Lehigh Football Nation

(Photo Credit: Denise Sanchez/The Morning Call) Lehigh Athletic Director Joe Sterrett admitted this week, after the NFL lockout was finally lifted after a tense 136 days, that folks around the Lehigh athletic department were "living on a string" the past few weeks. With the NFL lockout very much still on a couple of weeks ago, Sterrett made the decision to go ahead and prepare for Eagles Training Camp this summer - just as they had for the last 15 years on South Mountain. It's that preparation - and the "relationships" with folks like Eagles head coach Andy Reid - which ultimately caused the Eagles to bring Eagles Training Camp to Bethlehem for the 16th straight year, even as other NFL teams announced they were modifying or cutting back on their training camps. (more)

(Photo courtesy Marcia White, The Easton Express-Times ) The plan was to write a nice summary about Lehigh preseason camp today, but sometimes a news story close to home causes everything to get upended - and the Michael Vick story does just that . Word spread through the preseason broadcast of the first Eagles preseason game last night, and rapidly found its way onto ESPN, the NFL network and everyone's front page today: Michael Vick, the talented QB fresh out of jail for torturing dogs and sponsoring dogfighting , was signed by the Eagles yesterday evening. Despite an early radio campaign to drum up support (I actually heard a radio ad several weeks ago talking about Eagles fans dreaming of Michael Vick as an Eagle), almost to a person fans, commentators and observers think this is a horrible idea. Fans are not "excited" - as the radio ad would have you believe - they're sad. (And, no, not just the Eagle fans who happen to be dogs, like the one pictured.) I have ...