Amidst the football fever and the kickoff of the Red Raider basketball season, one young woman has completed her college athletic career as one of the most successful student-athletes in Texas Tech history.  While many Texas Tech fans are hoping that the football team can get a shot at a national title, Sally Kipyego has just won her third – and that’s only in cross country.  She became the first female athlete in NCAA history to win three NCAA Cross Country titles.  Add that total to her numerous  indoor and outdoor track titles.  In addition to her athletic accomplishments, she earned academic all-conference honors on her way to a nursing degree.  Her resume as an athlete at Texas Tech will be tough for anyone to touch.

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This needs no comment by me, a compilation of The Office's, that's what she said (via kottke).

Double-T Nation News:

First and foremost, I need to give a huge shout-out to my lovely wife for 3 blissful years of marriage. She allows me to do what I want to do, Double-T Nation, and I can't thank her enough.

Bash Riprock's has been nominated for the Wiz's Thirst and 10. Make sure and give the Wiz a review, I haven't been there since my school days (graduated in 1996), so I may not be the best person to ask.

Texas Tech Football:

ESPN's Tim Griffin and DMN's Chip Brown discuss the proposal by the Big 12 Commissioner to end the redshirt for football players and allow each player 5 years of eligibility. This is from the Griffin article:

Captain Leach is on board, again from Griffin:

I enjoyed this funny exchange with Captain Leach and Big 12 Commissioner, Don Beebe:

It's good to see that we can all have a sense of humor about the whole situation.

Texas Tech Basketball:

Big 12 basketball coaches have agreed to maintain the current 16 game conference schedule, rather than move to an 18 game schedule. And Pat Knight, who was the media liason for the Big 12 Coaches, confirmed that he would be surprised if RMK came back to coach.

Texas Tech Baseball:

Willie Rueda and Roger Keischnick received some post-season honors, as Keischnick was named to the All-Big 12 Second Team, while Rueda was named Honorable Mention. Keischnick was also named the Phillips 66 big 12 Player of the Week for the final week of the regular season. Congrats to Kieschnick and Rueda.

DMN's Brian Davis says that there's too much baseball in the new shortened season, as teams try and play 56 games in 78 days. I couldn't agree more. I don't see how those kids went to class in the spring semester or were able to get any work done.

Double-T Nation News:

I've got my 3rd wedding anniversary on Wednesday, so don't expect anything or much at all on Wednesday. DTN is still scheduled to upgrade on late Thursday night or early Friday morning, so you have that to look forward to.

Texas Tech Football:

As previously mentioned by RA, according to Phil Steele Texas Tech has the 31st toughest schedule based on opponents win percentage. As FCS teams last year UMass went 10-3 and Eastern Washington went 9-4 and that's the difference between a team that has a top 30 schedule and one that probably shouldn't be in the top 50.

Meanwhile, Statistically Speaking created a formula to rate college coaches based on their career record. Go to the post for the full formula and for a number of historical and retired coaches from 1950 forward. You're probably asking where Captain Leach is in the Active Good Coaches Category, right behind Rich Neuheisel and right in front of Butch Davis. Also in that group is Dan Hawkins, Gary Pinkel, Mike Bellotti, Houston Nutt, Tommy Bowden, etc. Good coaches haven't taken their program to the elite level quite yet. That's not a bad group to be a part of.

One other football related note, the Big 12 Track Championships were held this past weekend and Rashad Hawk participated in the 100 meter dash and ran a 10.76, which was good for 16th in the conference. Hawk also apparently ran in the mens' 4x100M relay, which finished 4th in the conference. Congrats to Hawk for a job well done. It can't be easy to play football, run track, and study for finals, but Hawk's done it and deserves some credit.

Texas Tech Baseball:

Congrats to Willie Rueda who was named to the DMN's 2nd Team All-Big 12. Rueda deserved this as he was relentless at the top of the order, seemingly getting a hit or two every game (hitting/slugging/OBP .361/.464/.457).

Hyatt has a season-ending post on this year's baseball team that's certainly worth your time. My only comment is that although I cannot remember Hays taking some of the culpability for the way this program has regressed, I do believe that allowing Spencer to have a more active role in the players this program signs is an admission that it wasn't working. To my way of thinking, Hays knew this last year when the team took a down-turn, hence the Spencer and Petrie hires. He knows it hasn't been good and he's betting that Spencer and Petrie can be a part of what turns this around.

