The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

No, I'm not talking about Christmas (but that is fantastic as well).

BYU basketball season started this week!! As much as I love football, I thrive during basketball season. I got to every game hours early, sometimes even camping out if it's a huge matchup. The reason that I love it so much is because of Jimmer. "Jimmermania" happened during my freshman year here at BYU, and in case you forgot, here's some great highlights. I would have been invested in basketball anyway, but because of the excitement of Jimmer, I became the biggest BYU basketball fan. Now, I go to every home game(exhibition, preseason, all of it) , I know all of the players' names, I sit close to the front, and I cheer my heart out. Yay for basketball season!!!

My new wallpaper on my laptop :)

On Wednesday, we got our first glimpse of BYU's team this season in the annual Cougar Tip off. It is a scrimmage within the team so that we can see all of the players play. We also got to sit in the new blue chairs, which, although comfortable, I hate because those chairs are the reason the student section is in a different place (more on that later). I love Cougar Tip off because it gives me a chance to learn the names and faces of the new guys before the first real game. I also get to decide who my team crush is. Haha! In case you are wondering, this season I love Tyler Haws and Agustin Ambrosino (or Auggie, as he goes by). I used to love Matt Carlino, or Matty as I call him, but then he shaved his head. I can't handle that. Anyway, aside from attractiveness, the team really impressed me! Especially Tyler Haws' first game in front of people after his mission. It got me really excited for the season! The Blue team won 84-70. Also, apparently Josh Sharp got really good. His dunk is SICK!

Katie and me at the exhibition game

On Friday, the Cougars welcomed the first Marriott Center guests of the season: Southeastern Oklahoma State. Unfortunately for them, they got crushed. We won 103-57. I'm kind of disappointed that we didn't double their points, but I guess winning by 46 is acceptable. Haha but in all seriousness, it was great to be at a basketball game again, cheering my heart out! Once again, I was impressed by our team. Brandon Davies is such a beast! I'm so excited for him, Craig Cusick, and Brock Zylstra (my best friend) to dominate their senior year! I'm really sad that Steven Rogers and Chris Collinsworth aren't playing anymore because of their injuries not healing properly. They were both so good and brought so much to the team. It's ok though! Our team is so good! We have a great season ahead of us.

Unfortunately, not everything is perfect in the Marriott Center anymore. They moved the student section behind one of the hoops! We used to have the best seats in the house, but they decided to kick us to the curb and give our amazing seats to people to buy. Those new blue seats are ruining everything! Besides a sub par angle of the court, there is a tunnel entrance right in the middle of our sections, so we are disconnected. The worst part by far is the new way we are behaving during free throw shots. When our team is shooting, we put up one finger. No joke. It is so awkward! I hate it! I miss spirit fingers. The first reason I heard for the change was now that we are behind the hoop, we would have been distracting our own team with spirit fingers. Uhhhhh oh. I'll just go along with it and pretend that spirit fingers are distracting. The second and more annoying reason is because the team doesn't like spirit fingers. Excuse me? Until I hear it come from Brandon Davies' mouth, I will not accept that. We have been doing spirit fingers ever since I've been here, probably longer! So which reason is it: distracting or dislike?

As frustrating as the new student section is, I am overjoyed that basketball season is finally back! I'm at every game, so if you want to come with me, let me know! Go Cougars!! :)

Aside from basketball, there was a BYU football game on Saturday! Guess what!?!? WE WON!!!!! We beat Georgia Tech in their homecoming game 41-17! Oh my gosh I'm so excited that we finally won!!! Except for Georgia Tech, in our last 3 away games we have lost by a total of 7 points. That's so frustrating! So it was nice to dominate for once. And Riley Nelson didn't suck! Sure, he had one interception, but for the most part he was playing pretty well, I thought. Can we give it up for J-Money (Jamaal Williams) for a second?? He is fantastic!! Every game I am more grateful that he chose BYU. He's only 17 years old, by the way. I thought I'd throw that in there in case you didn't hear the announcers say it every time that he touched the ball. Haha!

