Here are a few quick-hitters from the first day of the WAC media preview in San Jose. It continues today ...
-- WAC commish Karl Benson was riding high yesterday, saying he's the most excited he's ever been entering the season.
-- Chris Peterson, Boise State's football coach, doesn't want to talk about the Fiesta Bowl anymore -- but he handled questions about it with ease and enjoyment. He wants his team to focus on this season -- as it should. The team lost about 23 seniors, including starting QB Jared Zabransky (who's starring on the cover of NCAA Football 2008. Does anyone have that? How's the game? I wonder how Fresno State is in it? hmm. I'll write about that later. No one steal my idea.). Peterson went so far as to ban fiesta bowl gear from being worn at workouts and in team offices this summer.
Boise State is 0-12 against BCS opponents on the road (this doesn't include neutral sites like the Fiesta Bowl).
-- Derek Dooley, new coach at La Tech, showed he's not shy when it comes to talking to the media. His press conference was the most entertaining of the day as he cracked jokes and shared stories about growing up Vince Dooley's son and finding his way to the coaching ranks. (see today's story in The Bee)
-- There was a golf outing yesterday ... Fresno State DE Tyler Clutts played ... I'll try to see what he shot when the players make themselves available to interviews. Ryan Wendell, the other Fresno State player in San Jose, said he would spare the university the embarassment of his score. No matter what it is, it couldn't be worse than mine.
-- Quin Harris, Redwood High, was at media day as well. More on him in tomorrow's paper.
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has been indicted on federal charges of competitive dogfighting, etc. What is your reaction to this development?
If convicted of all the charges, Vick and three others - Purnell A. Peace, 35, of Virginia Beach; Quanis L. Phillips, 28, of Atlanta; and Tony Taylor, 34, of Hampton - could face up to six years in prison, $350,000 in fines and restitution.
HUGOTON, Kan. -- Yes, this is where I'm from. My parents have a corn farm outside Hugoton, the town of 3,000 where I proudly finished in the top two-thirds of the class of 1995. Go Eagles! And all that.
More importantly, Denver was as beautiful as ever. There's something about the mountains that just flings you out of bed in the morning, even if you've driven many miles and went to bed at, say, 3:15 a.m. I woke up and just started driving up the mountains on the southwest side of the city. Eventually, I stopped, got out and inhaled many, many times.
You don't realize exactly how awful Fresno air is -- OK, you do realize it; Fresno air is so nasty you can actually describe it using colors -- until you get to a place like the Rockies. It's a good thing no one has invented the teleporter yet, because someone would zip directly from the San Joaquin Valley to the top of the Rockies and their lungs would explode. I did not have this problem. My lungs became accustomed to oxygen during the drive.
After the nature drive, I went to the Western Athletic Conference headquarters, where you will be happy to note they have a framed picture of the David Carr Sports Illustrated cover on the wall. (As seen in photo here.) Talked to commissioner Karl Benson for a column about how well the WAC is doing despite school after school abandoning it. No matter who goes to the Mountain West Conference, the WAC will always have the advantage of name recognition. Heck, there are people who still think the Mountain West is just a division in the WAC.
I took some pictures of the view from Benson's office, but they didn't turn out like i'd hoped. Trust me. You would dig Alabama ditches in a parka if they let you sit at Benson's desk and take in the view for five minutes once a week.
And then I drove to my parents house, down in the southwest corner of Kansas, about five hours from Denver. As always, they were glad to see me, and as always, it was nice to be home. I played some golf with my brother, Tony, at a course where the memberships are $300 per year. (He's a member.) It's out in the middle of a pasture. Notice the oil rig in the background of the photo. Love that. He's a second-grade teacher. Much nicer than me.
Scariest Driving Moment of the Day: In eastern Colorado I drove through a patch of bugs so thick I needed a paint scraper and a free weekend to get them all off the windshield. It sounded like hail hitting the car.
Most Memorable Radio Songs of the Day: None. Spent a lot of time on the phone, some with my mom who was wondering why I wasn't home yet. That makes me smile.
(Thursday, July 12; Captain's log ... I have fallen a little behind on blogs and am struggling to catch up)
(517 miles; Wahsatch, Utah to Denver, Colo.)
Denver -- There were no trees in southern Wyoming. Or at least there were no trees in southern Wyoming that weren't inside city limits. Many times you would see a town ahead in the distance, in a valley, and it looked like a mirage. A circle of trees and houses. A lot like a movie set that had been constructed in the desert.