Texas Tech Football:

Fox34 is doing something kinda neat, Fact or Fiction, and last night's topic was whether or not Anthony Hines return from injury is greater than Rylan Reed's return from injury. I'd love to hear what you guys think. Personally, I think losing your left tackle is more significant, even if you can move Vasquez over to LT, you are still putting, in my opinion, significantly less talent on the field no matter who else gets the call. I think Reed is that good. With Hines, I feel that there are guys who have comparable talent, not to diminish what he can add, but there are guys who can fill in that spot.

Leave your choice in the comments.

Hat-tip to FORL for the way too early College Football News Bowl Predictions and is predicting that Texas Tech will play in the Orange bowl against Clemson.

Texas Tech Basketball:

RaiderPower's Mark Sparrow has the latest on verbal commit Montrell McDonald, who ended up changing his mind and signing with Arkansas. I would have loved to have had McDonald, but I'm not distraught over his choice, it's certainly understandable and getting those guys on the fence will be one of PK's biggest hurdles to clear.

Perhaps the worst news to come out of this article is that Tyree Graham still hasn't qualified and will have to retake these tests in the summer in order to qualify in the fall. I was really hoping that Graham could play immediately for Texas Tech.

Texas Tech Baseball:

The season has come to an end, at the very least, on a high note, as the Texas Tech Red Raiders defeated Baylor, 12-5. Surprisingly, Texas Tech received a solid performance from Nathan Karns, who went 5.0 innings, giving up 5 hits, 2 runs (both earned) walking 2 and striking out 5. I say surprising performance because Karns has struggled for the most part, this year, buy it's nice to see Karns finish strong. He needed that probably more than Texas Tech did. Robert Kilcrease pitched 2.2 innings of relief, giving up 2 hits, 2 runs (both earned), walking none and striking out none. Brian Cloud pitched 0.2 innings, giving up a hit, a run, and walked 2, while James Leverton closed out the game, pitching 0.2 innings, giving up no hits, no runs, no walks and no strikeouts.

At the plate, it was fitting that Roger Kieschnick hit a grand slam (17) in what may be his final game with Texas Tech, going 2-3 with 4 RBI. Willie Rueda continued his hot streak, going 3-5, with 1 RBI and scoring 3 runs, while Joey Kenworthy went 2-4, with 1 RBI and scoring 2 runs. Chris Hall went 2-4 with 2 RBI.

LAJ's George Watson has the recap from the final game of the season and here's Hays on how this team battled:

Roger Kieshnick:

Winning pitcher, Nathan Karns:

I have previously forgotten to post the Fox34 highlights, but here they are from yesterday's win.

Double-T Nation News:

I woke up this morning and thought that today was Monday, even going so far as to not use my weekend-coffee-cup, but opted for my weekday-coffee-mug. It didn't hit me until I was stirring the coffee, but what a great feeling . . . knowing that you've got 24 more hours in your life that don't involve work. So, Happy Sunday, May 16, 2008 to everyone and enjoy your day.

Texas Tech Football:

Mr. Michael Crabtree was named to the Playboy All-America Team, and, surprisingly to me, is the 8th Red Raider named to the squad. Those 7 others include the following:

Here's Captain Leach:

I'm not sure who was responsible for this press release, but it may be wise to remove Michael Vick's name from the list of former players, thinking that he's probably not the best role-model right now (emphasis added).

Catching up with former Red Raider, Zach Thomas (hat-tip Blogging the Boys) and I did like this exchange:

Texas Tech Baseball:

That lovable old curmudgeon Bob Knight answers his cell phone during a speaking engagement with Florida Atlantic University, this is NSFW (hat-tip AOL's Fanhouse):

Texas Tech Baseball:

It just wasn't supposed to happen this year. Chad Bettis is roughed up and the Red Raiders lose to Baylor, 13-3, effectively ending their season with today's game. Freshman pitcher Chad Bettis seemed to struggle a bit over the past few starts and Saturday he pitched 3.0 innings, giving up 8 hits, 8 runs (all earned), 3 walks and 2 strikeouts. Cory Large contributed 4.1 innings, giving up 6 hits, 4 runs (all earned), walked none and struck out 6. Paul Gonzalez and Owen Brolsma helped close out the game as well.

