Just around the bend

This is part 3 in a series, find part 2 here

The sec­ond half of this adven­ture has become increas­ingly dif­fi­cult. Every day it is a chore to choke down my healthy bev­er­ages. I am assum­ing it has been because this is the longest that I have ever stuck to a strict diet. In fact, the only other diet that I have ever fol­lowed was the Atkins diet — but that’s far eas­ier to adhere to.

I have had lesser suc­cess in the lat­ter days of this social exper­i­ment as far as weight loss. I believe that this was partly because of the hol­i­day sea­son and partly because I started exer­cis­ing more. After all, mus­cle does weigh more than fat (higher den­sity). I was also not as strict on my food intake because I was sur­rounded by tasty treats on all sides, both at home and at work lead­ing up to X-mas.

With this set­back, I was back to the same weight I was at after 30 days. This being said, I still feel as though I am con­tin­u­ing to get health­ier. I don’t have any sci­ence (BMI mea­sure­ments, etc.) to con­firm this sus­pi­cion, but I have a feeling.

Not only have I felt health­ier, but I have been sick less this fall than in most recent years. This is fairly sur­pris­ing to me since I work at a doctor’s office and reg­u­larly deal with about 30 dif­fer­ent patients a day. If that wasn’t enough, the doc I work for is an ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat) so there are an abun­dance of cougher’s and con­t­a­m­i­na­tors that cross my path every day.

I believe that my health has been improved in com­par­i­son to some of my fam­ily mem­bers, who also work in the same office. On the aver­age, I get sick just as often as they all do. This is the first win­ter that I can recall not hav­ing been sick at all. Usu­ally, I get ‘the crud’ once a year and ton­sil­li­tis once a year or more. I am cor­re­lat­ing my increased over­all health to being affected by my more micro-nutrient rich diet, which my other fam­ily mem­bers lack. We all eat a fairly bal­anced diet, but mine is the only micro-nutrient sat­u­rated diet.

It could, just as eas­ily, be a placebo affect that I have noticed from my diet, but if it is – I have been fooled com­pletely. I’m cool with that. So, three-quarters thru the exper­i­ment and I am down 11 lbs. Not nearly the extreme results of our friends from the doc­u­men­tary, but I only half-assed what they were capa­ble of. My goal may take longer to reach than our new friends, but I think that it is the right way for me.

When mak­ing healthy juices, be sure to anchor it with some sweet juices. I use a sta­ple of apples with pears or can­taloupe with hon­ey­dew for every juice. To spice it up a lit­tle, I add pineap­ple to the mix once a week. Some berries and softer fruits don’t con­tribute much juice, but ‘to each his/her own’. I wouldn’t rec­om­mend straw­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries, or bananas for the juicer. They are bet­ter off in the blender. As far as veg­gies go, each per­son has to find what works for them. Keep it as green as you can han­dle, but be care­ful not to gross your­self out. It can and will hap­pen occa­sion­ally. Spinach was in every juice and usu­ally cel­ery was too. I had started using a bunch of car­rots with my juices, but as time wore on the tex­ture from the car­rots was dif­fi­cult to palate. Some rec­om­mended adding beets or gin­ger in my juices, but I find them both disgusting.

Best of luck in your micro-nutrient rich adventures!

Cow­boys kneel to Tem­ple at 2011 New Mex­ico Bowl

The teams seemed as evenly matched as any two teams could be head­ing into a bowl game. The Wyoming Cow­boys (8−4, 5–3 MWC) faced off against the Tem­ple Owls(8–4, 5–2 MAC) on a gor­geous Albu­querque after­noon in front of over 25,000 fans. There weren’t nearly as many fans for the Owls as for the Cow­boys, but that is to be expected since they come from so far away.

Ten­sions ran high before the sixth edi­tion of the Gildan New Mex­ico Bowl got started. Both teams had been inspired the day before game­day by an encap­su­lat­ing speech by for­mer NFL-great quar­ter­back Archie Man­ning, which high­lighted being a leader both on and off the field. The fans anx­iously looked for­ward to a seri­ous bat­tle on a gor­geous after­noon to start off the Bowl sea­son on ESPN.

Pass from Temple’s Coyer

The Pokes won the coin-toss and deferred to receive the ball to start the sec­ond half.Templegot the ball to start the game and made their way down the field with rel­a­tive ease. The Owls scored on a one-yard rush by Bernard Pierce for the game’s first touch­down. The drive went 90 yards in 13 plays.Wyomingthen received the ball and moved the ball down the field. They were held out of the red­zone, but had an attempted field goal, which missed wide-right. The score stayed at 7–0 and the Owls got the ball in good field posi­tion. The quar­ter ended with a score of 7–0 in the first quarter.

Tem­ple­marched down the field in nine plays for another one-yard touch­down rush for Pierce. The score forTempleput

Wyoming QB Brett Smith avoids a sack

them up 14–0 over the Cowboys.Wyomingcame out pass­ing and were quickly inter­cepted by aTem­plede­fen­sive back. The Owls moved quickly and got another rush­ing touch­down, this time from Matt Brown. The score put the Owls way up on the Pokes, 21–0.Wyomingdid all that they could to put some kind of drive together and were rewarded after two fourth-down con­ver­sions. The Pokes put a receiv­ing touch­down on the board on one of their fourth-down con­ver­sions. The touch­down was caught by Josh Doct­son for a 21-yard touch­down which finally got the Cow­boys onto the board, down 21–7. On the first play of the Owls ensu­ing drive, they tossed up a ball that was caught and run in for a touch­down by Rod Streater. The Cowboy’s defen­sive back slipped on the play and had no help over-the-top, which made the Owls touch­down rel­a­tively easy. To end the half the score was knot­ted at 28–7 in favor of theTempleOwls.

TheTem­ple­Owl­swere led by Pierce, Chris Coyer, and Tahir White­head. Pierce ran for 53 yards on a dozen car­ries with two touch­downs. Coyer went 5-for-7 with 128 yards pass­ing and a touch­down. He also had 38 yards rush­ing on five attempts. White­head led the defense with seven tack­les in the half.

