Signing Day hat switch

Gamecocks fans should be esctatic with Marcus Lattimore choosing USC over Auburn. I had a chance to spend some time with Marcus after he won South Carolina's Mister Football in Myrtle Beach in December. It was refreshing to be with a young man who was so grounded and mature for his age. I really enjoyed talking with him and I thought he handled the entire recruiting process with class.

Lattimore made the announcement on the night before signing day at his church in Spartanburg. I thought it was neat that Marcus included former NFL great and Auburn running back Stephen Davis as part of his announcement. When Davis came out, everyone had to be thinking it was Auburn. Then, you saw the Auburn hat come out of a burlap sack, but underneath it was a Gamecocks lid and the ultimate answer to everone's question.

It reminded me of another famous "hat trick". On the eve of Signing Day 2003, Syvelle Newton agreed to come to the WPDE studio and announce where he would attend college. It was down to South Carolina and Clemson. It was seven years ago, and it reminds me of how far technology has come. There was no YouTube back in the day and web video was just coming to the forefront. I remember posting the story on our website along with the video and it fried our server due to the overwhelming traffic.

It was something that Gamecocks fans and Clemson fans talked about for many years as the story became folk lore as to what Syvelle did to the Clemson hat. The real answer is below:



The guy standing in the back during Syvelle's announcement. That's Robert Ayers who is now with the Denver Broncos. Right before the commercial, Syvelle leaned into me and whispered "I'm gonna shock the world". I thought that meant he was going to UCLA or Nebraska, but Syvelle should be credited for one of the most talked about announcements in Palmetto state history. It was in all of the newspapers the next day.

Syvelle never made it to the NFL. To this day, he is the most talented player I've seen in ten years of covering high school football. I think that if he would have stayed at quarterback during his entire time at college he would have been a superstar. I'm pretty sure that Steve Spurrier would agree with me on that.

Advances in Technology

I'm sitting in the sports information office at Charleston Southern at 5:55 pm and I'm not stressing out. I was looking back on an old blog entry where I detailed the trials and tribulations of getting stories filed to the station and I marvel at how far things have progressed. I got to Charleston at 4:30 pm and was able to preview the game send the piece back to Myrtle Beach by 5:30 pm in plenty of time for our 6pm newscast.

It used to be that we had to have a gameplan to jump through a bunch of hoops to possibly get some kind of story for one show, but now it takes is a laptop computer and internet connection to report from just about any place. Last year, I would have had to furiously sprint from Buccaneer Field House to the ABC station in Charleston and try and get into an edit bay and rush to the back and buy a satellite window and hope that we could dial in the coordinates and have a five minute clock to make it all good.

Tonight, I will connect my camera to the laptop at halftime and the highlights will be in the sports edit bay in Myrtle Beach during the second half. This allows us to bring more information back to the viewer when the biggest sporting events happen.

Sometimes slow connections can make things a challenge, but in time, we should be able to get information back from the field almost anywhere. This is great news for big events like state championship games, NCAA coverage and even places like Darlington. I think it is going to significantly enhance the way we can cover local sports (it already has).

We are getting ready for Signing Day 2010 and should have an update on carolinalive.com sometime this week. We're looking at about six I-A signees and a whole bunch on the lower levels. As always, we will air a 30 minute special on February 3rd at 7:30 pm.

My Heisman Ballot

I spent a good two hours going back and forth with my Heisman ballot. I logged on to the secure site two times and hit the back browser as I went back and forth. I said it last year and I will say it again that the Heisman needs to expand the voting to a top 5 ballot and have five finalists go to New York each and every year. I'm glad that five players are going this year.

I'm started the weekend with six options and had it narrowed down to four by Sunday night. Tim Tebow was my first place vote for the last two years and Colt McCoy probably would have had my vote if there wasn't a Big XII title game. Ndamukong Suh from Nebraska was the guy I left off that I wanted to put on. I'm both relieved and very happy that he made it to New York in the final five as he totally deserves it. I watched him in person at the Gator Bowl last year and I can't see why he won't be the number one pick in the draft. I blame Suh for my stressful Sunday night. I had four guys that I wanted to put on the ballot and three spots - it's as simple as that. I think it's fantastic that there is a defensive player that is a legitimate contender for the award. I also think that if the Gamecocks had reached the SEC title game, Eric Norwood could have been in the same situation with a monster game on national TV.

