Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

Chuckie's Address

Hit the damn return key to go down to the next line, and the stupid email went our to everyone, before I finished typing his zip code. At any rate, here's the address to inundate Chuckie with mail at, REMEMBER TO WRITE A #3 on the back of the envelope of he has to to pushups and runs sprints.

SPC Lelas, Charles, J.
B787 MP BN-3
2230 Iowa Ave, Bldg 937
Fort Leonard Wood, MO
65473

REMEMBER TO WRITE #3 on the back!

In other more trivial news, PC men's basketball looks great, and is headed to the semifinals of the Preseason NIT Tournament in NYC. Should be a good time!

Coyne's Clippings

Well here we are after nearly seven months of waiting... I love the timing between the end of the baseball season and the beginning of college basketball. Conversely, baseball season begins with in days of the college basketball national championship... its the world great?!

In a side "prediction" with a couple of friends, I'm going with 20 wins across the board for all programs involved (Providence, Syracuse, UMass)! Mark my words down!

But PC will only win by eight or nine tonite, Niagara is decent. I'd also argue PC has the toughest schedule in the BIG EAST, non-conference AND overall.

And my other 20-win team I'm following, Bryant of course, put the Bulldogs down for 20 with Springfield star John Williams.

With the close of exhibition season, UMass friend Matt Vautour pines about the old rough and tumble days of shady exhibition teams. It's nostalgic alright, but I like the new system better. You think I'm going to argue with a system that lets the likes of Bryant and other D-II schools make an extra $50,000 off a couple of guarantee exhibition contests! Go NCAA!

Coyne's Clipping

Pretender or Contender? The Jets are definitely pretenders... Quincy Carter is about as good a quarterback as Quincy Jones. And while some people might call out the coaching staff for its clock-management, (or specifically their lack there of,) I blame Quincy and his lisp. One of them needs to go, and I don't think you can get rid of a lisp. Maybe Drew Beldsoe is available?

Ron Borges writes one of the best articles I've ever read with his byline. I can't say I'm a regular reader of his, nor do I plan on becoming one, but you have to be impressed with this one. He goes into the decline of Drew Bledsoe, but its not the typical, I-want-to-be-the-first-to-tear-apart-this-aging-veteran. Its more on how regardless of Bledsoe's inpet performance, he's a classy guy and that will stay with him long after his football career ends. Yesterday's game also brought back memories of the great Brady / Bledsoe debate and how that decision has really shaped the Patriots immeasurably. Imagine if they hadn't picked Brady?! What a pivotal decision it was. I'll even say a landmark decision in franchise history.

And the daily dose of Bob Ryan has him with a mail-it-in job on the Patriots, so I'd prefer to showcase his article on the Boston College @ West Virginia game from Saturday. You can feel the alma mater-love oozing out in this one... Stupid Mountaineers, a WVU win, coupled with a Notre Dame victory over Pittsburgh would have sent the Eagles packing to some crappy bowl game, like the Toilet Bowl. Instead the Eagles are entrenched in the BIG EAST hunt and its automatic bid to the BCS. I guess we become huge Temple fans (shudder here). Since the Owls ended Syracuse's season the other day, maybe they can throw a wrench at the Eagles.

From Sunday's Providence Journal, two quality articles (which is their max for the week) regarding College Basketball. First an article on the art of putting together a men's basketball schedule. Also, columnist Bill Reynolds has a look at the big Bryant exhibition game at Connecticut, played last Thursday. It was a good little road trip to watch the second largest crowd to ever see a Bryant University sporting event. The largest was their game at Maryland a week earlier. Here's the UConn game story.

And Providence men's basketball opens up the 2004-05 campaign against Niagara tomorrow (Tuesday) night in the first round of the Preseason NIT. The game is on ESPN 2 at 7:00 p.m. so tune in and hopefully we don't get embarrased. PC is pretty young this season, seems like there's some talent there with the youngesters, but will they be okay going into Pittsburgh on ESPN's Big Monday on January 31st? I think not, but hopefully they'll win the games they're supposed to, and steal a few here and there. They better not fall into the UMass trap of losing all their games, and suprising even themselves when they win.

Preseason predictions to come tomorrow!

Coyne's Clippings

A little hiatius in the aftermath of the Red Sox... Did watch half the Jets and half the Pats games yesterday. Really have to tip your cap to the Patriots for overcoming some injuries this week, and the Jets, well with Chadworth out (Chad Pennington), it looks like we'll see if Quincy Carter can fill in. Too bad Gang Green isn't playing the Cowboys this week... Onto the clipping while enjoying the last week of quiet before jumping head first into basketball season next week.

Dan Shaughnessy is sooooooooooooooooooooo positive this ranks as the most optimistic thing I've ever read by him. Wait until a year or so, most likely six-nine months, before he reverts to form, but this is VERY uncharastic. I chalk it up to Red Sox euphoria of course... Shaughnessy doesn't know what to do with himself.

And here's something I missed from Saturday as Jackie MacMullen of all people has a preview column on Brown Bowl I between UMass head football coach Don Brown and Northeastern.

A pretty good, long (for a newspaper), well-researched article that has some great sources. Good job Jackie Mac, I think its her best article since returning to the Globe. As far as UMass Football goes, You really have to give the Minutemen credit for fighting back to (in my mind) a respectable 5-5. 3-4 in the Atlantic 10, with bad losses at URI (who cares what their record is, its a bad loss) and at home against Richmond (3-6, 2-4 A-10). But James Madison (another home loss) is legit with a 8-1 record (6-0 A-10) and UMass posted a big win at upstart New Hampshire recently. So a win next week in the season-finale at Hofstra (5-4, 3-3 A-10) would be the perfect topper to a half-way decent season. It would give UM three straight to end the year, and four of its last five. Pretty good if you asked me. They weren't expected to compete for the A-10 title this year, and they were respectable at Boston College so... The returns on Don Brown are good, next year Ocean State superstar Liam Coen will be at the QB position, and UMass will be back contending for a national championship!

Coyne's Clippings

Celtics open their season tonite, and Bob Ryan is all over it with an article on P-Squared (Paul Pierce). Its an interesting article in that the athlete has a negative attitude and the columnist tells him to be more positive. A 360 from the typical Boston sports columnist relationship.

In more important news, our thoughts turn to the midwest and settle upon our new hotspot of interest. No its not Ohio, Fort Leonard Wood military base somewhere outside of St. Louis, Missouri. Home to our boy Chuckie! Come home safe!

Complete with a map and good editorial from their local newspaper.

And this description is from the .pdf of a phone directory I found online...



Fort Leonard Wood, in the beautiful south central Missouri Ozarks, covers more than 61,000 acres. The fort is located in Pulaski County, which has a population of nearly 38,320. Bordering the installation to the north are the towns of Waynesville
and St. Robert, with an estimated combined population of 4,937. The post is two miles south of Interstate 44. St. Louis is a 2-hour drive to the east along I-44 and Springfield, MO, is a little more than an hour’s drive to the west.