As I was driving, I kept looking for bandits up in the hills resting their rifles over the top of rocks. It had that feel. Many rocks with small, green bushes.
Also, I-80 has train tracks running alongside it throughout Wyoming, which only adds to the Old West feel. I kept trying to take pictures of passing trains, but there always seemed to be a semi truck behind me and no place to turn off whenever I saw one coming. If you look carefully in the picture above, you can see the end of a train off in the distance.
If you read the previous post, you know the drive through Wyoming was a last-minute decision. I thought it might be fun to swing through Laramie, Wyo., and talk to former Fresno State basketball assistants, Fred Langley and Heath Schroyer, who are the associate and head coach at the University of Wyoming now. I was curious how two guys who seem so "big-city" were doing in a small-town environment.
Friday's column was about that meeting, which technically didn't happen. Schroyer and Langley were both in Tulsa, Okla., recruiting. So yeah, I drove all the way to Laramie, Wyo., to do phone interviews with two guys who weren't in Laramie. Great planning.
I did go to the Wyoming athletic department and poked around Schroyer's office, though. Not too shabby.
You can see his golf clubs agains the wall there, which he uses to play golf outings around the state.
The thing about a job like Wyoming -- and I hope this came across in the column -- is that pretty much everyone in the state is cheering for you. There is no other four-year school in Wyoming. There are season ticket holders who live two or three hours from Laramie. The loyalty is amazing, and Schoyer says he feels an obligation to be out in public and meet as many people as he can.
A couple other quick notes from Wyoming. Saw four different billboards featuring steaks. Crossed the Continental Divide at 6,930 feet above sea level. Heard two things on the radio ... "fed steer prices are up to $90," and 8th-row tickets to ZZ Top are $200 face value. (Sixth grade flashback: A good word problem here might be to figure out how many steers you'd have to sell to take a family of five to ZZ Top. Or better yet, how many steers it would take to trample the members of ZZ Top for gouging loyal fans.)
Also, I bought some Hubba Bubba bubble gum and without even thinking about it, started blowing huge bubbles. I forgot how much fun that used to be. The flavor wears out too fast and my jaw is not in Hubba-Bubba shape, but seriously, how much do you want some gum right now?
Bloggers note: Two days after I left Laramie, I got an email from Bob Schaller, the co-author of Rulon Gardner's book, who lives in Lubbock, Texas, and sent me a dozen different cool things to see in the Laramie area. If I'd have known all that, I would probably still be in Laramie checking it all out. Instead, I drove south that evening to Denver, where I planned to interview WAC commissioner Karl Benson. (As I'm typing this, I have already interviewed Benson, left Denver and written the column about Benson, which is making the tense of these blogs confusing. I'll catch up and take care of this. Don't worry.)
Scariest Driving Moment of the Day: Slight change, since there were no really scary driving moments, besides taking pictures from the side of an interstate. Scary moment, though. I nearly choked to death in Coe Library. The main library at the University of Wyoming has a nice little deli in it, with sandwiches and coffee and sodas and candy bars. So I bought a ham and swiss and sat down to do some research in the Wyoming Almanac and write my column. And on about the fourth bite of sandwich, a big piece lodged in my throat. I could breathe just a little, but the piece of sandwich was making me gag, which was making me swallow, which was only wedging it worse. At some point, I started to panic and it got serious, a little like struggling in deep water. Just before I was about to make the biggest spectacle Coe Library has ever seen, it came loose.
Memorable Radio Songs of the Day: "Smokey Mountain Range," by Ronnie Milsap; and "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," by Willie Nelson.
Apparently, the official state music of Wyoming is country. Shocker.
(728 miles; Grass Valley, Calif. to Wahsatch, Utah)
WAHSATCH, Utah -- Now that's a solid day of driving right there. Anything more than 700 miles in one day should get you a Cub Scout Badge. If you're not familiar with Wahsatch, it's a little town in northeastern Utah, right at the point where that corner is bitten out of the state. I had planned to go south through Utah and then east to Denver, but I missed an exit in Salt Lake City and figured WHY NOT WYOMING!?!
In fact, that should be the 2008 state motto Wyoming for 2008. Use it. Go ahead. My gift to you. (Any chance that counts as my paid-it-forward duties from the toll booth incident in California? Didn't think so.) I wasn't even that tired at the end of the drive, just excited to pass almost completely through Nevada and Utah in one day.
