January 2009 Archives

January ended with a hoop-tastic weekend for me as I got to cover a pair of premier games, both in jam-packed, noisy gyms.

My first stop was Friday night in the brand new digs at Eastern York as the host Golden Knights squared off against YAIAA Division III leader York Suburban.

Eastern (12-1 league, 18-1 overall) avenged its early-season overtime loss -- the only blemish in an outstanding campaign -- to the Trojans (13-1, 18-2) with an impressive 66-54 victory.

York Suburban legend Dick Guyer, pictured above being recognized by South Western coach Bill Sterner, coached his last home meet on Thursday and was honored when more than 60 former Trojan swimmers walked out onto the deck at the Suburban natatorium.

Guyer had no idea the alumni had plans to get together to pay tribute to him and the veteran coach was shocked when they strolled out before the Trojans faced West York.

Receptions were held both before and after the meet. This is what some of those on hand had to say about their coach:

Mark Paules (72), was a member of Suburban's first championship team: "I remember Dick being a really dedicated person. He taught us dedication and hard work.
"The one thing I really remember is that he really didn't care whether he won or lost, he just cared if you did well. If you lost, then he would make you better. That is how he built championships.
"He touched a lot of people. I tried to pass on some of the things he taught me to my children. It is amazing how many people can be touched by one person."

Thanks to a foursome of YAIAA grads, the Millersville University swim team is off to a 5-2 start in its duel meet schedule.

Rebecca Irvine (Northeastern), Amy Leiphart (William Penn), Amie Mowery (New Oxford) and Katelyn Schmittle (York Suburban) have been important contributors to the Marauders success.

Irvine, shown above swimming during her Bobcat days, finished first in the 100 freestyle at Mansfield and was second in the 50 free and 200 free races in other meets.

Leiphart's best finish was her impressive second place she earned in the 1,000 free against Messiah College. She always a Top three threat in any of the distance events.

Mowery, probably the best swimmer in New Oxford history, won the 200 butterfly against Messiah and the 200 free against East Stroudsburg. She also has three second place finishes: the 100 backstroke and 400 individual medley at Mansfield.

Schmittle has a pair of wins, the 50 free in a tri-meet versus Cabrini and Juniata, then was victorious at Mansfield in the 200 free.

With this kind of success, it is plain to see why Millersville coach Kyle Almoney, who attended Northeastern and won a PIAA gold medal in the 100 butterfly before heading to Mercersburg Academy, is recruiting heavily in his home area.

After Tuesday's first round of the District 3 Wrestling Team Championships, two of the tri-champions - South Western and Spring Grove - earned relatively easy victories in the Class AAA field to set up a redo of their outstanding dual from just this past Saturday. And in Class AA, Bermudian Springs opened with a blowout win to keep its hopes alive for another shot at Biglerville.

The winter weather has caused havoc with the Canners attempts to get themselves into the post-season. After twice postponing its first-round matchup with Brandywine Heights, the Division II champions will finally take on the Bullets at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The winner of that match then faces Wyomissing in a 7:30 p.m. quarterfinal match the same night with a spot at Milton Hershey Saturday on the line.

After covering Bermudian Springs' dominating 61-3 win over Columbia in a District 3 Class AA wrestling tournament match, I thought what a perfect time to catch up with former Eagles Jon Hade, who is giving a great junior season at Shippensburg University.

In fact, the weekend of January 24, Hade, shown above, went a perfect 4-for-4 during his matches at the East Coast Duals.

Hade opened Saturday with a 13-2 major decision at over Conor Pryor of UNC-Pembroke at 184 pounds. Amazingly in his next match he squeaked out a 3-2 sudden death win over Bryant Blanton of second-ranked Newberry. Blanton entered the bout ranked No. 1 in the East Region.

In his third match of the day, Hade bumped up a weight class because of a Ship injury and still managed a 6-4 decision over Matt Mix of Merceyhurst. He finished the day back at 184 and once again posted an overtime victory - this one over Aaron Miller of Limestone.

