I just got home for fall break earlier this afternoon. Unfortunately, this gave me enough time to watch the Brewers lose 3-1 to the Phillies. After watching the game I headed over to my old high school to pick my brother up from his high school workouts.

Since Furman switched over to the semester calendar instead of the trimester calendar this year, our team is able to go home for Fall Break. Last year Furman's Fall Break occurred after the official start of the preseason so we had two-a-days while everyone else was home. I don't really have any plans for the break. I'll probably just watch some baseball and hang out with my family considering this is the last time I'll be home before Christmas.

Its going to be nice to have some real free time. I've realized that as an athlete, you don't exactly have much free time at all during the offseason and especially during the season. You might have big chunks of time where you don't have any responsibilities but I would call that down time. There is a big difference between free time and down time. Usually I have 1-2 hours between class and weights or class and practice. I can't do whatever I want in this time because I don't want to use a whole lot of energy so I'm fresh for practice, so its down time.

I've had a pretty busy week. Basketball is picking up slowly (Read: Increasing from 90% of my time by about 2 percentage points every week). We've still been lifting 4 days a week and we have our stretching program 3 days a week. We've still been playing pickup and like I said in a previous post, we are allowed 2 hours of full team practice per week. Today we worked on putting in our offense. Like the start of every season it took us a while to get the hang of it. Our freshmen have been working hard and will help give us a stronger presence down low this season.

I had a test in computer science on Wednesday and I was also supposed to give a speech on Wednesday in my public speaking class. We didn't have time so I am giving it on Friday instead. The assignment was to give a speech on a process. One girl brought in an actual baby and showed how to change a diaper, another showed how to get stains out, and a guy in the class showed how to change a tire. I'm going with how to shoot a free throw. While researching for the speech I found out a crazy statistic: Wilt Chamberlain, the NBA's 4th all time leading scorer, shot 51.1 percent from the charity stripe for his career. In the game he scored 100 points, he made 38-42. How in the world was he able to do that but overall have a career 51.1 free throw percentage?!?!?!

Tonight is the season premiere of my favorite TV show, The Office. I was pretty disappointed overall with season 4. I am chalking this up to the writers strike. Hopefully they have gotten everything together for season 5. The promos for the premiere looked great and I'm looking forward to relaxing and watching it tonight.

In this post:

-Inside our conditioning and preseason workouts

-OSU - USC game thoughts

-Packers/Badgers football

If you have any questions feel free to comment...

In this post:

-My weekend

-Needtobreathe Concert

-Individual workouts

-My Brother's First recruiting letter

-New Favre Jersey

I am happy to announce that my blog has moved from Samepagesports.com to my own site. You can find my blog, pictures, and videos at www.ConnorNolte.com .

Go hear to read my first real post on the new site http://www.connornolte.com/?p=15.

I'd really love to hear some feedback about the site. If there is anything you want to know about the life of a college basketball player just post a comment and I'll definitely get back to you!

Last week a close friend of mine/diehard packer fan Jason Galloway and I flew up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a 5 day trip. I still have family in Wisconsin so we were able to stay with them. I have 3 cousins that are a little bit younger than me. I rarely get to see them so It was really great that I got to spend time with them.

We flew in on Friday night and just barely missed seeing Sabathia win his 6th game as a Brewer in a complete game shutout. On Saturday we saw Sheets dominate the Nationals throwing a complete game shutout himself. The game only lasted 2 hrs and 15 minutes.

PHOTO: Brewers Game with my cousin Ian

To View photos click link or visit www.samepagesports.com/nolte

On Monday, we drove up to Green Bay for the highlight of the trip. I was given free tickets to the Packers first preseason game since I'm a college athlete. Just kidding... I spent a crapload of money on that thing - but it was worth it (Yes I can prove it...who do you think I am O.J. Mayo?). Since neither of us live anywhere close to Wisconsin, we felt like we were on the set of a movie. Lambeau Field, Brett Favre's Steakhouse, Lombardi Ave, Holmgren Way, Favre Pass all seemed like places that only existed on ESPN to us. We went to the Packers Hall of Fame and got a picture taken with the 3 Lombardi trophies, "Borrowed" menus from Favre's steakhouse, and watched the players roll up to the stadium in their expensive rides.

PHOTO: Us with the Lombardi Trophies

Our seats were in the 18th row and we had a perfect view of the action. Even though it was preseason it was amazing and I became a little less worried about the future of the Packers under Aaron Rodgers.

