Lehigh Football Nation

Lehigh's first three contests of the 2012 football season all, arguably, have specific themes attached to them. The first game, against Monmouth, is "introductions".  It will be the first glimpse of the 16th-tanks Mountain Hawks, also has a local flavor, as the Hawks are relatively close by in West Long Branch, NJ. The second game, against Central Connecticut State, is "bullseye".  The Blue Devils, opening their newly-renovated stadium, will see Lehigh in what's likely to be the biggest crowd ever on the New Britain campus. The third game, against Princeton, is "bragging rights".  Locally, many high-academic recruits are asked to pick either Lehigh or Princeton, and wins against the Ivy League have a special, backyard feel to them. But this game against Liberty unquestionably has as its theme: "national".  It's going to be the one game, most likely, that the Mountain Hawks will be able to showcase their program to not just t

(Photo Credit: Lehigh Athletics) Preseason practice is full underway for the 2012 version of the Lehigh Mountain Hawks. It's the time when players show off all the good work they did in the offseason. But most importantly, it's when good teams become better teams - and that requires a grueling football schedule of two-a-days, film study, and weight training. Lehigh Media Day provided a break from all of that - a positive time for the players to cut loose and get a well-deserved break.

(Photo Credit: Howell Patch) With the 2012 season right around the corner - is it really just twenty days until opening day kickoff vs. Monmouth? - I wanted to kick off a new feature here at LFN called the "Hawk Squawk", where I talk to members of this year's Lehigh football team. To kick off this exciting new feature, I squawk first with senior WR Ryan Spadola .

Today, we got back from our vacation, the last stop which was at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Historic Site in Hyde Park, NY. In Hyde Park are several different historic sites, including one place, Val-Kill, which was the residence of Elanor Roosevelt . You'd think that this would be the last place to think about college sports or Lehigh football, considering the number of momentous events that happened in the residences at Hyde Park with the Roosevelts. But it turns out that Elanor was the first-ever blogger as well.  Want proof?  Just look at her gigantic archive of daily articles, syndicated in newspapers (the internet of its day) across the country, in a small, compact column called "My Day".