Wyoming­was led at the half by quar­ter­back Brett Smith, Doct­son, and Brian Hen­dricks. Smith went 9-for-14 with a touch­down and a pair of inter­cep­tions. Smith also ran for 55 yards on 10 attempts. Doct­son had the oneWyoming­touch­down on one catch for 21 yards. Hen­dricks led the defense with six tack­les, none for losses.

Wyomin­gre­ceived the ball to start the sec­ond half and was putting together a qual­ity drive. Then they had back-to-back penal­ties to make for a 3^rd and extremely long, which forced them to punt the ball away. The Owls got the ball and wound down the clock on their drive. The Owls kicked a 34-yard field goal to end a long drive and notch the score up at 31–7 with less than two min­utes left in the third quar­ter. At the end of the third, the Owls were up on the Pokes 31–7 and had the ball to begin the 4^th quarter.

The Owls owned the fourth quar­ter of the game, just as they had for the pre­vi­ous three quar­ters. They did all that they

Doct­son makes a spec­tac­u­lar reception

could to eat up the clock while col­lect­ing another field goal along the way. The Cow­boys did their best to drive and score in hopes of sav­ing some face. The Cow­boys punched in a rush­ing touch­down by Kody Sut­ton along with a two-point con­ver­sion with a quar­ter­back draw. The final score inAl­bu­querque­was the Tem­ple Owls 37 – Wyoming Cow­boys 15.

Sta­tis­ti­cal lead­ers for the Owls were Pierce, Coyer, and White­head. Pierce fin­ished with 100 yards on 25 car­ries. Coyer went 8-for-12 with 169 yards and a touch­down. Coyer also con­tributed 71 yards rush­ing on 12 car­ries. White­head col­lected the defen­sive player of the game hon­ors with nine tack­les and a half a tackle for a loss.

The Pokes were led by Smith, Doct­son, and Hen­dricks. Smith fin­ished going 17-for-26 for 96 yards with one touch­down and three inter­cep­tions. Doct­son con­tributed three recep­tions with a touch­down. Hen­dricks had a big day with 13 tack­les on the day.

The Cow­boys put their best foot for­ward, but were thwarted early and often on a rough after­noon inNew Mex­ico. The Cow­boys and coach Dave Chris­tensen fall to 1–1 in their last two attempts at the New Mex­ico Bowl, which came in the last three years. Chris­tensen won MWC coach of the year but was unable to over­come the early momen­tum of theTem­ple­Owls. Con­grat­u­la­tions to both teams for a valiant effort and some solid competition.

A fat guys skepticism

This is Part 2 in the series. Part 1 is here.

I have taken the easy road for the first part of my jour­ney to become slim­mer. Tak­ing the easy road hasn’t been a cake­walk by any means. It’s not only the dietary changes that have made life a lit­tle more dif­fi­cult. There’s also the time that is con­sumed by prepar­ing more foods con­tain­ing fresh produce.

Unfor­tu­nately, the ‘Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead’ fast­ing the­ory also pro­hibits the con­sump­tion of caf­feine and alco­hol. At first there was no way I could do this, but after I got used to the produce-heavy rou­tine I suc­cess­fully elim­i­nated both drugs from my sys­tem. The alco­hol was a lit­tle tough because I love a cold, frothy, adult bev­er­age before Wyoming Cow­boys foot­ball games, but I have been able to com­pletely elim­i­nate con­sump­tion (not that I drank much before­hand). Ditch­ing the caf­feine was far more of a dif­fi­cult process. I am not, at all, a morn­ing per­son so it became a lit­tle dif­fi­cult to get the wheels mov­ing in the AM sans morn­ing cof­fee. After two days of nag­ging headaches from caf­feine with­draws, I no longer desired caf­feine to the same extent and it has been eliminated too.

In the begin­ning my juices were about half fruit and they were fairly enjoy­able regard­less of the com­bi­na­tion of pro­duce. Not only did I skip the veg­gie heavy juices, but I had to allow myself to eat meat for din­ner. With­out it, I reg­u­larly got a bit light-headed. I wasn’t totally a cheater. I did toss in high amounts of green veg­eta­bles with my din­ners. As the first ten days came and went, I began exper­i­ment­ing with dif­fer­ent leafy greens and have kept them in my juices from then on.

The first ten days of the social exper­i­ment were pretty dif­fi­cult, but I was deter­mined to make health­ier choices into the future. As I added more green veg­gies (spinach or kale) to my juices I started to get the ‘Popeye-pump’ for about an hour or so. Yes, I ref­er­enced an out-of-date car­toon. When I got the pump, it was only com­pa­ra­ble to how you feel post-weightlifting. I could feel my blood pump­ing through­out my body and became very warm and flushed. It was not a neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence, I assure you. One of the other ben­e­fits from con­sum­ing all this pro­duce is that I don’t feel like I am car­ry­ing my last four meals around with me. (Prob­a­bly because I’m not any­more) All my food moves thru the sys­tem with greater speed and I never feel bloated or stuffed.

One thing that really sur­prised me was how I felt when I didn’t have my juices and ate a typ­i­cal higher-fat diet. I felt lethar­gic and com­pletely unmo­ti­vated. Is this why Amer­ica relies on caf­feine? I enjoy a good caf­feine buzz as much as the next per­son, but I can get a sim­i­lar jolt by bom­bard­ing my sys­tem with healthy produce.

Day 10 – 241 lbs 4 lbs down and my energy level has been increasing a bit.

I am skep­ti­cal about the pos­si­bil­ity of los­ing mas­sive amounts of weight since my start­ing point was so much lower than Joe and Phil. Only time will tell. Just try­ing to stay pos­i­tive and roll with the punches. I will be writ­ing new edi­tions after day 21, day 30, day 45, and day 60. I would be hon­ored if you returned to read the rest of my social exper­i­ment results. To all you read­ers out there – wher­ever you are, thanks for read­ing and safe journeys.

Gov­er­nor Mead Asks Full Court to Review Road­less Rule Deci­sion (Press Release)

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Gov­er­nor Matt Mead, today, directed the State of Wyoming to peti­tion for a rehear­ing of the deci­sion that upheld the Road­less Rule. Gov­er­nor Mead would like the U.S. Tenth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals to con­sider Wyoming’s argu­ments en banc. 

