Kat Cornetta

Sports writer - Grant writer

Author: Kat (Page 36 of 89)

Happy Sweet Sixteen, Super Bowl XXIX

29 January, 2011 /

Scanning through Twitter this morning, I saw Sports Illustrated writer Peter King reminiscing about Super Bowl XXIX – aka, my most favorite Super Bowl of all time. After four straight years of seeing my favorite AFC and hometown team, the Buffalo Bills, lose the Super Bowl, it was wonderful to see a Super Bowl where my favorite NFC team, the San Francisco 49ers, totally dominated. I had just turned thirteen, as awkward as a blue-collar teenage girl could be, and was struggling though a difficult time with my family. My baby brother was sickly, my dad was about to lose his job, my grandfather was sick, our car broke down and we couldn’t replace it, and I was going to have to drop out of dance classes. Pile that all on to turning thirteen, and of course I was looking for escapism anywhere I could find it.

As I wrote in 2009, that Super Bowl also meant a lot to me because reading the Sports Illustrated covering that game inspired me to want to be a sportswriter. If you doubt how much that one issue impacted me, I present to you a photo taken this morning of the ragged original copy that has moved with me to college, to Boston and grad school and now to my place in the ‘burbs. It may be torn, it may be worth absolutely nothing – but to me, it’s worth everything.

There are days where I wonder why I down multiple cups of coffee a day and sit up all hours of the evening to write for anyone and everyone who asks, despite working a demanding full-time job. All I have to do is break this out and flip through a few pages. If I can chronicle some event as well as King and Rich Telander did in this issue, and inspire some awkward thirteen year old by doing so, then all the late nights will all be worth it.

—–

Surprisingly, I’ve only written two blog posts over the years on Super Bowl XXIX. Here they are:

Fourteen Years Later, I Experience My Super Bowl XXIX

On Excitement and Nervousness

If you want to see some of the other newspaper clippings thirteen year old me saved from that Super Bowl, I took pictures and posted them on Flickr. It’s from back when there were two newspapers (Democrat and Chronicle and Times Union) in Rochester, NY. Snapping shots of these this morning made me appreciate newspapers the tactile quality. Saving printed articles from online isn’t the same as trotting out my folder of newspaper clippings.

Pushing Through Till Summertime

21 January, 2011 /

The reason the Canadian pop-rock-country band Barenaked Ladies always have appealed to me is because it is so obvious we all are originally from the same region of North America. When Ed (the remaining lead singer) crooned in 1998 about “the foam on the creek is like pop and ice cream/a field full of tires that is always on fire/to light my way home” on “Light Up My Room,” I could vividly remember taking the Greyhound with my Grandma on a late 1980s summer day trip to Buffalo, and seeing both out the bus window on the way home.

Last spring, the band released their first album without co-founder Steven Page. The second song on the album, “Summertime,” is an ode to Western New York-Southern Ontario weather; a response to those not from the area who ask, “How do you put up with all the lake effect snow, wind and cold?” The answer? “We’re all pushing through till summertime.”

I have been fielding many questions in the same vein lately now that Greater Boston has been hit with three snowstorms in a month’s time. “How did you put up with weather like this?! How does your family back there handle it?” So, Bostonians, my answer and advice to you in song form. “Keep on pushing through for summertime.” May it become your winter 2011 anthem.

Summertime – Barenaked Ladies (YouTube)

Find more artists like Barenaked Ladies at Myspace Music

“The Hackneyed Line of Dreams Coming True.”

10 January, 2011 /

I understand what you are trying to do, American Idol. You’re trying to do what anything on the edge of being irrelevant tries to do when they see the black hole coming – throw all the tricks to keep oblivion at bay.

Not that I ever watched American Idol. I don’t think I’ve watched a single episode in it’s enitirity. I’ve stayed away from America’s Got Talent, dropped So You Think You Can Dance after two seasons (they only had me because of my years at the little dance school on the corner), and a few days ago, only made it five minutes into Live to Dance without turning back to hockey.

That withstanding, I was getting dressed for work one recent morning when another American Idol commercial came on, the topic of which was along the hackneyed line of dreams coming true.

But wait. Who said singers are the only people with dreams of something more? Where did it become that singers, dancers, fashion designers, cooks and hair stylists were the only ones that had dreams that deserved fulfilling?

What about the millions of use who are tone deaf, have bum knees, can’t sew, can’t make anything involving something as fancy as to include cream freche, and would probably nip an ear if we tried to cut someone’s hair? Do we not have dreams that deserve fulfilling?

Now I’m not saying that we need an America’s Next Top Accountant, because that, along with many other things, would be bad TV. And I’m not saying everyone’s dreams can and should be fulfilled. No matter the number of self-help books we buy, inspirational Twitter accounts we  follow, and kick-in-the-seat quote of the day calendars we keep on our desk, not everyone will find their dreams fulfilled.

I don’t think I’m saying anything but gosh, doesn’t it sometimes seem like singers are the only people that can be plucked from obscurity, put on television, and made famous?

NHL Guardian Project Update

6 January, 2011 /

Photo: Guardian Project/Rocket XL

Remember two weeks ago when I spoke about the NHL Guardian Project -“How To Get My Little Brother to Watch Hockey“? The unveiling of the project’s superheroes is ongoing via Facebook through a voting process. Each vote is entered into a drawing to win a Limited Edition Guardian Project Graphic Novel.

I know the project has come under some fire from established hockey fans, but no matter your likes or dislikes of the project, one has to hand it to the NHL for exploring an collaboration that hasn’t been tried before. If it converts an audience previously untouched by hockey, then the comic book – sport meld will be worth it. For a sport close to reclaiming a spot in the national consciousness, the uncharted territory may be worth it.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by a PR team related to The Guardian Project, Rocket XL.

4 For 29: Splish Splash

4 January, 2011 /

To the surprise of many bartenders and my own mother, I will turn 29 years old in a week from Wednesday. This is the last birthday where I will actually acknowledge the age I am turning. After this year, I will officially turn “grumble.”

Since my birthday is so close to New Year’s, I tend not to make New Year’s resolutions, but goals tied to my birthday. I’ve settled on four goals for my 29th year, and since this year’s are actually interesting, and things I need my readers to assist with, I thought I might share them with you.

So here is the first of my 4 For 29.

The Seabreeze water slides. (Photo: Seabreeze)

1.) Learn How To Swim

When I was 10, my mother presented me with a choice to continue taking dance classes or take swimming lessons at the East High School pool. My parents couldn’t afford both, so I had to choose between the two.

I remember my mother sitting with me at our tiny kitchen table with the two typewritten registration forms in front of us. Our faux-maple round table was the place where all important family conversations took place, from “Why did the principal call me and say you refused to go to music class?” in first grade, to “Your mom and I can’t contribute any money to college,” twelve years later. Obviously, on the scale of conversations the table had seen, this was on the mild end.

“It’s important to learn how to swim,” explained my mother (who has made it a career to reason with elementary schoolers about their lunch choices, and for that, she’s deserves more shots than I could ever buy her.) “But you are a very good dancer, and I know you like that.” Continue reading

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