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Commodore Notebook – 9/12 9/12/2005 Notes and Commentary Sleepless in Nashville It was about 1:55 a.m. Sunday when four charter busses carrying Vanderbilt’s football team and support staff turned onto Jess Neely Drive, the final few yards of what was the best road trip in years. Greeting these conquering heroes was a noisy throng of hundreds that included the majority of our marching band. VU police cruisers sealed the street from both ends to insure safety at the exuberant scene. The joyous celebration offered a veteran of many road trips a series of flashbacks to prior arrivals when no one was waiting, exiting the busses in driving rainstorms when most probably wondered why they had to be on the trip in the first place, arrivals when heads were hung, bodies ached and spirits were low. This was the same location on Jess Neely Drive in June of 2004 when a triumphant baseball team charter coasted in amidst cheering fans and television cameras. One of the first guys out of McGugin Center to congratulate Tim Corbin was Bobby Johnson. Turn-about is fair play. How truly gratifying to see this classy, hard working football team and staff be reminded of how many people admire and appreciate their efforts. The clock on the dash read 2:08 as the car inched out of the parking lot, windows down, listening to the rockin’ beat of the drum and tuba lines on the hillside. Sweeter sounds have never been heard in Music City. Idle Thought Could instant replay HELP our football program? It seems like a ridiculous question but over the years, most coaches have believed that Commodore football team simply won’t get the benefit of the doubt in tight officiating calls during crunch time against league super powers. The Arkansas game was played in front of 68, 215 fans who were into the game. The Razorbacks have always been the rock stars of Arkansas. There are no Titans, Predators or even Vols to divide loyalties. Arkansas fans call their Hogs with a passion. So one has to wonder, with ear-splitting noise putting added pressure on the already difficult job of officiating an SEC football game, would one or two of those calls that were correctly ruled in our favor have happened if there wasn’t a replay to verify the accuracy? Or would an official, being entirely human, been caught up in the home crowd hysteria have been swayed by what he thought he saw? I don’t have an answer and no doubt one day a replay will reach out and bite us but right now it seems comforting to know that certain controversial calls are not going to be made by hype or by history.
Careful What You Ask For Category Some time back, Arkansas Football Coach Houston Nutt was asked his thoughts on the Southeastern Conference’s rotation of east and west division opponents. Since we had not played Arkansas on the gridiron since a pair of games in 1994 and 1995, Nutt replied that he wished Vanderbilt would appear on the Arkansas schedule more often and that in this case the league rotation had not played out to his teams favor.
O5-06: A Very Good Year? OK, the college athletic year is but two weeks old but it already seems quite likely to these Black and Gold eyes that the 2005-06 year is going to be a better one for Commodore teams and fans. After finishing the 2003-04 campaign ranked in the 90th percentile nationally in the Director’s Cup all-sports race, last year was for the most part a rebuilding one after heavy graduation losses. However, armed with more experienced teams and possibly a bumper recruiting cop, a number of our programs are set to bounce back. Among our fall teams, women’s soccer already has popped into the Top 25 and the men’s soccer squad won its first tournament. Both programs had their league “Player of the Week” in Week One. Women’s cross country is poised to have its finest year ever. Erica Schneble is back running well after missing last year with injury. Martha Richards Freitag’s women’s golf team will be significantly stronger after adding a pair of the nation’s most highly recruited prep stars. Junior Chris Brady is a pre-season second team all-American. Men’s golf boasts junior Luke List, who played in the Masters and United States Open in the last six months. The team also has some good young talent. I won’t try to get into winter and spring hopes right now. Most of you have your opinion about our basketball teams. A couple of our teams — baseball and bowling — may have recorded the best recruiting years in the country. This will be interesting.
Vandyville Check out the pre-game atmosphere at Vandyville before our home football games. You will be pleasantly surprised at what you are going to see: lots of tailgate tents, a giant video screen tuned to college football, games for the kids, food and fun. We offered four free tailgate tents per game to rabid Vandy fans and they were snatched up for the year in the blink of an eye.
Hurricane Relief We will be working in partnership with the Red Cross at every football home game this fall. We plan to be taking cash donations at the entry gates this Saturday. At other games we might be asking for specific goods depending upon what the Red Cross needs and the Bloodmobile is likely to be on hand when it is available. We will publicize all relief efforts the week of each game so be watching for the plan of the week.
DORETV and SEC Policy We’re getting questions about why we aren’t streaming football games on our web page, especially since we had streamed home baseball last spring. No SEC team will be showing live football or basketball events after the SEC broadcasting rights holders agreed last summer to prohibit live webcasts in those sports. While this writer disagrees with that policy, their thinking is that they are paying millions of dollars for the rights to these broadcast and/or televise games and they don’t want to invite competition, no matter how modest the webcast viewership numbers are at the moment. We are looking into ways to add other video content to our site but the games are not on the option board.
Going Gold Need a free gold t-shirt to add to your wardrobe? The marketing department is giving away 1,000 gold shirts before Saturday’s football game. The shirts will be handed out starting at 10:10 a .m., just prior to Star Walk. Come to Star Walk early and get a free shirt! |
