Senior tight end Clay Broyles and senior cornerback C.L. Grogan will be the Demons' player representatives Tuesday and Wednesday at the annual Southland Conference Football Media Kickoff event, staged this year in Houston.
All of the players get to attend the Tuesday night Astros-Dodgers game. All of the players have to play golf Wednesday morning with the media and head coaches of the eight SLC football programs.
Note the difference. For some players, the golf outing is, shall we say, akin to walking on the moon. Without oxygen.
I really don't know if Clay or C.L. can play a lick of golf, but they're good fellows and will have fun with it. If they are not golfers, they have plenty of company in that tournament.
Through the years, we've had some really great players look like Ned in the First Primer on the golf courses around Texas and Louisiana. Whatever Clay and C.L. do, they'll be hard pressed to overtake the comic lowlights provided at past SLC events by Demons Marcus Spears and Adam Swales.
Neither had even taken a golf class when they teed it up for the first time ever.
Spears literally hit the ball backwards once. He somehow nicked the ball back about a 60 degree angle across the tee, knocking it about 40 feet askew.
Better than Swales, who had some of the best hands I've ever seen on a Demon receiver. Adam had played respectably for several holes until it all fell apart on three beautiful swings on the 10th tee.
They were picture perfect, identical swings. The first took a beautiful divot just a couple of inches to the inside of the teed-up ball. The second and third tickled the same divot, but never contacted the ball.
I told Swales, golfers have played for years and have not replicated the same swing that well on three straight tries.
He didn't seem to savor the accomplishment!
But most of all, our guys grinned and kept swinging. Spears even knocked in a couple of nifty putts, once he realized velocity was not an advantage as it was in blocking.
Doug Ireland, SID
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
In the neighborhood
One of the fun things about this job is that whether it's by e-mail, telephone or in person, I encounter so many former NSU athletes.
This week, without being able to go to the Purple Pride Tour Stop in Baton Rouge last night, I've already run into Marcus Spears, Yetta James and Steve Graf.
Now there's an eclectic mix!
Big Spears, one of our all-time football greats and a future nominee for the College Football Hall of Fame, dropped by the office Monday morning with the ubiquitous Thomas Foster, the longtime fieldhouse man who is a big brother to many NSU football players. Marcus was in town to help with a weekend clinic for area kids who are trying to show their stuff to college coaches. He is living in Houston, where he's involved with some business ventures and is planning to be here with bells on for the Sept. 1 Centennial Celebration. He also is eagerly awaiting the Sam Goodwin Roast next spring.
Yetta was at the same I-49 convenience store getting the same catfish that I had ordered moments before for supper Monday night. She and her son had just emerged from a rugged softball game -- she still plays hard, judging by how dirty she was! She reminded me she has the oldest record on the books in Lady Demon track history, her 5,306 point total in a 1988 heptathlon competition. The next oldest mark is from 1993.
Graf had dropped his kids by the coliseum for a basketball clinic, and we visited for half an hour about Demon football (he was a hard-hitting safety from 1979-80) and baseball (he was a hard-hitting outfielder from 1980-83, and reached the Class AA level with Montreal, I believe). He is emerging as a leading outdoorsman in the area and hosts a weekly outdoors radio talk show on the Demon Sports Network flagship station, 100.7 KZBL, each Wednesday from 4-5.
Doug Ireland, SID
This week, without being able to go to the Purple Pride Tour Stop in Baton Rouge last night, I've already run into Marcus Spears, Yetta James and Steve Graf.
Now there's an eclectic mix!
Big Spears, one of our all-time football greats and a future nominee for the College Football Hall of Fame, dropped by the office Monday morning with the ubiquitous Thomas Foster, the longtime fieldhouse man who is a big brother to many NSU football players. Marcus was in town to help with a weekend clinic for area kids who are trying to show their stuff to college coaches. He is living in Houston, where he's involved with some business ventures and is planning to be here with bells on for the Sept. 1 Centennial Celebration. He also is eagerly awaiting the Sam Goodwin Roast next spring.
Yetta was at the same I-49 convenience store getting the same catfish that I had ordered moments before for supper Monday night. She and her son had just emerged from a rugged softball game -- she still plays hard, judging by how dirty she was! She reminded me she has the oldest record on the books in Lady Demon track history, her 5,306 point total in a 1988 heptathlon competition. The next oldest mark is from 1993.
Graf had dropped his kids by the coliseum for a basketball clinic, and we visited for half an hour about Demon football (he was a hard-hitting safety from 1979-80) and baseball (he was a hard-hitting outfielder from 1980-83, and reached the Class AA level with Montreal, I believe). He is emerging as a leading outdoorsman in the area and hosts a weekly outdoors radio talk show on the Demon Sports Network flagship station, 100.7 KZBL, each Wednesday from 4-5.
Doug Ireland, SID
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Lawrence making a move?
Demon baseball great Brian Lawrence could be back in the big leagues soon if his recent outings in Class AAA for the New Orleans Zephyrs are any indication.
The 1998 Southland Conference Pitcher of the Year has won his last four decisions and is 7-2 in New Orleans. In his last outing Sunday, he allowed only four hits and one run in seven innings, and retired the last nine hitters he faced.
The Zephyrs are in the New York Mets minor league system. Brian began the year as a free agent signee with the Colorado Rockies, rebounding from shoulder surgery that shelved him for the 2006 major league season in Washington, where he was going to be in the Nationals' rotation after four-plus years with the San Diego Padres.
The 1998 Southland Conference Pitcher of the Year has won his last four decisions and is 7-2 in New Orleans. In his last outing Sunday, he allowed only four hits and one run in seven innings, and retired the last nine hitters he faced.
The Zephyrs are in the New York Mets minor league system. Brian began the year as a free agent signee with the Colorado Rockies, rebounding from shoulder surgery that shelved him for the 2006 major league season in Washington, where he was going to be in the Nationals' rotation after four-plus years with the San Diego Padres.
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