Dear Supwitchugirl,

Thank you for the relevance.

Eternally,
Mark Morrison

Oregon’s biggest hit since LeGarette Blount just uppercut the world wide web last week. Supwitchugirl, whom we admittedly know nothing about and will freely fabricate backstory where needed, just released a sequel on par with Godfather II, Empire Strikes Back, Aliens and Breakin’ 2: Electric Bugaloo as creations that rival and perhaps surpass the original.

Supwitchugirl, though talented and creative, had not hit the proverbial tipping point until the Oregon trio released “I Love My Ducks” in the fall of ‘09. It went down as, perhaps, the best college football fan anthem ever created. I mean, “Holy moly, is that my boy Masoli? Cookin’ up the offense like he’s cookin’ ravioli” is truly inspired work…taking that to a Spicoli / E.coli rhyme and a 300 average when he goes Rose Bowling was some serious next level shit.

For the record, that was not Masoli cookin’ up the offense, that was Masoli breakin’ and enterin’, which is exactly unlike poppin’ and lockin’ (is that Van Damme?).

Here is the gritty og, aka “I Smell Roses”:

Notice the innovative nighttime and moving camera shots, the cell-phone quality “inside Autzen clips”, the limited and off-duty access to Donald the mascot Duck.

Flash forward, if you will, to late September 2010 and Supwitchugirl’s much ballyhooed and über-hyped follow up effort….”Return of the Quack”. The University knows a good thing when they see it, and by good thing I mean merchandising opportunity. Of the one million or so views of all the versions and remixes of the original, you know a chancellor of this or that watched, brought it to a dean’s attention who viraled it to a president who decided…all access passes to the field, the cheerleaders and the mascot were an order.

Anyhow, you can plainly see two things in this follow up effort…Joey Harrington is really awkward and Supwitchugirl are now some heavy-hitters in Eugene with a bit of Phil Knight-like backing. Oh my video production quality…

The video is such a bittersweet thing for us. On one hand, as serious Boise State fans, we find it really cute and wish our little brother-like Ducks well…and on the other we are super envious and almost inspired enough to get the man band back together. Almost.

Either way, Mark Morrison, you owe Supwitchugirl some love after your youtube relevance must have skyrocketed in recent weeks. I know I found myself watching and rewatching this gem. Is he from UK? If not, is his steering wheel? Enjoy, and think of rollerskating parties past…

The LeBron clamor has finally died down to a tolerable din, and we at 4th & Forever consciously let in-house emotions settle a bit before releasing our LeBron shirt, officially the 372,569th tee shirt about LeBron that has been created since James decided to take his talents to South Beach. In the end it was a very, very good thing we waited. Our emotions were running so high after “The Decision” we initially designed False Prophet employing the “Comic Sans” typeface…a virtual death sentence for any designer. It is more than simply difficult to regain one’s street cred after he or she makes the mistake of publishing any media that uses Comic Sans, and we only wish Cavs’ owner, Dan Gilbert, would have observed the two minute rule before hitting send on his vitriolic, scorned-lover sort of stream-of-consciousness condemnation of all things LeBron…typed in Comic Sans. I don’t even think it was in bold. I think people would have taken his curse-casting email a little more seriously (Not Jesse Jackson sort of seriously, but who does?) had he used something more boring, though time-tested, like Helvetica. Just saying.

And that said, here are the color choices we’re thinking about for False Prophet…our long-overdue follow up to “Witness Protection Program” we released after the “Lebron getting dunked on and the video being confiscated by Nike” scandal. Please let us know your thoughts. Please get this in the hands of Dan Gilbert before the return of the King. We’d like to see the entire arena in these shirts for that game (and every other game, for what it’s worth…which is worth a lot, to us).

The Shirt will be available in the next few days. Keep an eye on our site, and register for our newsletter. The newsletter is generally filled with important bits of wild misinformation and comes out about two times a year. Maybe three.

In the meantime, peep this beautiful contribution to the cause…and that cause being: making the world a better place one new craft beer at a time. A brewery in Ohio just released a “QUITNESS” IPA that, so very appropriately, leaves a decidedly bitter taste in your mouth. Awesome.

Now, we didn’t actually say that LT drinks a girl’s beer (as far as he knows), but we did do a tribute shirt to Lawrence Taylor, or, more specifically, to his awesome earwear. It is on special for $12 until we run out, or he comes back to NY. The OG LT, not the new LT.

Maybe pros are superhuman. Wade Boggs allowed us to see that certain professional athletes are a breed apart…on and off the field. Various, wildly unreliable sources, report that Wade put down 64 Miller Lites on a cross-country flight. Google it. It is even referenced, and partially acknowledged, on Wikipedia…which, admittedly, can be viewed as a dubious source in itself. If you remain a non-believer, let’s go straight to the horse rider’s mouth….

Boggsy would certainly be putting that beer’s slogan to task as well…after 64 beers we can’t believe you’d still be chanting, “Tastes Great! Less Filling!!” But that’s just us.

Now, all this is simply a JV matinee, or single-A ball when compared to Andre The Giant’s legendary feats. If you are unfamiliar, acquaint yourselves with one of the world’s biggest, if you will, drinkers. And pour some out. We understand that it may be tough to listen to a bunch of ex-wrestlers sitting at a roundtable like CNN Crossfire or something talking about Andre downing 156 beers in one sitting, but this story is just one of many you can find with a little research.

And because some of you out there don’t believe wrestling is a sport (us included), we had to put this shirt up on our sister site, No Star. It isn’t exactly Andre The Giant…it is Bizarro Luchador Andre as “El Gigante.” It, too, is both awesome and on sale for just $15. Pick one up, maybe a few. Ha! Get it? You will if you look at the shirt.

