Q & A with... Lehigh RB Matt McGowan

Continuing my series of interviews I did for Patriot League media day, we continue with senior RB Matt McGowan, the Mountain Hawk running back that looks to be doing some inside running now that he's (finally) healthy.

LFN: Tell me a little about your background.

MMG: I played at Hazelton Area high school which is about an hour away from Bethlehem, had a pretty good high school career, chose to attend the University of Richmond on full scholarship.

LFN: Why did you choose to transfer?

MMG: It really didn’t feel like a good fit when I was there, so I chose to transfer to Lehigh after my freshman year. I really wanted to be closer to friends and family – it was pretty far to go to Richmond, a seven hour drive as opposed to only being an hour away from home.

I was recruited by Lehigh pretty heavily throughout my high school career with coach Lembo’s coaching staff before coach Coen was here, and I had good relationships with all of those coaches, so I always kept my mind open to Lehigh.

LFN: Let’s talk about your time at Lehigh. Last year you spent a lot of time injured. Everything feel better now?

MMG: Yeah, everything finally back to 100%. Everything’s going well. We’ve worked really well this offseason, it’s probably the best offseason this team has had. About 60% of the upperclassmen stayed over the summer.

LFN: Anything you’re planning to do to keep from reinjuring yourself?

MMG: I think the injury that I had has completely healed, but I’m going to do my best to keep stretching and keep flexible and if I feel anything I’m going to try to take it easy.

LFN: Describe your style as a runner.

MMG: Most people say I’m a bruising kind of back, but I don’t really look at myself that way. I like to say that I’m diversified – I can run inside the tackles, but I can also run outside too. I prefer to run inside, though – I’m more comfortable inside the tackles.

LFN: As a running back, you’re probably been following the progress of your offensive line…

MMG: Our strength and conditioning coaches have done a great job with everyone – it’s a noticeable size difference on our team and everyone’s gotten a lot quicker. Most of our offensive line has been here the entire summer working out, and guys have really, really worked their butts off.

LFN: Tell me a little bit about being a part of “The Rivalry”.

MMG: Playing in it is really as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be. I mean, it’s an unbelievable experience and one of the best things you’ll ever experience as a college football player. It’s hyped up so much throughout the season and offseason, and being that they beat us the past four years in a row, it makes the game that much more meaningful. It’s a motivating point.

LFN: Last year was the first graduating Lehigh class to lose all four years in “The Rivalry” since the 1950’s.

MMG: Trust me, we’re aware of that.

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By now you've seen the results. In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago . Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth. Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled. Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season. The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League....

UMass 21, Lafayette 14, halftime

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Examining A Figure Skating Rivalry: Tonya and Nancy

It must be very hard for a millennial to understand the fuss around the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating scandal in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics. If you're of a certain age, though - whether you're a figure skating fan or not, and I am decidedly no fan of figure skating - the Shakespearean story of Harding and Kerrigan still engages, and still grabs peoples' attention, twenty years later. Why, though? Why, twenty years later, in a sport I care little, does the story still grab me? Why did I spend time out of my life watching dueling NBC and ESPN documentaries on the subject, and Google multiple stories about Jeff Gilooly , idiot "bodyguards", and the whole sordid affair? I think it's because the story, even twenty years later, is like opium. The addictive story, even now, has everything. Everything. The woman that fought for everything, perhaps crossing over to the dark side to get her chance at Olypic Gold, vs. the woman who...

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