Football, fires and eerie images

Wanted to share this…

Many of you have seen the images from the SoCal fires in recent days. The LA Times has a great section on its homepage that has reader images and video from the entire situation. It’s worth checking out.

The Station fire burns literally hundreds of yards away from one of the best scenes in all of football/CNN Image

If you haven’t already seen the image of the Station fire near Pasadena, literally yards from the Rose Bowl, I put the image in this post. What I wanted to share is something I thought of as soon as I saw the image.

It was a few months ago myself and the rest of the PSU beat were out in Los Angeles to cover the Rose Bowl.

A handful of us love the game of golf, the Rose Bowl happens to have a course that wraps around the stadium, some of you probably saw it out there if you made the trip. It’s used as parking for UCLA home games at the Rose Bowl itself during the season.

Mark Wogenrich of the Morning Call, Ron Musselman of the Post-Gazette and Cory Giger of the Altoona Mirror were all lucky enough to have the round comped by Gina Chapin of the Rose Bowl and we’re still all very thankful for that. Don’t ask how we played.

As someone who had never been to California up until that point, I took along the camera to snap some shots of the scenery around the Rose Bowl…I was also blown away by the massive houses up in the hills that over looked the course and stadium itself.

Think about those people for a second….sure they might be better off financially than you or I, but they are still people and they don’t deserve to have what they’ve built ruined by fire. I thought checking out some of my pictures from that round of golf and looking at the image of the mountain literally burning was just unbelievable.

All of the pics posted here were taken while we were on the course and a couple on the day of the game and they are the hills and mountains that surround the best stadium in college football, if not football in general.

Green ready for return

It’s a play Stephfon Green probably has watched over and over, yet his feelings never change.

With a 1:24 showing on the clock during the first half of the Rose Bowl, Penn State already trailing 24-7 to overpowering USC, Green looked to capitalize on his home run potential and get his team back in the ball game before halftime.

Just as Green started to explode past midfield, Trojans safety Taylor Mays stripped Green.

A critical turnover that thwarted Penn State’s best scoring chance in the second quarter.

A chance they desperately needed.

Ultimately, Green, who was substituting for the injured Evan Royster, would see his Rose Bowl come to an end with an injury of his own.

One that kept him out of April’s Blue White game and prevented him from working out full bore until June.

Green is now healed physically, and mentally, he’s ready to move past that fumble.

“I put the loss of the Rose Bowl all on my shoulders with that fumble right before halftime so I’m real anxious to prove to everybody that I got better, that I’m better carrying the ball-wise, running the ball-wise, being more patient,” Green said earlier this month at Lift for Life.

Only Green knows what was racing through his mind as fellow teammates worked out this spring. Only Green knows how good it feels.

Stephfon Green (21) is eager to show he hasn't lost a step after rehabbing an ankle injury suffered in The Rose Bowl loss to USC in January/AP Photo

But no one knows how good he will feel when he can finally get back on the field in live game action against Akron on Sept. 5.

“Long, tough and I’m just glad it’s over with,” is how Green described the rehab process. “I’m just glad it’s over with. I’m glad to be back at 100-percent, I’m glad to do everything with my body, you know, no more (being) limited in what I can do. I’m 100-percent and I’m full go.”

What Green brings to the table is a total package with home run threat.

As one of the fastest members of the Nittany Lion team, Green hasn’t even run a 40-yard dash since last year thanks to his leg injury.

But he promises he hasn’t lost a step, even though he might be a bit behind.

“These guys put on pads, these guys got a head start on me, so I’m just real anxious to get back in August, give my team what they really need,” Green said.

“I haven’t run the 40 since I ran the 4.25 (last season), but hopefully I get to run it when the freshmen run theirs because I couldn’t run my in the spring.”

Green, who was injured in high school, continued on about his frustration.

“It was real frustrating. I felt like I was back in high school all over again. I finished in high school but college it’s totally different. I couldn’t finish the game, I was real frustrated because I put half of the blame on myself with that fumble, me not getting the first down when we really needed it, things like that.”

