Taylor's Turn

Well I have been slacking on my blogging again. I don't know what makes it so hard to keep this updated regularly. I mean the team has won six out of our last seven games but for some reason I still don't update! What a jerk! Well, the good news is you can read Potter's blog where he has actually been keeping up with everything.

I am going to keep slacking and turn this blog over to our Carroll High School intern Taylor. She is going to talk about her top 3 Mad Ants moments this season. Say hello to Taylor everyone....


This is a count down of my top 3 Mad Ants moments this season. Here we go...

3. Finding out that I would be interning with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants has to be number three on my list. I love sports and hope to pursue a career in sports marketing, what better internship to have then this.

2. Throughout the season there were many themed nights, all the way from 50's night to the pajama party. I enjoyed these nights because it was a nice change of pace. I mostly just got really excited to wear my costumes and see what others would be wearing as well.

1. And my number one moment would have to be...having the Carroll Powder Puff Cheerleaders perform at half-time. The cheerleaders are a group of about ten guys who make up dances for our homecoming pep rally. Usually the dances are pretty good but this year it was more then amazing! Our senior class cheerleaders have had their videos all over the internet including YouTube.
I thought to myself what could possibly be better then performing at half-time for the Mad Ants? After they performed Jeff Potter loved them so much that he had asked them to come and perform for the last game of the season. Now the boys are on their way to perform for the WNBA team, the Washinton Mystics. My project turned into a huge success.
Congratulations Carroll Powder Puff Cheerleaders!

The List

(The much anticipated "Captain Hook" pictures from Disney Night. Thank you's go out to Madame Ants Kate (Peter Pan) and Brittany (Tinker Bell) for posing for the pictures)

Looking at these pictures now, I realize I should have ponied up some money for a pirate hat or wig. Otherwise, wow I am good.

Well the Mad Ants are home from a week-long road trip where they traveled to Tulsa and Albuquerque. The bad news is they did not come up with any wins on the road. The good news is we have another home game on Sunday against the Sioux Falls Skyforce. The best news is its 50's night. With this being our last theme night of the year, it brings out my "go big or go home" mentality. The problem being I have not started looking for a costume yet. I have a few ideas, we will just have to see what I come up with.

It was good to see Rob Kurz back in action after missing several games with a deep thigh bruise. With Jared Reiner and Ron Howard both gone, losing Kurz was huge. It's also great for him as he will be able to make a run at a ten-day with an NBA team as they get into play-off stretch. We have still not picked up anyone to officially replace Ron Howard (maybe it's because replacing a guy like Ron Howard would be impossible!), mostly because the D-League player pool right now is slim pickings.

For those of you who come to this blog for Mad Ants/basketball related topics, you may want to leave. For those of you who come for pro wrestling topics, pull up a chair (just don't hit me in the head with it).

I have been out of the loop on pro wrestling for several years now. I check in from time to time but it has not captured my imagination like it did in the late 80's/90's/early 2000's. After watching a few recent "Shoot interviews" (interviews with wrestlers who talk about their careers and break "character") it has started to peak my interest again. So for some reason that makes me want to give my top three favorite pro wrestling tag-teams (some credit must go to a facebook post by Ridiculous Scott in which we started talking about what tag-team John Bryant and Micahel Sweetney wouuld be similar to).

I am going to base my tag-teams on 1) Were they Main Event Status 2) Longevity 3.) Level of Competition they faced and 4.) How much I liked them!

3.) Dudley Boys

The Dudleys were a team I first saw live in ECW back in January of 1998. It was at the Tyndall Armory in downtown Indianapolis. There were probably 1,000 fans at the show and the place was packed. This was in ECW's heyday and the place was electric. This was when the Dudleys had the full entourage with Joel Gertner, Sign Guy Dudley, and Dick Dudley. BUH BUH Dudley would get on the microphone and rip the town to shreds and basically challenge any fan in the building to fight him. The heat they received was unreal. That night they took on New Jack/John Kronus/ and Spike Dudley in a six-man tag that went all over the building and ended with New Jack diving off a 25 foot balcony onto BuhBuh on a table. It had my 16 year-old imagination fully captured. The Dudleys have worked everywhere and been a top team in every promotion. They have never tried to break apart and become singles stars which is often the case with tag teams (think Shawn Michaels and the Rockers or Bret Hart in the Hart Foundation).

