Yeah, so all that excitement yesterday about bringing high school spring football to Pennsylvania? Hold the phone on that.
Upper St. Clair coach Jim Render, like many of his colleagues — even Penn State's Joe Paterno and Pitt's Dave Wannstedt — wants to see spring football practice come to Pennsylvania high schools.PIAA executive director Brad Cashman has a message for those coaches:
Save your breath.
Asked if the PIAA is interested in pursuing spring football, Cashman left no doubt about his intentions.
"The shorter answer is no," he said, "and that's meant as no disrespect to coach Paterno and coach Wannstedt. This matter has already been considered by the PIAA football steering committee, and it never got out of the committee as a recommendation to the board of directors."
So much for that. Cashman goes on to say that allowing spring football will hurt other sports like tennis and baseball. I don't pretent to know all the details of the situation, so we'll have to let this play out and see where it goes I guess.
In other news, Penn State took a good step in adding some depth to the questionable kicker position this fall by signing kicker Alex Butterworth to join the team. Butterworth brings an impressive resume.
A three-time all-state selection, Butterworth owns virtually every kicking record at Heritage Christian, a seven-year old program that has been a Class 2A powerhouse in Indiana. He averaged 65 yards per kick, with 88% of them ending in touchbacks, finished with a 90% kicking accuracy his senior year, and his longest field goal made in a game ranges at 54 yards.
But as Heritage Christian Head Coach Ron Qualls notes, it is the unmatched work ethic that has taken Butterworth this far.
In Scores of Other Games
- The PSU Men's Volleyball team won their match with Cal-State Northridge with a 3-0 sweep. They will play Stanford in the final match on Saturday night.
- Jared Odrick is adjusting to the NFL style of defense. The takeaway: NFL defenses aren't as aggressive as Penn State's?
- Playing for Penn State is a dream come true for Silas Redd.