Some items to ponder while mourning the tragic loss of a worldwide cultural icon who brought millions of people joy with his unique voice and unusual stage performances. Billy Mays, you'll be missed.
As you've seen, recruiting is the main source of news right now. It appears that Manheim Central defensive end Dakota Royer seems close to making a decision:
Royer has well over 20 Division I-A college offers, thanks to a process he largely initiated himself, by making his own highlight DVDs and going off to combines (and winning position-group MVP awards at the combines) as early as his freshman year. "I still remember sitting at home, waiting for that first letter [from a college]," Royer said Wednesday. "Now I get 20 letters a day."
He's created a monster.
"You'd think it would be awesome getting recruited," he said. "I thought it would be, even though guys told me you get tired of it. You do get tired of it. It's so stressful."
There's also a little background on the swimming pool stunt, which Royer nailed on the fourth take.
As for those who have recently joined PSU's recruiting class, their local papers have had a day or two to provide the full write-up. First, Evan Hailes:
Hailes, a two-time all-state and two-time All-Tidewater selection, said he chose the Nittany Lions over such schools as Tennessee, LSU and Virginia Tech because he liked what Penn State had to offer.
"The thing I liked most about them is that they emphasized academics more than football," said Hailes as he drove from State College on his way back to Chesapeake following his visit to the school.
What also helped was his relationship with defensive line coach Larry Johnson. This is his 14th season on the staff and ninth year coaching the defensive line. In that span, he has been instrumental in the development of five first-team All-Americans, including three first-round NFL draft choices.
"He's a real good guy and everything he says is backed up by the players," Hailes said. "He sealed the deal for me."
A chance to play for Penn State coach Joe Paterno was icing on the cake.
"It's like playing basketball with Michael Jordan," he said. "You're with a legend. A lot of people wish they could play for him but I'm going to get a chance to do it."
And then there's DaQuan Jones:
Jones, who will sign his NLI in February, said he was also looking at Boston College, Maryland, Syracuse and Pittsburgh. But his visit to Penn State, in State College, Pa., made him feel at home.
"Just me going down there, the environment around the school and outside the school, it's just great," Jones said. "I'm excited about it. I'm really just taking it all in."
Beats the hell out of Amway: Anthony Scirrotto is a long shot to make the Carolina Panthers' roster this season, but he now has an official backup plan:
Scirrotto wasn't thinking about baseball anymore, but his former high school coach kept his name alive in baseball circles.
While Sean McKenna had since become a police detective in West Deptford, he remained close with Picollo, whom he played baseball against in high school and was now Kansas City's assistant general manager for scouting and player development.
Just over a month ago Scirrotto got a call from a Royals scout, saying they might draft him.
"We had set out at the beginning of the year to target some football players who maybe had a chance to play in the NFL but had baseball backgrounds," Picollo said. "Anthony sounded open to it. Obviously his first priority is trying to make the Panthers and in no way do we want to impede what he's doing there."
But when Thursday came, late on the last day of the draft and a day off with the Panthers, Scirrotto decided to go golfing — just before he was the 1,502nd pick in a 1,521-player draft.
Commence Jurassic Joe jokes...now: Penn State scientists have revived a strain of bacteria that has been buried deep within a glacier for 120,000 years:
The scientists found the bacteria, named Herminiimonas glaciei, buried under nearly 2 miles worth of ice in Greenland. Scientists think that, since it's small even for bacteria, it survives on nutrients trapped in veins of ice and uses its flagella to move within veins to seek food.
It took the scientists almost a year to revive the bacteria and coax it to grow; once it did, it yielded small colonies of purple-brown bacteria. Although not as old as the 8 million year old bacteria resurrected from Antarctic ice in 2007, it does lead the Penn State scientists to believe that they might be able to find and re-grow bacteria from Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa.
In Scores Of Other Games: The Cincy Enquirer catches up with Nittany Network's Bill Kurelic for a discussion of the confluence of technology, self-promotion, and recruiting. A good read. The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader details the ongoing education of Little Red, Matt McGloin. The CDT has a story on the budding bromance between Paul Posluszny and Terrell Owens in Buffalo. Finally, Graham Spanier may need to hold a bake sale, because Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is shaving an additional $41 million from what the Commonwealth originally planned to give Penn State.
And okay, okay, fine. This was quite appropriately posted in the FanShots, but...
The Thriller of the Nittany Lion (VS Michigan) 2008 (via countfortunado)