My favorite part of the game was when Riley threw it out of bounds to avoid a sack (smart decision), and Cosmo caught it! That was hilarious!! Cosmo is seriously the best mascot ever. Speaking of things that are the best, I love that there were so many BYU fans there to support the team! No matter where we go, there are always BYU fans there to cheer the team on. Georgia Tech fans, however, were very disappointing. The stadium was basically empty by the time the game was over. I'm not saying that BYU doesn't have a bunch of fairweather fans, because we do and I hate it. But seeing the Georgia Tech fans flake out early like that made me realize how much I wish we didn't have fairweather fans. It's embarrassing to show an empty stadium on TV!

I don't have a highlight video for you, but here is a recap.

In other news, my first article on Uloop was published earlier this past week! It's an article about how to be a good football fan. If you go to BYU and you or your friends don't follow these 5 guidelines, I suggest changing that before the final home game on November 10. My next article will come out sometime this week. It's about my top 5 forgotten Disney movies!

Tweets of the week:
@mattknisely: I'm confused? They haven't shown what number I should text to vote. #debate2012
@RebekahArnesen: The sooner coach mendenhall realizes that my love life and the football scores are connected the happier we all will be #byu #datingprobs
@kimberpower: "A Gryffindor letting his mom carry his Quidditch broom? How Hufflepuff is that?" #ModernFamily #harrypotter #hilarious
@MrStephenJones: Sitting courtside at the BYU bball game and just deflected a loose ball into a small child's face. #BYUBasketball
@BYUfootblog: DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW OLD JAMAAL WILLIAMS IS??? #BYU

Well, that's all I have for this week. Check back here next week for my review of BYU basketball vs. Findlay on November 3rd. Feel free to leave your thoughts on any of the games I talked about, I would love to hear from you! :)

<3

Fighting the Fighting Irish

This is my first sports review blog post!

I'm not going to go through the game play-by-play, but I am going to go over my highlights and what I thought about certain players and situations. I am NOT a sports expert, so if you want technical terms and deep analysis of the plays, this might not be the place for you to read a recap. But if you want to read the thoughts of a BYU fan or you care what I think, this is the place to be! I wish the first post was happier, but that's the life of a hardcore sports fan. We aren't always happy.

(Normally I will have a highlights video in the post, but the only one that I could find for this game only has Notre Dame highlights. If I find one, I will update this post.)

BYU traveled to South Bend, Indiana to play Notre Dame, the 5th ranked team in the nation, on Saturday. Going into this game, I was pretty nervous. Even if Notre Dame wasn't ranked so high, their football history is so impressive that I still would have been anxious. Also, their stadium that fits 80, 795 was sold out for the 229th straight time. That is insane! If that doesn't tell you how powerful Notre Dame is, I don't know what else can. Besides how well they play, of course.

As I sat down to watch the game in my apartment, which I was happy to finally be able to do because it was on NBC, I wasn't as nervous anymore. The announcers seemed to expect an upset. I always believe in my Cougars, but I am also realistic. So when they said that we had a chance because of their fall break just ending and their starting quarterback was out, I had more hope for us. I thought that maybe we could pull off the biggest victory in a while for BYU.

But of course, Riley Nelson let me down.

Again.

I might as well get my frustration out about Riley now. Very few BYU fans root for Riley like I do. I really, REALLY want him to do well. Obviously I want him to lead us to victory, but aside from that he is a senior, he is a fierce competitor, and he has been through so much to finally be the starting quarterback. I respect him a lot. But by the amount of interceptions he throws, I think he enjoys making us lose (no, I don't really think that). In his last 3 starts, he has had 8 interceptions. I wish I was making that up. He is not good enough. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about the team's quarterback situation because the only other quarterback that can play is worse than Riley.