PHOTO: Halftime of the Packers Game

On Tuesday we drove to Madison with my grandmother and we were able to watch them practice from the stadium gift shop. *Spoiler* They practiced running the option a few times - a play I don't believe I've ever seen them run.

PHOTO:Camp Randall

I'll be back soon...

Connor

To View photos click link or visit www.samepagesports.com/nolte

A week after I had my sinus surgery, my mom and I took a trip down to the beach. I was told that I was going to have a fraction of my normal energy. I had heard that some people have the surgery and take multiple naps a day for 2 weeks. Fortunately for me, I was feeling almost 100% by the end of the week. I still had small flexible plastic splints in my nose but other than that I was feeling pretty good. I got the splints taken out yesterday and I can say that the surgery was a good move. The doctor said I could start getting back into the swing of things. I'm going to work my way back up to what I was lifting at summer school. The timing of the surgery was perfect because now I have about 3 weeks to lift before going back to school. I haven't lost any weight which is great.

I had a great time at the beach and had some good downtime with my mom. Our family has been going to Orange Beach, Alabama for about 10 years so we have our favorite restaurants and we hit all of them. My dad and brother were supposed to come with us but my brother was invited at the last minute to play up on the 15u Southern Kings (aka Lebron James' Shooting Stars South) in Las Vegas.

Finally, I am getting sick of this Brett Favre ordeal. I have been a Packers fan all of my life. My stance is, either take him back and let him compete for the starting job or trade him. I really don't want them to trade him because I feel like he gives us the best chance of winning. If Ted Thompson wants Favre to stay retired, which he clearly does, that would mean that the Packers get nothing for him. Why doesn't he just trade him for a draft pick. The pick would be better than nothing. The only reason he won't do this is because he will look extremely stupid when Favre outplays Rodgers.

To see the picture I posted check out my website: http://www.samepagesports.com/nolte

My summer school class ended last Wednesday and I can say that summer school really is awesome. Like I said earlier, we lift weights, go to class, and play pickup. Something like 95% of the student body at Furman live on campus and to accommodate this need the school built 11 apartment buildings with 4 bedroom apartments on campus. That's where we stay during summer school and its a great setup.

Now I'm home in Alpharetta and I was trying to do something really fun to kick off my summer. I know most of you are thinking that having sinus surgery wouldn't be on the top of your list but that is probably because you are not a D-1 basketball player. Having sinus surgery to kick off my summer was a dream come true. I must have broken my nose as a kid but not realized it so I had a very deviated septum which made it pretty much impossible for me to breathe through my nose.

I had surgery at 9am on Monday morning and am still recovering. I was doing pretty well until my post-op this afternoon. Today they removed some rather large sponges from my sinus cavities and it was extremely painful. Now I'm back to laying in bed trying to get rid of a major headache.

Before the packing was removed I was feeling pretty good and went and saw The Dark Knight with some friends at 10am to avoid spending double digits on our movie tickets and because we had nothing better to do. It was a good movie. Really good. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was amazing. He really played the role of a villain better than I've ever seen before. I don't usually get into all of the other comic book movies (Hulk, Xmen, Ironman for example) but I really liked this movie. Anyone else see it?

I wrote this article for my sports website, Samepagesports.com. I just found out about this free service called ChaCha and realized how helpful it can be for sports fans in particular. Hope you enjoy!

This past weekend, some teammates and I went up to Troutville, Virginia. Yes you are reading that right - Troutville. My teammate Noah States ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=bhzl-dWyNBI) lives there and we love to give him a hard time about living in Troutville. It was cool to see another part of the country and I really liked it up there. Its way different from my hometown, Alpharetta, GA. Troutville is not super crowded and is just a nice quiet town outside of Roanoke and I really liked how peaceful it was.

My summer school class gets out mid-week next week. I should end up with an A or a B+ in my class which will be good for the GPA. I can't believe its gone by so quickly. Even in a short time I've seen improvement in the weight room and I've been happy with my play in pick up.

Me and one of my friends that writes for SamePageSports.com just planned a trip to Wisconsin in early August. We are going to be up there for the Green Bay Packers preseason opener at Lambeau against the Bengals to check out my favorite yardbarker Jarrett Bush . We are also going to a couple of games between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Nationals. I was born in Milwaukee so these are two of my favorite teams.

