User:KJGreen920/sandbox

Musings From The Hoodwood is a weekly column written by Kevin Green under the handle of BlackBandit20 at Yougabsports.com It is column devoted mostly to views and opinions on sports but occasionally delves into other topics.

Origins The original column was part of a larger series of blog posts to the collective known as SportingNews.com. The first of these blog posts were done in 2007. The posts were not on a regular schedule and ranged from daily to weekly. Parts of these blog posts were predictions on NFL games and then speculation on who would be invited to the NCAA College Basketball Championship tournament. Posts were made on a semi-regular basis until the Sporting News discontinued the free edit blogs.

Yougabsports.com Having discontinued writing the blog, Green continued to post in other various websites but not with any regularlity until approached by Yougabsports.com. Created by other bloggers who were dissatisfied with the direction that the Sporting News Blogs were going. A new website was created. Green initially posted blogs randomly before being asked to take over a regular blog spot on Tuesdays. The first post was on February 1st, 2011 and has been appearing regularly on Tuesdays with a couple exceptions.

Style Musings from the Hoodwood has a first person point of view told by writer. It has a sarcastic, edgy tone but is always respectful. The commentary is usually on the topics of the week and starts off with the phrase "Greetings from the Hoodwood where..." The start is usually some sort of humorous open and can be topical to the time of year or current events. Hoodwood is a semi-fictional area that the author describes as an idillic place where the residents enjoy their sports, get along and try to look out for one another. The author often makes reference to his alma mater the University of Cincinnati but is quick to point out that Hoodwood is wide encompassing and not a single place. Hoodwood has its running jokes and puns, referring to the authors two daughthers as "The Princesses" but is also quick to note that he is not any sort of king of this area, just another resident. A number of wide ranging topics are covered in the column every week. Often times video clips culled from youtube are featured. Most are of sports clips but there have been several instances where music videos and old game show clips are shown. These are often related to a specific topic being discussed in the column.

Regular Features Hoodwood has several running topics, during the NFL season commentary on the authors fantasy football teams is prevelnt. The Chocolate City Black Bandits play in the fictional "Hoodwood Stadium" their trials and tribulations are often chronicalled here. A feature lauding and lambasting is at the tail end of the column. This is called the Phat Dap/Head Slap. The Phat Dap lauds a player, action or occurance that in the opinion of the author deserves praise or "Dap" the opposite is the Head Slap an action that makes fun of or chides a player, action or occurance.

Running Battles The author makes no secret of his distaste for certain teams, players and coaches. Some of the following have had mutliple disparaging mentions.

Rex Ryan The head coach of the New York Jets NFL team has been referred to as the "Grinning, jeering buffoon coach of the Jets." Green is not enamored with the style of Ryan's coaching and what he feels is his propensity to make outraegous statements

Bobby Valentine The mananger of the Boston Red Sox has been referred to as "the stupidest manager in baseball" by Green and has been lambasted for his combative style which Green has called the "preening look at me attiude"

Notre Dame Green has often taken the University to task for what he calls "Their elitist attitude" Green is also annoyued that their current football coach Brian Kelly left his alma mater to coach for Notre Dame, a move in Green's opion turned him to dead coach

Ozzie Guillen/Chicago White Sox The current manager of the Miami Marlins. Guillen was a frequent target of Green's barbs when he was the manager of the Chicago White Sox, once a chief rival of Green's favorite MLB team the Minnesota Twins. Ironically the dislike has been tempered as Guillen is now the manager of a team that Green has no real opinion about and oddly the dislike has not been transferred to current Sox manager Robin Ventura. The dislike of the White Sox is palpable and mentioned in context with referernce to the Twins.

Rick Pitino/University Of Louisville Coach of the University of Louisville Cardnials basketball team, Green has had a running dislike of Pitino who he states is "a running histrionic" The University of Louisville is a chief conference rival of Green's alma mater.

John Calipari/University of KentuckyCalled the mafioso Calipari by Green. Calipari has drawn ire as the coach of the University Of Kentucky basketball team. Green makes comments about Kentucky sparingly since they have more national basketball titles.

Ohio State FootballReferred to often as the Jokeeyes, Green deries the football team at times

Miami (Ohio) UniversityAnother rival of Green's alma mater, Green makes fun of the Oxford, Ohio based school referring to them as pretty preppies