The Pressbox View

To quote a former Cowgirl KraTaura Buckner – I can feel it my bones.

Many people talk about how quick the summer goes by, and to some point I agree. However, when you are the sports nut that I am and when you keep the pace of sports that we have from early September to late April-early May a nearly four month layoff it makes the wait that much more excruciating.

The last few weeks have been hectic, like they always are, but when you get the pictures taken, rosters imputed, media guides to the printers, computers tested for the pressbox, etc, the last 10 days or so before the first game come at a snail’s pace.

Maybe it is the preseason football preview by the Abilene Reporter News or the Kickoff 2010 by D3football.com, maybe it was the cold front (that is from 105 to 75) that we saw this week or maybe it is Jimmie Keeling saying “I will see you Christmas” when he leaves the main office after checking his mail – all those things kick up the endorphins to let me know that it is here.

Here are a few signs that the summer is now a distant memory.

After most of the last two weeks watching mommies and daddies drop their kids off for college, I am convinced it is a lot harder on the parents to have the kids move out than it is for the kids. There were lots of tears shed in the parking lots around Mabee Gym.

For the moms and dads your kids are in a great place, they are going to be taken care of and hopefully they will make it through with a degree and experiences that they can take into the world and make a difference. Everyone in life deserves a chance to pursue their passions and hopefully those newcomers will take full advantage of it.

Another sign is -- twice this week I had to park across the street at Mabee Gym, because the spot I parked in every day this summer is now occupied, probably by a student named Johnny Faculty Staff or something like that and they think that parking spot is made special just for them because it has his name on it. Mom and dad will like those parking tickets I am sure they will be getting any day now.

The final one is -- dropping my daughter off at Wylie Elementary. Let’s make this simple, you got a letter on it, your teacher probably sent another note on it and it is so easy. There are three lanes, parking, drive-through and dropoff. If you are going to stop and walk little Johnny to the door, then you park in the parking lane. It was made just for you Little Miss I talk on the cell phone because the laws don’t apply to me. Johnny can make it the 10 feet, I promise. If he can’t, park in the PARKING lane and don’t make the whole dropoff lane backup all the way to 707.

Enough about the signs that summer’s gone. It is now almost fall and we will have our first official game of the year next Friday when the men’s soccer team and the volleyball teams both get started. Then on Saturday you get everyone else in action. The Cowgirl soccer team hosts Trinity for a big matchup early in the season. The Cowboy football team opens at Whitworth in Spokane, Wash. and the cross country teams host their first meet of the year and just like that we will be off and running.

Where Are They Now?

This week’s WATN is former Cowboy All-American center Josh Knox. The Snyder native is now coaching at Clear Springs High School in League City. He won the Rimington Award as the top center in the nation in his senior season and after a couple of years as a graduate assistant, he is in his second season at Clear Springs. He and wife Katy also have a daughter Kaye that was born in June. Here is a picture of Josh and Kaye.



Most of my information from WATN will come from Facebook or word of mouth. Be sure and drop us an e-mail or join the HSU Athletics Facebook page. I am so glad it is finally here. I hope to see all of you at a game this year.


Chad

Cowgirls Win

Our final Spain blog. The Cowgirls won 1-0 to finish 2-1 in Spain.

Our last day in Spain started a little later than usual, as we were allowed to sleep in until 10. We got on our bus and took about a two hour trip to Figueres, close to the Spanish/French border, to visit the Salvador Dali art museum. Our bus had to fight through a long traffic jam to keep up with our tour guide, Jan, who drove his own car and led the way for us.

Many of us wanted to keep driving until we got to the border, just so we could all say we had been in France, but it would have taken too much time as we were already on a tight schedule. Dali is one of the most famous surrealistic artists of all time, so there were mixed feelings on our team about his work. However we all agreed that although his art is hard to understand, his craftsmanship and creativity were impressive. After the museum we had a short walk to a restaurant where we were served salad, three types of sausage-including blood sausage-and potatoes, followed by a dessert of ice cream. After lunch we had to quickly drive to our game where we were given 24 minutes to warm up for a 6:30pm kickoff.

Like our previous games, it took some time for us to get used to the adversity of the officiating, playing surface, and style of play of our opponents. We were able to pull out a rainy 1-0 win on an Amy Kuykendall goal, although we had clearly dominated play throughout the game. After the game, we had a long drive back to our hotel in Casteldefells, getting back earlier than usual so we could walk to the downtown area to eat one last meal by the beach. Now it is time for us all to get some sleep and get ready for our morning flight into NYC, then to DFW. We're sad to be leaving Spain, but excited to get our season started and use all we have learned here in helping us become a stronger team.

