Put on the belt, Packers are champions

As confetti rained down the field at Cowboys Stadium after the Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25 in Super Bowl XLV, Aaron Rodgers stood at the podium with the glistening silver Lombardi Trophy in his left hand, and a bright gold title belt draped over his right shoulder.

This lasting image of Super Bowl XLV, a scene taken straight from the dreams of Packer fans, seemed far from realistic in the waning weeks of the 2010 NFL regular season.

In week 14, Rodgers suffered a concussion as the Packers lost to the Detroit Lions. Rodgers sat out the Packers’ week 15 road game against the team with the NFL’s best record, the New England Patriots. The Packers, led by back-up quarterback Matt Flynn, played one of their best games of the year but lost to the Patriots, 31-27.

From that point forward, every game for the Packers was do or die.

In week 16, with Rodgers back behind center, the Packers pummeled the Giants at Lambeau Field, 45-17.

The Packers entered halftime of their week 17 matchup against the Chicago Bears trailing 3-0. The Packers were 30 minutes away from missing the playoffs. But behind Rodgers and a solid performance from the defense, the Packers came back and won 10-3, clinching the NFC’s 6th seed.

As it goes, the rest is history.

The Packers overcame that halftime deficit in week 17 just like they overcame season-ending injuries to key players like running back Ryan Grant, tight end Jermichael Finley and linebacker Nick Barnett.

The Packers overcame even more adversity and solidified their legacy as resilient champions as they defeated the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.

Veteran leaders Charles Woodson and Donald Driver both suffered injuries in the second quarter that knocked them out of the game. Cornerback Sam Shields missed a significant amount of the game with an ankle injury.

“We’ve been a team that’s overcome adversity all year. Our head captain goes down, emotional in the locker room. Our number one receiver goes down, more emotions are going, flying in the locker room. But we find a way to bottle it up and exert it all out here on the field,” said Greg Jennings in a television interview after the game.

The Packers were led by the steady-as-a-rock Rodgers, who completed 24 passes for 304 yards, 3 touchdowns and zero interceptions. Rodgers was named the game’s Most Valuable Player, capping one of the greatest postseason performances in NFL history.

In four playoff games, Rodgers threw for 1,094 yards, 9 touchdowns and only 2 interceptions. He also ran for 2 more touchdowns.

“Aaron’s proved that he’s one of the best, if not the best, quarterback in this game today,” said Driver, a 12-year NFL veteran who won his first Super Bowl championship on Sunday.

The Packers built a 21-3 lead with 2:24 left in second quarter thanks to Rodgers touchdown passes to Jordy Nelson and Jennings and a 37-yard interception return for a touchdown by Nick Collins.

The Steelers closed the gap to 21-17 after an 8-yard Ben Roethlisberger-to-Hines Ward touchdown pass late in the second quarter and an 8-yard Rashard Mendenhall touchdown run with 10:19 left in the third quarter.

Perhaps the key play in Super Bowl XLV happened early in the fourth quarter. The Steelers had the ball at the Green Bay 33 when Clay Matthews forced Mendenhall to fumble, and Desmond Bishop recovered for the Packers.

On the ensuing drive, Rodgers hit Jennings for another touchdown, putting the Packers up 28-17 with 11:57 remaining in the game.

The Steelers responded with a 25-yard touchdown pass from Roethlisberger to Mike Wallace and a successful two point conversion on a Roethlisberger to Antwan Randle-El option pitch to make the score 28-25 with 7:34 remaining.

The Packers ate up 5 and half minutes of clock and got a 23 yard Mason Crosby field goal on their next drive to put them up 31-25 with 2:07 seconds left.

Roethlisberger, who orchestrated a late game-winning drive in Super Bowl XLIII, had another chance to pull off a fourth quarter comeback on football’s biggest stage.

However, there would not be an encore performance. Roethlisberger ended the game with three straight incompletions, including one on 4th and 5 from the Pittsburgh 33 yard line that was intended for Wallace.

“I feel like I let the city of Pittsburgh down, the fans, my coaches and my teammates and it’s not a good feeling,” said Roethlisberger.

As the ball hit the turf and the Packers gained possession, one thing was clear. The Lombardi Trophy was going home to Titletown.

I wrote this story in Feb. 2011 for my Sports Journalism class with Len Shapiro.

The Wisconsin Diet: Cheese, Brats, and Cupcakes

After the Wisconsin Badgers football team finished setting school records for points scored and margin of victory in their 70-3 pounding of Austin Peay on Sept. 25, fans at Camp Randall Stadium were not only saying “Wow,” they were also saying “Why?”

