Odin's Thoughts

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are what every sports star should strive to be like. While sports media will focus on Tom Brady and his retirement, and rightfully so as he is probably the overall greatest sportsman to ever live, one of my favorite stories of the week unfolded on the tennis courts of Australia.  Before expressing my gratitude for Rafa’s magical career and Roger’s brilliant victories, it’s important to highlight the success of Ash Barty, the first Australian woman to win in Melbourne in decades. For someone to nearly walk away from the sport altogether and come back to dominate is impressive, so congratulations to her and her team. If you asked a younger me about tennis, I’d probably laugh and say tennis is a sissy sport. No contact, don’t care. But as I grew in maturity and perspective I found an interest in the game. There’s a lot to love about tennis: anything that encourages fitness is a positive activity, you can find courts in a lot of places, it’s relatively cheap

UGA Instant Analysis  Championship Week: W @ Alabama; 14-1 For the first time in my life I got to celebrate a Georgia Football national championship. As a fan, I’m so excited for this team I love to finally come out on top; some of my best memories involve UGA and my wife (the actual bulldawg) and this just makes it all sweeter. As a father, I’m so happy for these young kids to experience such joy. As a leader, I’m so proud to see Kirby Smart set the example he does for these young men and for the state. I’ll keep the analysis short and mostly positive to leave room to talk about these young savages.  The offense looked bad early. Really for three quarters I didn’t have much faith. For all the gushing over Stetson this week, he played poorly and got bailed out by his defense. I really think if a Bryce Young-type QB led this team they probably win by 40. But he kept it together and delivered in the end to get the job done.  The real UGA MVP was Jake Camarda. He won’t get the credit he d

For my regular readers looking for non college football topics, we’re almost done. Bowl season is over and the national championship is only a week away, so I will turn my attention to other sports and other leadership messages from around the world of athletics.  As bowl season ends, there are many on and off field lessons to take from this year’s matchups and results. In no particular order, and with only slight biases to follow, here are my notes from the last week of games. Agenda (it’s a long read): -Tennessee scheme and leadership woes -faking injuries -teams that got and will get better (Carolina, Sparty, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Clemson, more) -Matt Corral and opt outs -UCLA’s vs. Rutgers’ actions  -Notre Dame struggles -Penn State leadership issues -CJ Stroud vs. Bryce Young -future of CFP Tennessee is a great example of both scheme and leadership issues. Scheme-wise, it’s no doubt they can score points. They have a high powered offense that can march down the field in a hurry. How