Sept. 5, 2014
There’s a big football game downtown Saturday afternoon. It’s an important one for the program, the department and the university as we will be in the glare of national television. The SEC Nation show on the new SEC Network is from 9-11 in the parking lot on the south end of LP Field; it’s much like GameDay where the audience provides a spark. ESPN is also here doing the game and some of our other sport programs will be entertaining special guests so Vandy Nation will be judged in many different ways. We need our faithful to wear the colors, come early, have fun, Anchor Down.
We just saw that DVD that captured baseball’s amazing run to the national championship. It’s every bit as good as advertised; it should be a must for watch for everyone that bleeds black and gold. If you have not already ordered your copy, you can do so .
We’ve been noting the terrific momentum of our two golf programs. If you missed it, in the first national ranking of the season, the Commodore men are ranked No. 6 and the women, reigning SEC champions, are 11th. Senior Hunter Stewart won the opening event of the season last weekend, shooting 11-under-par over the famed Pebble Beach layout. The women’s team opens Sept. 19-21 by hosting the Mason Rudolph Championship at the Vanderbilt Legends Club while the men will play in the DICK’S Sporting Goods Collegiate Cup the same days at the Golf Club of Tennessee. Golf fans will see big time golf at either event.
Mother Nature played rough last weekend throughout the SEC. Not only did our game endure a nearly two-hour rain/lightning delay, the Auburn-Arkansas game was delayed by lightning and Jordan-Hare Stadium was evacuated, and the Florida-Idaho game didn’t get past the opening kickoff before being cancelled after a three-hour delay. It could have just been the perfect storm, pun intended, or it could also be an expanded SEC lightning policy (shared by television networks, by the way) that when lightning is detected on a computer software program within eight miles of a venue (it used to be six), the game is stopped or delayed a minimum of 30 minutes from when the last strike is recorded. It’s a good policy in terms of safety but it has also produced more delays than the “good old days” when officials looked to the skies and made their own decisions about what was safe or unsafe.
