Lehigh Football Nation

How do you write about sports when it doesn't feel like a game anymore? This is the crux of the question I've been struggling with over the last few weeks. Like many of you, I was shocked at the election of Donald Trump to become our next President.  Also like many of you, I paid as he did things differently when it came to talking about the political foes he defeated, how he went about assembling a cabinet, and how he engaged the press. Everything about this point in time in history feels historic.  No set of Americans have ever elected someone like Donald Trump as President.  Nobody, not Trump of the mobs of Twitter people that seem to follow him, have used Twitter to attack people so directly almost like a weapon, especially focused at journalists that are trying to get at the truth. Frankly, nobody knows what's coming next. So how do you write about sports at a time like this?  How do you compartmentalize what you're feeling about the election, and ...

I've often said privately that I thought that the departure of Andy Reid would probably be the end of Eagles Training Camp at Lehigh. With the hiring of new head coach Chip Kelly , this sad day for the Lehigh Valley and Lehigh University has finally come. In a noon press release, the Philadelphia Eagles organization announced their intentions of holding preseason training at the NovaCare complex and having some free practices at Lincoln Financial Field. I can understand why the Eagles did it, but it's a decision that makes me no less sad.

In effect, this is the final weekend before football season officially begins. Tomorrow, technically, is the first day that Mountain Hawk football players will be reporting to camp, and the 2011 football season ceases to be just a theory. To celebrate the weekend before I self-embark on yet another Lehigh football season, I decided to do something I've never done before. That is "smoke" some beef brisket. (more)

(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)

I found myself saying after this weekend focusing on one positive thing that happened for my teams this weekend: "Well, at least it wasn't Lafayette that performed the double-sweep on Lehigh this weekend." Lehigh's basketball sweep against American was only part of the story, however. In a Wild Card weekend where my defending Super Bowl champion Saints had their hearts broken by a head coach ( Pete Carroll ) that did his best John Calipari impersonation to flee USC in a swirl of NCAA sactions, and ultimately won the game after " off the field thug " RB Marshawn Lynch on Saturday, and a Sunday when QB Michael Vick underthrew a TD pass to secure an excruciating 21-16 defeat at the hands of the Packers, the theme of the weekend would unquestionably be one of collapsing leads and repeated shots to the stomach. (more)

(Photo Credit: Joe Gill/The Easton Express-Times) So here I am, about four blog postings behind.  I haven't talked about women's basketball, and the gap between the Lehigh's and the UConn's (who blew out Baylor by 20 points last night). I haven't talked wrestling - where I have a recap of the NCAA championships that I've been sitting on for two weeks. And I haven't talked football, where Lehigh is in the middle of their spring season with a boatload of optimism for next year. So what am I going to talk about instead?  The McNabb trade : which leads me to my first Nixon quote on this blog.  Like it or not, Philly fans won't have McNabb to kick around anymore.  (more)

I haven't led with wrestling yet this year, but with the Virginia Duals starting tomorrow morning at 11 AM, I figured it was time to highlight the No. 11-ranked wrestling team in the nation, who will be grappling tomorrow at Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, VA. Lehigh currently has six wrestlers ranked in Intermat's Top 20, among them senior 133 lb Matt Fisk (13th), senior 141 lb Seth Ciasulli (18th), senior 165 lb Matt Galante (18th), freshman 174 lb Robert Hamlin (18th), and senior 184 lb David Craig (15th).  But it's the big guy - sophomore heavyweight Zach Rey (6th) - who really has people talking.  His only official loss came to the 5th rated heavyweight in the country, Iowa State's David Zabriskie . (more)

(Photo courtesy WWL) I'm becoming convinced: every sports reporter ought to spend at least one game a year in the cheap seats. That was the conclusion this fan came to at the Saints/Eagles game this weekend. *** It had been more than a decade since I had been to a pro football game in person. There was a time when I traveled hither an yon to see the Saints play, making frequent trips to the Meadowlands, New England, and even Pittsburgh to see "my" Saints play. I even traveled down to New Orleans to enjoy gumbo, po' boys, and to watch my Saints led by (ech) QB Jim "Chris" Everett to beat the Giants one year. (I think it was a few weeks after Jim Rome basically invented the link between entertainment and sports by goading Everett to deck him. Deadspin has him to thank.) While I've never lived in New Orleans, my time overseas as a young man gave me an opportunity to latch on to a different NFL team than the team closest to the place in America that I ...

So what are you doing during Lehigh's bye week? So there I was, trying to make plans to travel up to Holy Cross to watch the Crusaders take on Harvard. I then get an email asking me if I could use an extra ticket to the Eagles' home opener. Fortunately, he got to me before I could figure out the price of hotel rooms in Worcester, Mass. So I changed my plans for the weekend, instead staying local to take in the other great Patriot League game in the area: Liberty taking on Lafayette, two teams which could make a case for the Top 25 when the game is over. As some of you may know, going to an Eagles/Saints game for me is such a mixed thing since I am a fan of both teams. Growing up I was a rabid Saints fan - I've seen the Saints play in New Orleans, saw them take on both the Jets and Giants in Giant Stadium, and I've even high-fived WR Quinn Early in a game against the New England Patriots almost a decade before they became the most Hated Team In America. And I've...

(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 ...

