An interesting year

As my junior year at OHS winds down, so is my blog. It sure was a lot of fun, and I hope to do one more  post by the beginning of next week. So many big moments in sport have happened over the past 5 or so months, so I created a timeline to put it into perspective (including links to ALL of my blog posts, in case you missed any):

December 18th, 2015: Detroit Tigers were in the midst of making big offseason moves (They later went on to sign OF Justin Upton)
December 26: 18/38ths of the way through the Premier League season, Leicester City sits just two points clear of Arsenal at the top of the league (Everyone thinks Leicester is bound to falter)
New Year's Eve: Michigan State is embarrassed by Alabama in the college football semifinal
January 24, 2016: After a run of three straight losses, Denzel Valentine (19 pts, 14 reb) and Bryn Forbes (24pts) led #11 Michigan State to a victory over #7 Maryland.
February 7: Broncos defeat the Panthers 24-10 in the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning's last game.
February 14: Arsenal defeats Leicester City on a last-gasp Danny Welbeck goal, pulling 2 points behind first place.
February 16: The U.S. women's soccer team gets three wins to start off qualification for the Summer Olympics (and they will be playing in Rio this August)
February 29: The Tigers were playing their spring training opener, so I wrote a post about their legendary announcer Ernie Harwell.
March 13: MSU wins the Big Ten Basketball Tournament for the 5th time.
March 16: I did a preview of this year's March Madness basketball tournament, and picked Michigan State to win it all!
March 18 5pm: #15 seed Middle Tennessee State knocks of MSU in a historic first round upset.
April 8: "Detroit Tigers off to a Cracking Start" - The Tigers open the season with three wins, which is surely a sign of things to come?
Mid-April: Pistons are swept by Cleveland in the NBA first round and the Red Wings fall to the Tampa Bay Lighnting in the NHL first round.
May 2: Leicester City wins the Premier League defying the 5000-1 odds.
May 7: Nyquist wins the Kentucky Derby, claiming the first leg of the Triple Crown.
May 10: After attending my first Lansing United soccer match, I took a look at the flawed state of the American soccer system.
Currently: The Detroit Tigers are having a tough season with a 19-21 start, and need to turn around the pitching staff (other than Zimmermann, Verlander and the new Aussie they called up).

It has been disappointing times of late for my favorite teams. I hope the Detroit Tigers can right the ship and make a run at the playoffs, but I'm thinking that manager Brad Ausmus and pitching coach Rich Dubee should be fired. Ausmus may have a graduated with an A.B. in Government from Dartmouth, but his baseball smarts haven't proven up to snuff. It is time for a changing of the guard. Speaking of which, my beloved Arsenal fell well short of the title again, for the 12th straight season. Longtime manager Arsene Wenger's techniques once placed him among the best, but now he hasn't really caught up with the evolution of modern soccer. He is set to return for 2016-17, but current New York City FC manager Patrick Vieira, who formerly played at Arsenal, could be candidate to take over past next season. The Lions are, well, the same old Lions, and the Pistons should have another decent team next year. My best hope is for next season's MSU football and basketball teams with their talented young cores.