Why would Wisconsin of the Big Ten conference, the 11th ranked team in the country at the time, play a school from the Ohio Valley Conference and the FCS Division (Formerly known as 1-AA)?

Match-ups between teams of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) are not uncommon. 10 of the 11 teams that make up the Big Ten have at least one FCS opponent on their 2010 schedules.

Scheduling FCS opponents has become as big of a Wisconsin football tradition as Jump Around or the Fifth Quarter under head coach Brett Bielema. In each of Bielema’s five years as head coach, the Badgers have scheduled a FCS opponent to round out their non-conference schedule.

Still, the 70-3 pummeling of an obviously overmatched Austin Peay raises the question: Why bother?

A big part of the answer is money.

Austin Peay had never played a team from a conference that qualified for the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) until they visited Camp Randall. Just two weeks earlier, Austin Peay played their first game ever against any FBS team, losing 56-33 to Middle Tennessee State of the Sun Belt Conference.

That’s because the 2010 season was the first time FBS teams could schedule Austin Peay and have the game count toward their season record, according to Brad Kirtley, Austin Peay’s director of sports information.

Austin Peay became a full-scholarship FCS program in 2006, but under NCAA rules it had to go through a four-year period before FBS teams could play them and have the game count.

But it’s worth the wait. FCS teams often get a check of between $300,000 and $400,000 to make a one-time visit to a FBS team’s home stadium.

According to Kirtley, Austin Peay will make most of its football revenue in 2010 from the game checks they receive from Wisconsin and Middle Tennessee State. In previous years, Austin Peay’s revenue came exclusively from ticket sales.

For a team with a stadium capacity of 10,000 and just five home games scheduled each year, getting those checks from FBS opponents are a sometimes painful necessity.

Neither Kirtley or Brian Lucas, director of athletic communications for Wisconsin, would comment on the exact amount of the check Austin Peay got for playing at Wisconsin.

Despite the 70-3 blowout, Austin Peay football coach Rick Christophel does not have any second thoughts.

“We have no regrets at all about playing this game,” he said. “Certainly it helps our athletic department from a financial standpoint.

“But more than that, it helps our program. We tend to forget what we are in this business for  — the wins and losses and the money — but we also are trying to teach kids about the world, see different places and different cultures. Basically, you want them to see and experience what is out there. That is so important.”

Wisconsin also benefits financially from match-ups with FCS opponents. FCS teams like Austin Peay do not expect as much money in return for their visit as FBS opponents like Oregon State.

In most cases, FCS teams also do not expect a home game against the Badgers in return. This is often not the case for FBS teams.

In 2011, Oregon State will visit Camp Randall while the Badgers travel to Corvallis to play the Beavers in 2012.
In the perfect scenario, Wisconsin can pack Camp Randall, keep a larger share of the game revenue and get an easy win over an inferior opponent.

However, that is not always the case.

While Camp Randall was sold out for the first three FCS match-ups in the Bielema Era, the last two games (against Wofford in 2009 and Austin Peay in 2010) have not been sell-outs.

Match-ups against FCS “cupcakes” are not always as sweet as FBS teams and their fans expect.

“It’s still 11 on 11 and it’s playing football,” said Bielema in the week leading up to the Austin Peay game.

“The playing field has gotten closer and closer. They’ve raised their level of ability and also you catch teams that are in bad situations and maybe not at full strength and bad things happen,” he said.

Michigan can attest to that. So can Virginia Tech. And so can Wisconsin.

In what many call the greatest upset in college sports history, Appalachian State defeated fifth ranked Michigan in 2007.
Just this year, James Madison knocked off 13th ranked Virginia Tech on the road.

In 2008, the Badgers needed overtime to beat Cal Poly.  The Mustangs would have been celebrating an upset victory of their own if not for 3 missed extra point attempts and one missed field goal by their kicker.

No matter how Badger fans feel about seeing FCS teams at Camp Randall, they should be prepared to welcome another next season. Coming off a victory over Minnesota this season, South Dakota visits Madison on Sept. 24, 2011.

I wrote this story in Oct. 2010 for my intermediate reporting class.

Facebook: The Mental Health Network

Facebook continues its quest to take over the world.

In September, Facebook captured Hollywood. The Social Network was one of the most popular movies of the year and is a favorite to win the academy award for best picture. Facebook then took over Buckingham Palace in November. The queen of England made worldwide news by joining Facebook. Not only can you hail the queen, you can also “Like” her and, if you dare, “Poke” her. And just this week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was named Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2010. He’s the youngest “Person of the Year” since the first one chosen, Charles Lindbergh.

Zuckerberg may be a socially awkward computer geek from Harvard, but his creation has changed society. It is affecting the way we live and the way we interact with friends, including those you may not have met in person and those who live down the hall.

