North Carolina State University Athletics
Football (and Basketball!) Preseason Diary, Day 18
8/24/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 24, 2001
We're going to jump ahead to another season in today's diary. Football had an abbreviated workout today, getting ready for tomorrow's big scrimmage. They worked on kicking and did some walk-throughs, with most of the team off the field by 5:30.
I also spent some time with our women's basketball team today. We had a media seminar and had a good time - they're a great group of young women.
But... the main action was going on over at Jaycee Park, where the men's basketball coaches were taking on the team in softball action. Yours truly was asked to be the infield umpire, but I have to say that the coaches team argued WAY too many of my calls. And I came real close to throwing the athletic director out for making wise cracks from the outfield!
The coaches jumped out to a, shall we say, LARGE lead of 10-zip. It was so bad at one point that Marcus Melvin yelled from the dugout, "We look like the Bad News Bears!" A player rally (which started on a really biased call by ME to call Cliff Crawford safe when he was really out by a mile!) brought the score to 10-5, but the coaches went on to win, 19-5. (The players were challenging the coaches to a game of tag football at that point).
Josh Powell showed by far the most prowess on the team, even though he was walking around asking people how to hold the bat before the game began. He hit two long balls, but it wasn't quite enough to bring the victory. Scooter Sherrill liked sliding into base MUCH more than he liked catching the ball from his shortstop position. And as for Julius Hodge and Archie Miller at pitcher ... well, let's just say that they would have been throwing strikes if every batter they faced was a couple of feet taller than Kristian Jensen! Marcus Melvin did make a great catch at second base and Will Roach had a good grab from first.
Herb Sendek was the pitcher of record - I believe he shut out the fellas while he was in there before Lee Fowler came in a gave up a bunch of runs. The highlight for the coaches had to be when Larry Hunter used a hidden ball trick to nab a celebrating Cliff Crawford out at second base.
But a good time was had by all - it's obvious that this is a group of young men that really enjoys themselves and gets along great as a team.
I'll have info. about the football scrimmage tomorrow. Have a great weekend, Wolfpack fans!