Even though all of us BYU fans are beyond frustrated, we need to support Riley. Are we frustrated with him? Absolutely. However, he is the leader of our beloved football team. If he doesn't have our support, how can we expect him to improve? If I were him and everyone hated me, it would be really hard to play well knowing that my own school was not behind me. At least he loves high-fives like me.

Moving on.....

Jamaal Williams is a beast! I can't believe that he is only 17! The announcers were talking about how he turned down a bunch of other schools to come to BYU, including Oregon! The strangest part is that he isn't LDS. Obviously non-LDS athletes come here a lot, but to chose BYU over Oregon when you're not a member? That's so cool for us! He chose BYU because of the good values here, and he wanted to keep out of trouble. He is such a smart kid. I'm really impressed with him, besides his playing abilities. I'm loving J-Money (that's my nickname for him).

What was up with the tipped interceptions? First it happened to us, then it happened to Notre Dame. What are the chances? I kind of had bad deja vu when it happened to us because I remembered when Oregon State scored a touchdown last week after a tipped pass. Just our luck, I guess.

I don't even want to talk about when Cody Hoffman was wide open. But if you really want to read about what went wrong with the play that could've won the game for us, the Daily Herald wrote a great review about it.

By the millionth interception (exaggeration) in the 4th quarter, I was getting so sad. Towards the end of the game, I drew a picture of us getting an interception and running it all the way for a touchdown to win. That kind of stuff never happens to our team, but I thought that if I drew it, maybe it would work! It didn't.

 My amazing artwork.

For the most part, our defense was impressive, as always. Ziggy is a beast! It is so amazing that this is only his 3rd season playing football. EVER. If you don't know his story, read this. I'm so amazed by his natural ability!

Overall, it was a good game. We fought with those Fighting Irish with all that we had. We just fell short in the 2nd half. I was amazed when we were up at halftime 14-10! We were so close! I guess it makes more sense for them to continue their magical season than for us to win. We have nothing left to gain out of this season. We've already blown it. Maybe next year when they come to our turf and Taysom Hill is better, things will be different.

Best Tweets about the game:

• @emostler: "It might be time to let our defense play both sides. This is ridiculous. #byufootball"
• @gregwrubell: "First touchdown allowed by Notre Dame defense since the Purdue game on September 8th."
• @HarkTheFranchuck: "In warm-ups, Riley is throwing more balls in the dirt than a pitcher with the advantage of an 0-2 count."
• @gregwrubell: "Riley just told us that throwing behind Hoffman 'will haunt me for the rest of my life.'"

Next game? BYU @ Georgia Tech. October 27, 2012 at 3:00 pm EDT.

And that's the end of my first BYU football game personal recap! Keep in mind this is not a recap for a newspaper. This is my blog, so it's a casual recap. Personally, I enjoy reading things like this to see how other people felt about a game. It's interesting to read what was going on through their minds. If you have any comments about my recap or maybe you have something you would like to see me add to them, feel free to comment below. Also, if you have thoughts about the game that you would like to share, please post in the comment section! I would love to hear what you thought of this game and any game in the future!

Also, I was thinking that for basketball games, I might just do one post a week about the 2 or so games they have in that week.

Be on the lookout for BYU men's basketball coming up!! I seriously can't wait! I live for BYU basketball! Cougar Tipoff is this Wednesday at 7:00 pm in the Marriott Center!

High Expectations: The Beginning of My Blog

Well, here goes nothing...

Welcome to my blog! 

Yesterday, I had the craziest idea: I should start a blog. This is not the first time that this idea has popped into my mind, but it's the first time that I thought it was a good idea. Just last week I was accepted into the Journalism program at Brigham Young University. I was (and still am) extremely excited! 

Proof! :)

So when I thought about a blog in my current situation, I decided that I really ought to. I'm going to be writing a lot from here on out, and the more I write, the better.

Reasons to have a blog:

1. I enjoy writing! If I didn't, then I chose the wrong major.

2. Practice makes perfect!

3. I love to share my thoughts with others. Although I already use Twitter (@kimberpower), sometimes 140 characters does not cut it.