It’s also having an influence on our mental health.

“You can establish social connections and develop your identity and get feedback on that identity. All of those things are also tied to mental health,” says Dr. Megan Moreno of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Facebook, as much as exams or papers, can be a major source of stress for a college student.

Danielle Oakley, director of counseling and consultation services for University Health Services, tells of a student who came into her office “in significant stress.”

“She had just gone online and received a notification from Facebook,” Oakley said. “The person she had been partners with had listed themselves as single and so she had found out she had been broken up with because she had this notification from Facebook and that’s not something that would have happened not even five years ago, and it’s a very common phenomenon now.”

Senior K.C. Porter said the problem is “deciding what is alright to share with everyone and what isn’t, and it can be really stressful worrying about what other people might post concerning you. It can get you into trouble or just make you look bad. That’s stressful for me because I’m Facebook friends with a lot of my family and I want them to respect me.”

Porter spends an average of two to three hours a day on Facebook, and she said the social networking site has put her in a lot of stressful situations over her three and half years in college.

“It’s really easy to get caught in a lie on Facebook. I made an excuse to get out of a date once, but then I was tagged in someone’s status that same night, totally blowing my excuse. I got caught, and it ruined a friendship,” said Porter.

In early November, senior Ben Rogers took action. He deactivated his Facebook account.

“It was something I thought about doing for awhile. I’m really glad I did it. I don’t regret it, and I do think I’ve been less stressed since I’ve got off,” said Rogers.

Rogers enjoyed being able to keep tabs on his friends, especially those he wasn’t able to see in person. But sometimes, he found out too much information.

“It’s real easy to find out information you don’t want to know, and that definitely stressed me out. I found out people were going behind my back, lying to me. People sometimes forget to cover their tracks online. Sometimes its just less stressful to be naïve,” said Rogers.

Too much time online can also lead to lower grades and can strain relationships. In turn, bad grades and broken relationships can lead to anxiety and depression.

“We have a significant number of students who are commenting that they are not going to class or work and that it’s affecting their relationships because the people they want to be in relationships with are not being paid attention to,” said Oakley.

According to the Spring 2010 National College Health Assessment, 12 percent of students who responded reported that internet use was affecting their studies.

Porter counts herself among them.

“It’s definitely hurt me before. It’s wasted time,” she said. “My grades have been affected,  probably less affected than my relationships with friends and boyfriends though. I would probably find another way to procrastinate if it wasn’t for Facebook. It’s positively helped relationships too, it can make it easier to stay connected sometimes.”

More research needs to be done on how social media is affecting mental health, according to Moreno.

“This is a very challenging area of study because what is needed is long-term studies of these two items to clearly demonstrate cause and effect,” she said.

But early studies have given researchers some idea of the relationship between Facebook and mental health.

“There are studies that show that people with good self-esteem get a self-esteem boost from Facebook.  So some people believe the use of social media and mental health is a situation in which the ‘rich get richer and the poor get poorer.’ So well functioning kids get a self esteem boost and depressed kids get more depressed,” said Moreno.

Moreno is currently focusing on students’ disclosures of depression through Facebook.

Senior nursing student Katie Egan is part of a research group working with Moreno.  “We’ve found that many students display references to symptoms of mental illnesses on their Facebook profiles,” said Egan.

Moreno has found that those who disclose their depression on Facebook, through status updates or wall posts, do so for three different reasons.

Some do it to reach out or get attention. These people hope to receive encouragement through friends’ responses.

Some do it to share their feelings or to  “contribute to the frequent experience of being depressed during college.”

Others do it to vent or displace their emotions.

Facebook allows people to express themselves in a way not possible in the past. Just 10 years ago, these same individuals may have never let their feelings be known at all.

Still, using Facebook as a way of seeking help can be beneficial.

“Social media is a tool, so it isn’t inherently good or bad, and has potential to lead to benefits or harms based on how it is used,” said Moreno.

Moreno and a group of researchers recently released a study recommending colleges take action so disclosures can lead to benefits.

“Universities may consider providing targeted outreach to these students through Facebook, and educating students to enhance peer ability to recognize or respond to depression disclosures,” the study stated.

UW-Madison is not planning to act on the group’s recommendation for now. But Egan is part of a study that could help determine if and how the university might do something in the future.

Facebook has planted its flag on society and seems here to stay. Moreno offers some advice on how to keep mentally healthy while using Facebook.

“Connections developed online are often more superficial and have weaker ties,” she said. “So I think that balancing these with good friends and time spent offline communicating and experiencing life can help put social media’s impact into perspective.”

I wrote this story in Dec. 2010 for my intermediate reporting class.