Gregg Clark of Dallastown sent us the following letter:

Regarding the top 10 from York High (York Daily Record, Jan. 13), I'm a serious candidate that was overlooked.
I made all-county in 1988. I was also voted top 24 in the county, and to date there has never been a kicker in the county that could ever kick as good as me.
I then went to play ball in Europe for two different teams, The Monheim Sharks and the Zoeling Hurricanes.
I also made the York High hall of fame. Now the few you posted in the top 10, some didn't even make the hall of fame. Another that should have made it was Ty Doleman. He went to Pitt-Johnstown, then was a Globetrotter, then played pro ball in China. How about Mike Murray? He's played in the Army for years.
Kia Cooper, Yolanda Atwater, Brad and Harold Sprenkle, Scott Dean, Barry Generett, Chris Sharp ... the list goes on.
I thought the Daily Record looked into things before they wrote it. Apparently not in this matter.
It's just like growing up in the city, the Daily Record always pointed out the bad things that the city kids did, front and back pages. But when the kids stand out, they may get two or three lines.
Good job, Daily Record, keep putting down the York City kids. I bet that your paper will see a lot of letters from a lot of angry York City people that should have made it. Good job.

Saturday produced three - count'em three - matches that came down to the final bout and produced one unbeaten champion (Biglerville in Division II) and tri-champions (Red Lion, South Western and Spring Grove in Division I).

I've only been at this job for about 18 years but that had to be one of the greatest evenings of dual meets in YAIAA history. It was certainly the best night I've ever been a part of; I just wish I could have been a bigger part of it. One person, three matches. Something had to give. I got to see the Mustangs battle back from a nine-point deficit twice to earn a piece of the D-I crown.

East Berlin's Tyler Brown was recently named MVP of the boys' cross country at Wyoming Seminary College Preparatory School.

It marked the third straight year the honor was awarded to Brown, seen above.

Wyoming Seminary is a boarding prep school located near Wilkes Barre in the Wyoming Valley, enrolling 460 students at the high school and postgraduate levels.

When I looked at the schedule back in late November, attempting to pick out the matches I felt needed to be covered in the paper, one date jumped out - January 24th.

Considering the recent trends in both wrestling divisions, that day loomed as a climax to another fun YAIAA wrestling season if - and that was a big 'if' - teams did what was expected of them through December and most of January.

And the four teams - Bermudian Springs, Biglerville, South Western and Spring Grove - did just that.

Is the postseason here yet?

I think everybody is ready for it. Whatever you're undefeated like William Penn boys and Northeastern girls, surging like Red Lion boys and West York boys, or just looking for a fresh start after recent troubles like Central York boys, it seems like area basketball teams are antsy to get to the games that matter most.

That's still about two weeks away. As a consolation prize, the latest rankings are after the jump. Voice your opinion on my selections in the comments section.

First-year Kennard-Dale boys' basketball coach Greg Freese insisted that the surprise was in the past, not the present.

"Coming into the season, districts was right there among our goals," Freese said after Tuesday's 71-57 victory over Delone Catholic that extended the Rams' win streak to six games. "We really expected to make a run at districts. Quite honestly, we didn't expect to be 2-9, let's put it that way. We expected to be beyond this point by now, so it's been an uphill battle."

Talking about making districts a year after finishing 4-18 overall and winning only one game in YAIAA competition seems like a bit of a reach. But key returners like Matt Romoser (above), Duncan Leftridge and Brenton Mitchell stepped up their play and showed more maturity on the court to help the Rams improve their record to 8-9.

Steelers fans aren't the only ones entering our Cheer Cards contest. ... Remember, we will have three gift-card winners. One for best Eagles photo, one for best Ravens photo and one for best Steelers photo. Details on the contest here.

Here are some more of your photos:

Katie Gladfelter-Watts, left, and Rilee Gladfelter of Spring Garden Township.

Even the most bitter of rivals can do great things together as displayed when the Red Lion girls' basketball team hosted Dallastown Tuesday night in the first annual "Pink game for cancer awareness.

The "Crosstown Clash" was the brainchild of coaches Don Dimoff of Red Lion and Dallastown's Tory Harvey.

The Lion players wore pink shirts and shorts with white trim and black writing while the Wildcats donned white shirts/shorts with pink trim and writing.