Now on to my ballot:

at #3, CJ Spiller - Clemson. In nine years of voting, I have never voted for a Gamecock or Tiger until now. I saw Spiller in person twice this season and numerous times over his career. When he returned the opening kickoff for a TD against South Carolina, I was ready to put him first on my ballot, but then the Gamecocks defense took care of that. Spiller only produced 18 yards on the ground in that rival game, but he bounced back with a Heisman worthy performance in the ACC Championship game. So why is Spiller on my ballot? Quite simply, he is the most dangerous big play man in college football. I don't know why a coach would kick or punt to him knowing that there's always a chance he can bust one. If it weren't for the Gamecock defense, Spiller would be in New York. If CJ put together two big games to close out his senior season, he would have been in New York. I thought he deserved to be in New York on Saturday night and I'm sorry that my vote didn't help that cause.

#2, Mark Ingram - Alabama. Ingram's best game statistically came against the Gamecocks and it was awesome. Racking up yards against South Carolina's and Florida's defense and the clutch factor in the SEC Championship game are all major check marks towards hoisting the Heisman, but two rough games (Arkansas and Auburn) are the ultimate reason he ends up 2nd and not first.

#1, Toby Gerhart - Stanford. College football is not a perfect world (see the BCS and no playoff!) I was not going to penalize Gerhart for not playing on championship Saturday. He stepped up against ranked opponents and week in and week out. His worst game was at Wake Forest (82 yards), yet he still averaged nearly five yards a carry in that game. I don't know if Gerhart will have enough juice to win it, but I feel like he'll be a great representative of this great award.

I don't know who's going to win on Saturday, but it should be interesting to say the least.

On the Horizon

I'm not grading out when it comes to updating the blog, but for good reason. These are busy times in the sports world. Here's what we have coming up in the home stretch of the 2009 year:

WPDE Zone Plays of the Year: Beginning on Monday, November 9th, carolinalive.com will have the 2009 Zone Plays of the Year. There are six categories and six finalists in each category. It's always great to see all the great video we've captured during 11weeks of football and it's fun to see which communities rally and get their fans to stuff the ballots with votes.

Cliff Ellis Show : Our final David Bennett Show airs on Sunday November 22nd. On the following Sunday, November 29th we will have our first Cliff Ellis Show. We'll look back on an exciting November for the Chants highlighted by a trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium to face the Duke Blue Devils. We'll take the month of December off and return with shows every Sunday at noon beginning on Sunday, January 3rd

10th Annual WPDE All-Zone Banquet: The banquet will take place on December 10th, and our special will air on Sunday, December 13th on WPDE. This year we are incorporating a North Carolina All-Zone squad as well as a SCISA player of the year. We'll announce the Zoneman Finalists in mid-November and see if Everett Golson of Myrtle Beach becomes just the second two time winner of the Zoneman, joining Marlboro County's Syvelle Newton.

North South/Mr. Football Special: This will air on Sunday December 13th right before the Zone Banquet at 1:30 pm. This is a statewide special that airs in Columbia, Charleston and Greenville and spotlights the exciting week for the North South All-Stars here in Myrtle Beach. In addition, we'll profile the finalists for Mister Football and talk with the 2009 winner.

On Christmas Day, we'll look back on the top 10 local sports stories of 2009. We'll also post this on carolinalive.com as well to look back on another great year of local sports.

So there you have it - a full plate and we're looking forward to another exciting playoffs on the gridiron.

WPDE Fantasy Football

In case you wondered if the love for the pigskin extends outside of the sports office, you need to look no further than the WPDE Fantasy Football League. Besides making our weekly Palmetto Picks along with you on palmettopigskin.com, we have a 12 team league that's going five years strong.

I have always said we should televise our fantasy football draft, as it is 90 minutes of hilarious entertainment (we may need to put a few beeps in there to keep it off cable!) The highlight for me is having Ed Piotrowski hurry people along with his picks and then watch time stand still as he pours over sheets and takes his time to make a decision. It wouldn't be a WPDE fantasy football draft if that didn't happen!