2.) Rock N Roll Express

I'll be honest, I was a WWF man back in the 80's and early 90's. Simply because I did not have cable and never was able to watch WCW except for some of their syndicated shows like WCW Worldwide on Saturday mornings. I state this fact because that means I missed the Rock N' Roll Expresses big run in the late mid-to late 80's. Luckily through the magic of VHS tapes, I have watched many of their big matches. They pretty much invented the formula for a successful baby-face (good guy) tag team. Compromised of Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, they were to guys who were not 'roided up but simply new how to work (wrestle). Ricky Morton was doing hurrancanranas before they were cool. The forumula for their matches has been duplicated by everyone in the business. The heels (bad guys) would beat the crap out of Ricky Morton for the majority of the match. He would then miracously make the hot tag (to a huge pop from the crowd) to Robert Gibson who would come in and clean house. The big run for them was in the NWA/WCW but they had stints in the WWF/Smokey Mountain Wrestling and still team up occasionally to this day on Independent wrestling shows across the country. I worked on one such show with them back in 2000 or 2001. I remember two amusing anecdotes from this show. Ricky Morton was just about to go out for his match and talking to some of the younger guys about the tag match the younger guys had worked earlier in the show, telling them "you guys did alright, but you don't need to do all those crazy spots, you gotta pace yourself and not just do a bunch of moves for no reason." The Rock N Roll Express theme music hits and Ricky takes a long drag off his cigarette and says "Now this is how you work" and heads to the ring. My encounter with him was also amusing, during my match I was going to use the heelish tactic of throwing powder in my opponents eyes. I was preparing my baggie of baby powder as Ricky Morton walks by and asks "Hey man, can I get a line of that?" . I am taken aback and stutter "uhhh..oh no it's just baby powder" and Ricky replies with "Geezus kid, think I was serious, everybody is so uptight around here".

1.) Road Warriors

These guys were monsters their entire careers. They were babyfaces, they were heels, it did not matter, they were always over with the fans. Although not the best "wrestlers", they had some great tandem moves (Doomsday Device!) and could brawl. They were the top team in every promotion at some point. Not to mention the great catchphrase by Road Warrior Hawk "AWWWW WHAT A RUSH". They set the bar for monster tag teams in wrestling. They had memorable feuds with Demolition/Midnight Express/Nasty Boys and many more. Just the epitomy of a cool tag team that immeidiatley drew your attention. Sadly Road Warrior Hawk passed away a few years back but I believe Road Warrior Animal is still involved in the business.

I came here to chew bubble gum and kick....

I will let Jeff Potter talk about the team/games in his blog. I want to use this blog to look at some fun things the Mad Ants have done over the past several weeks.

My favorite event/partnership/program that the Mad Ants have done this year is building a great relationship with the YMCA's of Greater Fort Wayne. Every Y-Ball (YMCA's youth basketball program) participant received a free Mad Ants ticket and a chance to participate in a Mad Ants Coach/Players basketball clinic at the Jorgensen YMCA on Feb. 13th. We had well over 250 kids participate int he clinic and everyone had a great time. Here is a picture of the early session of kids at the clinic.

(YMCA Mad Ants Clinic)

We recently had YMCA Night at our Feb. 28th home game with over 400 people from the Y-Ball program coming out to the game.

Another fun night was February 20th which was "Awesome 80's Night". I always tend to go overboard on these theme nights and the 20th was no exception. Here it is....the long awaited, never duplicated....

If you don't know who I am, shame on you. Rowdy Roddy Piper was an icon of the 80's pro wrestling scene. The classic bad guy who was so bad he was cool long before Stone Cold came onto the scene. Note the authentic pro wrestling boots.

And for your enjoyment a shot of the Madame Ants in their 80's gear:


LA D-Fenders come to town tomrrow and Friday! Be there! Tip-off is at 7pm on Thursday and 7:3opm on Friday.