Before we get to that, though, Day 3 started with a short drive from Grass Valley to Truckee, Calif., where I was going to drop in on Andy Finch, the Olympic Snowboarder from Fresno. He lives in Truckee with his wife. That's right, I said "wife." He and girlfriend Amber Shelhamer got married, apparently. The message on his home answering machine is now one of those dorky couple messages where the guy and the gal both talk and at the end they referred to themselves as "The Finches."
I called Andy's dad to confirm and sure enough, they got married last August, nearly a year ago on some island down in the Caribbean. Thirty or so people went to the ceremony on a beautiful beach and then they all went surfing. So where were The Finches on Wednesday? Amber was in New York. Andy went to Chile to surf. Yeah. Chile. The country. Sometimes he surfs in Indonesia, where the company that sponsors him has a sweet set up.
(Note to self: Stop checking in on Andy Finch. It's depressing.)
I'd never been to Truckee so I poked around, went in the visitor's center and bought some stuff that came to $28. The woman working the register went into this big speech about how when she was a girl you could feed a family of five for a week on $28. Didn't seem like she was that old, but I didn't question it. It was a nice reminder that I was buying overpriced touristy crap. She was entertaining, though, and had this weird curly-Q of hair on her forehead so I took her picture. We started talking lakes and she said Lake Tahoe is the third largest freshwater lake in the world. Then, she said no, maybe it's the third deepest lake in the world. I didn't really care, it was just nice to see someone else who gets in arguments with themselves.
Later I noticed on the map that south of Lake Tahoe there is a body of water called "Mono Lake" and wondered how many times someone has said, "Goin down to Mono Lake. Gonna see if I can catch somethin'." Maybe I'm the only one.
Here's my thoughts on Nevada: If we ever get into a sticky situation with some foreign country, you know, one we can't blast our way out of, we should just give them Nevada. All of it except Reno and Vegas. If the rest sold at auction nobody would show up.
The one thing it has going for it is purple mountains. The ones from the National Anthem, I assume. Majesty included. They probably aren't really purple, it's just the sun reflecting on them, but it still made for nice scenery. The other highlights of Nevada were a little river next to I-80 (is it just me or are little rivers almost always prettier than big ones?) and the biggest stack of railroad ties I've ever seen. Also, a gas station on the east side of the state where three grown men were drinking Bud Light and trying to win stuffed animals out of one of those metal/tong/grabber games. That was the same gas station where they were advertising four postcards for $1, which ended up costing me because they were only 20 cents apiece. I'm a sucker for sales!!
Maybe I'm being too hard on Nevada. There were a lot of fantastic views. Like this one.
In fact, Utah was much more disappointing, mostly because the speed limit was 65 instead of 75 and it was dark for most of the drive. So much for seeing Utah. Maybe on the way back.
Scariest Driving Moment of the Day: At one point, a few miles past Truckee, I decided to exit the interstate and take this little winding road up the side of a hill to get a better view and take photos. Well there were two, one-lane tunnels to pass through, and on the way back down the hill, a car popped out of one of the tunnels just as I was entering and I had to slam on the brakes. I'd have taken her picture, but I was too busy cleaning up a 48-ounce soda from my crotch. I was actually laughing, but she was still very apologetic, especially since she hadn't even wanted to go up the hill, had just taken a wrong turn and was just turning around.
Memorable Radio Songs of the Day: "Renegade," by Styx; "Feelin' Alright," by Joe Cocker, my personal favorite version of that song; "Pride," by U2; and a very underappreciated love song: "Something That We Do," by Clint Black. (Just something cool about that guy's voice.)
Tomorrow, I'll try to post more pictures. They keep crashing my computer. At least we are rid of Utah and will be doing 75 miles an hour again. Hopefully, with a dry crotch.
(231 miles; San Jose, Calif. to Grass Valley, Calif.)
GRASS VALLEY -- Just realized I forgot to put my mileage on Day 1, so I'll go back and edit that in. Still not making much progress, geographically, but just wait until we hit the midwest. We'll be knocking out hundreds of miles a day.
Thought I was going to have to sleep in my car last night, or go buy a tent (which really I plan on doing at some point), because Grass Valley has beautiful scenery, mountains, tall evergreens and odd-looking elderly people wearing fanny packs, but it does not have many hotels. The Holiday Inn Express was full -- I'd have obviously known that had I stayed at one the night before -- and the office of the Stagecoach Inn closed at 10 p.m. There was a sign taped to the office door asking that you please not let out the cats. And I could hear them on the other side of the door, at least three or four of them, discussing something in cat language that I could not make out.