Now healed, physically and after undergoing somewhat of a mental rehab too, Green is focused on the 2009 season, and the quest for a second straight Big Ten championship.

“It’s always going to be on my mind until I can take my team a step further,” Green said. “The Rose Bowl was good, Big Ten champs is good, but you know all 119 of us have one goal and that is to win a national championship.

“I’m trying help my team out to get back there.”

More on the Rose Bowl “situation”

Did some digging today and before I get to that colleague Mark Wogenrich of the Morning Call has a good recap of everything that’s transpired from this Rose Bowl fall out.

I talked with BCS media rep Bill Hancock this afternoon. Hancock is out in Pasadena for the annual BCS meetings. Here is what I got from him on the situation.

First, he said was totally unaware of the statement issued by the Rose Bowl late Wednesday. So I caught him up to speed.

Second, he told me the rule is this;  The locker room is supposed to be open, however any player that does not play in the game does not have to stick around for availability afterward.

Third, the reason Joe Paterno was fined/punished for his non-interview with Lisa Salters is because per the agreement with ABC and the Rose Bowl and teams involved in the game, both coaches must either open their locker room before the game to allow TV to film the pregame speech he delivers to the team, or they must conduct an interview with a sideline reporter on the sideline prior to kickoff.  Joe did neither, that’s fair game as far as I am concerned.

 Those rules are in agreement with the BCS, Rose Bowl and Football Writer’s Association of America (of which I am also a member of). Apparently the FWAA, which has had issues with Joe and the PSU brass in the past, got wind of this, fired off a letter to the Rose Bowl and there you have it, a couple of slaps on the wrist and/or a fine come out.

After a mandatory 10 minute cool-of period after the game, Paterno was taken via golf cart to a tent on the side of the stadium, almost opposite of where the PSU locker room was, he conducted his postgame presser with Daryll Clark, Deon Butler and (if memory serves me correct) Lydell Sargeant. At this time if you choose to opt out of going to the press tent for the coaches, some players came out of the locker room and were available.

Close to 20 players were available to us postgame, all starters, with the exception of injured running back Evan Royster and Stephfon Green, kicker Kevin Kelly and punter Jeremy Boone were available. Dennis Landolt might have slipped out as well but remember he was also knicked up in the game.

One reporter who is not a regular on the PSU beat, was upset at the lack of “openess” to the locker room, mentioned something to a PSU rep and shared his feelings with others in the pressbox after the interviews were over, a couple of others nodded in agreement and voiced the same criticism.  But the issue is this….out of the 20 or so players who were available to speak were significant players, including Aaron Maybin and Mo Evans, who we had badgered all week about the NFL rumors, including Navorro Bowman who played the game despite finding out some 12 hours before hand that his high school coach and close friend died in an accident, including members of the secondary who were torched in that game, including Daryll Clark, you get the point.

Who else was needed for interviews? Why make a point of arguing about the openness of the locker room when there is no need to do such? Just asking. Who was going to be interviewed? A freshman o-lineman that didn’t see a snap?

As a member of the FWAA, I do like the open locker room policy, I think it’s something I wish all colleges did even during the regular season, but I am not going to bicker about it especially if I am someone who doesn’t cover Penn State on a regular basis. Out of the hundred or so reporters that covered the game, none from the USC side had complained they had no PSU locker room access, and none on the PSU beat did either….heck, we probably had more access during that postgame than even a regular season game at home.

If this is in addition to some of the tricks Jim Tressel has pulled in recent years, such as leaving a star linebacker out of a defensive media day, not bringing a quarterback to an offensive media day and cutting off access to a freshman quarterback during the last two bowls, then something has to be rearranged when it comes to rules and access granted during bowl weeks.

What it came down to on the night of the Rose Bowl, with fans filing out, with writers walking around the stadium trying to find the media tent, with guys sweating deadline (some weren’t even able to go downstairs for comments because of deadlines), you had to choose what you wanted. Did you want to do both the media tent and the locker room? And if so, what you got from both was good enough.