What a Wild Weekend

This past weekend was a busy one for myself. I felt that I never stopped moving around from place to place and I always had something to do. And you know what, that doesn't bother me at all.

First, Friday was the Jim Kelly Sr. Memorial Letterman's golf outing at Elk's Run Golf Course in Batavia. We (the UC football video guys) have out burgers, hot dogs, snacks and drinks to the golfers. I got to run around with a camera and film some of the event, which ended up on WCPO's 11 PM sports show. The perks of being an intern with access to a camera!

After that busy day finished I still had two days to go. Saturday was the most anticipated day of the weekend by far. I had the final regular season girl's basketball game to coach and then off to UC for the Spring football scrimmage, appropriately named Bearcat Bowl III.

Here's some short points on all of Saturday:
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Coach's Corner: My recap and quick thoughts on another season
My girls basketball team led 4-3 with 1:30 left and we ended up losing 7-4. The positive in the whole season was we were playing our best basketball at the end of the year. The negative is that our season goes only five games and I feel that it's too short to get in any useful playing time for the girls.

I guess there are many solutions to this problem, but I doubt they'd ever add weeknight games to the schedule to make up for the lack of weekend games. Another thing I had to deal with this year was having six young ladies who were in third grade playing in a fourth grade league. The six girls had never played basketball before, and made tremendous strides as the season progressed.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to next season. All the parents want me back, it seemed that the kids were interested in having me back as a coach next year, so it's a seemingly done deal. We'll just wait for next season and get ready to go. Maybe my brother and I will partner up and get back to the co-coaches we were two seasons ago.
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UC Spring game
As for the UC spring game, Bearcat Bowl III, I had many things to take away from the game. The game wasn't exactly set up the way a normal football game would be played, instead it was truly the offense vs the defense in a glorified practice. "This is kinda boring," my boss and video coordinator John Sells said to me during the game. I agreed, but what could we do about it?

The best thing--and possibly the worst thing--about the spring game is that practices are over. I love going to practices in the morning. I love football. What more can I say? I won't miss getting up early and fighting traffic to get to school, and working for hours after practice cutting up and sorting the film. That will all come back to me when we start fall camp in August.

As for some of the things that were said about the game itself, The Cincinnati Enquirer's Bill Koch said, "University of Cincinnati football coach Brian Kelly likes what he saw of his defense this spring...He liked it so much that he didn’t want anyone else to see it." (http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090425/SPT0101/304250033/1064)

Some of my thoughts on the game; Zach Collaros did well, as Kelly said after the game, "He helped himself...His ability to throw the ball down the field and make some people miss helps you in certain situations. Having a live scrimmage for Zach Collaros definitely helps." Danny Milligan can play any position on the field (he pretty much proved this in high school though, so it comes as very little surprise to me), and the running game--as Koch pointed out--needs some work. Although last year at this time I would have said the same thing, and look how that turned out!
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Record Draft Day for Bearcats
Six former UC players were drafted on Saturday and Sunday to the NFL. Connor Barwin, the do anything and everything defensive end/outside linebacker was the first, and only Bearcat, taken in the first two rounds. He will play in Houston for the Texans.

On Sunday, UC got two picks in a row as Kevin Huber (of McNicholas High School) went to the hometown Bengals and DeAngelo Smith went one pick later to the Dallas Cowboys. Brandon Underwood was picked in round six by the Green Bay Packers.

Mike Mickens was selected in the seventh round by "America's Team" so the secondary for Wade Phillips could be half UC next season. Right guard Trevor Canfield went in the last round to the Arizona Cardinals as well, who announced that they would sign former Purcell Marian grad Khalil El-Amin to a free agent contract one day after the draft. I've also heard that the Cleveland Browns are looking at signing Adam Hoppel to a free agent deal. Hoppel played defensive tackle last season at UC.
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Needless to say, it was one busy weekend for fans of UC football, and for myself as well. I got my Big East Championship ring last week, but with the way the athletic department works at UC you know something is going to go wrong. For the second straight year in a row my last name was spelled incorrectly (yet another reason to read my blog! My name is spelled correctly!).

All the talk in Cincinnati has been about the track and field team losing scholarship money and how the athletic department is running a deficit (http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090425/SPT0101/904260371/1064). Here's a thought, spell people's names right on their rings and you wouldn't have to spend money to send them back to get them fixed. I should note that my name was not the only incorrect name. At least one of my video cohorts had his name incorrectly spelled and our Sports Information Director had his incorrectly spelled as well.

Well, as they say, "The best laid plans..."

I promise to put up photos when I get my ring. I hope to see you all back here on Friday morning for another race preview. Oh, and for all that I'm reading about Talladega, the question now is, when will we stop hearing about it? The answer might be never.