With the NBA draft coming up, I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a little namedropping. One of the things that I have found while playing division one basketball is that no matter where a guy is from, his high school or A.A.U. team would have beaten everybody's high school/A.A.U. team like a drum. When you get an elite group of basketball players together (how long until someone bashes Furman...the clock starts now) for road trips, pregame meals, summer school, etc. basketball stories are told time and time again. I've realized that only a few people can hold a candle to the list of players I've played with or competed against. One that comes to mind is my teammate Noah States. He went to Hargrave Military Academy with 10 other D1 Players including: Jordan Crawford , Jeremy Jacob , Eric Wallace to name a few that went to BCS schools.

In high school, one of our biggest rivals in our region (probably shouldnt call it a rival because we never came closer than 10 points) was Wheeler High School. My junior year in high school, they got a big boost from a transfer by the name of J.J. Hickson. I'm not going to get into details of the transfer but you would probably be not too far from the truth if you said that Wheeler coughUniversitycough has a bigger recruiting budget than a D2 school does. On that subject I should probably keep my mouth shut considering Milton's (my high school) roster has some new faces on it (I've been assured that they all are legitimate move ins).

Anyways, JJ Hickson and I guarded each other which led to some mismatches considering he is a 6-9 post and i'm a 6-7 wing. We played them at our place my senior year and I ended up dropping 33 points tying my career high and 11 rebounds - 2 more points and 2 more rebounds than J.J..(Apparently you can watch highlights here...http://hsgeorgia.scout.com/a.z?s=37&p=8&c=1&nid=2931045 with a scout.com account).

What I am about to show you is never before released footage. Here is how it went down... So I'm guarding J.J. Hickson a week or 2 before the McDonalds All American teams are to be announced and rumor is that there is a Mickey-Ds scout in attendance. J.J. takes a power dribble and lays one in. I try to take a charge (read as: I fall down like an idiot) and J.J. decides to take that opportunity to stand over me and yell, "STAY DOWN F*** BOY". I decide to get up and push 2 Wheeler players out of my way to chase J.J. to halfcourt to make a point. I'm not exactly proud of this video and looking back I should have definitely been given a technical at the least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYJ5D8I-Xzw

Just so nobody gets the wrong idea - I have no hard feelings towards J.J. and we got along fine the rest of the season at awards banquets etc. He is a good kid and I wish him the best of luck in the NBA. I just wrote this because I thought it would be an interesting story for basketball fans to read.

This weekend, my teammates and I went and watched The Happening. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars. The plot was a little unrealistic, but with it being a scary movie, I looked past that and thought it was a good movie. On Fathers day, my mom, sister, and brother ditched my dad to come up and see me. I feel pretty bad about that but its really the only time my family will be able to see me while I'm at summer school. I went out to eat with my brother, sister and mom and then Evan came with me to spend the rest of the weekend and Monday with me. I got to take him out to eat and we had some good brother time. He came and watched us lift weights and play pickup this afternoon. He took advantage of the opportunity to show my teammates and I that he can dunk now, the summer before his freshman year. This is about a year before I was dunking. We also had a chance to watch Tiger and Rocco today.

I am realizing how amazing sports are after a weekend like this. I watched 2 games of the NBA Finals, professional baseball games, college world series (Go UGA I guess), EURO 2008 soccer matches, and the US Open. I'm pretty disappointed in the Lakers for their ridiculous collapse. To me its unacceptable to give up a lead like that. I'm becoming more and more interested in soccer lately. It helps that I have friends from Europe including a teammate from Croatia and just hearing him talk about the love that Europe and basically the rest of the world have for the game. Even the security guards go crazy when the home team scores a goal, something that is unthinkable for pretty much any American sports.

Watching the US Open was definitely the most fun I've had watching golf. I just can't see how anybody could root against Rocco Mediate! Tiger has won 8 more majors than Rocco has won PGA tournaments of any kind. Everything Rocco said in interviews made me cheer for him even more. Even though he lost he really played some amazing golf.

This got me thinking that we are witnessing a Golden Era of sports. I'm making this list off the top of my head so I might be forgetting some athletes but Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Roger Federrer are undoubtedly the best to have ever played their respective sports. I will admit that I wasn't around to see other basketball, tennis, or golf stars in their prime but I really believe that nobody will be as dominant as these three were/are.

