Heat is forcing changes in Lafayette football practice plans

Tomorrow (Thursday) is the first day of full-pads practice for the Lafayette football team, and since I was planning to be there, I called Coach Frank Tavani tonight to arrange to meet with him.

Good thing I called. I found out that Thursday's practice, originally scheduled for 4:15 p.m., has been moved up to 8:45 a.m. (Period 0), with the official practice starting about 20 minutes later.

The reason for the switch: the humidity that is sapping the team on the hot afternoons. Tavani told me that linemen are sometimes wearing two pair of shoes in one practice -- they actually change in the middle of the workout because their feet are getting soaked from sweat and the shoes are put into the dryer. And these guys are in SHAPE!

The weather forecast for the next few days is not a lot different, and Tavani told me, "If we have to go at 5 a,m., we can turn on the lights and do that" in order to avoid the hottest time of the day.

Friday is the first scheduled two-practices day, and a scrimmage is currently scheduled for 10:15 a.m. Saturday.  Those schedules were being discussed tonight, and you might get some updated information in my story in the Friday Morning Call.

So, stay tuned.

The road back is long and hard, but Kaizer Butler has the right stuff

Kaizer Butler stretches during a spring practice. 

Lafayette football coach Frank Tavani told me about returning from a recruiting trip one night and, from his office in the Bourger Varsity Football House, seeing someone running around on the practice field behind the visitors' grandstand in Fisher Stadium.

"It's dark back there and it's late at night," Tavani said. It's HIM. I had to stop him."

The "him" to whom Tavani was referring is defensive back Kaizer Butler. "He works so hard and he really gets everybody going," Tavani said of the Californian who worked his way into the starting lineup for the Leopards during his first preseason camp a year ago.

Butler, who is recovering from a near-fatal bout with granulomatosis with polyangiitis, a rare autoimmune disease that affects only three of every 100,000 people in the United States. While there is a list of symptoms, there is no known cause of the disease. Neither is there a cure.

Lafayette's first summer-camp practice: 10:15 a.m. Saturday

The offensive line will get plenty of work on the blocking sled.

Well, here we are, ready to go. The Lafayette football players arrive on Friday – the freshmen in the morning, upperclassmen in the afternoon – and their first get-together is a full-team dinner tonight. A full-team meeting also will be held tonight.

The first practice – helmets only – is set for 4:15 p.m. Saturday in Fisher. After a day off on Sunday, it’s helmets again at 4:15 Monday, uppers (shoulder pads) on Tuesday and Wednesday and the first full-pads practice at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, the 11^th of August.

A Saturday morning practice (10:15 a.m. Aug. 13) is expected to include a scrimmage with officials … the college’s Media Day, which will feature another scrimmage, is Thursday, Aug. 18, 10:15 a.m. so that seniors can meet with the media at lunch following the practice.

Orientati0n for the freshmen begins on Friday, Aug. 26, so a 7:05 a.m. practice is on the schedule.  The upperclassmen also will practice at 8 p.m. that day.  Classes begin Aug. 29, but by that time the Leopards will be well into preparations for the season opener against Central Connecticut State on Friday, Sept. 2 in New Britain, Conn.

I haven’t had a chance to really digest the media guide which was passed out at the Patriot League’s Media Day earlier this week. But I can tell you one thing: five freshman are listed on the two-deep chart in the book.

None of the five is on the first unit, but the second team offensive line includes rookies Jake Marotti (6-6, 295) and Dylan Murphy (6-5, 295). Penciled in on the defense are safety Tre Jordan (6-0, 195), a former Notre Dame-Green Pond High School quarterback, and strong safety Dmitry Smith (6-0, 190). Stewart Hackleman (6-3, 240) is listed as a backup long snapper.

That’s not to say that the incoming class doesn’t have other players who will certainly see playing time, but the o-line, which took a big hit and lost three members over the summer, and the defensive secondary, which also lost a key piece (Kaizer Butler) for 2016 for medical reasons, and two other players who who were among the top four tacklers on the team a year ago, may need attention sooner rather than later, even though that is not Coach Frank Tavani's favorite game plan.

Last year, freshmen who started games for the Leopards included WR Joey Chenoweth,  TE Angus Evans, and tackle Tanner Kern on offense, and Jerry Powe, Kaizer Butler and Clay Rush in the defensive secondary. 

The Leopards received the ultimate snub from their Patriot League buddies when they were shut out when the league announced its preseason all-league team. 

Brandon Bryant takes on a tackling ring during a spring drill.

I can’t believe the league coaches and sports information directors didn’t take notice of linebacker Brandon Bryant, who was a second team pick in 2015 and was among the country’s top five tacklers with 114. The last Leopard to have more tackles in one season was Maurice Bennett, who had 133 in 2005 – a championship season. Bryant is a beast, and there’s no reason to believe he can’t be even better this year than last.

I was asked this week about the television package for 2016, and , Gary Laubach who’s back for his 20^th season as the play-by-play guy for the RCN crew that covers the games for the Lafayette Sports Network, told me that eight of the games will be televised by the LSN.  Unfortunately, for some odd reason, Central Connecticut State is not permitting a telecast of the opener. Other games not on the schedule are Army West Point, which has its own TV deal, and Fordham, which is being carried by Campus Insiders as part of the Patriot League Network package. Gary and Mike Joseph will be teaming up for another banner year in the booth, and John Leone is again expected to be on the sidelines.