The Peti­tion for Rehear­ing says that the U.S. For­est Ser­vice vio­lated the Wilder­ness Act when it cre­ated de facto wilder­ness areas across approx­i­mately 59 mil­lion acres of the nation’s forests, includ­ing 3 mil­lion acres in Wyoming. In addi­tion, the Peti­tion states that the For­est Ser­vice rad­i­cally altered the scope of the Road­less Rule with­out prepar­ing a Sup­ple­men­tal Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment in vio­la­tion of the National Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­icy Act; that the For­est Ser­vice cir­cum­vented the National For­est Man­age­ment Act under the guise of nation­wide rule mak­ing; that the For­est Ser­vice is required to eval­u­ate for­est use on a forest-by-forest basis rather than by national rule; and that the For­est Ser­vice pre­de­ter­mined the out­come of the Road­less Rule to sat­isfy a Pres­i­den­tial edict.

“The cre­ation of these de facto wilder­ness areas means the voice of the pub­lic and the State are sti­fled in man­ag­ing the lands here,” Gov­er­nor Mead said. “Not only does this pre­vent many uses of pub­lic land, but it also lim­its our abil­ity to fight back against the bark bee­tles that are dev­as­tat­ing our forests.”

The Peti­tion was filed with the Tenth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals today.

Bronze Boot bat­tle leads to NM Bowl birth

The Bronze Boot resided on the Wyoming side of the field and never left their sideline

On a snow cov­ered land­scape in Fort Collins, the Wyoming Cow­boys 7–4 (4−2 MWC) took on the Col­orado State Rams 3–8 (1−5 MWC) in the 103^rd Bor­der War. The­Bat­tle for the Bronze Boot was rowdy and at times there were tem­pers flar­ing all over the field. Both teams had mul­ti­ple per­sonal fouls from both sides of the ball through­out the game. Not a big sur­prise for the biggest rivalry in the Moun­tain West Conference.

Quar­ter­back Brett Smith rushes out of the pocket for Wyoming

The game began with the Cow­boys win­ning the coin-toss and choos­ing to defer to get the ball to start the sec­ond half. The Rams got the ball and moved it down the field with rel­a­tive ease, until they got inside theWyoming10-yard line. The Rams were forced to kick a 21-yard field goal and put the first points of the game on the scoreboard.Wyomingwasn’t dis­cour­aged and worked their way down the field metic­u­lously for their first score of the day by way of a rush­ing touch­down by Alvester Alexan­der, putting the score atWyoming7 – CSU 3. There were mul­ti­ple pos­ses­sions for both teams that led to a cou­ple of punts in a bat­tle for field posi­tion. To end the first quar­ter the Cow­boys were up on the Rams, 7–3.

In the sec­ond quar­ter both teams con­tin­ued dri­ving and pun­ish­ing the oppos­ing team’s defense. The Rams started the scor­ing in the sec­ond quar­ter as well, putting up a 44-yard field goal to tighten up the score at 7–6 in favor of Wyoming. The Pokes struck quickly to steal away any kind of momen­tum that had been build­ing up for the Rams. In less than 20 sec­onds, Smith had an 80-yard pass com­ple­tion to fresh­man wide receiver Josh Doct­son that resulted in a touch­down. That play was the final score of the half with more than ten min­utes remain­ing on the clock. Half­time score wasWyoming14 – CSU 6.

CSU quar­ter­back Grayson eludes Cow­boy defenders

CSU was led sta­tis­ti­cally by quar­ter­back Gar­ret Grayson, wide receiver Matt Yemm, and kicker Chad Van­der­molen. Grayson also pulled double-duty, lead­ing thru the air as well as on the ground. Grayson went 8-for-14 for 93 yards and a pair of inter­cep­tions. Grayson led the ground attack with 79 yards on ten rush­ing attempts. Yemm had three recep­tions for 53 yards. Van­der­molen had two field goals.

Mar­que­ston Huff, aka Quest, lines up inside the Ram redzone

Wyoming­was led by quar­ter­back Brett Smith, wide receiver Josh Doct­son, and defen­sive back Mar­que­ston Huff. Smith led the way both in the air and on the ground. Smith went 7-for-13 with 130 yards thru the air and a touch­down. Smith pulled double-duty and also had 74 yards rush­ing. Doct­son caught two passes for 94 yards receiv­ing and a touch­down. Huff stopped a seri­ous CSU drive with an inter­cep­tion in the endzone.

Rams encir­cle a fan­tas­tic punt just feet from the Wyoming goal line

The Pokes started the sec­ond half with the ball and would have felt pretty com­fort­able had they got­ten a score to start the half. Unfor­tu­nately, true-freshman quar­ter­back Smith threw his first inter­cep­tion of the game to hand the ball to the Rams already in Cow­boy ter­ri­tory. The turnover led to a CSU touch­down by Ray­mond Carter. The Rams then faked the point-after but were stopped less than a yard from the goal line for their two-point con­ver­sion. The touch­down put the score at 14–12 in favor of the Pokes, but those pesky Rams were still within strik­ing dis­tance. CSU also got the games next score with another rush­ing touch­down by Carter. This touch­down run put the score in favor of the Rams for the first time since early in the first quar­ter. The third quar­ter ended with the score in favor of the home-team CSU Rams 14–19.

Ram’s quar­ter­back Grayson calls out his cadence

The fourth quar­ter started with the Rams in scor­ing posi­tion. Luck­ily the Pokes defense held CSU to a field goal attempt. On the attempt, the kick struck the right up-right and doinked back into the end­zone. Score remained at 14–19 in favor of the Rams, but Wyoming­had stolen some wind from the sails of CSU with the missed field goal. The Pokes fire back with a sec­ond pass­ing touch­down going to Doct­son for 35 yards and the score. This put the Cow­boys back on top and they would not relin­quish their 20–19 lead. CSU had a tough drive on their next pos­ses­sion and went for the first down on fourth down. The Cow­boy defense held strong and gave the ball back to the Pokes offense. Smith quickly gave the ball back to the Rams with his sec­ond inter­cep­tion, this one inside the Ram 5-yard line. Luck­ily, the Pokes defense stood strong and got a safety. This put the score at Wyoming22 – Col­orado State 19. Wyoming­got the ball back and con­tin­ued to waste time off the clock. They were suc­cess­ful in their attempt and won the 103^rd Bor­der War with a score of 22–19.

