Saturday Scrimmage
(Written by kencraw)
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m PUMPED about Saturday’s open scrimmage. I know that seems counter-intuitive, I mean, I get to go to the closed practices, so why would I be excited about the open one?
Well for one, I’m excited for everyone else having the chance to watch the team. Another thing is the scrimage tends to be more “true to a game” on the last/open one. Also, I’m planning on bringing my boys and they love going to the games. Additionally, I get to sit on the 50 yard line. Finally, who can say no to a free hotdog that costs $4 in the fall!?!
Personally of the two off-season fan opportunities to come to Memorial for a football event, I think the spring scrimmage is far more enjoyable than fan day in the fall. Part of that is that I’m not a big fan of autographs which is mostly what fan day is about. But moreso it is that I love watching football and there’s no football on fan day. The only time for regular fans to watch the Bears play outside of a game is the spring scrimmage.
Here’s the link to the article on the official Cal website. Make sure to observe the note about only using the North entrance.
So hopefully I’ll see everyone there. Feel free to come say hi and introduce yourself. I’ll be the heavy-set guy with 3 boys ages 5, 4 and 1 plus his beautiful wife all dressed in matching blue script Cal hats (and not matching blue Cal shirts) sitting on the 50 yard line around row 45 or so. All I ask is that if my wife gets that “Here Ken goes again, blabbering away about Cal football” look on her face that you understand when I say “Well it was nice to meet you. Enjoy the practice.”
A final note, in the past, they’ve said nothing about taking pictures but have dealt very harshly with anyone who published pictures after the fact. Just ask the guys at CGB. I wouldn’t recommend taking any pictures for the purpose of publishing/distributing.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I’m pumped as well. It was fun times all around last year, and should expect the same. Hopefully I’ll be able to come by and say hello. I won’t be hurt if you feel the “look” coming (trust me I know the look), and will bugger off accordingly.
Also, I think the “no no” by the CGB crew was the types of shots they were taking with the subsequent analysis that followed on their blog. But I could be wrong though.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Fangs, I think the analysis made it much more visible to the administration because it was so well respected (and linked to). But make no mistake, were the administration to find out about it (and that’s the if) it wouldn’t matter if there was no analysis attached.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I would like to note that a)they found out about the photos because another Cal website, which shall remain nameless sent them the link and also initially, we believed, told the administration incorrect information about when the photos were taken.
And b)they seemed to care about photos of the formations. They did not seem to care about photos of people warming up before hand. Photos of action well after the formation had broken were kind of a gray area. To err on the side of caution, we took them down. But I’m not sure.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
As a further clarification, these were the guidelines we were eventually given following PhotoGate ’08:
“As far as photos from Cal Day, if you just use pre-practice photos of warm-ups and individuals, that is fine. Would prefer no pictures of action on the field, a general rule of thumb for the media covering us is no pictures of drills involving players from more than one position.”
April 17th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Rag, thanks for reminding us of that. For what it is worth, the “no pictures of players from more than one position” rule is what is generally told to professional photographers who come to practice to get shots for their newspapers/magazines/websites. They also limit picture taking time to the time before scrimmaging starts.
I’m sure if everyone follows those guidelines it will be fine. That said, particularly because of the precarious blogger/reporter tight-rope I try to walk, I generally insist on being far more conservative than is necessary both in the pictures I take/publish and what I tell everyone else (so it can never be said that I caused a problem like this). I have re-doubled my discipline on the matter since “PhotoGate ’08” (catchy!).
Twist, yeah, that whole incident stunk as far as I was concerned. I even blogged about it, if you remember (http://excusemeformyvoice.com/blog/?p=200). I felt very bad for you guys.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
I AM PUMPED TOO MR. CRAWFORD.
April 18th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Ken,
You’re killing me! I couldn’t go to the scrimmage, and I am counting on you to tell me what happened. But what are you doing… EATING. SLEEPING. BEING A GOOD HUSBAND AND FATHER. NOT FULFILLING MY NEED FOR INSTANT KNOWLEDGE. Sheesh.
Is there some way that we can hook your brain directly up to the blog so that we don’t have to wait for you to find the time to type the posts?
Sorry, I am getting a little too pumped about the season. Moving to Notre Dame, I will be even more anxious for your insights on how a SUCCESSFUL football program is doing.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Duke, I saw your comment on Sunday morning and decided to hold out until mid-week just to torture you. 🙂
Just kidding, we are officially anti-torture here at EMFMV. Just standard husband, father and employee stuff that gets in the way.
More posts coming in the next few days.