In addition to the special uniforms, pink or black "Crosstown Clash" tee shirts were sold and two spirit baskets from each team were raffled off. Collections were taken at various locations throughout the night, along with the 50-50 raffle.



As you can see, the Lions' fans were out in pink.

George W. Bush officially ended his second term as president of the United States this afternoon as one of the most unpopular executives in our nation's history and will now have a ton of time on his hands. He's talked about writing a book, but even if he does follow through with that, he's going to have to eventually find something else to occupy his time.

I propose Major League Baseball makes him the next commissioner of the league.

By most counts, his presidency has been a failure, but some of his flaws as president might make him a strong commissioner. He tended to oversimplify complex world issues and divide the world into two sides: sort of an "if your not with us, you're against us" ideology. Any good intentions aside, such a philosophy doesn't seem to work in a complicated world, but could be functional inside the vacuum of a professional sport that has clear rules that are cut and dry.

Here are some more of the your Cheer Card submissions. More information on entering here.

Crystal Searle of Hellam Township sent this photo of her son, Wesley.

Thomas Gianni of Springfield Township sent this photo of his TV-watching dog, Spencer.

You still have until noon Friday to enter our Cheer Card Photo Contest and possibly win a prize.

We've received more than a dozen entries so far. Here are some of them. Check back to The Lineup Card throughout the week to see more galleries of your submitted photos.

From Connie Christine in Newberry Township. From left to right are Kevin Christine III, Connie Christine, Sabrina Waldrup, Olivia Waldrup and, on the floor, Ethan Waldrup.

Completely recovered from knee surgery that sidelined her during her freshman season at Penn State (2006-07), Red Lion grad and all-time leading scorer Meggan Quinn has found herself a part of the regular rotation for the Lady Lions.

Quinn, shown here while playing for Red Lion, has appeared in 15 games for Penn State (7-9), starting six of them. She averaging 10.5 minutes per game, scoring 3.6 points and is shooting .339 from the floor (19-of-56). She has hit seven of her nine free throws.

In November Quinn scored a career-high 16 points during a 76-61 Lady Lion victory over Coppin State. Plus, she was also one of four Lady Lions that achieved a 3.5 or higher grade-point average for the fall semester.

Fans for even the big games can come on small packages.

Just look below at 1-year-old L.T. (Little Troy) Creakman of Red Lion. He is ready to root for his favorite team.



L.T.'s father Troy, brother Damian, along with sisters Brittani and Lexi will be rooting for the Steelers while his mom Rachel will be cheering for her favorite team --the Ravens.

I wasn't surprised when I saw Brandon Real was left off the Big 33 team roster. No matter what he has been able to do on the field, the West York senior seems to be overlooked. So even though his talent and his accomplishments make him seem like a smart pick, it was no shock when the coaches went with players who have received more attention from Division I programs.

The silver lining for Real is that he came very close to earning one of those sought-after roster spots, according to this column by Rod Frisco of the Patriot-News. Frisco writes:

This year's Big 33 head coach, Tim Janocko of Clearfield, runs the spread, which places just one running back on the field at a time, so he needed just two running backs on the team.

There were 54 running backs nominated this year. The RB-LB committee had to watch tape on all of them, and come up with two.

Once again Lauren Beckley (above) is showing the PSAC what a YAIAA alum can do on the hardwoods.

The Shippensburg University junior and 2006 Fairfield grad recently recorded her seventh double-double of the season when she scored 31 points and pulled down 13 rebounds in the Red Raiders' 80-69 win at Mansfield. The effort came at the right time, helping end one-time ranked Ship's six-game losing streak.

She followed that effort with a 34-point, 14-rebound perfomance in Saturday's televised 77-67 win over East Stroudsburg.

Beckley, the 2008 PSAC West Player of the Year, leads Shippensburg (7-7) in points (19.9) and rebounds (9.7) per game. She has hit on 46 percent of her shots from the floor (41% 3-point range) and tops 82 percent from the free throw line.

Now this is starting to get difficult.

Not at the top of course. The league's only two undefeated teams (William Penn boys and Northeastern girls) have a solid grasp on the No. 1 spots. What what about the rest of the boys rankings? After all, West York beat Central York which beat Red Lion which beat York Suburban which beat Eastern York. Are you sill with me?