Some of the many Wyoming fans that made their way down to Fort Collins

Sta­tis­ti­cal lead­ers for the Rams were Grayson, and Carter. Grayson fin­ished going 15-for-25 with 143 yards and three inter­cep­tions. Grayson also had 91 yards on 17 car­ries. Carter ran for 158 yards and a pair of touch­downs on 17 attempts along with 11 yards on two recep­tions. CSU had inter­cep­tions by Mychal Sis­son and Austin Gray. CSU fin­ished the sea­son at 3–9 (1−6 MWC) and are tied for sixth place in the Moun­tain West with­New Mex­i­coand UNLV.

Cow­boys sack CSU quar­ter­back for a safety

The Cow­boys were led by Smith, Doct­son, and Alvester Alexan­der. Doct­son fin­ished with three recep­tions for 129 yards and two touch­downs. Alexan­der ran for 87 yards and a touch­down on 13 carries.Wyominggot a trio of inter­cep­tions against the Rams from Huff, Tashaun Gip­son, and fresh­man Blair Burns. Smith had a game where he was hot-and-cold at times, but put up more yards for the books. Smith went 11-for-22 with 191 yards, two touch­downs, two inter­cep­tions, and a fum­ble lost. Smith also rushed for 90 yards on 16 car­ries. The Pokes fin­ish the sea­son at 8–4 (5−2 MWC) and hold sole pos­ses­sion of third place in the Moun­tain West.

Smith has already locked-down a legacy for him­self at the­Uni­ver­si­ty­ofWyomin­gand in the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence as a true-freshman quar­ter­back. In Saturday’s game Smith sur­passed MWC-great and cur­rent NFL rookie-of-the-year front-runner, Andy Dal­ton for most total yards by a fresh­man quar­ter­back. Smith has an astound­ing total of 3,140 yards as well as 18 touch­downs thru the air and 10 on the ground.

Wyoming­had become bowl-eligible with their pre­vi­ous win at home, but they were look­ing to keep their momen­tum going into the bowl sea­son. The Cow­boys (8−4, 5–2 MWC) have been invited to the 2011 Gildan New Mex­ico Bowl to face the Tem­ple Owls (8−4, 5–3 MAC) on Decem­ber 17^th in Albu­querque at noon. The Pokes will be mak­ing their sec­ond appear­ance in three years in the NM Bowl. In 2009 the Cow­boys had a specatcu­lar multiple-overtime vic­tory against the Fresno State Bulldogs. The Pokes will be kick­ing off the Bowl sea­son again on the 17^th. Wyoming will be led by Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence Coach of the Year Dave Chris­tensen and Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence Fresh­man of the Year, true-freshman quarterback, Brett Smith.

The talk of the town is sure to be Head Coach Dave Chris­tensen. In his three-year reign at the­Uni­ver­si­ty­ofWyomingthe Pokes have made it to two bowl appear­ances and have taken home the Bronze Boot for the Bor­der War in all three sea­sons. Chris­tensen will also be lead­ing his men to their sec­ond bowl appear­ance in Christensen’s three-year reign.

Head Coach Dave Chris­tensen holds up the Bronze Boot in vic­tory for a 3-peat

Laramie res­i­dent and UW employee places in Swiss Karate Tournament

Photo Cour­tesy Ben Froidevaux

UW Mar­tial Artist Medals at Swiss Inter­na­tional Karate Tour­na­ment (Oct. 29, 2011)

Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming Karate Club instruc­tor and Out­reach Tech­nol­ogy Ser­vices tech­ni­cian Ben Froide­vaux won sil­ver and bronze medals at the recent 2011 Basel Open Karate Mas­ters Inter­na­tional Karate Tour­na­ment held on Octo­ber 29–30 in Basel, Switzerland.

Cur­rently train­ing with the Swiss National karate team, Froide­vaux (a fifth-degree black belt) rep­re­sented Switzer­land in the Veteran’s Cat­e­gorie (ages 40+) in both Kata (forms) and Kumite (sparring). Froidevaux was awarded a sil­ver medal (sec­ond place) for Kata and a bronze medal (third place) for Kumite.  He was among over 660 com­peti­tors from 21 dif­fer­ent nations par­tic­i­pat­ing at the tournament.

“Mar­tial arts sport­ing events here in Europe are amaz­ing!  The inter­na­tional tour­na­ments bring together a diver­sity of ath­letes from var­i­ous coun­tries, cul­tures and reli­gions, and the large num­ber of com­peti­tors con­stantly helps raise the high level of difficulty, allowing for a con­stant evo­lu­tion and improve­ment of ath­letic per­for­mance within the mar­tial arts.  Such tour­na­ments also pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for ath­letes from devel­op­ing coun­tries to per­form in an inter­na­tional arena, and thereby receive recog­ni­tion (and often mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion) to help them in their ath­letic careers.  The fans are equally com­pet­i­tive in their spir­ited sup­port for their respec­tive country’s ath­letes, with shouts of approval (or dis­ap­proval) often being heard in 15–20 dif­fer­ent lan­guages, and there’s a great enthu­si­as­tic atmos­phere of friendly rivalry and inter­na­tional camaraderie.”

A UW karate instruc­tor from 2005–2010, Froide­vaux now works as a sports instruc­tor and stunt­man in Switzer­land, reg­u­larly com­pet­ing in karate and fenc­ing tour­na­ments.  He also teaches tra­di­tional mar­tial arts that focus on self-improvement, phys­i­cal con­di­tion­ing and char­ac­ter development.