Katie Kuykendall, Kylie Rutherford, Austin Ricker, Chelsea Flores, and Kristen Brockman ~the sophomores~

Spain Day 5

Laura Bailey, Katie Dagenais, Mickey Rogers, and Melissa Rosales check in with the Day 5 Spain blog. Also thanks to Christina Hartsfield for the pictures in the photo gallery.

Photo Gallery


Esta Manana empezo con almuerzo a las 930 en la manana. Despues que eso nosotros estabamos en la hotel discussiando que queriamos hacer por la dia. Teniamos dos optiones : va al plaza de la ciudad o va a la playa de sitges. Votemos y decidieramos ir a la ciudad. Just kidding that is all the Spanish we know, as a matter of fact we are not sure those are all real words.

The morning began with a 9:30 breakfast that included the ever present croissant , ham, cheese, and about a thousand more carbs. After breakfast we had a 10:00, scratch that a 10:15 meeting since the team has adopted the Spanish idea that time is not that important. After 20 minutes of discussion, we finally voted on going back to Barcelona for the day. Our day in the city was much like yesterday, we spent way more money than any college student actually has. Thanks mom and dad. On a lighter note, anyone that ever travels with Bert needs to make sure that there is at least one person in the group with some sort of directional sense. We wandered the city in search of a bathroom and the team for what seemed like forever but realistically had been a mere hour in a long day. Fortunately thanks to the directional sense of one extremely amazing person (LB) we made it back to our destination with little concern.

After A few hours in the city, we met up to hop on the train and go to another lunch full of Spanish surprises. Thankfully this one was an excellent one. We went to a restaurant/buffet called Free Way. This place was good! They had everything from oriental food, seafood, cold salad bar, pasta bar, fruit and dessert bar, and carving station with 5 or 6 kinds of meats. Needless to say, we got our money‘s worth.

After lunch we made our way back to the hotel for a nice siesta. During the hour long bus ride back to the hotel, a few of the girls scared the Spanish children with their beautiful snoring facing. Chupacabra rings a bell. Anyone who wants to see a lovely picture of Alice ask X, she has plenty.

After our siesta we got back on the bus to head to our game with RCD Espanyol. Our evening at Espanyol started with a mesmerizing view of the men’s team and their flashy porches and BMW. They were definitely the nicest we have seen here, we mean the cars of course. After taking the usual 3000 team pictures and looking around the complex, we finally got to work.

Coming into the game, we knew they were going to be good. As the reigning Spanish league champs, they didn’t fail to impress us. Not only did they teach us a lot on the field, but they even helped us improve our Spanish. The game was incredible. The conditions were perfect for an amped up game. We were under the lights, in the rain, in an amazing complex, playing one of the best teams we have ever come across. The technical ability of every member of their team was outstanding. We have never seen girls who moved off, on, and around the ball so well. We knew we were going to have to have an outstanding defensive game to stay in it and that is exactly what we did. Becca Roth made a number of outstanding saves, and was easily the defensive player of the game. Still, she was not the only one to shine, the entire team stepped up their game to stay with the clever Espanyol offense. Unfortunately, they scored a beautiful and well-deserved goal with 20 minutes left in the game. Regardless, of the fact that we lost, the game was a great learning experience that left us all in a great mood. Getting to see another more technical side of soccer, will only add to soccer knowledge and we are thankful to have had the opportunity to play Espanyol.

Finally after all was said and done with the game, we got the opportunity to eat at a familiar yet unhealthy restaurant, McDonalds!! We are sure more than half of us were more than happy to eat a burger and fries accompanied by an array of McFlurrys. Though we only had a 30 minute break from Spanish food it was more than welcoming to not have a surprise meal for once.

And now it is bed time. Adios from Espana,

Laura Bailey, Katie Dagenais, Mickey Rogers, and Melissa Rosales

So Long Summer -- Well Except For The Heat

Well the 2010 fall season has begun with a flurry.

The Cowboys reported for fall camp 179 players strong and it has been a busy first two days. Not only do the players get force fed a lot of material early on in meetings, then you mix in practice, pictures, and it becomes a very long day.

Just a little bit about what goes into the beginning of fall practice on my end. I came in early yesterday around 7 and started working on the information sheets the players turn in to me. They actually filled them out in the late team paperwork meeting on Wednesday night. I got to give a hats off to Coach Chris Jones and his assigned GAs because they had the player sheets alphabetized and three-ring bound for me when I showed up.

