Friday, February 11, 2011

GTB: The Interview...Brian Hightower

In 2008 and again in 2010, I was part of an assemblage of rugby-alum degenerates who traveled out to the western part of the country to watch the International Rugby Board (IRB) Sevens World Series, an eight-city world tour wherein a weekend international rugby tournament is played in each venue. Our old coach Cary spearheaded the drunken outing in San Diego three years ago and took a few pictures; the highlight that trip, perhaps, was learning about the shot "The Stuntman."


Last year, as you may recall, it took a ridiculous journey to get to the same tournament in Las Vegas, but it was all worth it. The US stop is in Vegas again this year – this weekend.

The cool part for us rugby idiots is that it’s on live television this year. NBC is airing matches beginning at 3:30 EST on Saturday and resuming coverage for the Cup Final Sunday at 4:30; their subsidiary Universal Sports, for those who get it, will have even more of the action at various times. The full schedule is here.


Even cooler for those of us who played Tribe Rugby (now known as Wren Wrugby) is that Brian Hightower, who lived, drank, puked, rucked and mauled with several Gheorghers way back when, is providing color commentary for the broadcast. This could be the beginning of a long and distinguished career for him if all goes well – and if rubgy continues its ascension in American popularity. We’ll see; in the meantime, tune in this weekend to catch some of the play.

Highcheese has also been tasked with writing some rugby-related pieces for a webpage called The Scrum on UniversalSports.com. Take a gander and learn a bit more if you're interested.

Oh… in unrelated news, Hightower was also DangerMan (almost).


In recognition of our old friend’s presence at the event that kicks off Saturday, I rang up The Thumb (also known as The Fireplug, The Glom, a Random Idiot, or simply Cheese) and borrowed 20 minutes of his time with a flurry of questions serious and less serious on behalf of Gheorghe: The Blog. Here was the result. (Brian sounds that way because I keep him in a little tin can.)

highcheeseinterview by whitneygtb

Tune in if you can. Sevens rugby is an awesome spectator sport, good for fans and ADHD sufferers alike. (7-minute halves, lots of scoring.) Enjoy.

43 comments:

T.J. said...

Whitney is whining the format is messed up on this post. It looks fine to me. Anyone else having issues?

Squeaky said...

By format, do you mean 4 audio clips instead of one?

May actually sit down and watch a little 7's this weekend just to hear highcheese.

T.J. said...

I fixed the formatting - completely started over with the html code. This better work now.

TR said...

82 minutes for Clyde? Toni Basil gets 24 hours and Clyde gets 82 minutes?

I spent a good 4 minutes preparing that post. Jeez...

T.J. said...

Bitch to Whitney

Whitney said...

Sorry, TR. This was time-sensitive, since I had to get the word out for people to watch the rugby and listen to the Hightower.

T.J. said...

I always enjoyed the original "All Along the Hightower"...not all the covers work.

zman said...

I enjoyed Afroman's "Because I Got Hightower."

Dave said...

i think i get universal sports-- despite not having any cable channels-- is it one of the digital nbc channels? because there was sevens rugby on the other night? i would love to hear that commentary . . .

Danimal said...

i like the easter egg. cool.

Squeaky said...

Blondie - The Tide is Hightower

Dave said...

hey-- i didn't write in that question about the germans!

Whitney said...

That must have been a different Dave from New Jersey who wrote in. You're not the only one, you know!

zman said...

It was Dave Brown.

Whitney said...

So Universal Sports is not on DirecTV or our local cable company. But you can stream it live over your computer. Looks like NBC at 3:30...

Danimal said...

YOU ARE STREAMING LIVE!

zman said...

Rippin and tearin.

Squeaky said...

Universal Sports is on Fios but not in high def. bullstein.

Danimal said...

RIPPIN AND TEARIN! RIPPING AND TEARIN!

the poor souls that didn't watch that clip from yesterday...

Mark said...

Time sensitive means about 30 hours away? Interesting.

zman said...

We're only 42 days into 2011 so this may not mean much, but it's the clip of the year to date.

Danimal said...

the prospect excites me

robbie mentioned a gtb summit in orlando...in november...WUWT (what up with that)?
i'm game by the way. just wish i had more lead time to plan.

Squeaky said...

I believe the November G:TB summit will take place at the "It's a Small World After All" ride in the park.

Mark said...

I'm obviously down for that as well. Interested to hear if there's any shot of that happening. I'd be attending the mini-GTB summit at Jazz Fest but I don't think my bosses would be keen on me taking more vacation time so soon after my Vegas trip and my upcoming ten day honeymoon. Pretty shitty of them, I know.

Dave said...

who else is going to the orlando mini-summit?

besides me qand my mini-kids?

T.J. said...

I'm in...

Details?

rob said...

the dave and i are both taking our families to disney first week of november - total coincidence. as such, any other gtbers that would like to join us at some point would be more than welcome.

Danimal said...

that would probably make the spouses real, real happy

rob said...

i assume we'd grab some adult beverages after the kids were given knockout drops.

zman said...

Whitney has a SoundCloud account? We need to set up a G:TB SoundCloud drop box.

Whitney said...

Account activated this AM after GTB's IT guy (IT-J) couldn't provide a means of airing the interview.

Dave said...

whit-- did you mean embedding with soundcloud? or something more sophisticated?

TR said...

http://www.slate.com/id/2284815/

zman said...

TJ-D2.

Mark said...

Orlando mini-summit. Beers around the World at Epcot is always nice. As for the evening, well, downtown disney will do.

rob said...

clippers threatening to ruin history

Mark said...

Still threatening...

Mark said...

There are a couple D1 CFB players who play in my regular (3-4x a week) pickup game. One of them playecd QB at UGA. Tonight he brought Mohamed Massaquoi with him.

rob said...

and?

Mark said...

Not as big as I expected. Terrific athleticism. Pretty average player. Athleticism makes him a factor though. Nice, quiet guy. He didn't guard me but I crossed him up good one time.

rob said...

damn right you did. g:tb, crossing up nfl wideouts and the general public since 2004.

Anonymous said...

Found this interesting article on Hightower and your trip. I have not seen the Thumb since I believe that 1995 Hong Kong Sevens, which he played in for the Eagles. We should not be surprised that he proved to be the most durable player from our old school.

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