“Although com­pe­ti­tion is not a focus in tra­di­tional mar­tial arts, tournament par­tic­i­pa­tion is a fun option avail­able to stu­dents,” he says.  “As most tra­di­tional mar­tial artists no longer need to use their fight­ing skills on a bat­tle­field (as in ancient times), contemporary mar­tial arts tour­na­ments can pro­vide a great oppor­tu­nity
to test one’s phys­i­cal abil­i­ties and men­tal focus along­side peer com­peti­tors while putting into appli­ca­tion mar­tial the­ory, strat­egy and phi­los­o­phy all in a safe, con­trolled envi­ron­ment with spec­i­fied rules as enforced by a panel of qual­i­fied ref­er­ees and judges. Tournament com­pe­ti­tion is also a great way to help develop tra­di­tional virtues such as spirit, dis­ci­pline, self-confidence, respect and camaraderie.”

Photo Cour­tesy Ben Froidevaux

True-freshman QB leads Pokes to Bowl Eligibility

On a cold, snowy Sat­ur­day after­noon the Wyoming Cow­boys 6–3 (3−1 MWC) faced off against the New Mex­ico Lobos 1–9 (1−4 MWC). It was the Pokes final home game and the team’s seniors were hon­ored for their ded­i­ca­tion prior to the game. In their final game at War Memo­r­ial sta­dium the Cow­boys con­trolled their own des­tiny. With a win Wyoming would make itself bowl eli­gi­ble for the sec­ond time in three years under coach Dave Christensen.

The fans came out to sup­port the Cow­boys in hopes of help­ing them clinch a bowl birth. There weren’t a record num­ber of fans, but they made their pres­ence felt. To begin the game the Cow­boys elected to receive and started the game off on offense. The Pokes drove the dis­tance of the field and went for a touch­down on fourth down inside the five yard line. The Lobos’ defense was still fresh and they were able to thwart the Cowboy’s effort to get a turnover on downs. The Lobos got the ball on their own three yard line and did all they could to try and power the ball out of their own end­zone. The Lobos punted to Wyoming and the Pokes started their drive already in New Mex­ico ter­ri­tory. The Cow­boys took less than a minute to get their first score with a screen pass dumped to Bran­don Miller for 26 yards. At the end of the first quar­ter the score was Wyoming 7 – Lobos 0.

In the sec­ond quar­ter New Mex­ico did what Wyoming had done in the first. They worked the clock with a few method­i­cal dri­ves. In their first pos­ses­sion the Lobos got a field goal after being stopped inside the red­zone. Wyoming got the ball and began to drive, but the ball was fum­bled by Alvester Alexan­der on the 12 yard line. Teams exchanged a cou­ple of pos­ses­sions before Wyoming had a missed field goal. When New Mex­ico got the ball, they made the Pokes pay for their turnover by run­ning down the clock and tack­ing on seven points. The score put the Lobos in the lead for the first time, 10–7. With only 1:41 left on the game clock the Pokes started a stel­lar two-minute drill. The Cow­boys got their lead back with only 25 sec­onds left by way of an Alexan­der rush­ing touch­down. The half ended with a score of 14–10 in favor of the Cow­boys, but the Lobos would get the ball to start the sec­ond half.

Wyoming was sta­tis­ti­cally led in the first half by Alexan­der, Brett Smith, and Tashaun Gip­son. Alexan­der did his job on the ground with 10 rushes for 44 yards and a touch­down. Smith was doing it all with 146 pass­ing yards and a touch­down, going 13-for-18 thru the air. Smith also con­tributed 25 yards on a hand­ful of car­ries. Gip­son led the defense with six tackles.

New Mex­ico was led by Cru­soe Gong­bay, B.R. Hol­brook, and Car­men Messina. Gong­bay got yards on the ground and thru the air, accu­mu­lat­ing 31 yards rush­ing and 29 yards receiv­ing. Hol­brook went 7-for-11 with 67 pass­ing yards and a rush­ing touch­down. Messina was the defen­sive stand­out with five tack­les in the first half.

Only a few sec­onds into the first drive of the sec­ond half, the Cow­boys got the ball back cour­tesy of a Gip­son inter­cep­tion. The Pokes got the ball in good field posi­tion but were forced into a three-and-out. New Mex­ico got stopped on their drive and were forced to punt it back to Wyoming. The Pokes had a quick drive that stalled in the red­zone, lead­ing to a field goal. After a few stuffed dri­ves that ate up almost seven min­utes off the clock, the third quar­ter ends with the score Wyoming 17 – New Mex­ico 10.

Wyoming opened up the fourth quar­ter deep in Lobo ter­ri­tory. It didn’t take long for quar­ter­back Brett Smith to bob-and-weave his way into the end­zone for a rush­ing touch­down, ele­vat­ing the score to 24–10 in favor of the Pokes. Both teams exchanged punts and ate up much of the fourth quar­ter clock. With less than seven min­utes left in the game, Smith scram­bled out of the pocket to find a wide open lane all the way to the end­zone. Smith punched it into the end­zone with a 69 yard rush. That score put the Cow­boys way up, 31–10. The Lobos attempted to save some face with a late game score, but were unable to pen­e­trate the Cow­boys red­zone defense. The Lobos turned the ball over on a fum­ble by the quar­ter­back and Wyoming took a knee to end the game.

Lead­ing the way in the sec­ond half for the Pokes were Smith, Gip­son, and Mazi Ogbanna. Ogbanna chipped in with six recep­tions for 78 yards. Gip­son con­tributed 10 tack­les and an inter­cep­tion. Smith did what he almost always does. He took over the game. Smith put on a show with his long touch­down run, which turned out to be the nail-in-the-coffin. Smith had a total of 147 yards rush­ing on 12 attempts. He also went 23-for-38 for 212 yards and a touch­down thru the air.

Gip­son talked to reporters post-game and stated, “In my wildest dreams I couldn’t have pic­tured a bet­ter end­ing to my play­ing career here in War Memo­r­ial Stadium.”

Coach Chris­tensen had some kind words for his quar­ter­back. “He just amazes me every time he plays. He’s such a hum­ble young man and great com­peti­tor. I can’t wait to get him on a timer (for the 40-yard dash). He out­ran their sec­ondary,” stated Christensen.

