Sports Editor

Kody Bliss is suppose to sign a contract with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League today.
Bliss, the best punter in the SEC for the last two years, didn’t get picked up by any NFL teams as most (including me) thought. So Bliss will boot for the CFL.
Good for him.
Bliss is s a good kid, who can change the momentum of a game with one of his leg rockets. He ripped a 71-yarder against Tulane last year. 71 YARDS!
Bliss is second in AU history in punting average for a season (46.1), and his 43.9-yards per kick career average is also good enough for second all-time.
That makes two AU players from this year’s class to head off to the NFL. Tre Smith signed with the British Columbia Lions.

Sports Editor

You guys should know me by now. And if you’ve been reading my columns for very long, you know I’m addicted to two things: Food and the spelling bee.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee is the greatest sporting event in the world. P.E.R.I.O.D. Period.
It’s awesome. And last year, after years of me lobbying for it, it was finally put into primetime. ABC aired the finals live and will do it again tonight. And that’s not all. Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic are hosting the event with Stuart Scott doing post-spelling interviews. ESPN and ABC really brought out the big guns for the 80th edition of the Bee, and I couldn’t be happier.
Well, that’s not true, I could be a lot happier.
My boy Samir Patel, who’s been in the Bee longer than I’ve been without hair, is out. Earlier today, Samir misspelled “clevis” He instead of the “is” at the end, he spelled it “ice.”
Then his mom tried to appeal the ruling, saying the judges didn’t give all of the available pronunciations of the word. After long delay, it was deemed Samir just messed up and wasn’t reinstated.
I’m crushed.

But, it still doesn’t take away from the greatness that is the spelling bee. For seven years, I’ve been writing columns about the Bee. But now, since I have a blog, I can just put my musings here.

So, here are some of my favorite random thoughts and observations of the years. Enjoy.

- It used to be if you were in the spelling bee at school, chances were you were picked last in dodge ball and had tape somewhere on your glasses.
Now, if you can spell “keratinophilic” P. Diddy wants to hang out with you.
There’s a shift in coolness going on here, and it’s the kids in high-waters and pocket protectors leading the way.
And it’s all because of the Spelling Bee.
Ask 2005 winner, Anurag Kashyap, who won $22,000 to put toward a college scholarship for correctly spelling “appoggiatura.”
He’s now got money, fame, fortune and a second glance from the girl who sits in front of him in Social Studies.
When asked what he plans to do next, Anurag calmly replied, “Just chill out.”
Word.

-- What happens after they spell the word is where the real drama takes place.
It’s got Game 7 written all over it.
If a contestant spells a word correctly, it’s better than making it to Level 10 on ... well, whatever the cool video game is nowadays.
There are smiles, fist pumps and high-fives that rarely hit their target. And, if the word is really hard, a correct spelling will get the “chest tap and the point to the sky” celebration.
I’m just waiting for someone to spike the microphone Chris Rock style when he or she spells “samizdat” right.

-- I really feel for the kids when they get a word wrong. Failure isn’t an option for most of them.
They’re used to being smarter than everyone else.
And just like slamming the mic, I kept waiting for a loser to pick up a chair and throw it off the stage, while screaming “it’s not fair. I can conjugate the root of 100 Latin words in less than five minutes. You can’t do this to me.”

-- I think Dr. Jacques Bailly, the Scripps National Spelling Bee official pronouncer, makes most of them up.
Really.
OK, Jamie, spell sycropholosicaliphity. It’s derives from the Latin word “sucker.”

-- 2005 contestant Joseph Shepherd of Augusta, Ga. list of hobbies include fishing, stick fighting and linguistics. Yes, stick fighting.

-- In 2006, Rajiv Tarigopula trained for the Spelling Bee like a boxer for a title fight. He didn’t partake in any of the activities set up for the contestants. No volleyball. No cookouts. No swimming. Just the dictionary. All Webster’s, all the time.
I wonder if he drank a glass full of raw eggs and ran up the Lincoln Memorial to “Gonna Fly Now”?

-- Speller Theodore Yuan once said ... “Most people do spelling because they enjoy it. I do it because I’m good at it.” Hard core.

-- They need to make trading cars with these spellers.
Seriously.
Like baseball cards, you should be able to go to Wal-Mart and buy a pack. But instead of teeth-breaking gum, the prize is a pocket protector.

I’ll trade you three Jonathan Horton’s for a Samir Patel.

Sports Editor

Since Collin Mickle is out of the country (Egypt), I’m taking a stab at giving you guys the latest happenings on the AU beat.

So here we go ...

Auburn announced the kickoff times of its first three games today.
The Tigers will open with Kansas State at 6:45 p.m. on ESPN, making it the third consecutive year AU has opened the season on ESPN or the Duce.
Auburn’s second game against USF will be an 8 p.m. (YES, you read that right, an 8 p.m. Central) kick on ESPN2. I enjoy watching night games, I hate covering them. It’s always a rush to get done, and I always feel like I’m leaving something important out (like the score) because by the time the game ends, there’s like 14 minutes to write, do interviews and edit your copy. Not good stuff.
But, and the crowd, atmosphere and aura of a night game in the SEC is second to none. That is good stuff.

Auburn’s third game will be on Lincoln Financial at 11:30 a.m. against Mississippi State. Yes, it’s the fourth year in a row that game will be played before half of AU’s student body wakes up.

In other news, today is the day University of Florida president Bernie Machen will pitch a college football playoff plan to the rest of the SEC presidents. It seems like a good start for a discussion. Bernie Mac’s plan is to open the playoff to all 119 Division-I teams, taking the top 16, 8 or four, whatever, and distributing the money back out to those same schools, instead of just the six BCS conferences (Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC, Pac-10 and Big East).
Like I said, it’s a start. But as I wrote in a column for Thursday’s Opelika-Auburn News, just a playoff won’t do. It’s got to be a playoff with the right number of teams and the right amount of games. Plus, the bowl system as we know it (not the BCS, but the other 20-some bowls) have to stay in place.
For two reasons (well there’s more, but these are the most important): 1) Money. 2) The bowl experience. College presidents and ADs aren’t going to sign off on a playoff that takes money out of their pockets. The reason there are so many bowls is to give schools who will never make it in a 16-, 8- or 4-team playoff a chance at getting some extra scratch. Football is a money maker. And on most college campuses, it’s the only money maker. So the bowls have to be in place so teams who have decent seasons, don’t miss out. And that goes along with giving the players, coaches and fans the whole bowl experience.
Take it from me, bowl trips are fun. Really fun. I had a blast in Dallas this past season covering Auburn in the Cotton Bowl. That’s something no one should miss out on. And plus, it keeps us hacks looking forward to something.