The Blog of Derrick James Freese

Everyone has hopes and dreams. Joe Sievert’s dream is to leave his mark on the world and be remembered. “I just want my name to be known. You know in the movies they have like, ‘your actions will echo through eternity,’ I just want something like that, and I think the only way I can get that right now is through wrestling.”

Joe is from Akron, a small town in the northwest corner of Iowa where he has lived all his life. Since he was a child, Joe Sievert was pushed to be a wrestler. Following his friends and his brother John, Joe participated in youth wrestling tournaments, where Joe says himself, “the only reason I wrestled was because we had fun and stuff.” And suddenly something changed, Joe started winning., “once you start winning something you love playing it and you want to keep doing it.”

After qualifying for state every year in high school Joe won his first State Championship at 160 lbs his senior year. Nobody enjoys losing, but for Joe losing was the motivation he needed to finally win that championship. Joe had a nearly perfect record during his final high school season. Going 44-1 the defining moment of the season was the one match he lost. “I needed to lose that match otherwise I wouldn’t have won state.” The one match put his mind into perspective, “without losing to that kid I probably wouldn’t be as good today either just because losing makes me push myself.”

During his freshman year of college at Morningside in 2010 he placed third at the NAIA National Tournament. Now, at the age of 20, Joe is a Junior wrestling for the Mustangs. Joe has been ranked number one in the nation by NAIA polls. Being undefeated so far this year Joe is looking for that National Championship title, letting his name to echo through eternity.

When he isn’t wrestling Joe enjoys being a regular student, playing video games, hanging out with friends, and participating in recreational activities. What comes after wrestling for Joe? Joe says, “When I’m done I think I’m probably gonna end up coaching it. I don’t think my life will ever be done with wrestling.” Joe would possibly like to get an assistant coaching job with the Mustangs head coach Tim Jager.

Echo in eternity

For further reading on Joe :

http://www.lemarssentinel.com/story/1504343.html

http://akronhometowner.atomicnewstools.com/pages/?p=1112

For my last News comment, I read an article on the passing of a legendary comic icon. On Wednesday Jerry Robinson passed in his sleep at the age of 89. Without Robinson Batman’s greatest arch-nemesis, the Joker, would not have been created. Robinson also created other characters, such as Two-Face, Robin, and Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s butler. He was hired by Bob Kane while attending Columbia University.

This would be a human interest piece and it is news because he impacted the comic industry greatly. Through the years the Joker has been remade with different looks, but he is always the same Joker.

Article – http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/story/2011-12-08/jerry-robinson/51745168/1

Unless you win 45 million dollars in the lottery you will probably have a job for most of your life. To have a job most require a college degree and college is an expensive investment. Sure students get financial aid but for most they will have to get jobs to help pay their way through college.

Bob Taylor, or “the Great One” as many call him, is the Human Resource Manager at the Hy Vee on Hamilton. He believes all teens and students should have jobs.  Taylor has been working at Hy vee for 32 years, 17 of which he has spent as the Human Resource Manager. He has hired thousands of students in his many years, and has interviewed about 50,000 students. He says jobs give you experience working with other people, and good work experience whether or not it is in your field of study. He stated that along with the work experience the job will look good on a resume.

Matthew Maresh is a Senior at Morningside College and is on the wrestling team, he is also a cashier at Hy Vee. Hired by Taylor in 2009, Maresh has been a great asset to the Hy Vee family. Maresh feels that having a job “helps with preparing for real life, I feel like kids who don’t have to earn a little bit during their college years don’t have the same appreciation for the money they make as the kids who’s parents just pay for everything all through college, in the long run it helps with time management as well and can lead to jobs within those companies after college too.”

While working in school may give you less time to work on homework or do sports, managers are compassionate and schedule writers will work around you.  If you ever need to take time off for a big event or because you have a news story to write for your Journalism class,  just ask for that time off or find someone who can cover your shift. As “the Great One” Bob Taylor says, “All jobs are good jobs.”

This week I read an article on the Green Bay Packers receiver Jordy Nelson. The article, Green Bay Packers Receiver Jordy Nelson Says His Race Is Part Of The Reason For His Success, basically goes on about how Nelson is the only white receiver on the Packers offense. Most people don’t see him as a threat because he is white, and stereotypically most receivers are black. Nelson uses the stereotype as an advantage to prove everyone wrong when they think as Greg Jennings puts it, “OK, yeah, he’s the white guy, he can’t be that good.” Nelson has caught 61 passes for 1,082 yards and scored 13 touchdowns in the past 15 games.