Even New Mex­ico Interim Head Coach George Bar­low was impressed with Smith’s play. He stated, “Brett Smith is doing a great job this year for a fresh­man in their sys­tem. When they ask him to throw the ball he tries to pro­tect it as much as he can and if it’s not there he will do a good job of run­ning with it. He also does an excel­lent job run­ning when they have plays designed for him to run. He is play­ing excel­lent (for them).”

New Mex­ico was led by Gong­bay, Hol­brook, and Messina. Gong­bay fin­ished with 52 yards on 10 rush­ing attempts. Hol­brook ended with 53 rush­ing yards and a touch­down on 12 car­ries. He also went 18-for-28 for 162 yards and a touch­down thru the air. Messina had 11 tack­les with two of them being for a loss.

With their stel­lar per­for­mance on senior day, the Pokes increased their record to 7–3 (4−1 MWC). The Lobos record goes to 1–10 (1−5 MWC) and they fall to the bot­tom of the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence. The Pokes vaulted them­selves into a bowl birth in Smith’s true-freshman sea­son with a few more weeks left in the sea­son. Next week the Pokes head up to the Smurf-turf. They will take on an extremely tal­ented team in Boise State 8–1 (3−1 MWC). Boise State’s only loss came to a tough TCU team after a missed field goal to end the game. In the final game of the sea­son, the Cow­boys will head down to Fort Collins for the Bor­der War and the Bronze Boot.

The man in the mirror

In an odd twist, I am a fat guy who is tak­ing advice from a man halfway across the world whom I have never met. It’s curi­ous thing when new ideas can have a pro­found effect on how you think about your own life. It’s even more inter­est­ing to have that per­son actu­ally affect your world. I am about to embark on a jour­ney that I have been on before. Well… Sort of…

I am a movie fanatic with a Net­flix obses­sion. In case you don’t know, Net­flix has a lit­tle of every­thing and can lead you into some great fea­tures after you have rated other movies that you have already seen. It bases the sug­ges­tions on what you like and what you don’t like from your rat­ings. I started my sub­scrip­tion after a His­tory of Doc­u­men­tary class that I had taken in my senior year at the Uni­ver­sity of Wyoming. It was an amaz­ing course and I would rec­om­mend it to anyone.

My taste in doc­u­men­taries has taken an inter­est­ing turn on my Net­flix account. I have most appre­ci­ated the huge num­ber of doc­u­men­taries that high­light nature and anthro­pol­ogy. Recently how­ever, I have leaned more toward doc­u­men­taries about food and health (both phys­i­cal and men­tal). One of my most recent finds has led me to try some­thing that I would have thought to be ridicu­lous in the past. It is a lit­tle extreme for an admit­ted fat guy, but I felt the need to try to improve my health.

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead, directed by Joe Cross

In the movie, “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead” the sub­ject and direc­tor, Joe Cross, makes a trip from his home­land of Aus­tralia to Amer­ica for a period of two months. Joe has decided that his health is so poor, that he needed some­thing dra­matic to help him make a pos­i­tive change in his life. He decides to make a trip to the US to talk to peo­ple across the nation about their health and food choices. Our sub­ject is an almost-40 man who is obese and has a chronic skin dis­ease for which he must take oral steroids. He had noticed that his over­all health had rapidly depleted in recent years and he was ready to make what­ever changes were nec­es­sary to improve his fail­ing health. Joe took a dra­matic approach with stu­pen­dous success.

Joe decided to do a fast where he com­pletely cut out all ani­mal prod­ucts in exchange for noth­ing more than fruits and veg­eta­bles, all-day every day. In the doc­u­men­tary he talks about how, for thou­sands of years, we had a cycle that our bod­ies are still pro­grammed for. It is the win­ter fast, when meat was hard to come by and so were fruits or veg­eta­bles of any kind. In these lean times, he explains that we are meant to lose a per­cent­age of our body weight as part of a nor­mal cycle. Cross talks about how with­out this part of the yearly cycle, our body’s rhythms can be dis­turbed and our health can suf­fer because of it. Cross decides that a cleans­ing, or fast, could poten­tially reset his hay-wired bod­ily sys­tems and put him on the right path for a health­ier life in the long-run.

Much of the first sec­tion of the movie explains the idea of a micro-nutrient rich diet ver­sus a macro-nutrient rich diet. Cross goes on to dis­cuss how many nations with weight issues con­sume diets that are high in macro-nutrients. Micro-nutrients are found in plant mat­ter (fruits, veg­eta­bles, nuts, and roots) while macro-nutrients are found in ani­mal prod­ucts (meat, dairy, eggs, and bread).

Our sub­ject pos­tu­lates that by imple­ment­ing this fast­ing cycle into his life, his body will have the abil­ity to fully recover and heal itself from the many years of a macro-nutrient bom­bard­ment it has received. He also believes that if his health sta­bi­lizes, he will be able to wean him­self off of med­ica­tions and will no longer suf­fer from his skin dis­or­der. I thought that it seemed like a bit of a stretch for chang­ing your diet to have an effect on every mal­func­tion­ing body sys­tem, but the proof is there.

Joe sets off for Amer­ica for 60 days to prove that any­one can reju­ve­nate their health by hav­ing a whole foods diet, with­out any processed food. Cross plans on fast­ing by juic­ing large amount of fruits and veg­eta­bles (mostly green). He decides that his jour­ney will have two parts. For the first 30 days he stays in New York City and talks to a wide vari­ety of peo­ple every day about their own health and what kind of foods they eat on a reg­u­lar basis. He also keeps some of his juice mix­tures on-hand for peo­ple to sam­ple when he inter­views them on the street. Largely, peo­ple are not inter­ested in the health juices but some of them give it a taste with mixed reviews in regards to fla­vor. On the sec­ond 30 days, he gath­ers his juicer and heads out on the road. He leaves NYC on a mis­sion to reach the west coast and spread his story to all of those whom he meets on his cross-country jour­ney. In this sec­tion, he meets a mor­bidly obese man with the same chronic skin dis­ease whom he offers to help after a lengthy and friendly conversation.

