February 19, 2015
GET ARRESTED
9 sports publications are available for Auction at our EBay location—ArrestedDevelopmentMediaGuides. Of interest to the Louisiana sports fan might be the 1971 New Orleans Saints Media Guide, the LSU-Ohio State program from the BCS National Championship game in 2008 (2007 season) and the 1981 LSU post-season basketball media guide (LSU went to the final 4). These are all on auction at ArrestedDevelopmentMediaGuides.
SPORTSCENTRAL
It’s Coach Sid and Steve Johnson on the air tonight with SportsCentral. See show info just below. Scheduled guests include CHS Bowling Coaches Scott Creduer, Phil Godley and some team members and CHS Coach Brandon Lagroue.
BATON ROUGE AREA BROADCASTING SCHEDULE:
Thursday, February 19: 5pm—6pm: SportsCentral… with Sid Edwards and Steve Johnson
WUBR, 910AM (CBS Sports Radio) Baton Rouge
PelicanSportsTV.com
App: search WUBR… from Coach’sJon,
SportsRadio 1310 Radio, Lake Charles Programming of Interest (also heard on KEZMOnLine.com):
Saturday, February 21: 9AM—10AM: All Things Football with Scott Holtzman
Monday, Feb 23: 8AM—10AM: The Locker Room with John Goodman and Jim Gazzolo
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THE WIZARDRY OF OS
Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High
Sports seasons are long. As a fan it is fun to try and figure out how good your team can be after your first impression… typically a big mistake. Meanwhile, coaches and players have to concentrate on being their best each day. The best teams are usually the teams that improve after the halfway point of their season.
LSU football and the Saints did not improve much after the midway mark. The Pelicans have improved a bit (remember the All Star game is after half the games are played), but I am still very wary about the rest of the season. They have fallen into a pattern that they start to play well and get in a groove then one of two things happen. One, they lose someone to injury and it takes a while for the team to adjust. Two, when players come back from injury it takes a few weeks till that player and other players are comfortable with their roles. Of course, the other disturbing trend which will keep them out the playoffs is losing games to teams with dreadful records.
LSU basketball, hopefully, appeared to be improved for the second half of SEC play. Then the second half against Texas A&M happened. The Aggies ran a lay up drill for the last ten minutes of the game. It may not be enough because of a bad home loss to Auburn. Still, I think LSU has improved since that game.
Meanwhile, a new season of LSU baseball has begun, and I am most excited for the potential for growth of this team. Once again, I am cautious, though. I remember how excited I was at the beginning of football season. I saw the amount of young, talented players on offense and thought they could be good on offense by the end of the year.
Watching the Tigers play Kansas this weekend, they certainly look the part of an excellent team. I am not completely sold on the offense being one of the best in the country as some have said. Though, I think it can be an extremely productive scoring offense. With the depth, versatility, and speed of the lineup, the Tigers can score a lot of runs different ways if they are tenacious and execute situational baseball.
Still, success in college baseball will be determined by the pitching staff. The best part of this staff will be the depth. It is obvious freshmen pitchers are going to be great, but they are still freshmen. They will have dominant outings, and other times will struggle. Fortunately, the bullpen should be filled with guys who can fill in the gaps in these circumstances and keep the Tigers in the game should a starter falter.
I expect it to take half a season for Maineiri and Dunn to learn their young pitchers well enough to know when to stick with them and when to pull them. When the staff settles into their roles, it should be very effective.
Overall, the team is very deep which is great in college baseball. When slumps happen there will be options. Coach Mainieri should be able to manipulate the lineup to create positive match ups once he and the staff learns this team.
My conclusion after the first week of baseball? Stay patient Tiger fans and enjoy the process. The Tigers are going to win plenty of games on talent the beginning of this year. There will be set backs similar to the Vandy weekend last year. Once the weather heats up for good though, I expect this team could hit one of their patented hot streaks. Like I said in the beginning, it is way too early to make predictions like the one I just made, but that is the fun part of being a fan.
HEY REF
By Dennis Dearie
Veteran Louisiana High School Referee
And the hammer has fallen!! The Green Bay Packers cut reserve tight end Brandon Bostick on Tuesday. Bostic was blamed for the Packers loss to Seattle in the NFC Championship game last January. It seemed as though Green Bay had their bags packed for another Super Bowl trip since the only thing keeping them from getting another title shot was a simple recovery of the certain “on-sides” kick. But after Bostick jumped and failed to grab the ball…
My only question was “why did it take so long”? Why did the Packers keep him on the roster this long? The long wait might have given him some peace of mind and maybe even the possibility of making up for the blunder in the upcoming season. Green Bay didn’t try to trade him instead they just cut him free so he can try to catch on with another team.
A report right after the Championship game and confirmed by head coach Mike McCarthy confirmed that the only reason Bostic was in the lineup during the kickoff was to block any Seahawk player trying to recover. Bostic for some unknown reason attempted to catch the kick which bounced off his hands and as we all know Seattle pounced on the ball then went on to win the game in overtime.
The lesson to be learned here is “do the job you’ve been instructed to do”. The Packers also announced that McCarthy has signed a three year contract extension through the 2018 season. If McCarthy can keep his coaches “in-house” and not jumping ship to other teams then there’s no question that Green Bay will certainly be one of the top four teams and a shoe-in to make a very strong run at the playoffs again in the ’15 season.
As I put the lid on this past football season there’s some questions I’d like to ask the coaches in the Baton Rouge area. First, do you feel the referees working your games are competent? What do you wish to change in those candidates entering the profession? What do you do now to help the LHSAA attract the best possible individuals from year to year?
One very big thing that just gets under my skin is the arrogance of the younger officials and coaches. Many times as the games get going it feels many coaches (both head and assistants) want to argue and then do whatever they can to be combative with the officials. Also, coaches; just what is your thought process when an official asks to be sent a copy of the games they’d work for you?
For more than 20 years I’ve asked (and many times begged) to be sent a tape of the past Friday night’s game. If coaches want better officials working their games then they must get involved in getting them trained better. Coaches work with their teams almost the entire year but don’t give any thought as to what they can do to improve the quality of the officials that will in some instances determine the outcome of some games.
I find officials also refuse to work with coaches and don’t blink an eye when asked if they’d studied what they did in a certain game and/or situation. It seems as though there’s a lot of heads butting against each other instead of working together to improve the quality of officials and those wanting to start a career in officiating.
So, coaches; your homework this week is to find ways you think will help in recruiting new officials. Just what types of tactics are needed to keep the better officials coming back? What would you like to see implemented in the training process of the officials working your games? After all I was taught very early in my own career that we, coaches and officials, have to work together in order to continue putting the best product on the field. If we fail to work together then the game suffers.
Many people have told me the players are getting better but not the game. When coaches and officials work together then the only outcome will be a better product. That’s a goal we all should strive to accomplish!!!!
Till next week…
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