ and then kept going. I was like, ‘Uh, what just happened? I didn’t even know that person.’”
Most of Titus’ blogs are about things that happen away from the court. On Nov. 28 he told an amusing tale about Thanksgiving dinner at coach Thad Matta’s house.
“Coach Matta and his wonderful wife ended up cooking for us,” he wrote. “And by cooking, I mean getting food catered. And by Coach Matta and his wife, I mean his wife.”
Other funny stories involve the per diem money players receive each week for food and the shenanigans that occurred as he was trying to take a pregame nap at a hotel that was under construction. Last week Titus wrote about Ohio State’s game against Butler and his former high school teammate, Gordon Hayward.
“Brownsburg [Ind.] High School,” he wrote, “was easily the best represented high school in the game, as Gordon and I combined for 25 points, seven rebounds and two assists. Because I didn’t even get in the game, Gordon shouldered most of the productivity, but I looked really good with the towel around my neck on the bench. Seriously, I looked REALLY good.”
Titus’ teammates aren’t surprised that readers are drawn to Titus’ wit and sarcasm. Since joining the team two years ago, Titus has been the player to use a one-liner to lighten the mood of a tense locker room. Sometimes he’ll break out into a funky dance.
Earlier in his career Titus even held a news conference to announce that he’d be returning to school the following season instead of entering the NBA draft.
“I’m just having fun,” says Titus, who blogs about three times per week. “If you can’t have fun playing basketball then you probably shouldn’t be playing.
“At the same time, I take basketball and the development of our team very seriously. I hope that doesn’t get lost in the comedy of the blog. It’s not like I’m out there screwing around.”
Matta certainly doesn’t question Titus’ commitment. He called Titus “the best shooter on the team.”
Titus received interest from a handful of smaller schools after scoring more than 1,000 career points and earning second-team all-state honors – twice – at Brownsburg High. But his goal had always been to attend a bigger school.
After enrolling at Ohio State, Titus joined the basketball team as a student manager – “just to get my basketball fix,” he said – but after two weeks, he quit when he grew tired of filling water bottles. Then, just before the start of the 2006-07 season, Matta called Titus and asked him to return.
Not as a manager – but as a player.
Titus had been an AAU teammate of Buckeyes freshmen Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr. and Daequan Cook, so Matta knew he was battled-tested and that having him on the squad would be good for team chemistry. Plus, his shooting ability would force Ohio State’s guards to pick up the defensive intensity in practice.
Six of Titus’ eight career points have come on 3-point shots. In a recent blog, he even developed a nickname for making a heavily-contested 3-pointer over the outstretched arms of a defender.
“We call it ‘dotting’ someone,” Titus says. “When you shoot, your body is in the shape of an ‘i’, so the ball – if you get the shot off – is like the dot of the ‘i.’”
Titus’ blog includes a list of teammates he’s dotted in practice. Much to the delight of his fans, he’s yet to make a 3-pointer on a real opponent this season, thereby increasing the chances of achieving a trillion.
“If you get a foul or commit a turnover or take a shot, the trillion is ruined,” Titus says. “People send me emails saying, ‘If you’re wide open and the shot clock is running down, what are you going to do? ’ “
The answer?
“I guess I’m not totally opposed to shooting the ball,” Titus says with a chuckle, “I have eight career points right now. Eventually I’d like to get into double digits, so I’m going to need another basket somewhere down the line.”
Jason King is a college football and basketball writer for Yahoo! Sports and the author of Kansas Jayhawks: A Year to Remember. Send Jason a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
http://www.clubtrillion.blogspot.com/
(Mark's blog)
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