Every division one college basketball team goes to summer school and since Furman falls into that category, I am back on campus. I got back on Sunday and got situated in my apartment. Furman pretty much requires students to live on campus for all four years. To make this possible, Furman built 11 apartment buildings on campus. For summer school we get to stay in the apartments which is nice. They have a kitchen and living room and then 4 private bedrooms. Its alot better than living in dorm rooms

Summer school is alot more relaxed compared to the regular school year. We take one or two classes that meet for 2 hours monday through friday, lift weights 4 days a week, and play pickup 5 days a week. I'm taking a physics class for non science majors with 3 other basketball players, about 25 football players and a few female athletes.

Now I'm about to go watch the Finals with some teammates in another apartment. I'm pretty surprised that the Celtics were able to win the first two games. I really thought that the Lakers would be able to steal a game in Boston and would have a good chance at winning the series in 5. It doesn't really matter to me who wins. I was hoping to see either the Spurs or Pistons in the finals (not necessarily playing each other). I just hope there are some good games.

I officially finished my first year of college on the 27th. I'll be home for 10 days and then I'll be back up for summer school. This is the first time I've been able to sleep in my own bed for more than 3 nights since August. While I've only been home for a couple days so far, I'm loving it right now. I've been able to hang out with my family alot. My brother Evan is14 and legitimately 6'4". He's in the middle of playing AAU and practicing with the high school program. We have the same sense of humor and have been having alot of fun together. My sister Lauren is about to be 16 and I've been able to catch up on things with her having lunch with her on her lunch breaks at work. My parents are awesome too. I would have to guess that the same can be said about the parents of any athlete that makes it to the college level. My parents are one of the main reasons I've been able to get as far as have. I've gotten to spend some quality time with my high school teammates too. We played pickup at the Alpharetta Community Center and ended up watching some game films from our junior and senior years of high school.

I'm realizing that I'm pretty lucky to be able to live in the metro Atlanta area where there is so much to do. Last night I went to the Gwinett Arena to see an arena football game. The Georgia Force scored a last minute touchdown to win by 1 against the Tampa Bay Storm. When my friend Greg and I got to the ticket office we were told that the $9 tickets were sold out and the cheapest tickets were gonna cost us $40. We were certainly not going to spend $40 each so we started walking back to our car. On the way out the only scalper in the whole place had 2 tickets for $5 each and that sounded good to us. After the 1st quarter ended we snuck down to the 3rd row and watched the rest of the game 5 feet from the action. It was cool to see that former Furman Paladin and Atlanta Falcon Cam Newton was the starting linebacker for the force.

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to see photos and my official blog click the link or go to http://www.samepagesports.com/nolte

Our third game of the year was against the Billikens of St. Louis University, a team coached by the infamous Rick Majerus. We arrived in St. Louis by plane early in the evening on the night before the game. We got situated at the hotel and hopped back on to our charter bus and went to grab some dinner before calling it a night. There was a Hard Rock Cafe not too far from the hotel that was in "the historic Union Station area" according to their website. It was Tony Anderson's (one of our point guards) birthday and in order to receive his birthday dessert he had to stand on his seat and sing and act out "I'm a little teapot". It was our first real road trip and it was a lot of fun.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to the arena for our shoot around. For a mid major program, SLU plays in a great arena. They play in the same arena as the St. Louis NHL team, the Blues, play in. I guess the only drawback to this setup would be that you aren't able to practice on the same court you play on which is always a good thing.

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We played them pretty well and were only down by 3 or 4 at the half if I remember correctly. One of their best offensive players (Tommie Liddell III) was suspended or benched for the first half. It could have had something to do with his dad posting on their message board about how Majerus can't coach.He entered the game a few minutes into the second half and the crowd went wild and their team really fed off of the energy. We ended up losing by 14 but it was a much closer game than the score indicates. You can imagine we were pretty embarrassed when later in the year they ended up scoring only 20 points as a team in a game.

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and most of my family still live in that area (most meaning 6 out of my 8 relatives). My cousin Ian and my aunt drove down from Milwaukee for the game and my dad and sister Lauren drove up from Atlanta for the game. Our shooting guard/point guard is from Peoria, Illinois and his family also came down for the game. We went out to find our families after we got dressed and we got our first autograph requests of our careers. It was pretty funny since it was from little kids that probably thought we played for SLU. I went back to the hotel, showered, and went downtown to a pizza place and got to spend some quality time with my family members that were in town. Its always great to have someone you know in town on the road.

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For pictures go to my official blog by clicking the link