1st Annual In The Bleachers Operation Pick Em - Meet The Contestants

The rules for this contest is simple, pick the correct winners to the In The Bleachers games of the week each week. There is no picking against the spread, winners only. This season we are going to spice up this contest. Instead of just the esteemed In The Bleachers experts making the picks and competing against each other, we have recruited several prominent Bloggers, a few Average Joe’s (one is female), and Bruce Feldman from ESPN.com to join in on this contest. To the victor go the spoils. The prize for winning this contest is your choice of either one of Bruce Feldman’s books (Meat Market or Cane Mutiny). I will buy it and send it directly to you. If Bruce wins, I will buy the first runner up either book, and I will work out something for Bruce to get as the winner. So without any further wait, the biographies of the contestants of In The Bleachers First Annual Operation Pick Em Contest. The Pro Bruce Feldman has agreed to join us and is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He started at ESPN in 1994. He spent much of the last two years in the South working on his book, "Meat Market: Inside the Smash-mouth World of College Football Recruiting". His first book, "Cane Mutiny: How the Miami Hurricanes Overturned the Football Establishment" made it to No. 1 among sports titles in the fall of 2004. Bruce also has his own college football blog on ESPN.com’s Insider Page. In The Bleachers Bloggers Brian Sakowski is the host of the In The Bleachers Podcast and a writer on the blog. Brian has played football on both the high school and collegiate levels but still does not have the straight ahead speed that Joe Paterno has when he runs down officials. He is also attracted to busty strippers, but normally does not date girls of that particular body type. Brian’s love for Penn State has gotten him in trouble for openly drinking at an Ohio State game and almost got him kicked out of the Orange Bowl for explaining to a Florida State fan that he should not flip off a group full of Nittany Lion fans when he is the sole Seminole fan. Charlie Swager is a regular on the In The Bleachers Podcast and another writer for the blog. As we all know Charlie is a huge Mountaineers fan, but being displaced in North Carolina, the heart of ACC country does wonders for his criminal record when he burns couches on the front porch after big WVU wins. For fun Charlie likes to watch Grey’s Anatomy with his dog Izzy, only switching over to Thursday night college football on commercials. The size of Emmitt Smith, but with twice the huggableness, Furman grad Chris Mason began his odd journey to sports bloggerism almost by accident. Knowing very little about playing football, his career consisting of nothing more than street football, he spent his formative ( i.e. college) years discussing football (or at least non-football issues) on the boards of the FOFC. After meeting Brian on the board (and seeing him in airport bathrooms), Chris begged and was granted the honor of occasionally posting his thoughts to the little known (but meekly influential) blog Smart Guys Sports. After doing everything he could to sink the blog (eventually succeeding), Chris followed Brian over to the ITB podcast two seasons ago. While a regular on the podcast, Chris does everything he can to avoid writing words on the Internet. His contributions vary from 1-AA discussion to offhanded remarks about the cup sizes of football players. Chris created a shrine to Chuck Whitehurst, successfully predicted the success of Matt Ryan, belittled the Big East, and became the first member of ITB to be violated by a pet on air. He has been quoted by Kirk Herbstreit, though Kirk will never admit it (though Chris loves the Herpes... I mean Herbies Award). Other Notable Bloggers John Radcliff runs the Mountainliar as well as spreads his expertise on the AOL Fanhouse site. John was the winner of last season’s ITB Bowl Bonanza and wants to continue his winning ways to this year’s pick’em game. Word has it he once got so drunk during a West Virginia game that he lit the couch on fire while he was still sitting on it. Good news is he was able to escape it unhurt. Adam Nettina runs the blog Pitch Right, which is a blog dedicate to Navy Football. He will have a beef with one of the average joe’s because he claims the triple option trumps the run and shoot. This is where rivaries are born, and speaking of rivalries he also claims Army vs Navy is better than Ohio State vs Michigan. I agree with him on that claim. Jon Johnston is the main site author at the Nebraska Cornhusker Blog "Corn Nation", going by the screen name 'corn blight'. A native Nebraskan, he's been forced into the cult of Huskerdom since birth. He furthered his studies, graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1987 after cramming a four-year degree into seven years. Since then he has moved freely throughout the Midwest exhorting others to joint the Cult of the Big Red. In 1992, he was kidnapped by a group of Sooner fans who tried to deprogram him. He later escaped and the ordeal has only made him more resolute in his passion for Husker sports. In 2001, Johnston tried unsuccessfully to start his own religion, saying that Bob Devaney had come to him in a dream. In 2006, the started Corn Nation. This biography is not meant as an introduction, but as a warning. Mike Rizzo has a blog called Rizzo Sports, and has a weekly television show on Family Life TV. Rizzo has a niche for doing excellent scouting within the ranks of college cheerleaders. On Saturdays you can usually find him hiding under that tent that Charlie Weis calls a sweatshirt, since he still cannot understand that he can get into the game by buying a ticket. Jim Gindin is no stranger to the world of college football as he has written numerous pro football text sims and one college football text sim over at Solecismic Software. He has recently started his own football blog called Football Frontier. I like Jim even though he is a Wolverine fan and in that state they have a knack for adding a few seconds to the clock when the home team needs it. Tony Delbusso is from Sportsbone.tv and it was originally created 4 years ago as an outlet for the weekly College and NFL pick predictions against the Vegas spread. Since that time those fortunate enough to take advantage of his knack for picking games reaped the rewards on the gambling scene. In addition to his weekly picks and newsletter, Sportsbone.tv has evolved into full blown project that includes its own College and NFL TV show that features news, injuries and fantasy analysis. Average Joe’s Cyril Tircuit was born and raised in New Orleans. Grew up as an LSU fan, but as he got older, he wanted to support a team that he had a personal connection. He started dating a woman who had just graduated from Memphis, and she moved to New Orleans to attend grad school at Tulane. Those became his favorite teams, and he only has a passing interest in LSU now. His favorite offense to watch is the run-and-shoot, but since pretty much nobody does that anymore, he tends to watch football while he’s curled up in the corner and crying his eyes out. You can find him mentioned in the Nielsen TV ratings as "that weird guy crying in the corner and watching Conference USA crap." He firmly believes that the 2009 national champion will come from either Conference USA or the Sun Belt, and he will stand by this opinion until Week 2 of the 2009 season. Greg Gowins works as a computer technology consultant, based in the Austin, TX area, and has clients worldwide. His love of technology is exceeded only by his love of college football. With the advent of DVRs and multi-tuner satellite dishes, he watches as many games as he can. In addition, he runs a weekly college football Top 25 poll at Front Office Football Central, as well as serves as commissioner of the FOFC-BBCF, an online, virtual simulation of college football, utilizing Bowl Bound College Football from Grey Dog Software. Greg is a Texas Longhorns fan. Hook ‘em Horns!! Lorena The Dodgerchick is a college football n00b. She has been married for about 8 years and has a couple of kids... one of each. She was pushed... err, introduced to sports in 1994 when her husband made her... err invited her to watch the Chargers. It didn't take long before she started playing FBPro, calling plays and drafting players. She is now playing BBCF and joined a league where she is the coach of the Air Force Falcons. Her team won the conference last year, but is a woeful 0-2 this season and she is starting to think it is her fault.