Eventually, though, I found the Best Western on the north end of town around midnight and it turned out to be fantastic and inexpensive, wireless internet (HALLELULAH!), soft pillows and no cigarette burns. I'm actually stalling right now, that's how comfortable it is.
Yesterday went well, got the interview with Rodney Wright, which you can read all about in Wednesday's column. Wright was impressive. It takes some guts to talk about your worst moments with a stranger and trust him to write it in a way that you feel is honest. He discussed everything, the wrecks and the alcohol problems and his regrets about not taking school seriously at Fresno State. I think he really feels lucky to not have killed anyone, and to not be in prison.
Here's a shot of Rodney from Tuesday's morning practice, surprisingly in focus for a photo taken by me.
I'm not going to pretend to know if Wright is a completely changed man. I'm not going to promise he'll never drink and drive again. I don't know. I think I feel better that he isn't making wild promises and acting overconfident, the way he used to in college. One thing is sure. The guy has skills. He might not be quite big enough, but he has the talent to play in the NFL. We'll see if he gets another chance.
Don't forget, the San Jose SaberCats play at 1 p.m. Saturday on ESPN. (I get $50,000 cash every time I mention that.)
I'm not saying what I'm doing in Grass Valley because I get the feeling that I'm going to strike out finding former Fresno area athletes as much as I'm going to hit homers, so I won't get your hopes up. And this way you won't know when I can't find someone, and that way only one of us will be disappointed.
I'm looking forward to today, actually, because I didn't see much of the Sierras last night when I was just lost and looking for a vacancy sign. I did get to drive through Cool, Calif., which has to be in the top 10 named cities in America. It was dark, but I did see "Cher's Hair Salon." I did not see Cher, though. I repeat. No Cher.
Scariest Driving Moment of the Day: This is actually a two-way tie, which is never a good thing. On I-680 there is a toll booth after some sort of large water-crossing, right before it connects with I-80. Native Californians probably know exactly where this is, and what the overpass/bridge is called and the name of the reservoir, and the Native American who discovered it, and the schedule of toll booth worker who was not smiling when I pulled up. All I knew was there was a toll bridge because it said so on my mapquest directions.
I had scraped all the change off my desk and threw it in my armrest before I left. Unfortunately, the toll was $4. I stared at her like she'd just ask me to talk to an army of chocolate ninjas about a peace agreement. FOUR DOLLARS! Tolls are supposed to be 75 cents, maybe $1.25 if there's a draw bridge and a dragon involved. I had about $3.25, in a big pile, most of which was nickels and pennies. The long line of people behind me waited ... and waited ... and waited. Finally, I just admitted I didn't have $4 and that I would have to go back. I considered crying. She said I couldn't go back because there is a toll for that. I assume there was a toll for crying as well.
She said they would mail me a bill, and a $25 fine, and then someone behind me decided they couldn't take any more and said they would pay my toll. A miracle. I gave her $3, a dollar of which was in dimes and nickels, and waved to the truck behind. Now, I am obligated, by having watched a Haley Joel Osment movie, to pay it forward. Add a goal to the trip. I have to do a good and selfless deed.
I was on such a rush after the toll booth that I took the wrong highway in Sacramento and headed toward South Lake Tahoe instead of Reno. So I looked at my handy, recently-purchased atlas and thought, "Oh, look. Hwy. 49 cuts over, no problem." And that's how I ended up on a winding road in the mountains doing 20 miles an hour for nearly two hours, as the people with the cats at the Stagecoach Inn went to bed early.
Memorable Radio Songs of the Day: "In Your Eyes," Peter Gabriel; "Fool in the Rain," Led Zeppelin; "Plowed," by Sponge. (If you haven't heard it, or like me, had forgotten about it, "Plowed" is a great song; and even better, a great driving song. It's one of those you look down and realize you're doing 108 mph and didn't know it.)
OK, I'm off for the day. Let's see if they've cleaned up Nevada.
SAN JOSE -- If you stumbled to this blog by accident -- and really, what other reason could there be? -- you are the luckiest surfer on the web. You have arrived on the first day of my summer road trip, as explained here in this handy-dandy column from Sunday's Fresno Bee.
