As I sit roughly 100 miles south of the Utah State University campus, I believe I can clearly hear Coach Ray Guy’s screams of anguish as he realizes that his all-everything sophomore quarterback has just dumped the hapless Aggies in favor of Brigham Young University.
Elder Riley Nelson, a full-time proselyting missionary in Spain for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, apparently decided over the weekend that he will transfer to BYU after he completes his mission in March 2009.
As an All-American QB out of Logan who opted to join his hometown Aggies’s squad, the left-handed, 6-foot-1 Nelson was a coveted passing and running QB who set all types of records for Logan High, while also leading the Grizzlies to the 3A state championship in 2005 during his senior season.
But as reported today by multiple local media outlets, including the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News, Nelson will don the Cougar-blue uniform in 2009 versus the midnight blue uniform of the Utah State Aggies.
So while this is a sad day in Aggie-town, you can bet that Cougar fans around the world are rejoicing today.
In a landslide victory Saturday, NCAA Division I coaches overwhelmingly voted to ban the use of text messages in recruiting athletes.
Designed to rein-in overzealous coaching staffs in their use of new technology to recruit potential student-athletes, the ban passed by margin of more than 3-1, with more than 78 percent of the votes being cast in favor of the ban.
According to the official NCAA News announcement about the new ban, Kerry Kenny (the vice chair of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee), urged coaches to vote against text-message contact of potential recruits claiming that “text messaging between prospective student-athletes and coaches was intrusive, unprofessional and expensive.”
The vote was held at the annual convention of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, conducted this year in Nashville, Tenn. from January 10-14.
Given how many teenagers have cell phones today and how pervasive text messaging is in their lives, this sounds like a no brainer idea to me.
Good job, coaches.
Alta High School (Sandy, Utah) capped off its 2007 football season with a 19-7 win over the Layton Lancers at Rice Ecceles Stadium this past Friday afternoon (11/16/07) in the 5-A championship game.
The win capped off a 13-1 season for the Hawks, whose only loss of the 2007 campaign (20-23) came in the second game of the season against the Bingham Miners, the 2006 5-A champs.
Nearly 20,000 fans watched Layton score on the opening kickoff with a 97-yard runback. But Alta’s stellar defense shut down the Lancers’ vaunted run attack, leaving Layton with -9 yards rushing (an all-time 5-A Championship Game record).
Alta graduates 43 seniors, but has 55 juniors slated to return for the 2008 season.
Oh, and did I mention that this same group of juniors was undefeated this year as a Junior Varsity squad and last year as the Sophomore team?
Congrats, Hawks — 2007 5-A Football Champions!
When one of the top 5-A football teams in the state (Jordan H.S.) loses 22-6 to a 3-7 team (Hunter H.S.), you know it’s got to be playoff time in Utah.
Yup, the 5-A football playoffs are here once again. And having a son on the Alta H.S. Hawks squad makes this season even sweeter and more exciting.
In spite of a lackadaisical start to the game that saw the first quarter end in a 0-0 tie, the now 10-1 Hawks took control the rest of the way en route to a 56-10 dismantling of the Kearns Cougars (now 5-6) in the first round of the 5-A playoffs.
Led by its senior offensive trio of RB Sausan Shakerin (seven carries for 110 yards and three TDs, two on the ground and one by air), QB Ryan Rosenvall (9-9 passing for 192 yards and four TD passes), and TE Brady Hunt (four catches for 121 yards and two TDs) and anchored by Alta’s stunning defense, the Hawks easily handled the Cougars. In fact, Kearns’ only touchdown came late in the game with the bulk of the Hawk defenders coming from its Junior Varsity squad.
Next up for the Hawks, the 6-4 Timpanogos Timberwolves, with start time slated for 7 p.m. this coming Friday, 11/2/07 at Alta’s home field in Sandy.
Las Vegas during Labor Day weekend is about the last place on earth you could expect to find me, but there I was the past couple of days nonetheless.
It’s hot as Hades (103-105 degrees Fahrenheit), the city seems to be a magnet for every smoker on the planet, and the gambling mecca that says “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” does just about everything it can to make sure that what definitely stays in Vegas is one’s hard, earned cash.
But Alta High School’s football team decided it was gonna play an “endowment” pre-season game against one of the top teams in California (East Clovis High out of the Fresno area) over Labor Day weekend. So Poppa P, Momma P and our youngest daughter headed off to Sin City to watch our son Jonathan play.
As it was, Jonathan’s Junior Varsity squad ended up playing Saturday morning (9/1) against the JV team from Las Vegas’ own Bishop Gorman High at the practice field on the UNLV campus. And it was not pretty as the Alta Hawks crushed the Gaels 54-0.
That evening, the Hawks varsity took on the Silverwolves at Sam Boyd Stadium on the outskirts of town. I won’t attempt to give a play-by-play rundown of the except to say it was an exciting back-and-forth battle that wasn’t put away until late in the 4th quarter when Kaden Carli picked off a pass and ran it back for a touchdown to put Alta ahead 28-12.
For a nice write-up, check out this article in the Sunday edition of the Fresno Bee.
The Hawks are now 2-1, are ranked 2nd in Utah in the 5A standings, having only lost another heartbreaker to the Bingham Miners, last year’s 5A State Champs and holders of an 18-game winning streak.
All in all, a successful trip to the desert for the Hawks and the Politis clan, withering heat notwithstanding.