Evan Mudroncik

For those of you who might not have heard Johnny Manziel was drafted..again..by the San Diego Padres in the 2014 MLB Draft. No, what you just read is not an illusion. The Padres took him with the 837th overall pick in the 28th round.

Initial reaction was shock that Manziel had been taken since he hadn’t played organized baseball since his junior year in High School. But once the dust settled at least on my Twitter feed there was plenty of anger directed at San Diego for making the selection. Now my Twitter feed is biased toward baseball players and baseball lifers due to my background working for the Ball State Baseball team and meeting many people through this. But I believe their anger was misguided.

The main arguments displayed by some of my followers were that The Padres had taken Manziel purely as a publicity stunt and cheated a hard working baseball player out of living his dream of playing professional baseball. This absolutely is true but it is also extremely biased and doesn’t take a look at the big picture.

By drafting Manziel San Diego “wasted” one of its forty selections that it had in the 2014 draft. With the promise that Johnny has in football and his lack of recent baseball experience everyone knows that he won't sign. But the so-called “wasted” pick wasn’t actually a waste. Ever since Manziel vaulted onto the national scene last year at Texas A&M the public can’t get enough of him. Everything he does garners national attention.  Even as I’m typing this ESPN has the MLB Draft-Manziel news going across its ticker at the bottom of the screen. With that said San Diego was hitching its wagon to the Manziel star in hopes it could get some much-needed publicity. Well it worked.

One thing that I have learned is that even bad press is good press. With all the hate that baseball players and coaches are giving San Diego for drafting Manziel it doesn’t hide the fact that you are talking about them and in so doing get other people to notice the story as well. The story doesn’t just have word of mouth gains it can also have financial ones. I’m not sure what the rules are for selling merchandise and if Manziel has to sign in order for The Padres to start selling his jersey but if they do you can bet that a lot of people will want to buy it.

Let’s take a look if San Diego had not taken Manziel. They now would have to sign the kid they drafted, pay him, fly him to his team, pay for his meals throughout the season, and any possible medical expenses if he gets hurt. Is all that worth it for a kid who most likely will not amount to anything in terms of helping the big league club? I don’t have the stats in front of me but how many 28th round picks make the Major Leagues? I’m sure not many. Also it’s no secret to anyone who has followed the MLB Draft over the years but the latter half of it is sometimes a joke. A number of selections tend to be sons, nephews, or family friends of GM’s, coaches, and scouts of these teams. This practice has led some to suggest that Major League Baseball reduce its draft to just twenty rounds. So instead losing money to pay, transport, feed, and train the player who probably won’t amount to much The Padres can make money by getting publicity and selling merchandise with Manziel’s name and likeness attached to their brand.

At the end of the day Major League Baseball is not a charity, teams need to be profitable to continue to function. For the near future San Diego can link Manziel with them just like the Texas Rangers did with Russell Wilson the quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks. This year they invited him to spring training, which garnered not much but decent coverage and activity on the news and social media. This also has gains for Major League Baseball because they have been trying for years to make the MLB Draft more of an event like the NFL’s and NBA’s. This selection draws more attention to it and again gets more eyeballs to watch.

You can’t fault San Diego for looking at the bottom line and that always is $ as much as we might not like it to be. The one disappointment that I have from this ordeal is that the Cleveland Indians didn’t do this. With Manziel playing for the Cleveland Browns and the mystique and aura Cleveland residents have already bestowed upon him it should have been a no brainer for The Indians to get some great publicity and merchandise sales by drafting him.

To put it simply, this is arguably the single most important game in Ball State Football history. The November 13th showdown with Northern Illinois is finally here, the game that both fanbases have had circled on their calendars all year. The matchup features an NIU squad that currently sits ranked 21st in the USA Today poll and 15th in the BCS rankings. Ball State on the other hand is not ranked in either poll however they have garnered 22 others receiving votes which would put them ranked 28th in the country.  Both teams are undefeated in MAC play and overall Ball State has the only blemish of the two on their record with a loss at North Texas during the third week of the season.

Some Cardinals fans could argue that the 2008 MAC Championship game against Buffalo is/was bigger because of the bowl game implications that the game had. If Ball State would had won the game they would have capped an undefeated regular season and finished top 12 in the country or above. With that top 12 ranking most likely earning them a spot in a BCS bowl and been college football’s Cinderella before NIU’s Orange Bowl trip last year. But unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be and Ball State ended up in the GMAC Bowl and a 45-13 blowout loss to Tulsa in Stan Parrish’s BSU coaching debut.

Wednesday night should be one for the ages. The past two years that these teams have played the games have been great contests. During Pete Lembo’s first year at Ball State in 2011 it took a late field goal for NIU to escape with a victory at home while squashing some bowl aspirations for the BSU team in the process. The 2012 contest in Muncie saw Ball State with the lead going into the fourth quarter only to have the magic of NIU QB Jordan Lynch kill any hopes of an upset victory. So if the past two contests between these two teams tells us anything it’s that we are in for a great game that will come down to the wire with MAC Championship aspirations on the line.