4. Hopefully I can have a readership one day that will enjoy my thoughts on different topics and I can write to them.

5. I want my family and friends who don't talk to me regularly to know what's going on. It's nice to see on Facebook or Twitter that I went to a football game, but it's not as good as hearing about the experience in depth.

What can you expect from my blog? You can expect updates on my life, exciting things that happen to me, and life lessons learned. It's going to be a pretty typical blog. The main difference from other blogs, besides that I am writing and I have a very unique personality that shines through, will be that I plan on posting something after every BYU football and men's basketball game. It's a very daunting task, but I think I'm up for the challenge. I would LOVE to be a sports journalist one day, so I might as well start early! I will also post articles that I write for Uloop, this website I am a writer for, and The Universe, BYU's newspaper, so that you guys can read my work.

Where did I get the title for my blog? I posted a status on Facebook for ideas, and my freshman roommate Clara suggested "I believe in happy endings". Here's the story behind that: for the very last essay that I had to write for my senior year English class, we were given the prompt "This I Believe". Immediately I started thinking about my religious beliefs. I thought I would write about the gospel's influence in my life or how my Heavenly Father loves me. I wrote something out, but didn't really like it. Then, the night before it was due, inspiration struck while watching the season 1 finale of Glee (no joke). I felt so inspired by that episode because the ending was so happy and optimistic! So, I wrote about how I believe in happy endings, how optimism can get us anywhere if we put our minds to it. It was probably the best essay I had ever written in high school. I was also really inspired by it to keep being as optimistic as I can. Obviously, I'm not perfect. That's why I named by blog "Footsteps Toward My Happy Ending" because I know that I haven't reached it yet. Not even close. But I'm working on it! So, thanks Clara! :)

I guess I should share a little bit about myself:

My name is Kimberlie, but I go by Kimber. I don't like to be called Kim, and when I introduce myself as Kimberlie, people VERY often assume that my nickname is Kim. So, to make it easier on myself and others, I just introduce myself as Kimber. Which do I prefer: Kimberlie or Kimber? I like them both! Whichever you prefer to call me. :)

I am 21 years old!

I am the youngest of 6 children (4 boys and 2 girls). As crazy and obnoxious as it was sometimes, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Having a big family is so fun! I also have 3 nieces and 2 nephews, and they are all so fun!

My lovely family at the Oregon Coast!

My home is Portland, Oregon, but I currently reside in Provo, Utah to go to school.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know it, I live it, I love it! If any of you ever have questions about what we are all about, feel free to ask me at any time. You can also check out mormon.org for more.

I am a junior at BYU majoring in Journalism, as mentioned earlier. It took me two years to realize that I want to be a journalist, which is why I am a junior just entering the program. Don't be surprised if I'm a super senior one day. I'm also minoring in Spanish! I LOVE the language and the people that speak it. Also, the idea of knowing another language is really cool to me, so the fact that I can communicate with different cultures is a really amazing thought.

I LOVE sports! A lot of people are kind of surprised when they see how intense and competitive I am when it comes to sports. Then I tell them that I have 4 older brothers and all of a sudden it makes sense! My favorite sports to watch are college basketball and football, NBA, MLB, and any BYU sports. The only sport that I really love to play, however, is volleyball. I have played volleyball since 5th grade, and I love it so much! Although I'm not on a college team, I play intramurals and take volleyball classes to keep up with it and keep having fun. In fact, I have won women's volleyball intramurals twice now!

This is my team after we won last week! Go Team Work!

Other random facts: my favorite color is yellow, my favorite movie is The Lion King, I hate being late, I work in the JSB Copy Center on BYU's campus, and I love life!

Well, this was a long introduction. I hope that you enjoy future blog posts! Feel free to comment on them and let me know what you think. 

I'm so excited! :)

PS: Don't forget to live it up while we're young!