Even on the girls side, while Courtney Rhein, Katie Althouse and Eastern York (above) proved their worth with a road win at York Catholic, there's still questions as to how Red Lion, Delone Catholic and York Catholic should be ranked to round out the top five.

Find out where I put them all after the jump and let the world know your opinions of the rankings in the comments section.

Things just keep getting better for Randolph-Macon forward Molly Ariail, pictured above while playing at York Suburban.

The former Trojan, who earned ODAC Player of the Year honors last season as a sophomore, scored her 1,000 career collegiant point on January 4th for the Yellow Jackets.

It is quite an impressive feat for someone who reached the 1,000-point pinnacle at Suburban, however it took until her season year to get there.

"I think there is more of a need for me here," Ariail said. "In high school you are in the program and I was playing behind some talented girls my freshman year. I got my chance and played some my freshman year in high school, but not like I got here."

If there is a tougher place for opposing girls' basketball teams to play than the Red Lion gym, I have yet to see it.

Amber and Autumn Lau (above) both admitted that the Bobcats were shaken early in Tuesday's 65-62 victory by the high-volume hostile crowd they faced in the Lions den.

"We lost a little of our composure," Autumn said. "That's one of the key things that (coach Mike) Drenchko talked about -- we had to keep our poise, patience and composure and we lost some of that."

Amber chimed in: "We were letting them get to us -- the crowd, the refs, everything."

Surrounded by Red Lion fans throughout the game, I can totally understand why.

So Sunday in my house will be interesting.

My husband is a Ravens fans. My 7-year-old son? He roots for the Steelers.

(I don't figure into this equation being a Raiders fan. Our season ended before it started.)

Add in my brother and brother-in-law (pro-Baltimore) and my nephew, father-in-law and other brother-in-law (pro-Pittsburgh), mix in a few tasty cold beverages, and prepare for much taunting, yelling and even a few tears (my son is not a gracious loser.)

How about you? If your house is home to fans of more than one of the remaining NFL teams and you're willing to be interviewed, contact Steve Navaroli or call 771-2060.

Ravens. Eagles. Steelers.

Does it get any better than this?

We're looking for our most devoted and faithful Ravens, Eagles and Steelers fans to send us their best photos of family members dressed up in team colors. The more team spirit, the better. (Cats and dogs dressed up are OK, too.)

We'll run our pick for the best submitted photo from each of the three teams this weekend in the York Sunday News sports section. Additional photos may be posted online or in other editions.

Photos should be e-mailed to Chris Otto . Include everyone's names, what municipality you live in and any other relevant details.

Michele King, pictured above during her sophomore year at Spring Grove, was named Lady Vol Athlete of the Week Tuesday.

King won two individual events and swam on four first-place relay teams this weekend in Bloomington, Ind. The No. 13 Lady Vols defeated No. 11 Indiana and No. 19 Michigan this weekend.

One of the top swimmers in York County history, King qualified to swim in four events at the U.S. Olympic Trials this summer. She placed 10th in the 50-meter freestyle, and returned to the Vols as a junior this winter.

UPDATE: Northeastern pulled out a 65-62 victory to officially end the streak, coming back from a seven-point third quarter deficit to earn the win. Read more about that game here.

Original post: Domination isn't a strong enough word to describe Red Lion's regular season performance in YAIAA Division I over the last several seasons. I'm going to go with dictatorial ruthlessness.

Opening this season with eight consecutive victories against divisional opponents, the Lions extended their regular-season winning streak to a remarkable 68 consecutive games. I could barely believe it myself and had to check the numbers twice, but that's exactly what our records show.

It goes beyond just the last four and half seasons. Since the start of the 2001-02 campaign, the Lions are 113-3 in the regular season. Take it back to 1993-94 and that mark is 229-25. Basically, the Lions have an historical pattern of rarely losing.

Tonight, Red Lion faces what it likely its toughest challenge of the current 68-game streak when it hosts undefeated Northeastern (14-0).

Will Forte joins the chorus of critics of the Bowl Championship Series with a new approach: musical sarcasm.