In the first 30 days Joe makes many com­ments on how he is feel­ing dur­ing each day of his expe­ri­ence and he takes the time to ask seri­ous ques­tions to com­plete strangers. As with any change in diet, his body puts up some resis­tance as he begins his two-month adven­ture. Despite what I had expected, his new diet shows mas­sive results in a short period of time with rel­a­tively lit­tle exer­cise other than walking.

Joe Cross meets Phil River­stone at a middle-America truckstop

The sec­ond half of the jour­ney sends him on the road to see the coun­try and talk to peo­ple about his quest to con­trol his own health. Halfway thru his jour­ney he meets Phil River­stone. Phil is a trucker who was once a scrawny kid but when he met Joe he tipped the scales at over 400lbs. Phil is a spe­cial case for Joe because he is the only per­son that he has ever met with the same chronic skin dis­ease. After the men have a heart-to-heart, Joe offers his new friend Phil any help that he might be able to con­tribute. They both leave to fin­ish their jour­neys, but Phil will soon play a major role in the film as a sep­a­rate case with even more pro­found effects from Joe’s fast­ing process.

Phil was not the only per­son that found some form of heal­ing from Joe’s meth­ods, but his expe­ri­ence is the most dra­matic. Another woman, who suf­fered from chronic, debil­i­tat­ing, migraine headaches, finds some relief from her symp­toms after a 15-day period with micro-nutrient rich juices. She con­tin­ued to enjoy the juices twice a week after she had fin­ished her ini­tial 15-day fast and she was able to kiss her migraines goodbye.

The story picks up a few months after Joe has returned to Syd­ney, Aus­tralia. Phil decides that he needs help and asks for help from Joe. Joe feels as though he can’t refuse to help some­one that has the same prob­lems that he had. Joe heads back to Amer­ica in an effort to make Phil’s tran­si­tion to a health­ier lifestyle eas­ier. The new friends head to a neu­tral loca­tion where Phil can relax, fol­low the pro­gram, and increase his phys­i­cal activ­ity. Phil jumps in with­out giv­ing it a sec­ond thought and his results show his deter­mi­na­tion to have a health­ier life.

At the end of the film you see, with a fresh eye, two men who have decided to change their lives for the bet­ter and have done so vic­to­ri­ously!

This cinéma vérité style of this film makes the viewer a part of the entire jour­ney that Joe has under­taken. As a mem­ber of the jour­ney, I think that the film has the poten­tial to have a much stronger effect on the audi­ence. I too believe that there is a nat­ural order to our health that has been altered by our envi­ron­ment and our food intake. There­fore, I have decided to try and take a jour­ney of my own to find myself with a bet­ter qual­ity of life then I cur­rently possess.

I am tak­ing steps to change where I cur­rently stand in regards to a proper bal­anced diet. I didn’t think that this change would be all that dif­fi­cult since I enjoy fruit and nearly all veg­eta­bles. I am just get­ting started on my new jour­ney and would like you to come along for the jour­ney too. So please, stop back by — as I will be keep­ing tabs on my jour­ney to bet­ter health over the next 60 days. I am not div­ing in head first into the deep end like Joe and Phil, but instead eas­ing into it from the shal­low end. I fig­ure that eas­ing into it will give me a fighter’s chance at leav­ing my fat­ter days behind me.           Day 1 – 245 lbs

Get­ting back on their feet

On a glo­ri­ous fall after­noon the Wyoming Cow­boys 3–2 (0−0 MWC) took on the UNLV Run­ning Rebels 1–4 (0−0 MWC) for their home­com­ing game. This marked the open­ing of Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence play for both teams. The Cow­boys were hop­ing to regain past momen­tum that had been crushed in the blowout fac­ing Utah State 2–3 (0−0 WAC) last week. The Rebels were hop­ing to cre­ate some momen­tum of their own as they move toward the sec­ond half of the season.

The Pokes received the ball to start the game on offense. Their offense was hop­ing to do some dam­age after last weeks’ thump­ing in Utah. The Pokes offense found lit­tle resis­tance in their first drive and in the first quar­ter. Wyoming came out of the gates with a five play drive that took them 80 yards in only 1:28. The drive was capped by 41-yard pass to Dominic Ruf­fran for the first score of the game. The point-after attempt was schtoinked off the right upright, only giv­ing the Cow­boys a 6–0 lead. UNLV’s first pos­ses­sion went poorly, result­ing in an inter­cep­tion by free safety Luke Ander­son. The Pokes quickly took the reins and rode the back of run­ning back Alvester Alexan­der for a goal-line rush for a touch­down. The score put the Cow­boys on top of the Rebels 13–0. After a few three-and-outs, the Pokes got another chance to score before the end of the first quar­ter. They put another touch­down on the board with a 15-yard pass to wide receiver Spencer Bruce. The score stood at 20–0.

The sec­ond quar­ter didn’t start much bet­ter for the Rebels, but it took a u-turn in a hurry. After UNLV was pres­sured to punt, they recov­ered the ball after a muffed punt on Wyoming’s part. The turnover gave UNLV great field posi­tion and they needed to put some points on the board if they were going to climb back into the game. Once they were close to the end­zone they picked up some points with a rush­ing touch­down by Tim Cor­nett. Wyoming did lit­tle, if any­thing, on their next drive and punted the ball back to UNLV. The Rebels moved eas­ily down the field to get right back into the game. They earned a sec­ond touch­down for Cor­nett and notched the score at 20–14. The Rebels found them­selves well within strik­ing dif­fer­ence as the half con­cluded at 20–14 in favor of the Pokes.

At half­time, the Cow­boys were on top by a nar­row mar­gin. They were led sta­tis­ti­cally by Brett Smith, Alexan­der, and Gabe Knap­ton. Smith had a solid first half going 6-for-12 for 83 yards and two touch­downs thru the air. Smith also tacked on 65 yards rush­ing on eight car­ries. Alexan­der led the ground attack with 30 yards on five car­ries along with a touch­down. Knap­ton did his part on defense and had seven tack­les to lead the team.

The Rebels were led by Dionz Brad­ford, Phillip Payne, and James Dun­lap. Brad­ford had 15 car­ries for 89 yards. Payne had a sin­gle recep­tion for 32 yards. Dun­lap led his defense with four tack­les and a sack.

