Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Pilot Nation! Santa couldn't bring us a national championship this year, but my family gave me a most name-appropriate gift ... Purple Haze raspberry wheat beer:
http://beerblitz.com/Purple-Haze.html. This is much better than their usual mocking comments about how much time I spend at this site. Here's to a great 2011!

purple haze wrote:Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Pilot Nation! Santa couldn't bring us a national championship this year, but my family gave me a most name-appropriate gift ... Purple Haze raspberry wheat beer:
http://beerblitz.com/Purple-Haze.html
This is much better than their usual mocking comments about how much time I spend at this site. Here's to a great 2011!

Fixed your post ( link works). Now I have to find the beer.

Happy New Year to you, too! I read your post to my wife and she cackled mercilessly.

The company is Abita, located in Louisiana. I could not find any information about where to buy the beer so I emailed them.

I can't decide from the description whether the beer sounds great or awful. So - Although the name may cause you to be a little biased, how was it, Purple Haze?

I will share a review once I've tried it. I am blessed with holiday cheer.

2011 will be a very good year, since I will have 100% retired (other than high school tennis coaching) as of midnight tonight. Finally, I get to spend some time on the RPI!

Congratulations, UPSF - soccer and coaching - the good life. I guess the only thing more idyllic would be coaching soccer, but without the long trips to away games in a school bus, which is most of what did me in.

Spend some time on RPI?!? You won't be leaving anything for anyone else to do.

Actually, the way I hear it, UPSF is forgetting to mention he is the assistant coach for his granddaughter's soccer team. Getting a future generation of Pilots ready.

Maybe the rest of us retired folks should go to the games and start critiquing his coaching style and player positioning so he gets the real gist of what being a soccer coach is like....

It's a dog eat dog world at the u6 level

Purplegeezer wrote:Actually, the way I hear it, UPSF is forgetting to mention he is the assistant coach for his granddaughter's soccer team. Getting a future generation of Pilots ready.

Maybe the rest of us retired folks should go to the games and start critiquing his coaching style and player positioning so he gets the real gist of what being a soccer coach is like....

It's a dog eat dog world at the u6 level

I will definitely do that next time I am out there. Coaches of future generations of Pilots should have all the criticism they can get, constructive or otherwise. I will just need for UPSF to tell me when and where his granddaughter's games are. I'll bring the pokies.

I guess there's fat chance of that now.

Purple Haze - I have found a place to buy your beer. I am waiting patiently for your critique.

Jill Ellis has left UCLA for a full-time job with US Soccer, heading up the Youth Women's National Team program:

http://www.uclabruins.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/010611aab.html

I'm not sure I like her as the person heading up that program, but I guess that's the way it will be.

Ouch, it gets worse: http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Womens-National-Team/2011/01/April-Heinrichs-Named-Technical-Director-and-Jill-Ellis-Development-Director-for-US-WNTs.aspx

April Heinrichs will be the Technical Director of the program. I believe she's the reason Tiffeny Milbrett stopped playing for the WNT.

The program that US Soccer is attempting to set up is great. The personnel look like a disaster to me.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:Jill Ellis has left UCLA for a full-time job with US Soccer, heading up the Youth Women's National Team program:

http://www.uclabruins.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/010611aab.html

I'm not sure I like her as the person heading up that program, but I guess that's the way it will be.

I was just about to post this

It's kind of a shocker. Jill is the fourth most successfull coach in the NCAA, if measued by wins over the last 5 years. This year was substandard and by her own admission she botched the recent u20 campaign. I wonder if she got told to chose by her AD and made the choice she did out of anger.

This doesn't look like a great path for her or UCLA.

After reading Purplegeezer's post, I edited mine to include the info about April Heinrichs. The Geez really loves April! Right, Geez?

The sky is falling.

Or maybe it has something to do with the Mayan calendar ending...

Wait, are we talking about US Soccer or roller derby? I'm pretty sure that's what Heinrichs used to coach, if I'm not mistaken...

Purplegeezer wrote:The sky is falling.

Or maybe it has something to do with the Mayan calendar ending...

There's also a couple retirements.

Kristine Lilly for the US, which I think you had to see coming soon. Best wishes to her and many thanks for her performances.

The really sad one is Canada's Kara Lang. She says her knees are too bad to keep going. Who knows what she could have done if she could have stayed healthy.

I'll drink a toast of Purple Haze raspberry wheat beer to Kristine Lilly, one of the most remarkable athletes in recent history. I’m glad she autographed my daughter’s hat after U.S. versus Ukraine at Merlo Field some years ago.
Purple Haze raspberry wheat beer (to follow up on a promise earlier in this post) is a rather ordinary beer best suited to warm weather. In body it is much like a lager and does not pour with much of a head. It is appropriately cloudy for a wheat beer with just a hint of raspberry on the tongue. Those who prefer a rich, strong beer should look elsewhere.
My family found Purple Haze at the Wine & Beer Haus at Seaside Factory Outlet Center.

That is too bad about Kara Lang. I think she was 16 years old when she played here in the Women's World Cup, she was a player with tremendous potential. It is indeed a shame she will not get the chance to fulfill it.