My Journeys to the Edge of Sports

January was a long, trying month. So in lieu of a long post about my monthlong journey, I decided to post links to some of the stories I wrote in the past 31 days. There was tons traveling, a lot of good times and, unfortunately, much sadness as well. Overall, when I look back at January 2012, I will consider it a celebration of life.

I ended the college football season with stops at the Rose Bowl and BCS National Championship game in New Orleans. After the LSU-Bama game, I talked with Alabama RB Trent Richardson and found out he’d actually committed to the “goals” project we started at the beginning of the season. I felt like I’d won a national championship, myself! READ THE MAGAZINE PIECE HERE.

“What are we going to do this New Year’s Eve, Brain?”

“Same thing we do every New Year’s Eve, Pinky. Try and take over the world!”**

The Rose Bowl post-game celebration down on the field. Ducks can party!

Okay, maybe not. But for the past several years, my New Years Eve weekends have been very much the same, and in so many ways absolutely unique. That’s thanks to a Red Bull/ESPN collaborative called “New Year. No Limits” and a little football game called the Rose Bowl.

Thursday night, I attended my first FRED talks, a fun local event hosted by Santa Monica resident Steve Glenn. He modeled the monthly event after the TED talks, which he has attended for several years and participated in at the Long Beach TED talks in 2009. [If you aren't familiar with TED talks, you can check them out and watch a few HERE. You can watch Steve's talk HERE.]

What a great idea. Invite lots of smart, creative, interesting, do-goody folks from around the area into your (amazing pre-fab Living Homes) home for a potluck dinner, drinks and thought-provoking talks. Each month, anyone invited to the event can propose a talk subject and then entertain and inform the crowd for 8 minutes, with a 3-minute question-and-answer session, which follows.

A few weeks ago, Time magazine columnist Joel Stein spent his Sunday morning watching football with the members of the OMG Girls! fantasy football league at Barney’s Beanerie in Westwood (LA). I am a member of the OMG Girls, which was started by my friend and colleague Molly Knight. Most of the girls in the league are her friends from Stanford. Most are 30. Most like playing fantasy because they both love football and love competition. I was just excited to meet a group of girls to watch football with on Sundays and trade smack talk with on the days in between.

I started writing this blog three weeks ago, picked it up again several times, but was never able to finish it. I have so many thoughts, so many ever-changing thoughts on the subject, and solidifying them into one post seemed like an impossible task. But yesterday I realized I haven’t blogged in nearly a month, becuase I haven’t been able to move on to more lighthearted topics until I finally hit “post” on this one. So, today, I finally finished it.

In a follow-up to 2009′s Chargers Fan For a Day (at a home playoff game, with my friend Mike) and January’s Wisconsin Fan For a Day (at the Rose Bowl, with my friend Stacey), I completed the trifecta and spent Saturday dressed up as a Stanford alum for 2011′s Stanford Fan For a Day (at the USC game, with my friend Molly).

The Stanford band. Yes, that's a mummy directing them. Yes, they're all drunk.