For the next several hours I typed in all of the newcomers into an excel file I call the working football roster. It is a file that I work off of to keep the huge numbers of players straight. Sometimes reading the hand writing off those sheets can be crazy and it is where the most mistakes of player spellings come in to play.
I then update the returner’s weights, position changes and number changes and merge them into a file to have a working roster. I had everything into a roster by 10:30 and we had pictures scheduled for 11. We ran through all of the players in about an hour. I had them check the roster and make sure their information was correct and then we were done.

All of the pictures have to be cropped and edited so I started in on that until about 2:20 and then headed over to the practice field to help setup the media with interviews at practice. KTXS and KTAB/KRBC did interviews with coach Keeling, Hank Hornsby and Justin Feaster. I also shot some pictures and video for the web site.

I then came back and posted the pictures and a press release about practice to the web site. Then at 5:15 at the end of practice I went back to the practice field, shot some interview footage and lined Abilene Reporter News Beat Writer Daniel Youngblood up with some interviews with Steven Rockwell and Derrick Grant.
After that I went back to the office and started editing the video and put it on to the web. It takes a while to load the video, fortunately I had it timed about right and my wife and daughter brought me some dinner around 7ish. Then crazy me decides to set up my new desk that I received yesterday, which I did and then finally edited some more photos before finally going home about 11.

I was back at it early this morning and finally finished editing and IDing the photos around 12:30. Julie Pride, out student worker did a good job of starting to type the newcomers into the backend system of our web site. I added the photos to the newcomers and did some reworking of the web site bios (which have to be put in manually one at a time) and finally at 4:45 I put up the first public viewing off the roster with pictures (except for a few that have to take retakes).

I also am trying to finish off the football media guide over the weekend and send it to press early next week. It will be a full weekend and then next week its starts over as volleyball and soccer report.

This is the busiest time of the year, but it is also the most challenging and fun for me. I am so excited for our teams this year. Both soccer teams and the football team are all ranked in the national preseason polls and the VB team should also be a contender for the conference crown. Cross country has added some depth and should be more competitive this year as well.

Spain Day 4

Day four started with a scenic ride on the train to Barcelona. First on the list of places to go was the Gaudi Mosaic Guell Park, but in order to get to it we had to conquer a very steep hill, comparable to ones found in San Francisco (maybe worse according to Allison). Halfway through our trek up the mountain, our tour guide Jan bought us ice cream, which we enjoyed while taking pictures of the view of Barcelona from the top of the mountain. We finally got to the park and were looking at the merchandise of the street peddlers, when the peddlers frantically starting stowing their merchandise because the “policia” showed up. After that incident, we got to view the unique and amazing architecture that the park contained. This included a wall made out of rocks that was designed to look like an ocean wave, sculptures and buildings that we heard a British man to describe to his a daughter as looking like “sugared candy”.

Then when we were going to our next location, we were about to get on the train when our tour guide rushed us back up the stairs because of a commotion going on. We soon found out that the police found a group of pick-pocketers in action and tasered them. This made us even more conscious of guarding our purses.

We finally made it to our next destination, the Familia Sagrada Cathedral. As we came up to ground level from the trains, we looked up to our left and saw a monumental structure. We thought nothing could beat the Monastery we saw yesterday, but we were in awe of this amazing structure. The cathedral is so intricate and detailed that construction was started on it in the late 1800’s and will not be finished for 50 more years. Unfortunately the line to get into the cathedral was three hours long, so we weren’t able to see the inside of it. We still were able to go all the way around it and take plenty of pictures in front of it though.

Next, we all split up and got to do some major shopping in downtown Barcelona. Team favorite stores included the Nike store, H&M, and a lot of tiny stores containing Barcelona souvenirs and trinkets. Thirty minutes before we had to meet up to leave, it started pouring down rain. One group of girls had the good fortune to be stuck in a gelato shop when the downpour started. The employees at the shop joked with us saying they would close the doors, turn up the music and have a dance party during the rain. They really did turn up the music and we threw up a couple of fist pumps in response.

Once we met up with the rest of team, we boarded on the train to head back to the hotel. It was an interesting ride to say the least. The train was packed full of people. Allison and John Neese had someone try to pickpocket them, both by the same person who was a suspicious looking middle-aged woman. We got off the train and hopped on a bus for the rest of the ride home. On the ride, a few of us had the opportunity to talk to a couple of college age students from France vacationing in Barcelona during their summer break. It was fascinating to hear about their culture and fun to share with them about ours.

Today was an amazing day. We can’t believe we have already been here for four days, but plan to make the next couple the best! We miss all of you at home!

