Circa 1990: "Grandpa, why are all these mean people saying our home is yucky and full of hillbillies?" "Oh Lisa, honey don't worry about it. It's just because we live in the mountains and are so far away."

Bill Vasko (@CoachBook) is one of the first sports contacts I made on twitter.  We always chatted about sports and personal struggles and lessons.  He is extremely caring, dedicated and intelligent.  He is the brainchild behind http://www.mycoachbook.com which is a social networking site fo

I’m seriously itching to have the football season start. Does anyone feel like the days are just dragging and the universe is torturing us before it begins? Um…I do.

With only 9 days left before the first game of the season starts, I’m not going to discuss the college team rankings or which teams I think are going to be good or bad but I simply want to discuss John Brantley’s moustache.

Last week, I received this awesome email from my friend Lindsay. She was telling me about her being at a friend's house when she asked for the TV to be switched from Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami (ok, I love that show, too) to the football game. Her friend's response was, "Girly girls don't watch sports!" and refused to change the channel. Lindsay promptly pulled up our lovely LadyBallers site on her phone. Her friend was impressed, but still didn't want to watch football.

Guest Blogger: Otis Henderson

When Colleen asked me write a post about hard work & perseverance, I got really excited because she had no way of knowing this, but I am really passionate about these topics! Thanks, CB!

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE quotes! I read and tweet them every single day! I have a huge collection that grows every day! They keep me motivatd, so we will look at hard work & perseverance with the help of some of my favorite quotes. 

While doing research for this post, I discovered my new favorite quotes person: Thomas A. Edison. He is best known for inventing the lightbulb, but from his quotes I have also learned that the man loved to work hard:

“I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.” - Thomas A. Edison

When you think of professional athletes, what's the first words that come to your mind? Stud? Beast? Athletic? Cocky? Rich? Charities? Compassion? Poetry? Sound about right? The average fan watches the game, cheers for their favorite players and goes home. Most of the world is just the average fan. Though sometimes fans get lucky and they get to interact with a player or a player puts himself out on the world's stage for everyone to see, then you truly get to see what makes up a professional athlete.

So the time is now upon us... It's FANTASY FOOTBALL TIME!! Workplaces, groups of friends and families are preparing their drafts and putting on their game faces for, well, I guess just bragging rights and maybe a few bucks?

Other sports have fantasy leagues, but as far as I know fantasy football is the most popular fantasy game. I did a fantasy basketball leauge a few years back, but there were way too many games to keep up with, so it wasn't even fun, just stressful.

Follow Melissa (@orlandomagicgrl) & Amber (@amberrashelle) so you can get a great perspective of sports through two vigorus fans as they tweet from basketball to baseball to football and then some! Melissa is a self-proclaimed "Sports fanatic-Illini!" She loves her GB Packers, StL Cardinals, and of course, the MAGIC! Amber is also a sports fanatic but also has another weakness and it is... shopaholic. She loves her Magic, Indians, Steelers, and Duke BB, and follows the Gators, Mets and Rays too!

I was watching So You Think You Can Dance last week when they announced that Gatorade would be recognizing dance as a sport. During the show, they informed us that a few of the dancers went to the Gatorade Performance Lab to “test” their athleticism. It should really be no surprise to anyone that dancers have some amazing athletic ability and I have to say when they announced the recognition of dance, I was pretty excited! So excited that I wanted to read more about it.

To be a successful coach on the collegiate level means more than just wins and losses.

You have men and women who are trying to find their way into adulthood. You have an obligation to the school and the surrounding communities. There is great loyalty required to gain the respect, of the students, the fans, and the surrounding area. There is only one place where this definition is truly personified, a small town in central Pennsylvania.
 
With the college football season right around the corner, I feel like every time I turn on the TV or the radio there is some story on about Joe Paterno. Every segment seems to praise him, but then they always have to give that last minute negative feedback. I'm so sick of hearing about how he's too old, too old fashioned, the Big Ten is just not very good (then why are 5 Big Ten teams ranked in the preseason Top15), and so on and so forth. His record speaks for itself. Putting the fact that he is the winningest coach of all-time aside, Penn State is one of only four teams to put together consecutive eleven win seasons the past two years. But I digress, I'm not here to defend the man or the program, there's no need to, paper doesn't lie.