First of all, we admit, freely, that Syracuse has been on the wrong end of some disastrous, embarrassing losses (Richmond and Vermont certainly come to mind). There is no debating this fact. What program hasn’t, however? Has Syracuse had more monumental tourney collapses than, say, Kansas? Arizona?

Doug Gottlieb, the man that Syracuse fans love to hate, has made a living calling out Syracuse basketball as being overhyped, underachieving, overcoddled and undercoached. All of these barbs are, quite simply, thinly-veiled attacks on coach Boeheim. Honest. That’s not just our unparalleled paranoia. It’s true. And relatively well-documented on the internets. What we really want to hear is Doug admit that Jimmy has done more with less than nearly every coach in the country. Both Gottlieb’s Oklahoma State and perennial cinderella Gonzaga have nearly as many alums currently in the NBA as does Syracuse…but no one is calling out those programs for not getting it done. Boeheim has over 800 wins in his career, and we at 4th & Forever would venture to say he has accomplished this feat in a consistently top-tier conference with decidedly less talent than the Kentuckys, Dukes and UNCs.

2010 is no different. Syracuse was one of only a handful of schools (6) ever to start the season unranked and reach the top spot in the country…Kansas was the last to do this…over 20 years ago. So, we feel that regardless the outcome of this weekend’s games…Gottlieb owes the Orange a big, fat, “You’ve got to at some point laud Jim Boeheim for the incredible work he has done with these kids, and for the premier program he has built at Syracuse. I wish he would have recruited me.” We’re just saying, that’s all.

Think about it, every year we wait for the end of the year lists, the mini-retrospectives on the last twelve months. They start coming out just before Christmas and we eat them up. But to be honest, reliving the past year’s sporting highlights are only satisfying if a) your team was successful and is involved in the list; or b) there was some amazing moment from the year that you forgot and needed the list to remind you. And from a writer’s standpoint the retrospective list requires far too much research. The Predictive List, on the other hand, is full of hope for everyone involved because the events haven’t happened so you can choose to root for the prediction, against the prediction, or for an entirely different outcome. Plus, they require no research. Sweet!

So, without further ado, my 2010 Sports Prediction List (feel free to root for these to come true, I know I will be):

Reunited, and it feels so good.

10. Jimmy Clausen will get invited to the NFL-version of the crying room when he fails to get drafted in the first-round. Eventually, Kansas City drafts him in the second round so he can be reunited with Coach Cheeseburger.
9. Clay Bennett is the next high-profile feaux-lebirty to be involved in a sex scandal. A sex-tape gets released but no one watches it except Clay.
8. In the biggest upset in NBA-playoff history, the Nuggets knock off the Lakers in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals. After the game, The Birdman is named the Series MVP and credits the Denver crowd’s decision to wear “Fuck Kobe” T-shirts en masse as the catalyst.

Fuck Kobe

7. Finland wins Hockey Gold at the Winter Olympics. The Fightin’ Finns! The hometown Canucks don’t riot but they do cause the Vancouver bars to run out of beer as they drown their sorrows.
6. The year’s biggest golf-scandal will involve Sergio Garcia bringing a gun to Butler Cabin . . not that there is anything wrong with bringing a gun to a cabin in Georgia, but they only let Master’s Champions into Butler Cabin.
5. David Beckham dyes his hair red, white and blue prior to the USA-England match at the World Cup, sparking a huge controversy amongst the New York Post and the London Mirror on whether Becks supports England, the United States or is just a crappy German beer.
4. Johnny Flynn fails to medal in Figure Skating at the Winter Olympics.

Clint Dempsey

3. The Cubs finally reach the World Series . . and then lose to the Seattle Mariners on a Ken Griffey, Jr. walk-off homerun in Game 7.

2. The USMNT opens with a win against England . . and eventually advances to the semifinals of the World Cup before valiantly bowing out to eventual-champion Argentina.
1. The University of Washington Huskies football team comes all the way back with an undefeated season to reach the BCS National Championship Game. Heisman –trophy winning QB Jake Locker will have to face-off against another Washington state native in Kellen Moore, the junior QB of the Boise State University Broncos. Of, course, that game will occur in 2011, so you will have to wait for next year’s Prediction List . . .

Many aspects of that morning are nonsensical and even dreamlike. It was cold. It was January. It was 1981. My father and I sat in the basement of a neighbor’s house. I don’t know where they were, but we sat alone in the dark, in our jackets. The heat was off. They might have been away on vacation somewhere warm. Somewhere not Boise. That could explain why the room was positively filled with dogshit. Kind of. I think my folks were dog sitting, more or less.

The game had come down to this final drive by the Browns. I envied my father’s focus and intensity. My concentration was broken often by the conscious effort I had to place on breathing exclusively through my mouth. After an improbable series of plays, the Browns found themselves at the Oakland 13 with less than a minute to play and down just two points. Kings of the comeback, The Kardiac Kids were about to do it again! Then Red Right 88 happened. A playcall so infamous it has its own wikipedia entry.

Nearly 30 years later, I wouldn’t change a thing. The cold, the dogshit, my father putting his metal folding chair through my neighbor’s television. Afterall, Red Right 88 made me who I am today: a guy who knows when to kick the field goal.

It also became apparent that sports was going to play a huge role in my life. Only at times am I ashamed of this.

I have had a love affair with sports for the better part of 36 years, and this love has manifested itself as a t-shirt company.

I’d like to formally welcome you to 4th & Forever. We are open for business, open for suggestions and generally open along the baseline.