The Red Raider bats were relatively quiet, managing only 8 hits all day with Willie Rueda continuing to make something happen at the top of the lineup, going 1-3 with a run scored and a walk, while Jason Seefeld went 3-3 with a homerun, his 13th of the season. Joey Kenworthy (2-3) and Roger Kieschnick (1-5) each had an RBI.

LAJ's George Watson recaps Saturday's loss (link not permanent). Here's Hays:

And senior Jason Seefeld, who along with Jon Capuccio, Owen Brolsma and Doug Thennis will play their last game for the Red Raiders today:

Double-T Nation News:

Make sure and join the conversation below the baseball post and rank the Big 12 Conference units.

I wanted to give a shout-out this morning to a new Texas Tech blog, Totally Tech. Also wanted to point out the post on DT! by Carbon Guey on the different expectations of the older/Spike Dykes supporters v. the new supporters of Captain Leach. This is a really good post, certainly worth your time.

Music I Like, But Probably Shouldn't Admit In Public:

I don't think this song is embarrassing on its face, but it's certainly dated, which might make it a song I probably shouldn't admit in public, but who didn't love Digital Underground's Humpty Dance? That's what I thought. And for those of you too young to remember high fades and this gem, then enjoy. Have a great Friday.

Fingers-crossed, next Friday morning, when you wake up, you'll see a brand new DTN, complete with new-fangled buttons and whistles. I've been messing around with quite a bit of the features behind the scene, but thought that I'd talk a little bit about what you might expect and why the upgrade to SB Nation 2.0 is going to be awesome.

1. Auto-Refreshing Comments: Think about this for a second, you will no longer have to refresh you page to see a new comment. It happens like internet magic. Somehow the SB Nation tech guys have sprinkled pixsy dust on everyone's computer and these comments pop up like no one's business. To see for yourself, join a blog of a baseball team that you enjoy and sit in a game day thread. I think you'll be amazed as to how quickly this works.
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3. Read Comments Without A Mouse: If I'm working at the the computer, I'd prefer to have the hands on the keyboard. I feel like I'm a faster typer than a mouserer. Thus, a cool feature is that you can scroll through a comment by just hitting the "Z" key and it marks the comment as read and replying to a comment is easy as hitting the "R" key, typing in a comment, tabbing a few times and you're done. The other cool part is that the page never re-loads. Again, pixsy dust.
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5. Tags: Previously, the only way to organize stories at DTN was to label them as football, basketball, baseball, news, etc., which always seemed like a very inefficient way to know what an entry is about. Thankfully, we're going to have tags to help us organize how stories are searched. Thus, if there's a story with Mr. Crabtree, Harrell and Leach, I'll add tags for all three players, with commas separating the tags. Let's also say that a DTN reader finds a cool YouTube video of Mr. Crabtree so they post it to a FanShot (more on that later) and tag it as "Michael Crabtree" and some other user finds a quick chat transcript about how Michael Crabtree might not go in the draft at all because it would be too much of an unfair advantage for all of the other NFL teams who don't get to draft him, and it's tagged "Michael Crabtree". When you search for Michael Crabtree, you're going to find all of that information right at your fingertips, literally. It's going to be beautiful.
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7. FanPosts v. FanShots: FanPosts are diaries, it's just that they've been re-named FanPosts. These are intended to be your more thoughtful items, something you put a little work into rather than a quick link. FanShots are links, quick quotes, videos, pictures, or a list that you can quickly post to DTN. Doesn't have to be much content with FanShots, just quick-hitters. There's also a bookmarket that you left-click on once, and then drag it to your bookmarks browser. If you run across something that you think would be a perfect fit at DTN, you hit that bookmarklet and, with internet pixsy dust, it fills in most of the items, you tell it to which blog you want to send it to, tag it, hit post and you're on your way. I also believe you can highlight text, hit the bookmarklet, etc., and it' will format it in blockquotes. The FanShots are the quick articles that you find, but don't know where to post them because it's not really an entire FanPost worth of material.
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9. Gameday Open Threads: I mentioned in the very first point that the comments will automatically appear. I'd love for you to just consider how great this is going to be when the action is happening quickly during a game, you'll be able to post a quick thought without having to constantly refresh your browser. My sports-pants are going crazy.