orange100
February 3rd, 2005, 12:29 AM
got there about 6:30. Met at the front door by cyrus garrett signing posters and giving out schedule cards. all of the players were there in their jerseys, just milling around, signing autographs, talking, taking photos with fans. Saw brasic and weatherford hanging by a table, weatherford is a lot bigger than I realized. every other player i saw was smaller than i thought they would be. although i did not get up close with any linemen. Said yo to Halsey and Franklin Payne, (payne is tall). Anyway- total attendance was maybe 500-700. Mendenhall was being introduced when we came in, he is a ripped athlete. This kid looks every bit a stud. The most athletic of the players that i saw were mendenhall and pierre thomas. Both of them look like superheroes. Huge ripped arms, wide shoulders and backs, small waists. Just solid gladiator types. Saw Kisan Flakes- he looks like Dee brown with long loose braids. Very small.
cheerleaders and band did their thing, while waiting on Zook to come in more players were "interviewed." J Leman and Morris Virgil, Halsey and Payne. Zook was way late because he was on the phone with a recruit. When he finally did come out, an assistant was still in the back waiting by the fax machine. Zooks opening speech was interrupted by a cll and he passed it off to an assistant (locksley) because as he said: "this may be very important. Recruiting is not an exact science! I am hoping to have some more good news by the end of this thing tonite." Anyway- the other assistants were on the phone the whole night. My assumption was it was over Abdunafi who had not faxed in a LOI yet. Zook spent most of his court time, looking over to the assistants every 30 secs or so to see how the calls were going. As teh thing was winding down the assistants got off the phone and when zook looked over, they shook their heads. He did not take it well, threw his head back and rolled his eyes in frustration. I hate to conjecture any further. I do know that other boards have confirmed that Abdunafi faxed his LOI in around 8:15 so it's all good anyway.
Zook talked a mile minute, tripped up a few times, but obviously the guy is just a workhorse and not a polished citizen. He's blue collar- like another winning coach we have. To break down his speech it was a lot of "we're glad to be here, the players are excited, we have some great players coming in who want to play HERE, because this is a great academic school with great sports tradition in a great conference. The players we have are excited about the players coming in and we want the stadium full of orange because that pumps up our players and gets them going like our great basketball team here." He loves the basketball team, loves the energetic crowd and the players especially mentioned how much they love a loud crowd and the stadium walk before the game, and all of that. It looks like they are trying to amp up the Block I again- they mentioned the standard Krush has set in AH.
The highlite video was cool if hard to follow. It listed the players name, number, position next to a highlite reel frame. These are videocamera shots of high school games, and usually there would be a yellow arrow pointing to the player before the play began. I wish I could remember who really stood out. Macphearson seems to have great speed and hands, mendenhall was clearly the best of them all. His running looks like Pierre Thomas- great speed, breaks tackles, swivels well. He is really going to be something. If I could remember anything else, I'll addendum. I've got a lot of other stuff to do, but I wanted to get this update in for Illinoisloyalty.
cheerleaders and band did their thing, while waiting on Zook to come in more players were "interviewed." J Leman and Morris Virgil, Halsey and Payne. Zook was way late because he was on the phone with a recruit. When he finally did come out, an assistant was still in the back waiting by the fax machine. Zooks opening speech was interrupted by a cll and he passed it off to an assistant (locksley) because as he said: "this may be very important. Recruiting is not an exact science! I am hoping to have some more good news by the end of this thing tonite." Anyway- the other assistants were on the phone the whole night. My assumption was it was over Abdunafi who had not faxed in a LOI yet. Zook spent most of his court time, looking over to the assistants every 30 secs or so to see how the calls were going. As teh thing was winding down the assistants got off the phone and when zook looked over, they shook their heads. He did not take it well, threw his head back and rolled his eyes in frustration. I hate to conjecture any further. I do know that other boards have confirmed that Abdunafi faxed his LOI in around 8:15 so it's all good anyway.
Zook talked a mile minute, tripped up a few times, but obviously the guy is just a workhorse and not a polished citizen. He's blue collar- like another winning coach we have. To break down his speech it was a lot of "we're glad to be here, the players are excited, we have some great players coming in who want to play HERE, because this is a great academic school with great sports tradition in a great conference. The players we have are excited about the players coming in and we want the stadium full of orange because that pumps up our players and gets them going like our great basketball team here." He loves the basketball team, loves the energetic crowd and the players especially mentioned how much they love a loud crowd and the stadium walk before the game, and all of that. It looks like they are trying to amp up the Block I again- they mentioned the standard Krush has set in AH.
The highlite video was cool if hard to follow. It listed the players name, number, position next to a highlite reel frame. These are videocamera shots of high school games, and usually there would be a yellow arrow pointing to the player before the play began. I wish I could remember who really stood out. Macphearson seems to have great speed and hands, mendenhall was clearly the best of them all. His running looks like Pierre Thomas- great speed, breaks tackles, swivels well. He is really going to be something. If I could remember anything else, I'll addendum. I've got a lot of other stuff to do, but I wanted to get this update in for Illinoisloyalty.