The comedian made his case with a song during the Weekend Update segment of this weekend's Saturday Night Live episode (the song starts about a minute into the clip above), claiming that he loves the BCS in the same way that he loves "the smell of sick people's farts," "finding out I'm adopted" and "George W. Bush."

I can imagine Utah coach Kyle Whittingham gleefully singing along, as well as pretty much every college football fan that doesn't root for the University of Florida. Feel free to add to Forte's list of things as awesome as the BCS in the comments section.

Not that York College was going to lose to lowly Salisbury on Saturday, but Jamie Polan gave the Spartans a nice spark coming off the bench.

The West York grad, seen below driing to the basket against the Sea Gulls, scored seven points in 15 minutes and had one of the best four-minnute spans in a season of great play for 12-1 York.

Thursday evening at Dallastown was one of the more emotional events I've seen in my 18 years of covering wrestling in York County.

The Dallastown wrestling program was honoring one of its own, Zac Sweitzer. Sweitzer passed away in December from injuries suffered in an auto accident. The wrestling boosters wanted to honor him and came up with three different things, all of which are excellent ideas.

Brianna Lucas, a 5-8 guard who scored 1,123 points at Susquehannock is in her junior year with NCAA Division I Canisius.

Lucas, seen below playing for the Warriors, has come off the bench in all 15 Griffin games this season and is averaging 2.9 points per game. She is also third on the team in steals with 13.

One year ago she appeared in all 30 Canisius contests and set career highs in minutes, free throw percentage, rebounds, assists and steals. She also started 10 games during the 2007-08 campaign.

The milestones have been celebrated. The seasons wear on. The top teams continue to excel.

The big game since last week's rankings came on Monday, when the Suburban boys topped Eastern in double overtime. The victory moved them up to the No. 2 position and dropped the Golden Knights down a spot to No. 3.

Not too many other changes. William Penn boys and Northeastern girls remain undefeated and at the top of the rankings. Check out the full list after the jump and share your thoughts in the comments section.

So far, Rob Estep is having a great sophomore campaign at Hobart University and he is not the only one.

The West York grad, seen below after helping lead the Bulldogs to a District 3 Class AAA title, recently earned his third Liberty League Co-Guard of the Week award of the season.

Estep leads the Statesmen in scoring with his average of 17 points per game. He has hit on 41 percent of his 3-pointers and 78 percent from the free throw line, playing 31 minutes per contest.

The William Penn boys' basketball team has played the toughest schedule in the YAIAA as far as I can tell and has still managed to go undefeated through 14 games. This after a year where the Bearcats failed to capture the Division I title and went 1-3 in the postseason to miss out on qualifying for the state tournament.

After Wednesday's 17-point win over Red Lion, William Penn coach Troy Sowers said the difference this year is more than just improved play from his players on the court. It has a lot to do with attitude.

"This team loves each other and works hard for each other ," Sowers said. "This is a special group of kids. They have dedicated themselves to think team and team only."

Despite his passing at age 63, Dallastown golf coach Rick Kehr will remain with many of us for years to come.

The coaching legend spent more than 40 years at the Wildcat helm and was a World Cultures teacher at the high school for 31 years.

Kehr was always the guy to call with a question about high school golf, but his love of the game and students went much deeper than that.

When it comes to consistent success over the last 25 years, the York Catholic boys' program seems to have other area teams beat. Twenty of the last 25 seasons the Fighting Irish have qualified for the state tournament and has won a couple of district titles along the way.

That's why seeing the Fighting Irish lose eight of their first 10 games was so surprising, even considering the graduation of YAIAA all-time leading scorer Jacob Iati and a new coach (Joe Keesey) at the helm. York Catholic has always found a way to get wins, and it looks likely that it will finish below .500 this season.

Even so, after Saturday's blowout loss to William Penn, Keesey said he has seen enough progress from his squad to remain encouraged.

"We've played much better over the last three or four games," Keesey said. "We didn't play that poorly, it's just that York High is so good. Our defense has actually been pretty good this year, it's just the way we've handled the ball and passed the ball, that's where we've struggled. But overall I'm not unhappy. I think we're playing much better and I think we're going to have a good second half of the year. I really do."

