On November 8th, 2011 at 4:00 P.M. The Virginia Girls Swim team and I, along with; all collegiate, high schools, clubs, masters, and any other interested swim and dive teams around the world, swam the “Hour of Power”.

Hour of Power is one practice where we just swim continuous relays of any stroke, whether it’s Front-crawl, Breaststroke, Backstroke, or Butterfly, all-out swimming, for just one hour. We also have to keep each lane in every pool on the same length.

We had a lot of fun swimming the continuous relay. We all thought it was just a wonderful experience to be apart of. We had the music blasting as we swam our relays, and we just made it super fun. I think it really brought the team together, knowing how many people are affected by cancer, and we got to honor them by swimming for just one hour.

Hour of power started in honor of a Carleton college swimmer, Ted Mullin who passed away from Sarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer. All the money raised in this event supports research at the University of Chicago into the causes and treatment

Just one year ago a small school from the northern Iron Range captured the title of Section 7A volleyball champs. A high school with fewer than 200 students was sending their volleyball team on the three hour trip south to compete in the 2010 state tournament. Just because this was a young team made up of mostly juniors in the starting lineup, they had experience in “keeping their c

The Virginia Tennis Team made it to its fifth consecutive State Tournament at the end of the 2011 fall season. It was a great accomplishment, considering that many of our opponents did not believe that our team would be any good this year. People say that competing in a State Tournament is an excellent experience that will affect the rest of a player’s life. They also say that only very distinguished teams and individuals get the opportunity to participate in this prestigious competition.

The 2010-2011 season was sort of a chance to pick up some pieces and reboot after a close former season. We may have not done so well, but we found strengths and weaknesses that we can use/fix to make our team better than it has ever been. This year though I am happy to have in purple, 34 year-old Donovan McNabb, who can hopefully help lead the Vikings to victory, as well as give some very crucial veteran advise to rookie Christian Ponder. Ponder was drafted by the Vikings during the first round (twelfth overall). He played for Florida State and was given MVP honors after leading the South to a victory over the heavily favored North at the 2011 Under Armour Senior Bowl.

During the pre-season, the Vikings went 2-2 with wins against the Seahawks and the Texans and losing to the Titans and Cowboys. I don’t watch much of the preseason but still consider it a good time for the coaches to get a good look at new players and see how they do in game situations. I like preseason for the cheaper game tickets and the chance to preview how all the teams look this year. Some things I like, Awasom, he is now playing in the defensive tackle/nose position, which I think is a very important position (especially with Pat Williams gone and Kevin Williams suspended for 2 games because of a stupid accidental illegal weight loss substance incident) with all the great runners in the league i.e. Tomlinson, Johnson, and McCoy.

Percy Harvin started the year off well with an amazing 103-yard kick return putting the Vikings were up 7-0 in 15 seconds of their first regular season game. Follow it up with a good defensive stop and life was looking pretty darn good. Though McNabb threw an interception on their first offensive play, they came back and ended the quarter 17-7. 17 agonizing points by Phillips and the Chargers later, the Vikings lost 24-17. One of the biggest problems I saw: OFFENSIVE LINE, I know this from experience on my own team in high school, the quarterback needs time. Veterans or young players who can seem to throw a 10-yard pass while halfway sacked (one thing I love about Ponder); you still need time to make plays. Joe Webb and this special package they were raving about all pre-season was a lot of hype for –2 yards. Adrian Peterson ran for 98 yards on 16 attempts, again, the line needs to push that line of scrimmage forward

The US Open first started in August of 1881 and not exactly how we know it today. In the beginning, the US Open only had one event, men’s singles, and it was held at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island. Not only was it just men, but it was just men who were a part of the US National Lawn Tennis Association. It wasn’t until 1887 that the US Women’s National Singles Championship was introduced to the Philadelphia Cricket Club, and even then it was still a separated event from the US National Singles Championships for Men.

In 1889, US Women’s National Doubles Championships along with US Mixed Doubles Championships were added. In 1915 the US Open grew out of Rhode Island and moved to the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York -where it stayed until 1977. The time finally came in 1968, when all five events were combined and professional players could compete. Known as the Open Era, it was the beginning of the US Open Tennis Championships as we know it today.

In 1975 the West Side Tennis Club changed from the all-grass tennis courts to green clay courts which then changed to Deco Turf courts, in 1978, which we now play on today.

In 1978 the tournament was moved to its current location at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York. The Tennis Center was named in honor of Billie Jean King’s contributions to tennis, sports, and society on the courts and off. She has won 39 Grand Slam titles for singles, doubles and mixed doubles, as well as holding the record for 20 titles at Wimbledon. She was the one who campaigned for an equal amount of prize money for both the men’s and women’s tournaments. Though the prices did increase, the prizes in 1972 were still not equal and King was not satisfied. She threatened to not compete in the next year’s tournament until this issue was resolved. Due to King the tournament in 1973 was the very first to have equal cash prizes for both the men’s and women’s tournaments. Continuing to mix things up, in 1973 King became the first president for the Women’s Tennis Association. For all these reasons and more we