Rather than bore you with who got who, I wanted to share with everyone some fantastic team names in our league: My squad is called Technical Difficulty, but it can't hold a candle to these teams.

The Heyyyymakers: Allyson Floyd - Allyson's catchphrase is a southern belle "Heyyyy". Great name

The Franchise: Ed Piotrowski - the defending champ and the nickname I coined for the glue of WPDE 10 years ago. It's been 10 years, but Ed still isn't comfortable with the lofty title.

The Rubes: Graeme Moore - another nickname I gave to our young and ambitious reporter. He had the #1 overall pick in our draft (getting the number from a crumpled piece of paper in a Green Sea-Floyds football helmet). He went against the grain and picked Tom Brady and probably got the most ribbing for his interesting picks.

and the team name of the year goes to WPDE weekend anchor Mola Lenghi:
Back to you Myra......

Last month, Ed and I had the chance to play in the Know Your Score celebrity golf tournament at Long Bay to help raise money for Prostate cancer. Among the celebrities on hand were Craig T. Nelson, the great actor from Coach, Blades of Glory and many other films and TV shows. Realizing he was in the presence of a local superstar in Ed Piotrowski, Nelson hammed it up to our cameras and hammed it up with Ed joking about the weather and then totally ad-libbing and tossing back to the studio with the now infamous "Back to you Myra!"

Mola was on the desk when this happened and even though he was totally making it up, who knew how close Myra was to Mola. So no matter what happens, Mola has wrapped up the title for best Fantasy Football team name in 2009. Who would have known that Craig T. Nelson would have such an impact on our fantasy football league???!!!!

Angry College Football Fans: It's not our fault!!!!!

It seems as if I write this blog every college football season, but it needs to be mentioned as often as possible.

Like many of you, I'd love to be watching the Georgia/Oklahoma State game right now, but unfortunately, ABC has us showing the Baylor/Wake Forest game. WPDE knows the passion of college football fans in our area and that's why our management has secured the SEC regional package (the 12:30 pm Saturday games that air on CW 21) as well as additional college games whenever we can carry them (two CCU games will air on CW 21 as well).

Our general manager, Billy Huggins, was well aware that fans here would much rather see Georgia/Oklahoma State than Baylor/Wake Forest. For the past 10 years I've been working at WPDE, the 3:30 ABC game has always been the ACC game in the regional lineup. It doesn't matter if #1 is playing #2 in the nation, if there is a 3:30 game, we will have the ACC game - mark it down - it will be that way the rest of the season to the best of my knowledge.

Our GM requested to air the Georgia/Oklahoma State game and offered to put both games on (Baylor/Wake on WPDE, Georgia/Oklahoma State on CW21). ABC turned that request down.

I don't know what else we can do as a station. If we had the ability to choose the 3:30 or 8:00 pm Saturday games on ABC, I'd put a poll on our website every Monday and announce which game got the most votes on Wednesday and tell the network which game we want. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

A lot of times when you call and complain to the station on the weekend, there are not a lot of people working and fans get more frustrated by not getting a straight answer. This is the straight answer. It doesn't make it any better and it will not fix the problem. It probably is of little consolation, but WPDE does care about its college football fans and we do the best we can to communicate our programming before the game to let people have a chance to find a way to watch the game.

If anyone wants the number to ABC to complain, I'll get it in the office and Monday and be more than happy to pass it along on this blog post.

HS Football Coaches Survey

During End Zone/PPP Media Day, we asked the coaches to fill out a survey with a variety of questions. There were no names put on the answer sheets so no one can be linked to a certain answer, but the results were definitely interesting. Below are the results and I'll break down what my thoughts are on each subject.


Should High Schools test players for steroid use? 47 % YES 53% NO

This is a bit surprsing to me as it points towards a steroid problem at some area high schools. It would be tough to get the funding and guidelines for a steroid testing program at the high school level.