Allison Ray, Kelsey Byars, Miranda Bersosa, and Becca Gault

Cowgirls Win Game 1, 3-0, In Spain

The HSU women's soccer team won the first game of its three-game trip. Austin Ricker had a pair of goals and Megan Ryan added another.

Today was an incredible experience going up the mountain to Montserrat and playing our first game against Spaniards who passionately love the game. In the morning our bus ride up the mountain was absolutely breath taking. Pictures did not do any justice to the amazing drop offs and the rugged boulders. There is only one other mountain range which is similar in formation, which does happen to be the United States, but nothing beats looking down from the top to see Spanish villages and rooftops. With multiple beautiful locations for photos, we took many team pictures atop Montserrat (probably too many as we began to find that each different view was more beautiful then the next). Several people were very daring, standing on the brick walls that separated the lookout from a hundred foot drop off on the other side.

All scenery aside, Montserrat is equally known from the beautiful monastery built atop the mountain. The cathedral was clearly built with great attention to every detail in the ceiling, the light, and every other part imaginable. Just to think of the long hours men put into building this cathedral for their Lord and that these men never saw their years of work completely finished. Again pictures and words cannot do any sort of justice to the majesty of this very special place.

After a steep train ride down the mountain and a quick change to our new bus, as our original bus broke down shortly after dropping us of at the mountain, we went to a nearby town for lunch. A true Catalonian meal, we were a huge pot of seafood paella family style for all 26 of us. The jury is still out on this Spanish favorite with some who liked it and many who did not. Either way, it was definitely not your everyday pregame meal.

From there we bused over an hour to our game against U.E. LLeida, making a great time to experience the Spanish culture by way of siesta. Upon arriving at the game we all seemed slightly apprehensive but that quickly changed as we warmed up. They were a different type of opponent then we are used to in the States but we were still able to get a 3-0 win with two great goals from Austin and another from Meg!

This whole experience has really put our minds into deep thought about their way of culture being really laid back compared to our “the busier the better” way of life. Since our phones would be extremely expensive almost all of us leave our phones in our bags or in the hotel, which might have been the greatest bonding experience possible. We’ve realized that we’ve had more conversations at lunch, on the bus, or just sitting around with these girls that we see every day than we have ever! I love how God can turn a vacation into making our friendships grow deeper and more meaningful!

Adios :)
Amy Kuykendall, Christina Hartsfield, and Brittany Vacca

Barcelona Trip Day 2

Well breakfast was at 9, but our room didn't wake up till 9:47 because Meg’s phone was set to Texas time. The rest of the team was awake and ready for the day, with surprisingly little jet lag. We headed to Sitges via train for an afternoon of shopping and relaxing at the beach.

The beach was beautiful with clear, blue water and people were everywhere. Some laid out, others kayaked, while a group of us rented a paddle boat with a slide on it.(best invention ever! haha) While the water was fun, those on the beach took advantage of all the vendors walking around selling clothing and accessories. For lunch, we all met up at a restaurant for a 3 course meal of culturally different yet appetizing food. Most everyone ordered steaks, but they are prepared differently than what you would imagine, with a type of Spanish sauce and fries. Beware when you order "fish of the day," just ask Mr. Neese how the Sardines were. Once we finished eating we continued to walk around the city.

It was really neat to see the architecture of the older buildings and all of the little stores and cafes. A few of the places were closed from 2-5 because many of the people here stay up late so it is normal for them to take naps, aka siestas. We then headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours and were off to training.

The training was fantastic. The team was called C.E. Sant Gabriel, a professional team who gets paid to play (which is rare for womens’ teams here). One of the girls on the team was actually on the Spanish National Team; it was an honor to be practicing with someone of that level. A few of the girls talked with Mel, Bert, and John Neese about the different opportunities of playing in the states. They play a different style of soccer partly because most of them grew up playing on boys' teams. They are very technical and almost always play the ball on the ground.

The language barrier made it difficult but fun at the same time. We were able to communicate what needed to be said and were able to joke about the similarities and differences of our languages and cultures. They were very friendly and we would enjoy practicing with them again if we ever got the chance.


Dinner was on our own in Castelldefels, the town in which we are staying. Brittany found an amazing Chinese food place where most of us chose to eat. We asked the waitress about the size of portions and had to explain to her that we are futbol players, and we eat alot!

Well, it's midnight here and we just finished our meal, it's off to find dessert then get a good night's sleep! Tomorrow we are going to the top of a mountain and then playing our first game!!

P.S. Shout out to Erin Low!!! We all miss you!!



Buenos Noches de Espana!

Megan Ryan, Rebecca Roth, Carlyn Powers