The short version is that I'm on a road trip around the country trying to find former Fresno athletes. It's sort of a "Where are they now?" on wheels, a journalism idea that just never gets old. Or maybe it does and no one can think of anything better. I'll be out here until the Bee credit card stops working or I'm out of clean clothes. (Actually, I have to be in a wedding in Seattle in August, so I'll probably be back just in time for that.)
I have some notion of where I'm headed, a rough outline, but to some extent the idea is to wing-it. Editors hate that. They hate winging of any kind. If editors had their way, they would have signed documentation of exactly what I was going to write about and on what day I was going to write it, two years in advance. They want planning and I would rather decide one hour before deadline whether I'm even going to work that day.
Anyway, for whatever reason, editors have agreed to this trip. They have agreed to give me a Fresno Bee car (oh yeah, we have a whole fleet of them) and I left Fresno this afternoon (Monday) heading north on Hwy. 99. My first plan is to find Rodney Wright, former Fresno State wide receiver. Wright is playing his third season for the San Jose Sabercats. The Sabercats won this weekend and advanced to the conference championship of AFL, as now seen on ESPN and all affiliated stations.
This would seem like an easy get, just three hours from Fresno on a team still in the playoffs, but Wright has not been all that talkative since the summer of 2002. After being drafted by the Buffalo Bills that April, he drove his Cadillac into a van in Fresno and nearly killed a couple people, then fled the accident. Then barely a year later he caused another accident in a Buffalo suburb, and was charged with a DUI and a bunch of other stuff, like not having a driver's license. That time, the Bills cut him.
That was a few years ago, and Wright has been making a living in arena football. I've been trying to line up an interview with him for the last week and haven't gotten him to call me back. I'm not taking this personally because I've been told that most of the time, he doesn't return calls from his own team's front office. Today was an off-day for the Sabercats, so I just drove around San Jose all evening waiting for him to call or hoping to miraculously stumble upon him, you know, the way college kids find house parties.
I'm sitting in a Motel 6 right now just a few blocks from the Sabercats office and hoping to interview Wright at the Sabercats practice tomorrow morning. It's at 8:30 a.m., and he's supposed to be there. So there is hope. Speaking of the Sabercats office, I was there today. Here is visual proof.
Yes, I'm the dorky guy carrying around a camera everywhere I go. I'm also keeping a journal. I'm snapping pictures of strangers. I'm taking notes while driving with my knee in San Jose rush-hour traffic because I don't want to forget anything. A road trip needs to be documented.
And now, introducing a couple recurring blog segments for the road trip.
Scariest Driving Moment of the Day: Realized at the last minute I was about to miss the right exit from Hwy. 152 onto Hwy. 101 north and had to do one of those eyes-closed, do-you-belive-in-God, two-lane merges. I cut off a purple sports car that looked like an extra from the movie "Fast and the Furious." Not nice enough to be one of the main cars, but maybe one of those lining the street at the big race, just waiting to drive away when the cops show up. It had passed me many miles back and must have stopped for a complete engine overhaul.
Did I mention I'm driving a 4-door Honda Civic Hybrid?
Memorable Radio Songs of the Day: "Ocean Front Property," by George Strait; "How Sweet It Is," James Taylor; "Meant To Live," Switchfoot. (A little all-over the map, musically, I realize, but it's early. I'm using the scan button a lot.)
Last thing. You may have noticed I'm staying at a Motel 6, which is not what you might call "4-Star." I'm a big believer in cheap hotels. I watch TV. I sleep. I take a shower. I leave. That's it. If I'm alone and you give me the choice of paying $60 or $120, I'm taking the $60 every time. No matter who is paying the bill.
So I drive by this motel earlier and decided it would be the one, but when I went to the front desk "Mary Helen" informed me that they only had smoking rooms available. I am far too lazy to look for another motel, but not too lazy to make a concerned face, so she said ... (this is big) ... "We're supposed to have this machine that kinda sucks up all the smoke."
Let me just tell you that the machine that they might have, and might be using, is not at all effective. But the smell is not nearly as disconcerting as the large sign on the door reminding me how important the deadbolt is, or the woman outside screaming obsenities, or the two quarter-sized burn holes that go all the way through the comforter in my room.
That's a wrap on Day 1. Gotta get up early for arena football practice, which I believe will be outdoors. I will report back tomorrow, probably with emphysema, which should not affect my typing.
WashingtonPost.com site
