Sports Blog
Check out the sports blog, where the State News sports staff will discuss everything from Spartan to professional athletics on a daily basis.
Check out the Sports Podcast for more from the sports desk.
Recent posts
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Kitna's antics absurd
The season opener for the Detroit Lions provided a result everyone was prepared for — an expected loss.
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2008 fantasy football picks
Last year in this space, I gave everyone my fantasy football picks. Some were good suggestions, while others, I’ll admit, were pretty pitiful.
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High hopes for Roger Federer
Back on July 6, I watched every rain-soaked minute, delays and all, of Rafael Nadal’s victory over Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final.
Reporter taken eighth in football draft
It just never happened for me.
I played football for four years in high school, but never made it to college, eliminating my chances to have any chance in the NFL draft — despite a 5-foot-8 stature, a 5.2 second 40-yard-dash time and average hands!
OK, let’s be serious, those aren’t impressive stats and no one would even joke about picking me to play professionally, and maybe not even recreationally.
But Monday afternoon, MSU football head coach Mark Dantonio and MSU associate athletics director for media relations John Lewandowski drafted me — allowing me to say I successfully entered a football draft and was chosen.
Not to mention, I was the eighth overall pick.
Who cares if my name was literally pulled out of a hat and it was only to determine which team (Green or White) I would be allowed access to leading up to the intrasquad game at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Spartan Stadium?
That’s still a big deal, right?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
But in all seriousness, this type of action shows that Dantonio and his coaching staff take nothing lightly. Every little minuscule aspect of the game of football — including drafts for a game in spring camp — are treated like a national championship.
As the senior class of the football team sat in the auditorium of Clara Bell Smith Student-Athlete Academic Center, they screamed out their picks and acted as if assembling a dominant team meant life or death.
And Dantonio’s coaching staff was less than cool, calm and collected — leaping out of their chairs near the back of the room, screaming like hyenas while text messaging players and coaches about who to choose.
It’s not possibly life or death — everything is life or death.
When this staff skipped over to MSU from Cincinnati, it brought its intensity and put it in overdrive.
It only bodes well for the future. Look out, Big Ten, Sparty’s been eating a new type of spinach and hitting the weight room with a whole new work-out routine.
It won’t be long before the Green and White turn some serious heads.
Comments
Kyle Bristow
04/18/08 @ 9:47am
Yawn…
Nathan Johnson
04/18/08 @ 1:31pm
I yawn your yawn.