Accountability is not dead

     I have been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. It is always easy to get excited about your favorite player or team winning the big game, super bowl XLIV  for example : ) We need to look deeper into what these big moments represent because there is most always more there to see.
     The New Orleans Saints winning the super bowl has been talked about and discussed til there is nothing new to say. This post isn't about the Saints. Its not about Drew Brees and all that he has done for the city of New Orleans and the gulf coast region. It is about an extremely gifted young man that has accomplished many things others can only dream of. That young man is Reggie Bush.
     Reggie played his college football at the University of Southern California. I can tell you right off I do NOT like the Trojans, but this is not about that. Reggie played there from 2003 - 2005. He won the Heisman trophy during that time.The Heisman trophy is awarded to the top collegiate football player each year. It has come to light that he received improper benefits while he was attending USC. It has been reported the he received improper benefits while he was a student/player.That is against the rules of the NCAA. USC has been put on probation for 4 years, a postseason bowl ban for 2 years, and they will lose 30 scholarships   over the next 3 years. The national championship that USC won during the 2004 season was also forfeited. These actions are all the result of a young man thinking about one thing and one thing only Himself. Now understanding that he has been the cause of these penalties being brought upon his college alma-mater, he did something today that I can respect and admire. He gave back the Heisman trophy he was awarded after the 2005 season. I can only imagine giving back an award you won that I'm sure he dreamed of winning since he was a kid playing pee wee football. He showed that he is not the selfish superstar football player that most people view him as.  This act showed accountability and maturity not common to anyone this day and age. He didn't do the easy thing. He did the right thing. It is never easy to make the right decisions, but it is the right decisions and choices that make us better people.Today I became a fan of Reggie Bush the person not the football player.  I can only hope that all the kids that want to be like Reggie and play football like Reggie can  become the person that Reggie did today. In a world of loud, obnoxious, overpaid, spoiled celebrities, Reggie showed that there are positive role models for our kids to look up to. Til next time , Jeremy

Football season is here...........FINALLY!

   This is my favorite time of the year. I enjoy most all sports, but football is at another level. I do have to say I  enjoy college football a little more than the NFL. In my humble opinion, and I do say, in MY opinion, there is a passion involved throughout college football that you can't duplicate at the professional level. The college football fan has more loyalty and love for their school. You can ask any college football fan and they will tell you exactly how good or bad their team is going to be. As they are telling you their thoughts on their team, all you have to do is watch their body language and their passion shows through. I don't care where you are in the world, if there is a college football fanatic near you, you know exactly who they are, what team they love, and  if they won or lost this week. If their team won or lost you can always tell before they say a word. Body language is a dead giveaway. I have no shame in admitting these things describe me to a T.
      I attended the University of Southern Mississippi and I have been and always will be a Golden Eagle. Now I'm sure some of you keep up with college football and know that this past Thursday night the Eagles played at the University of South Carolina and they were defeated quite handily. It pains me to say I watched every second of the game. I wanted to turn off the tv after the first half but I couldn't. Does that make me a glutton for punishment? I don't think so because if it had been USM doing the pounding I wouldn't have turned it off either.
      Growing up in south Mississippi you would think that I would have grown up being a Mississippi State Bulldog or Ole Miss Rebel fan, but to tell you the truth, I don't like either one. Particularly I HATE Ole Miss. I look back at growing up and it seems to me that my hatred for Ole Miss probably comes from how much a large part of my family loved them .Looking back it really is kind of funny. Not one member of my family ever attended Ole Miss and I can't think of one occasion that any of them even ever attended an Ole Miss football game. Maybe it's the fact that Ole Miss stopped playing USM in 1984 because they lost 6 of 8 games played, but I digress lol.
   I will be the first to admit that the conference that USM plays in is definitely not one of the better conferences (Conference USA). The SEC is head and shoulders above any conference in the country. Now with that being said, I do have a favorite team in the SEC. Living most of my life in south Mississippi, and having lived in south Louisiana for over 5 years now, I am a TIGER fan through and through. If you cut me I would bleed purple and gold. Growing up I was always an LSU fan, but I kept up more so with the basketball program.Who can forget Ricky Blanton leading a team of no names to the final four in 86'. My senior year of high school I had a term paper to do for my English class and I chose to write about Pete Maravich. If you don't know about him, just google him. He was the greatest college basketball player in history.......that again is my opinion.
     Ok, now let's get back to football. LSU played their first game of the season Saturday night against the University of North Carolina. The game was played in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. My wife and I were both extremely anxious for the game.  Yes, she bleeds purple and gold too. I will not go into detail about the game itself. I will just say I'm happy for the win, but am not happy how we played. LOL, I have to point this out because it is just an indication of how much of a fan I am. When I talked about the LSU win, I used the word "we". This shows how we as fans feel about our teams. Our teams become part of us. So now I have a question for all of you reading this. As a football fan you have a passion for your team, do you have that passion for your real life team? If you can honestly say yes than you are my kind of fan. My home team is my favorite team. Til next time......GEAUX TIGERS!

Rolling with the punches

      I want to start this off  by introducing myself. My name is Jeremy Stockstill. I am 34 years old. I have 3 step kids and 2 kids from a previous marriage. I have never blogged before but I felt like now was as good a time as any to start.This blog will go from one end of the spectrum to the other depending what thoughts I have at the time.
     I was just recently "let go" from the company I have been with for the past 2 1/2 years. This came as a complete shock and total surprise to me and my family. Needless to say, we have been hit pretty hard by this, but as the title of the blog says..... we are rolling with the punches. My wife, the amazing woman she is, has been working harder than ever to advance her ecommerce online education, social media instructing, internet marketing, internet sales, multiple businesses forward. She has several businesses online, and she is handing one of those over to me. Just to let you know, I have never sold anything online. I have never tweeted, facebooked, or any of the other social media terms you can think of and she has the faith and patience to teach me. I think she is rolling with the punches better than I am lol.
     I know that we have taken a thunderous right hook and have hit the mat hard, but we are getting up ready to push on. I can say without any hesitation that being "let go" is going to be for the best. It is hard to see now through the big black eye that we received, but that will heal and we will come back stronger. I use the term "we" because it is not just me, it is always our family. We make it through together. Without their love and support I don't know what I would do.Til next time I leave you with this....... Success is defined as getting up one more time than you have been knocked down.