Since I was a high school senior during the 2008 season I didn’t have as much a vesting interest in the team that I do now. Of course I followed Ball State during that season because of the national media coverage that comes with an undefeated regular season. But to say that I bled cardinal and white would be an overstatement. Now that I’m a senior here and had to live through the Stan Parrish era and the misery that it brought me I am fully physically and emotionally invested in this season. Of course I’m bummed that we had the hiccup against North Texas because that’s the only thing separating us from a top 25 ranking and making the showdown with Northern Illinois that much more special. However that’s not diminishing my involvement and hype going into the game.

I mentioned it earlier about how I had to live through the Stan Parrish era, I won’t sugar coat it those two years were brutal. As an incoming freshman fresh off the success from the 2008 season I as well as everyone else in my dorm and the community as a whole had high expectations for the ’09 season. Those expectations lasted about one quarter. We made North Texas (the same North Texas team that ruined our perfect season this year) our opponent that opening night look like the best team in the country, the stands went from fully packed to half full by halftime. Things didn’t get better as the season wore on and a less than spectacular record of 2-10 capped off my freshman year. The next year didn’t do much better to help instill confidence in the program as we improved to only a 4-8 record. But the winds of change came after that second year; Pete Lembo came in as the head coach of the team and breathed new life into the program. We saw win improvements of 6 wins then 9 wins in his first two seasons at the helm. The 9 win season set the stage for an epic 2013 season as we returned the vast majority of our starters on both offense and defense. As did Northern Illinois and their Heisman trophy candidate QB Jordan Lynch who finished the 2012 season with a record of 12-2.

That’s why in my personal opinion Wednesday night’s game is the most important in Ball State Football history. I actually have a game to watch that my team is playing in and has national implications attached to it. The game is going to be on ESPN2 so the whole nation will be watching, the only thing that would make this sweeter would to have it at Scheumann Stadium and have 22,000 Cardinal fans cheering on Keith Wenning and company to a victory.

For me personally once we lost the North Texas game I didn’t care what bowl game we went to because since we have a loss most likely we won’t get an exotic location anyway so my next immediate goal was for us to win out until the NIU game so it would be the most hyped Mid-American Conference game ever. The 2008 Ball State game against Central Michigan on ESPN2 ranked as the most viewed and highest rated college football game ever for a Tuesday or Wednesday night on the network. I would like to believe that Wednesday’s game is going to shatter that mark. Now some Bowling Green and Northern Illinois fans would disagree as their 2003 matchup had College Gameday in attendance and both teams were ranked in the top 25 at the time of the game. But if this was last year Ball State would probably be ranked right now, it’s just unfortunate that there are more BCS teams that have been better which prevents a top 25 ranking for the Cardinals.

So once again it’s up for debate but coming from me this is the biggest game that Ball State has ever had to play, hopefully with some great game planning mixed with some good luck BSU can dethrone the champs and have their road to Detroit for the MAC Championship easily in sight.

In Pete We Trust

Only a couple of days left, the amazing ride that this past month has been could all be over. Fingers crossed that it isn't but it truly has been a wonderful experience to undergo, all of you who have supported me I cannot thank you enough. Your support has been tremendous and hopefully Under Armour took notice of it as well. All of you went above and beyond the call of duty to help me in my quest to become Under Armour's Ultimate Intern. When I had scheduled April 24th as the day to get as many people as I could to wear Under Armour and give me a shout out I gave myself a modest goal of at least 20 posts of support from either: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Vine. You all blew my expectations away and on Twitter alone we doubled that with 40+ posts, you all showed me the love and support that really hit a soft part of my heart that I hope one day I can repay to you all. If selected as an Ultimate Intern I promise not to let any of you as well as Under Armour down and reach for the stars and let nothing hold me back. Thank you once again!

No great venture has ever been successful without the key ingredient of teamwork. Whether it's in sports, or life in general you have to be able to work with and communicate with your peers in order to get the job done. The Under Armour Ultimate Intern search is no different, every Monday Under Armour unveils a new challenge for its applicants. Yesterdays challenge called for all prospective interns to team up with another applicant and create a Tumblr account to promote one of their products. I'm happy to say that I teamed up with a great individual, Kristina Nauman. Kristina and I have decided to create our account on the new and revolutionary workout tool "Armour39", this tool allows the user to track amazing metrics including heart rate along with more intangible stats including intensity and something called "WILLpower." Under Armour's Willpower is a proprietary point scale with values ranging from 0 to 10 that the Armour39 awards after each exercise session. This is very exciting for the both of us, we believe this is the future of not just for those wanting results after workouts but also for professional teams who want to know which players fit best with their team. For more information on this product and Kristina and I check out our blog at:

Throughout its short history, Under Armour has been at the forefront of sports apparel innovation. Ranging from its original idea of shirts that absorb and wick away sweat to it current innovation titled Armour39. What Armour39 does is record your physical activity and then communicates with smartphones via a wireless Bluetooth connection to sync captured data. It gives the user instant feedback as to how many calories he/she has burned, heart rate, intensity, and a metric called "WILLpower". WILLpower is a rating of 1-10 and measures how hard you're pushing yourself. In this day and age with a plethora of information at our fingertips sports is no different. The sabermetric revolution in baseball has had a spillover result to every other major sport and has trickled down to sports apparel. The age of instant information is already upon us and Under Armour has done a great job of pushing the envelope to keep the athlete ahead of the competition and have the most information as possible at their fingertips.