The sec­ond half was far less excit­ing than the first half had ended up being. UNLV got the ball to begin the sec­ond half, but were unable to drive and were forced to punt. UW got the ball and put together a solid drive for 55 yards in 12 plays. That drive ended with a 24-yard field goal by Daniel Sul­li­van, putting the Cow­boys at 23–14. The defense held strong once again and the Rebels were forced into another three-and-out and a punt. On the ensu­ing return, Chris McNeill went 76 yards while avoid­ing many would-be tack­lers. He also got a mon­ster block against the final defender and made his touch­down return look sim­ple, putting the Cow­boys even fur­ther in front of the Rebels 30–14.

McNeill com­mented on the crunch­ing block that led to the end­zone, “I didn’t actu­ally see DeAn­dre Jones, block, but I def­i­nitely heard it… Every­body did their job on Spe­cial Forces today. Any­time we can get a full-team effort like that, it def­i­nitely does won­ders for the team.”

Head Coach Bobby Hauck of the Rebels com­mented on the punt return, “That was a big play. We came into this game, I think, lead­ing the Moun­tain West in punt­ing and not giv­ing up plays like that. There were a lot of big plays in this game.”

Wyoming had a lit­tle bit more razzle-dazzle tucked up their sleeves and put it to good use in the final quar­ter. Only three min­utes after the return for a touch­down, the Pokes put another touch­down on the board with some trick­er­a­tion. Inside the Rebel 30, the Cow­boys put the Statue of Lib­erty into use with a pass to quar­ter­back Brett Smith from McNeill. No one picked up Smith and he made an uncon­tested recep­tion and turned it into points on the board. The Cow­boys were up 36–14 and decided to fake the point-after and got their two point con­ver­sion to make it 38–14. Lit­tle life was left in the Run­ning Rebels and they gave up another field goal to put the final score at 41–14.

The sec­ond half seemed even more lop­sided than the first. Lead­ing the Cow­boys for the game were Smith, Alexan­der, and McNeill. Smith fin­ished with a respectable 96 yards on 10-of-19 thru the air with his two touch­down passes and his touch­down recep­tion. Alexan­der fin­ished with 74 yards on 14 car­ries and a touch­down. The man-of-the-hour, how­ever, was the speed­ster McNeill. McNeill had a bril­liant punt return for a score as well as throw­ing a touch­down pass to Smith. Three Cow­boys tied with 10 tack­les a-piece.

Lead­ing UNLV sta­tis­ti­cally was Cor­nett and Brad­ford. Cor­nett had the only two scores on the day but Brad­ford did much of the dirty work, get­ting 104 yards on 22 carries.

Next week the Cow­boys 4–2 (1−0 MWC) head to San Diego to take on the Aztecs 4–2 (1−1 MWC). The game will be a good barom­e­ter of Wyoming’s chances in con­fer­ence matchups for the rest of the sea­son. Hope­fully, the Pokes will only build on their cur­rent momen­tum and find them­selves bowl eli­gi­ble by season’s end.

#9 Huskers come to Town

Jonah Field at War Memo­r­ial sta­dium was a spec­tac­u­lar sight when the #9 Nebraska Corn­huskers 3–0 (0−0) came to Laramie to take on the Wyoming Cow­boys 3–0 (0−0). There were 32,617 fans in atten­dance and there were more-than-a-few Nebraska fans present. The crowd was the third largest in War Memo­r­ial history.

Wyoming was com­ing off of a nail-biting vic­tory on the road against the Bowl­ing Green Fal­cons 2–1. The Pokes blocked a point-after-touchdown with less than a minute left in reg­u­la­tion to save them­selves from being forced into over­time. The final score was 28–27, Cow­boys. The Corn­huskers were fresh off a 51–38 vic­tory over the Wash­ing­ton Huskies 2–1.

The Cow­boys received the kick­off to start the game. They had lit­tle suc­cess mov­ing the ball against such a stout defense, but the Wyoming defense was doing their jobs as well. The only touch­down in the first quar­ter of play was a 45-yard run by Nebraska run­ning­back Rex Burk­head halfway thru the quarter.

Luck­ily, the sec­ond quar­ter held much more excite­ment than the first. Nebraska found its’ tempo and met lit­tle resis­tance as they made their way down the field for a 8-yard touch­down run by quar­ter­back Tay­lor Mar­tinez. Wyoming shook off the Husker score by hav­ing a qual­ity drive that was capped by a 48-yard pass to wide-receiver Mazi Ogbonna for a touch­down. The Cow­boys had found their way onto the score­board, 14–7, with the clock wind­ing down in the first half. At half­time the score remained 14–7 in favor of Nebraska.

The sec­ond half, unfor­tu­nately, was more of what you might have expected against a Top 10 foe. The Corn­huskers con­trolled the line on both sides of the ball and the Pokes were unable to come back with much force. The third quar­ter saw two Nebraska scores: another rush­ing touch­down for Burk­head as well as a 20-yard field goal. At the end of the third quar­ter Nebraska had a healthy lead over the Cow­boys, 24–7.

In the fourth quar­ter the Huskers tacked on a pair of touch­downs on the Pokes. One touch­down was on a pass to receiver Kenny Bell and another on a short rush by Bray­lon Heard. The Pokes wouldn’t go qui­etly into the night, how­ever, and made it into the end­zone for a sec­ond time. This time it was a pass to Robert Her­ron who put points on the board. The game wasn’t very close, but it could have got­ten even more out-of-hand. The Huskers had another easy drive down the field and could have tacked on more points to the score­board. Luck­ily, the head coach was a lit­tle classier than that. After dri­ving the ball deep into the red­zone, the coach had his play­ers kneel on the ball to end the game.

It’s not likely that the #9 Huskers 4–0 will sky-rocket up the rank­ings with their win, but they might move up a notch or two. The Cow­boys 3–1 have a much deserved bye week com­ing up before they head off to play against a 1–2 Utah State team. The Pokes didn’t have a bye last sea­son, but logic would sug­gest that the time to recover couldn’t hurt. The Cow­boys still have high hopes this sea­son and with a few more wins under their belt, you might be hear­ing Bowl talk by the time the leaves have all fallen.