(Photo courtesy AP/Easton Express-Times) My family and I went early to Eagles Training Camp at the Whitehead practice fields, along with what had to be 2,500 (at least) of our closest friends. As the afternoon wore on, it got very hot on the Mountain but it was plain to see why Eagles fans are looking forward to the NFL regular season already. Even on a hot day these birds seemed like they had a spring in their steps. Routes were crisp as DeSean Jackson, Hank Baskett, Michael Avant and the other wideouts made a dazzling array of deep outs. This was a decided difference from last year, where the offensive mood was more workmanlike and many of the questions involved the receiving corps. Last year, the Eagles seemed to have more questions than answers. This year - as long as RB Brian Westbrook does indeed come back from his surgery on time for the upcoming season - there seem to be more answers than questions. Last year, fans were wondering if it would be McNabb's last year; this...

(Photo courtesy CK0712 Blog ) For those of you in the Bethlehem/Philadelphia area that might have recently emerged from a cryogenic sleep pod, the Eagles have officially returned to Lehigh for their annual preseason training camp . Sunday marked the first day for rookies and selected veterans to report to Lehigh's campus, while it's today when training camp begins in earnest for the rest of the team. Eagle head coach Andy Reid was seen the other day ready to go - or at least, ready to hit the links on the John C. Whitehead practice fields. (Nice shorts.) (And are those really flip-flops, Andy? I've got to believe that Roger Goodell has some sort of rule against an NFL head coach being caught on film in non-regulation footwear. They are Nikes, right? Shouldn't they be taped?) Lehigh has hosted Eagles training camp since 1995, and it's a ten year relationship that has been greatly beneficial to both the Eagles and Lehigh over the years. Both Nick Fierro of the E...

After watching the wet slop at Game 5 at the Linc today - and the incredible game suspension in Game 5 in the middle of the 6th inning 2-2 in a game that never should have even been started given the weather forecast, all I can keep thinking about is: what the Philadelphia fan needs is a creed, like the unofficial one at the Post office. Instead of " Neither snow, nor rain nor heat stays these couriers from their appointed rounds ", it ought to go something like this: We are Philadelphia fans. We love each other like brothers, but will roll others out of the upper decks like nutters. We are cheesesteak-eating, soft pretzel-munching Rocky's, Pat Croce's, Bernie Parent's. We go about our day with memories of bitterly falling short in key situations, near-complete ineptitude in the front office, strange blot clots taking out top goalscorers one series before the Stanley Cup, Allen Iverson, mysterious stomach viruses affecting our starting quarterbacks, and - wors...

With the 14th Dalai Lama's historic visit just ending last week , and Lehigh's high school 7-on-7 shootout and the final Lehigh University Youth Football clinics slated to end on Wednesday, there certainly isn't going to be any rest for the support staff at the Goodman Sports complex this summer. After hosting youth football players, believers in Tibetan Buddhism from all over the country , members of the media from around the world , hundreds more students and alumni interested and inspired by the Dalai Lama's teachings, and even some Buddhist protesters , the Goodman complex now has an even bigger challenge - the Philadelphia Eagles' training camp (admission: free) and the circus of fans and media that accompany this intriguing annual event. The first practice is tomorrow, starting at 8:45AM. Lehigh is entering its 13th year of hosting the Eagles preseason camp - before 1995, the Eagles had chosen to host the camp in a variety of different non-D-I sites , incl...

This is a very quick post just to share something that irritated me a little. The Morning Call was covering a charity golf tournament hosted by the Philadelphia Eagles' Brian Dawkins, and it naturallly gives an opportunity to interview some current players coming up to have a fun day and raise money for a good cause. Now, I can understand why the Eagles players think that coming up to "basic training" at Lehigh isn't exactly a picnic, but is this really necessary? The several Philadelphia Eagles who ventured to Saucon Valley Country Club on Monday for the Brian Dawkins ' Burn Prevention Foundation annual charity golf outing knew they were close to their training camp practice fields at Lehigh University . And they kept a healthy distance away.''On the way up [from South Jersey], I was like 'This is a bad drive. I remember this road,''' safety J.R. Reed said. ''I wasn't even there last year because I didn't sign with them...

The Saints playoff win -- only the SECOND in franchise history -- was sweet to these fans, but more bittersweet for me (see my post from last week ). It's strange watching a game with two teams you like - the emotions all get tempered. RB Reggie Bush fumbles the ball - you feel a pang in the gut, but you don't throw the remote at the TV. Eagle head coach Andy Reid elects to punt on 4th-and-15 - you shake your head, but you don't bang your head against the wall. It's probably the closest I will ever get to feeling what it's like to be a non-fan - the person that gets dragged into sports who simply could care less. (Kind of like me at a NASCAR race.) Like the week leading up to the Saints/Eagles game, it's bittersweet. It's sad to see my wife - who now is starting to bleed Eagles colors - low because the Eagles lost. She doesn't hate the Saints, but she's no fan either. When Westbrook scored that TD in the third quarter, she was standing u...

Some explanation is in order here. Undoubtedly you're surfing over here to read about my analysis of Lehigh's basketball and wrestling teams this weekend, and don't worry, I'll get to that. But all week I've been struggling with my NFL allegiances. Let me explain. I grew up in the New York area, but moved overseas for about seven years of my life. As a youngster, my allegiances changed quite a bit - Giants, Jets, Redskins. While living overseas in high school, however, I finally settled on the Saints as my team. Why the Saints? Maybe because in 1986 they were on the rise; maybe because I had a lot of respect for coach Jim Mora and the Philadelphia Stars of the old USFL; maybe because I loved the "Dome Patrol" and their take-no-prisoners 3-4 defense; or maybe simply because my fathers' jazz musician contemporaries liked the team. As a result of this, I picked up on the Saints just in time to enjoy their first-ever winning season and playoff ...