The Wizards Complete the Demise of DC Sports

Not a whole lot going on at the internship recently, just doing more play-by-play at basketball games. So this week I want to talk about the crumbling of the Washington Wizards this season, and the overall state of DC professional sports.

Of the three major sports, DC is now an embarrassment in all three. Since the Gilbert Arenas incident earler this season, where he allegedly pulled a gun on a teammate, the Wizards have fully entered rebulding mode, and have brought full-circle shame to the three major professional sports franchises in Washington, DC. Arenas was given a 6-year, $111 million contract last season, and was supposed to be the centerpiece of the franchise for years to come. Now he is sitting at home, suspended for the year, after pleading guilty to federal gun charges.

As you may have gathered from my little bio clip on the side of the blog, I am a diehard fan of DC sports. Growing up right outside DC in Northern Virginia, I developed a deep passion for the Redskins and Wizards (formerly the Bullets), and was excited when we finally got a pro baseball team a few years back.

Unfortunately, throughout my lifetime, these teams have experienced limited, if any, success. And as the NBA trade deadline approached this week, I had a feeling the Wizards were going to make some big moves to clear up salary cap space and gather a few draft picks. Sure enough, they sent three starters off in trades this week, including former all-stars Antawn Jamison (to the arch-rival Cavs, ugh) and Caron Butler (to the Mavericks). And if my gut is right again, they will void Arenas' contract in the offseason, and the Wiz will be left without a single superstar to hang their hats on.

The Nationals are still experiencing the struggles of being an expansion team. The Redskins haven't done anything significant in nearly two decades, and now the Wizards, who were predicted by many experts in the preseason to be a high (4-5) seed in the playoffs, have completely dismantled their core. Man, I'm bitter.

Could be worse though, I could be a UNC fan :)

Luckily, in DC we do have a pair of sports teams to be proud of. Last time I checked the Capitals were in first place in the Eastern Conference. But really, do people still watch hockey?

The Georgetown Hoyas are my college ball love, and have hung around in the top 10 for most of the season. But they were officially swept by arch-rival Syracuse tonight, and I don't think they have the depth to make a run in the tournament.

Woe is me....

Internship Blog: Week 2

Things have been relatively slow over the last two weeks at the internship, but I did get a few more opportunities.

What I thought I knew about keeping play-by-play for a basketball game, I was wrong. I had gone out and done play-by-play for a few football games before my internship officially started a little more than a month ago, and that wasn't so hard. Let me tell you, basketball is a whole different story. The game moves so fast that just physically keeping up is a challenge.

I went out to cover the Ashley-Hoggard doubleheader along with my editor a little over a week ago. My job was to keep play-by-play and stats for the girls' game, and interview players and coaches after the game to write a 300 word game story. You can find it here. (I don't know why my name isn't in the byline here, it was in the print version). Anyway I just wrote up the girls' game.

Since then I also got the chance to go out and interview a local Wilmington man who won a national contest through Facebook for a trip to the Pro Bowl last weekend. The contest was based through U.S. Cellular's fan page, and he was one of two winners nationwide. He was a pretty laid back guy, and you can check out the short blog post I wrote on him here.

Since then I haven't gotten anything published, but I've been tagging along with reporters to practice my play-by-play skills for basketball. As playoff season starts to heat up for basketball, I'm sure they're going to need extra help. Keep an eye out for me!