Pre-Season Diary: Entry 4
The life of an equipment manager is rough.  Joseph Shaw, who I remember from his days as a student at North Carolina A&T is our new equipment manager.  He told me that he gets home at 9:00 p.m. and gets to work at 7:00 a.m.  And I thought I had it rough.  I know Joe and I know he'll do an outstanding job.  He worked as the equipment manager for the Greensboro Prowlers of Arena League 2 and learned under one of the best equipment mangers in the country, Theron Thomas, who has been at A&T for more than 20 years. 

The Bears held their second scrimmage of the season today.  The practice started with the players warming up.  After the warm-ups they broke into groups - offensive line, quarterbacks and receivers, running backs, defensive ends, linebackers and defensive backs.  I watched the defensive linemen go through their drills as Coach Clark oversaw them.  They were doing a drill which one of the linemen would play offensive linemen.  The defensive lineman would hit the offensive lineman in the chest (not hard) with two hands. 

"You're to high Jerry," said Clark.  "Move both of your hands to the inside David", he continued.  The groups then split up and did "seven-on-seven," which is really six-on-six.  On one particular play, Dion McIver caught a screen pass from Jermonty Kimbrough.  He easily made the first tackler miss.  He then bated cornerback Devin Chatman to go one way and made a nice cutback move on him and got up field as the whistle blew.  Dion really has it all.  Moves, speed, power, toughness.  He is going to be a tremendous asset  to the team this year.

The team then huddled and began the scrimmage.  On the first play, Kimbrough ran option right, faked the pitch, kept it himself, cutback and gained 25 yards before he was tackled.  I believe he got tackled even though you are really not supposed to tackle the quarterbacks during these drills.

Flip was out at practice today so I had a chance to chit-chat with him for a moment.  He is doing fine and is ready for the season to start.  He's going to be able to make a one of the first football games of the season.  He said that he likes it pretty good out in Seattle.  That was a phenomenal season he had last year was it not?  All the national attention he and Shaw received because of what he did.  I also talked to him about coming by and doing a question and answer session with him for shawbears.com and he was fine with that .  So you all look for that real soon. 

Anyway, I would have to say that the defense won today's scrimmage.  On one play linebacker Christopher Peavy hit the running back REAL hard.  "Don't run the ball!" he yelled over to the offense.  Peavy is a real nice and personable guy off the field but on the field he is a terror and always seems to be in on every play.  He then proceeded to save a Kimbrough to Robbie Henson touchdown pass by tackling Henson just short of the goal line. 

 On another play cornerback Vondrell Lovett and running back Reginald Price collided and Lovett didn't wrap-up.  "Open your eyes," said defensive backs coach Buddy Crutchfield, a pretty good tackler in his days at North Carolina Central.  "I had my eyes open, I just didn't wrap-up coach, my bad," replied Lovett.

Remember yesterday when I was telling you about "Cali" and his kicking off?  Well today Mahamed, as I found out is his first name, was practicing field goal kicking.  He would kick the ball over the backstop, which is really part of the practice field but it's off to the side a little.  He was kicking the ball from a distance of about 30 yards and was easily clearing the entire backstop, which I would say is about 30 to 35 feet high.  It looked like he had pretty good accuracy too.

Do you remember Gerrard Everett from two years ago?  He spilt time with Kimbrough, wore #4?  Well he has been out to practice the last two days.  He is getting all of his paperwork straight.  He was supposed to play last year, but was ineligible.  He would have played wide receiver.  He will be one of many who will participate in the open tryout tomorrow.  He played baseball this past season, started in 25 games and drove in 25 runs.  In talking to him, I could see that he REALLY wanted to get out on that football field.

"I'll do whatever it takes, whether it's helping out in practice, or whatever," he said.  "I am a team player.  He actually was the ball spotter today.  He would most likely play some wide receiver.  "I'll play wherever they want me to play.  I may have to play some defensive back, but that's okay with me."

The scrimmage itself ended with some goal line drills.  I think the offense scored a few times, the one I remember was Dion  just getting the ball over the goal line.  The scrimmage ended and the team worked on kick off and kick return coverage.

They then huddled up as a team, as Coach Clark closed practice out by talking to them.  The offense then went over and met with Coach Farrier.  He told them that he liked their effort and that they needed to continue to work on some things to get better.  

Tomorrow will be a much different day for the guys as classes begin.  The team only did two-a-days a few times, but now that will be totally out.  We are only 10 days away from the start of the 2004 Shaw football season.