Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
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Fast growing college sport John Walters explores the world of a cappella competitions at the ICCA North East Regional Quarterfinals in Hartford, Connecticut. |
Epstein, by the way, sang the lead vocal on a face-melting rendition of "Sweet Child 'O Mine" in an ICCA quarterfinal in February. Therein lies the appeal. A cappella groups do not just sing an eclectic mix of popular songs -- anything from "Mr. Sandman" to "Enter Sandman" is fair game -- they attack them. Rearrange them. Choreograph them. Add vocal percussion, or beat-boxing, to them.
Performing a cappella allows one to be a juke-box hero without ever having had to buy -- much less learn how to play -- a beat-up six-string. It is also the triumph of the geek life over Greek life.
"A cappella is the dorks' answer to frats and sororities," says Hayley Cammarata, an ICCA official and former a cappella singer.
Sitting inside the Whalen Center, watching groupies swoon over undergrads who could not bench-press the bar (much less talk their way into one), you do feel as if you're watching the latest "Revenge of the Nerds" sequel. True, a fair number of male vocalists do sport tattoos -- of G Clefs.
Then there are the groan-inducing group names: Yale Law School's Habeas Chorus, American University's Treble in Paradise, and a troupe from Mount San Antonio College, a commuter school located in Walnut, who named themselves Fermata Nowhere. The sobriquet proved both witty ("fermata" is a musical notation) and prescient. In 2004, just three years after forming, Fermata Nowhere came from outta nowhere to finish second overall in the ICCA.
Clever. Corny. Captivating. College a cappella is all that. The most-viewed video on YouTube last December was an a cappella performance. Straight No Chaser, an all-male group from Indiana University, had their comic rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" viewed more than 7.5 million times. Go ahead and watch. I'll wait.
Clearly, a cappella has come a long way since Maverick and Goose butchered "You Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" in Top Gun. That was in 1986. The number of collegiate a cappella groups has increased 10-fold since then. And yet, Maverick and Goose gravitated to a cappella for the same reasons that Mr. Keating's "Dead Poets' Society" (a de facto a cappella group, albeit with less vocal range) did, for the same reasons that so many male students do today: To woo women.
"When we perform it's like a rock concert," says James Stevens, musical director of Brigham Young's all-male Vocal Point, the 2006 national champions. "The first five rows are filled with screaming fans."
You mean screaming women?
"Yes, women," Stevens chuckles. "You hit the nail right on the head."
But competitive a cappella has no gender bias. Indeed, the reigning national champions are an all-female group from BYU, Noteworthy. What else, then, explains a cappella's burgeoning popularity among the Facebook crowd?
The reasons are manifold. The rise of hip-hop. Boy bands. The Sony Walkman, followed by the iPod. "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Digital recording. Musical notation software programs. The "Bohemian Rhapsody" scene from "Wayne's World." The kids' show "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" featuring Rockapella. American Idol.
"Personally, I think YouTube has had so much to do with it, too," says BYU's Stevens. "We've had more than 400,000 views of our performance of 'Thriller,' and I've had at least 40 requests by e-mail from other groups who want our arrangement."
That crossover effect is fascinating, and sometimes ironic. A troupe of Mormon men, for example, resuscitating one of Michael Jackson's greatest hits? Collegiate a cappella makes for strange bedfellows.
Indeed, the ethnic diversity and all-inclusiveness of collegiate a cappella is one of its more appealing aspects. The aforementioned Nonsequitur includes among its dozen vocalists an Asian, an Indian, two Hispanics and a female African-American beat boxer (or "vocal percussionist," as ICCA judges refer to them).
"Everybody has a voice," says Poonam Pai, a soprano with Columbia's Nonsequitur. "And you don't have to lug it around in a case."
Everyone has a voice. But not everyone has talent, nor the kind of drive to be the best in what has become the greatest marriage of college competition and musicianship since Drumline.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) - As the glow fades from the Giants' Super Bowl triumph, some New York sports fans are tuning in to basketball and hockey, with the Rangers in first place and the Knicks' overnight sensation, Jeremy Lin, sparking "Lin-sanity.''
Robins: This year, six new breeds will be making their debut on the green carpet for the Westminster Dog Show, which begins Monday.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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