The past few weeks have been pretty crazy for me with spring break, midterms, and spring ball starting. I must admit it has been a struggle to find free time to sit down and type out my thoughts. This got me to thinking, how does Bryan do it? How does he find time to balance his academic life with his football life, love life, and of course, still dress to the nines? Well, this week I thought I would take the opportunity to give the readers out there a closer look into the author of this blog, the Hoosiers starting RB, and more importantly my friend, Bryan Payton.
I remember when I first joined the team; Bryan was one of the first members to introduce himself to me. We small talked for a little bit, but we soon found out we shared a passion for the Miami Hurricanes football program. Since then, we have been good friends who debate all different types of topics, and enjoy talking sports (possibly the reason he offered me this column). The Bryan I met then to the Bryan I know now has matured and changed in numerous ways but still has been able to keep that core that makes him who he is.
In the lockeroom, he is a leader and a role model to all of us and paves the way by setting the example of what an Indiana University football player should be on and off the field. During our winter workouts Payton is pushing himself and everyone else in the weight room, and is always running as hard as he can whether it is the 1st sprint or the last (I’ve had a pretty good view of his back numerous times). He is very aware of how hard he has worked to get to where he is, and isn’t about to stop now - especially with this being his last year of eligibility.
“BP” exemplifies the term “student-athlete” and isn’t afraid to challenge himself off the field. Bryan takes demanding courses, writes for the school paper, magazine, and posts a blog all while playing a division one sport. His days start early and end late. I recall one day walking into breakfast at 8 am and seeing Bryan finishing up his meal and asking him, “Wow, here kind of early huh”? He replied right back, “This isn’t early, I am usually up at about 5”.
What is so refreshing about being Bryan’s friend is that he is always himself, and treats everyone with the respect they deserve. Walking through the stadium you may catch Bryan chatting it up with Coach Springer, his position coach, discussing fashion with a few lesser known players, or most likely, asking the cooks and the rest of the stadium staff how their lives are - joking around with them.
“Pops” has numerous opportunities this summer and post college, and he deserves them all. He has stayed focus his entire collegiate career which is something we all know is hard to do. But if I know Bryan, he isn’t about to get complacent with where he is. I ask readers of “ A Renaissance Man’s Daybook” to seriously take advantage of each entry because when Bryan Payton makes it big in either the sports business, the writing world, or whatever he puts his mind to, you can say “I knew Bryan when…”, because I know I will.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Chanel Fall/Winter '09-'10 Womenswear Show
I love clothes that create a really nice tailored fit for men or women. I like the clothes to show off a woman's shape, not make it extra curvy or hide the curves that women do have. The body is beautiful thing and should be excentuated through thoughtful clothes that create a new vision and idea. Below is the full show.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Week One of Spring Ball In The Books
The first week of spring ball 2009 is in the books and I couldn’t be more pleased with the way the first week went. I felt that players competed hard from top to bottom, which made the practice week go by quickly because we were all having so much fun.
On the offensive side of the ball lots of our plays are hitting and hitting fairly often. The defense has gotten theirs too, but I’m used to the defense nearly dominating because early on, the defense is almost always ahead of the offense. I’ve never played defense, but I’m going to assume it’s because they have to think less and just fly to the ball. Early on in a training camp or spring ball, the offense has to get used to running new plays and securing the football at the same time.
The last two practices of this week were in full pads, which was a relief in many ways. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to run up the middle full speed with no pads on, but let me tell you, it can get a little dicey. With the first two unpadded practices, I’m lucky I had no unfortunate collisions because I got the ball and just ran full steam ahead – pads or no pads.
But back to today. We didn’t waste much time in getting the pads popping, as we did a drill known as “The Oklahoma Drill” to me, but I guess we could call it “The Hoosier Drill”. It was straight up old school – three lineman from both sides of the ball lined up across from each other while a ball-carrier set up behind the offensive line. Cones were set up on the outsides so the ball-carrier knew where out-of-bounds was. The objective was for the offense to score in three tries and for the defense to stop them.
Guys were getting pancaked, shalacked, hogmollied, and tossed! It was great. With every play that was made, guys were hooping and hollering, jumping around, slapping each other’s helmets and just hyping things up! It was a sight to see. That definitely set the tone for the remainder of practice. We went full go during our inside run periods and the last two periods of full-team drills. I broke a nice first-down run at the beginning of the period and a there were a few good runs from both D McCray and Shawn Major-Winston. The QB’s and WR’s made lots of plays as well.
I have to give a shout out to cornerback, Richard Council, for making a great interception yesterday in practice. Numerous others made great plays during the week but props goes to Richard because he dropped somewhere around six potential interceptions during last season, so us guys have been all over him all offseason for that. Nevertheless, he’s worked hard to improve his hands and the hard work is showing on the field.
We have Sunday off, a morning lift on Monday and we’re back at it on Tuesday. Tune in then for more IU Football Spring Ball features/news.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Too Cute
I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to do this, but I saw this picture on Scott Schuman's blog, The Sartorialist. I just feel like this girl looks so cute in this outfit. Forgive me Scott, but I had to do it.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Lil' Wayne Rocks Outside the Box
Lil' Wayne is set to release his next album very soon and it's not what you'd expect from one of the best rappers in the game today. He's tearing a page out of the Kanye West book and releasing something totally different - a rock album. The name of the album is The Rebirth and the first single is "Prom Queen" which is auto-tuned and catchy; it makes me want to party or something. The release date for the album is to be determined but will likely be out sometime this spring.
Many people are worried about this change in music for Weezy, but I'm not at all, and they shouldn't either. I applaud the man for doing something different and it's artists like him and Kanye who make the music game better.
Below I've posted the music video for the song. The song is one of my favorites and the video holds its own. Enjoy.
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