Big win for Big D

 
By Chad Sanchez
Austin Texas

Dallas Cowboys beat the Washington Redskins in a hard fought defensive game Monday night.

The Dallas Cowboys hosted the Washington Redskins Monday night for an old fashion rivalry. In a match that saw the Redskins in control for three full quarters and a one point lead with five minutes remaining in the fourth, the Cowboys were able to come out with the victory in a 18-16 game decided by field goals.

The talk of the night was Dallas quarterback Tony Romo, who suffered fractured ribs and a punctured lung last week against the San  Francisco 49ers, took the field and helped lead his team to victory.

"He was in a lot of pain and didn't do a whole lot of practicing," said tight-end Jason Witten about his quarterback. "All week he had the mentality that he was going to play, he's an elite quarter back with true will and our team fed off that...He's an ultimate leader for our football team."

ESPN analyst and Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young said that Romo has gotten better over these past few games. "He's got all the wounds, he's a guy that's become a warrior,I start to trust him throughout these last few games," said Young. "You just start to trust him to win those big games."

Romo finished the night with 225 yards and 1 interception. The turning point of the game came was a 30 yard pass to wide-receiver Dez Bryant that got the Cowboys into field goal range and the potential lead with over a minute left in the game.

Running-back Felix Jones also had a good night on 14 carries for 115 yards. But in a game decided by field goals, it was Cowboys rookie field goal kicker Dan Bailey who came in the clutch make 6 of 6 on three point field goal attempts.

After this victory, Dallas looks ahead and start preparation for their next game in which they host the 3-0 Detroit Lions.

It's a Nice Kicks Party!!

Nicekicks shop on Guadalupe photo taken by Chad Sanchez

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On Friday, June 10th, Nicekicks hosted an event called "24 hours of Clyde" where the shoe company Puma would display their new line of sneakers and select one lucky winner to have a decked out day in the life of basketball superstar Walt "Clyde" Frazier. While attending the event, I was able to get a personal interview with the creator and owner of Nicekicks Matt Halfhill and find out the reasons as to why he created the website and store.

Banner of Walt Frazier to celebrate the "24 hours of Clyde" event photo by Chad Sanchez

Nicekicks is a website that informs it's readers about upcoming and also old popular shoes, ranging from Adidas casual, to Nike and Jordan basketball, to Vans skating shoes. The site also tells readers about shoe aspects such as color, style, price, history and release information. Both the website and store offer other things as well, such as clothing from "The Hundreds," Stussy sunglasses, backpacks, G-Shock watches and the popular "snapback" hats. The website recently celebrated it's 5th year anniversary, and the store, which is located on the Guadalupe drag has been there for over a year.

Inside the Nicekicks shop photo by Chad Sanchez

When I got time to sit down with Matt during the event, he discussed how the whole plan unfolded and the steps to his success."I created the website as a better way for people to get info about sneakers," said Matt. He said at first he started up a shoe blog in 2004 which he did all by himself, and from there it just exploded and that the term "Nicekicks" was used a lot to describe great shoes. In 2006, Matt created the website after the popular term "Nicekicks."

"I have been a member and an avid reader of a number of forums that discussed shoes, but the problem I found was that it was a challenge at times to find ‘news’ buried in a 40 page thread cluttered by posts," said Matt in an interview with the Daily Bread back in 2008. "Many times it was hard to verify if the information was true and accurate so I felt there was a need for something more authoritative and direct."

Undefeated X Puma Clyde canvas collection photo by Chad Sanchez

When asked how many kicks he's collected he says "I buy kicks, I don't collect." For Matt, to own and experience a shoe was important. "You buy a shoe to wear it not collect it. If I wanted a shoe, I bought it, wore it, and if it was a special shoe, I wanted that piece of history from the shoe," said Matt.

Snapback hats at Nicekicks photo by Chad Sanchez

Matt says he choose the city of Austin as the first store location because he thought it would be good for Austin and that the people can have a hands-on experience with the Nicekicks brand and although Austin in the only location, he would like to open up more stores."Nicekicks will always be here, it's a different market but I would like to open more stores," said Matt. "My wife said I was crazy for wanting to open up one store."

Some folks talking and observing at the event photo by Chad Sanchez

Overall, Matt's goal of the website and store are simple."I want people to have a good time, good experience, meet new people and I want for them to walk out with something they didn't walk in with," said Matt.

That's exactly what people did at the "24 hours of Clyde" event. A handful of people showed up and enjoyed themselves. Ryan Bristow who was in attendance said "I've known about the website and I think they do a nice job. This is my first time attending a sneaker release and I think it's some good stuff. I follow Nicekicks more then I do any other shoe website."

At the end of the night, the winner of the "24 hours of Clyde" package was Keenan Curry who is a known regular at the Nicekicks shop. For his award, Keenan will be Clyde Frazier for a day, receiving a tailored suit, personal limousine, fine dining, and VIP treatment in downtown Austin."I told them I won't win so I didn't want to enter, but then my friends told me too enter," said Curry. "But I'm not surprised I won,"said Curry as he laughs. "Cool people win everything."

Winner of the "24 hours of Clyde" event

Keenan Curry photos by Chad Sanchez

MAV-Nificient!!

The Dallas Mavericks won their 1st NBA title in the franchises history last Sunday, and a week later people like me are still in shock and want to read as much as possible about the amazing victory. Through all the heart-breaking loses, and the blaming of the referees, the I won't watch them next season, to the maybe next year sayings, Mavericks fans can finally tell the NBA and also the cities of Houston and San Antonio that we got one. Now those cities are saying win 2 or more, but you know what, I am happy with what we got now.

We have probably the best center that the team has ever seen with Tyson Chandler, a great point guard who played outstanding DEFENSE against top-notch All-Stars like Brandon Roy, Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade and Lebron James, and lets not forget 5x NBA champ Kobe Bryant in Jason Kidd, an amazing 6th-man Jason "The Jet" Terry, the unorthodox "Matrix" Shawn Marion and arguably the best BIG Man and European to ever play the game, Dallas' own MVP of the Finals..... Dirk Nowitzki.

All the years of bad-mouthing and calling Dallas a win-less city are finally over and the Mavericks should have owned the respect of the critics and non-believers. Not only did we win, but we beat with-out-a-doubt the best players and teams in the league to get here as opposed to teams in the past who have gotten by pretty easily. We had to beat the Trailblazers who some thought would beat us because of their talented Lamarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy. We swept the back-to-back NBA champions the Los Angeles Lakers, who many thought they would surely beat us with an All-Star squad. We had a brawl with the young and athletic Thunder with the dynamic duo of Durant and Westbrook, and finally the biggest talk of the NBA, the BIG 3 in Miami with Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Lebron James, so I think that we definitely proved that we are a championship caliber team.

For some people though, this still may not be enough, and yeah maybe they're right, but the fact of the matter is the Mavericks are champions, they came together, worked and played as a team and at the end of it all they hoisted the Larry O'Brien trophy and for the next few months, us Dallas fans get to gloat and mock any other team who's summer started early, and while we may not win it next or in the next few, winning here and now, is much more sweeter and I think we Dallas fans can live with that.