OK, enough of the set-up stuff. Let’s get on with it.

  

Catching up on Patriot League Media Day

The Lafayette football media package for 2016 includes nifty schedule cards. I saw them for the first time on Tuesday at the Patriot League’s Media Day program at Green Pond Country Club.

The thing that really got my attention is the fact that the college has two versions of the cards. One features senior quarterback Drew Reed, which makes sense because he’s listed No. 1 on the depth chart and his resume includes a series of outstanding 2013 performances that carried the Leopards to the league championship.

The second version features senior quarterback Blake Searfoss. Say what?

The card says, “Fisher Stadium will ROAR.”  But, do we have a quarterback controversy?

“They’re both seniors; they’re both very talented quarterbacks, and both have won games for us,” Coach Frank Tavani told me. “One of them has to step up for us.”

Lafayette football: A useful purpose for those cowbell ringtones?

Leopards who are taking part in the first four-week summer training session of 2016
gather around the Brian Keller memorial in Bourger Varsity Football House. I
wonder what Donna Holden's eligibility is! The photo was posted by "Andy"
on the Lafayette Sports Fan Forum.

The guys on the Lafayette Sports Fan Forum are getting ready -- and maybe a bit antsy -- for the start of the new season. On the group's chat room site in the week or so, they have become engaged in a thread entitled, “Do you think fan support makes a difference?”

The thread was started by a poster with a handle  of “1990honda” and it’s obvious he’s new to the group. I’ve known the real identity of only two or three of the guys on the site, but that doesn’t stop me from doing a bit of investigating.

“1990honda” mentions Camden County, Ga., and a look at the Lafayette roster reveals that freshman linebacker Kevin Hutchinson is the latest Georgia addition to the Leopards’ defense -- and from Camden County. “1990honda” also mentions a daughter at Vassar, and Hutchinson’s football bio lists a sister at Vassar.

Anyway, the gist of the thread is that the football atmosphere at Lafayette is vastly different – and not necessarily better – than that at Camden County, Ga., where “1990honda” says, “We immediately got infected by the football fever” generated for the high school program.  He goes on to talk not only about cheering fans, but also the clang of cowbells.

“Bogus Megapardus,” who’s "caricature"  on the LSFF is a guy with a bag over his head  -- remember the NFL’s famous  New Orleans “Aints” of 1980? – countered “1990honda” by calling the Lafayette following “more of a golf-clap crowd at Fisher” and later says “Noisy distractions and a circus-like atmosphere would never go over well at Fisher Field.”

But along with those comments, BM (a politically incorrect acronym, if I must say so myself) suggests that all Leopard fans set the ringers on their cell phones to “cowbells.” In fact, he takes it even further, searching out and providing LSFF followers with Android, iPhone  and Windows Phone links for the sound of cowbells and a lion’s roar (the closest he could find, I guess, to a roaring leopard).

So long, Indy, it's been good to know you

The media room begins to fill up on race day.

When I first started coming to the Indianapolis 500 in 1966, I thought, someday, I'd like to work in that place, meaning the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Al Bloemker was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's Director of Publicity when I became director of communications at the United States Auto Club, just up the street from the Speedway. We were only blocks apart in distance but far apart in many ways.

Al was all Indianapolis 500, 12 month of every year. He didn't have to contend with NASCAR's Brickyard 400, or IndyCar's Grand Prix of Indianapolis, or an Indy Lights race two days before the Greatest Spectacle in Racing or all the other events that now fill the annual calendar at IMS. 

He had been at IMS 33 years before I got to USAC in the summer of 1978, and I figured that if he decided to retire (he was already 72), I'd apply for his job. 

The red carpet.

When I left USAC to become Morning Call sports editor in October of 1980, Bloemker was still plugging along. He stayed until 1987, largely because he got some assistance from guys like Bob Laycock and Bill York, who were always out front while Al spent most of his time in his office. Bloemker died in 1996 and the room from which journalists work today has been named the Albert Bloemker Media Center in his memory.

I never knew, when I accepted my first collect call to The Call's sports department from Eddie Sachs on a Sunday night in 1960 or 1961 or when I checked into the old Hotel Warren in downtown Indianapolis in  May of 1966 for my first Indianapolis race covering local driver Mario Andretti, how much this place would mean to me a half century later.

Another step for Smalley; a new look for Fisher

Matt Smalley has his last final exam in computer science on Friday, and he has one more paper to turn in by next Tuesday. But you can understand if he has his mind on some other things at this point.

At least, as he said on Thursday, “I think I can hold off on job interviews for the time being.”

Smalley, Lafayette’s oft-decorated  defensive cornerback, took a big step toward fulfilling a dream that has been in his mind since he started playing football at the age of 5. He signed a three-year contract to become a member of the New York Giants’ 90-man roster.

While this move doesn’t yet make him a sure thing for Sunday-afternoon duty, it’s step in the right direction.

A first-round draft pick – in the Giants’ case, another cornerback, Eli Apple of Ohio State – might have his entire contract guaranteed, but Smalley said, “a minimum rookie like me, it’s only guaranteed if I make the 53-man. I still have to make it to get the money.”

“I fell in love with (football) early,” Smalley said. “I remember sitting on the floor and watching the Eagles and the NFL with my family. When people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I said play in the NFL. It’s pretty exciting and mind-blowing that I have made it this far.”