I chose this article because I am a huge Packer fan. The article interested me because I never actually thought about the race stereotypes in football. It surprised me that the team seems to embrace the stereotype and the fact that Nelson is going against the stereotype, but whatever helps them win games. I would just consider his success solely on the fact that he’s a good player and Rodgers being the good quarterback finds him when he’s open.

Link to the article: http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201111/green-bay-packers-reciever-plays-race-card

Further reading: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20111116/PKR01/111116145/Green-Bay-Packers-WR-Jordy-Nelson-works-way-up-to-No-2-receiver-by-being-himself

In gaming news, the highly anticipated Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 game was release Tuesday. Modern Warfare 3 is expected to sell better than its predecessor, Call of Duty Black Ops, which sold 13.7 million copies in the U.S. alone. Many college students went to the midnight release. Fortunately for Morningside students, they didn’t have classes the next day, giving them time to sleep off the all nighter most of them will pull. Here is what avid Call of Duty fan, Jared Wildeboar had to say, <sound bite from interview>

Moving to sports, wrestling season is about to kick off for the Morningside Mustangs. The team has been ranked 10^th in the NAIA Pre-Season Poll. The Mustangs will open the 2011/2012 season at the Dakota Wesleyan Open this weekend. Joe Sievert ranked No. 1 at 174 lbs. has this to say, <sound bite from Joe>

(Hasn’t happened yet) Among other news, the faculty art show reception was held Thursday night at the Eppley Art Gallery.

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Couple Shooting

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Men Are 2% Funnier Than Women

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In a previous post brought up a conflict about the gaming company Bethesda suing the Indie game developing company Mojang. I felt it was proper to follow up with news on this story.

Currently according to Notch’s twitter the case is going in his favor. In this Kotaku article it shows Notch’s tweet saying they can still call their game “Scrolls.” Bethesda can still appeal the ruling.

This is news because there are many people following this story, almost the entire Minecraft community. It’s nice to see the issue get nearly resolved. I thought it was pretty ridiculous when I heard Bethesda was doing this when it was over one word in a game’s title, especially since the games have nothing to do with each other. Notch even offered to give up the rights to the name “Scrolls” yet Bethesda still sued.

Personally I’m still hoping for that epic Quake match.

Further readings :

• The Elder Scrolls VS. Mojang Scrolls Battle Goes to Court

• Notch Vs. Bethesda: The Court Papers

• Mojang v. Bethesda Part 2: The Attorneys (and Notch & Pete) Weigh In

One name nearly any sports fan would know, is Brett Favre.  Favre is a professional football player, currently playing as the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings.  Originally drafted to the Atlanta Falcons in 1991 from the University of Southern Mississipi Favre then went on to the Greenbay Packers in 1992, where he played for the next 16 seasons.  Favre almost literally rewrote the Packers passing record book in his time there, and took the Packers to the Super Bowl twice, winning once. Favre made himself a legend with the Packers and the NFL itself.

In the last few years Brett has been making quite the ruckus, on and off the field. Favre finally retired from the Packers following the ’07 season, leaving his successor Aaron Rodgers to lead the Packers. During the off season Favre decided he did not want to be retired and tried to get his spot with the Packers back. The Packers accepted him, but had already gave the position to Rodgers. The Packers followed by trading Favre to the Jets, where he played for the ’08 season. After being with the Jets for one season Brett was traded to the one team I hate most, the Minnesota Vikings.

With the Vikings Favre had a great start, sweeping the Packers and leading the conference. Of course when Favre got to the postseason he choked, throwing an interception in the game against the Saints, costing the Vikings the game. Starting his second season with the Vikings, Favre had a very slow start. Getting swept by the Packers, and nearly being benched. But with their head coach fired and someone filling in, the Vikings are hoping to pick up the shattered pieces of their current season. But more importantly the Packers are doing just fine without Favre. So life is good.

For those of you who do not know, WoW stands for the World of Warcraft. Many people that know of WoW and think only nerds or geeks play don’t really understand the game.  WoW is much more than people fantasising and playing a fantasy game. If it isn’t your kind of game, then you don’t have to play it. And you don’t need to bully people who do.

Honestly, the WoW community is not much different from the Call of Duty community. Both enjoy playing the game and both have the people who seem to play the game too much and are too good at the game. Both have online multiplayer gameplay where you interact with people from all over the world. But there aren’t people who are bullied for playing Call of Duty. Maybe if those people actually played WoW and knew the lore behind the game, they would like it.