Do two a day practices in pre-season need to be adjusted due to heat concerns?
44% YES 56% NO

Over the summer, the national high school trainers outlined a highly reccomended schedule for starting high school football workouts in the preseason in an effort to avoid a heat related death. South Carolina has not adopted any policy, while the NCAA has it set up that you can not have two a day workouts on back to back days. It would not surprise me at all to see the NCAA policy trickle down to every high school. The hope is that it doesn't take a death of a high school player in the Palmetto State to force the issue.

Does South Carolina do a sufficient job of recruiting our area? 56 % YES 44% NO

In my ten years at WPDE, this has been an underlying theme. It seems as if the Gamecocks come into the recruiting game late when it comes to players from our area or they do not pay much attention to them at all. Right now, Cliff Matthews of Cheraw is the jewel recruit of this area who went to USC. It is unfair of me to be too critical of the Gamecocks recruiting staff - it seems to me that they are recruiting our parts just as much as everyone else, but they are usually on the short end of the stick when it comes to the elite players from our area.

Does Clemson do a sufficient job of recruiting our area? 79% YES 21% NO

All you need to do is simply scan the Clemson roster to see the success the Tigers have had in our area. From Derrick Hamilton to Anthony Waters and Michael Hamlin to current Tigers Quandon Christian, Jaron Brown, Jonathan Willard, Scotty Cooper, JaMarcus Grant and Malliciah Goodman, Dabo Swinney and his staff have been able to get our elite athletes to come to Death Valley.

Does Coastal Carolina do a sufficient job of recruiting our area? 70% YES 30% NO
The Chants have picked their spots well and have stolen some players from our backyard, starting with Aundres Perkins of West Florence in the first recruiting class. From there, All-Americans Quinton Teal of Marlboro County and Brad Poston from West Florence started a tradition that includes names like Racheed Gause, Chris Walls and Carolina Forest's Tommy Frasier. The biggest challenge for David Bennett and his staff is to convince the 'tweeners that they are better off playing at Coastal Carolina for four years than to sit on the bench in the ACC or SEC for two to three years. The Chants track record of producing 4 NFL players in six years should be sufficient in accomplishing that.

Is there a drug problem at your school? 32% YES 68% NO
I exepcted this number to be a little higher. It's encouraging to see that the majority of our schools are not dealing with this.

Do too many teams make the playoffs? 29 % YES 71 % NO
I would be giving a "Yes" vote to this. It seems as if the first round of the playoffs has too many lopsided affairs. I'd like to see region champs get a bye in round one and let 2 and 3 fight it out.

Are you pleased with the way the SCHSL governs high school football?
85% YES 8% NO 7% Undecided

I would have thought there would have been more "No" votes especially since some of our schools have been disciplined by the league over the years, but Jerome Singleton should be happy with this number.

Who is the coach in our area who you respect the most?
Chuck Jordan, Conway: 23.5%
Jewell McLaurin, Lake View: 11.7%
Burney Bourne, Waccamaw: 5.8%
Tim Renfrow, Socastee: 5.8%
JR Boyd, Lamar: 5.8%
Nate Thompson, Carvers Bay: 5.8%

I don't know this for a fact, but I assume that nearly all of Horry County and the beach area voted for Chuck and rightfully so. Beyond his ability to coach young men on the gridiron, Jordan has literally built the Conway program into something special. He was the catalyst behind the new fieldhouse and he has sent countless players onto college and given them an education that they might not have gotten if he wasn't there. There are so many outstanding coaches in the area who got votes like Jackie Hayes of Dillon, Darryl Page of Wilson and Jeff Calabrese of Hartsville who are worthy of being on this list as well.

Where do you think the HS football state championships be held?
Columbia: 79%
Doesn't matter: 9%
Coastal Carolina: 6%
Home site: 6%

No brainer here. The beach schools and even the Pee Dee have the longest trek to Death Valley. Williams-Brice Stadium is smack dab in the middle of the state and is the most logical place to play the state championships.

In one word, what is the biggest challenge you face as a coach?
Money/support: 20.5%
Attitude/commitment: 20.5%
Parents: 11.7%

I would have thought parents won this before we started, but both money and attitude make a lot of sense as to great challenges.

Our high school football previews begin on Monday, August 3rd and we are working on expanded web coverage as well as some new segments this season. Until then, Hags and I will take turns living in the edit bay and getting ready for the 2009 season.