Our Honor Defend

I’ve been on hold on the phone with an important call for almost 2 hours, and it’s finally dawned on me that I can post something here.  I understand posting has been light around these parts.  In my defense, this goes from being a labor of love to just, being well, more labor.  It fluctuates.  Sometimes I can’t stop doing stuff with it; other times I wish I never started it.  With this post, I thought I’d at least share some of what you can expect around here if you’re a loyal reader.

• I do have two articles forthcoming in the 2009 edition of The Buckeye Battle Cry.  I haven’t told Sean (editor of MSP yet), but I’ll get around to compiling that table for the O’Niners tonight and send it to him over the weekend.  I think that should be that… for that.  I don’t know when exactly it’ll be on your magazine racks, but, judging from last year’s post on the matter, you can probably expect it in July.  My two contributions focus on the 2009 recruiting class (naturally) and the predicament of Jim Bollman.
• If you happen to be reading this from Michigan, I also contributed a season outlook for the Buckeyes to the Michigan equivalent, Hail to the Victors 2009.  This allowed me to say that I collaborated with Brian Cook on something.  That is neat.  I think the publisher said he’s going to send me two copies of the magazine… which… is nice, at least as a gesture.
• I’m reformatting my hard drive sometime this month.  It’s going to happen, and I’ll lose a few days posting as I play with a new OS.  That also means that any remaining games that I copied to my hard drive that I have not uploaded to YouTube is going to go up on YouTube soon.  This explains why I finally uploaded the 1999 UCLA game and the 1997 Rose Bowl.  I only have two remaining games: the 1994 and 1995 Pitt games.  The 1995 copy is an incomplete one, so I can’t do a Drive-Thru version of it.  Sadly, it cuts out before Stanley Jackson scores a garbage time touchdown.
  • On that note: expect the 1994 Pitt game to go online either tonight or early Saturday.
• He hasn’t done much around these parts since September, but one of my co-authors (Gabby) is leaving Alabama in July.  Lucky bastard got a job in Charlotte.  One of the other gang members is probably retreating back to Ohio after spending the last 5 years of her life here.  Basically, my gang of Buckeyes is diminishing.  Send reinforcements.
• I started a tradition when I moved down here three years ago of dedicating the summer to watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus beginning to end.  That is tradition in my residence, and it will probably compromise posting time.  It’s tradition, though.  Don’t hate.

Forthcoming Posts

• BKAB has been inconsistent of late, but Reid Fragel is on deck for a Monday feature.  Dude chased down a would-be mugger on a campus visit.
• El Caballo de Sangre volunteered to do the June Block O Table.  The idea has brewing is perfect; I think the lot of you will enjoy it.
• It’s been a few weeks since the NFL Draft, and I feel like I have to say something about Alex Boone.  I’ve had the post brewing in my head ever since his February arrest for first degree idiocy and felonious career suicide.  It’s a delicate subject matter, since I try not to ruffle too many feathers here.  Still, I have to say something, considering he may have been the “mentor” to a few of those Brew Crew kids in their freshman campaigns.

Can I Consider This Fan Mail?

Every couple months, I get an interesting e-mail via the contact form.  After first getting yelled at by Nate Nathan Williams’ mom, and later receiving some comments from (I’ll be vague here) “people in the know” regarding Michael Brewster’s BKAB feature, it occurred to me that every now and then, something I say here will be seen and read by an important person in a recruit’s life.  Heck, a friend of mine (Max, actually) used his connections to let me know that one of the assistant coaches¹ has read BKAB features and is appreciative that the upbeat, positive and familial approach to recruiting was being transmitted to audiences in those features.

This time around, I got an e-mail from one of James Jackson’s track coaches.  I won’t disclose all of it (it may be considered as rude or duplicitous of me), but his coach added some pieces to the puzzle that was missing from his BKAB feature.  I never really considered something like this:

I read your Article on James Jackson. It was very well written (ed. note: whew!). I have been James’s track & field coach since he was 6 years old. Yes James has always been fast but he worked vary hard to develop the kind of speed that he has now. And speed is not all that he has. James can run a deep route and come back to the line and do it again just as fast x4. If they played him right he could wear a D-back out.  See, James cannot only run short sprints but also he excels in the 200, 400, and 800 meter runs. He has a unique combination of speed and endurance. I have seen in game (ed. at the HS level) where a player runs a long route and then is taken out of the game for a rest. As I stated before, James will not have to do this.

In short, he has the same credentials of a DeVier Posey, whose track prowess I gave more consideration.  He added later in that e-mail that Jackson may be considered “raw” at the moment, but that is ultimately reducible to the fact that track — and not football — was his focus sport ².  Basically, the way his coach phrased it, James might be one of the best recruits in college football that even a USC should have considered, and a program like Florida was wise to offer.  And we have him.

I said in the same feature that I thought the sky was the limit for James, and I was really excited that he was an early enrollee.  Judging from his performance in the Spring Game, and this e-mail, I’m even more optimistic about him than I was previously.

1. I won’t say who, but it was not the Vest himself… sadly [↩]
2. That emphasis paid off, writes the same coach, because some of his numbers in meets and trials made me really jealous.  I wish I could run that fast. [↩]