Just two weeks ago I wrote on this blog about York College athletics awesome community service accomplishments and now those efforts have been rewarded as the Spartans earned the prestigious Jostens/National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators (NADIIIAA) Community Service Award.

York was recognized as the top NCAA Division III institution in the category of an array of projects and activities after 450 of the Spartan student-athletes participated in multiple community service projects during the 2007-08 academic year.

Because of its outstanding off-the-field efforts, the school will receive a contribution of $1,000 towards its general scholarship fund.

As a nation, we watched Michael Phelps win eight gold medals and become an adored and admired public figure. The above video of outtakes from a recent Subway commercial film shoot reveals that he also gives pep talks to Laura Bush, flirts with Mark Spitz's wife and is actually kind of a jerk.

Not really, of course. I mean, I'm pretty sure he and LB call each other on a regular basis, but no one has actually proved that yet. Regardless, this 90-second spoof from the comedy team The Full Ginsburg is worth your time. Just don't watch it while eating a footlong chicken teriyaki sub.

For more goodness from The Full Ginsburg, check out the official website.

If it hurts your eyes to watch York Suburban's Mitch Kemp shoot a basketball, you can blame his older sister Jess.

Kemp's shooting motion, which he described as "awful" includes catching the ball down by his knees, lining his feet off to the side and then putting such a high arc on the ball that it rises as much as 20 feet in the air before falling through or near the basket.

"People have told me that it's weird and asked me why I did it, but my sister has the same shot," Kemp said. The senior's older sister scored 1,000 points at Suburban and went on to play at York College. "She's right-handed, but she has an arc just like mine. I guess it's family tradition or something."

It's strange and it's unique, but it works. Kemp is leading the Trojans (12-0) in scoring with 16.3 points per game and has remained loyal to his unorthodox style and doesn't get much resistance from his coaches.

Now that the new year is here, it's time to get serious about the division races in wrestling. And this will be a big week for many schools, especially New Oxford and Dallastown.

The Colonials and the Wildcats will meet in New Oxford Tuesday. And on Thursday, New Oxford hits the road to meet defending champion Spring Grove while Dallastown returns home to host South Western.

Here are some extra offerings from the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic hosted by York College during the first weekend of 2009:

Amanda Andrews (below) and freshman Julian Watson both achieved career-highs in points for the Spartans. Andrews shot 6-of-7 from 3-point range and scored 26 in the women's 82-48 blowout win over Buffalo State.

Watson (below) managed 21 in the men's 66-63 loss to McDaniel College.

Eight YAIAA alumni were listed on the roster of the four men's and four women's teams that competed in the eight game tournament.

The quality of the competition wasn't going to be an excuse for West York boys' basketball coach Bill Ackerman (above after his team won its second consecutive YAIAA tournament). It wasn't even going to be a consideration. Losing three games in a row under any circumstances is flat-out unacceptable in his eyes.

"All three teams were very good teams, but that's not an excuse," Ackerman said. "We schedule those teams to beat those teams, not to just get beat by them."

This season, the Bulldogs (4-4) are in an unfamiliar position sitting at .500 in early January. They usually have one of the best records in the league as a traditional area power. Winning the league tournament the last two consecutive seasons has given them serious bragging rights, but after back-to-back-to-back losses to Lake Clifton-Easton, West Chester Rustin and undefeated York Suburban raises some doubts about this year's squad.

Ackerman said it all comes down to "playing together" on the court.

Each year, the NFL regular season seems to end faster than the last. I find myself wondering what happened the previous four months...and then when the dust has settled and the playoff teams are known, it seems not much has changed from recent years.

Basically, you can count on the Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts and now the New York Giants to make near annual appearances in the playoffs. You can also count on the Detroit Lions, Oakland Raiders and Buffalo Bills to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...or in Detroit's case for the 2008 season, snatch defeat and keep an iron grip on it.

Looking for a resolution? How about seeing one of the area's four undefeated basketball teams?

The William Penn boys and Northeastern girls teams are still perfect this season and hold the top spot in the power rankings for the second consecutive week. The Eastern York boys and York Suburban boys are also undefeated, although one of them has to lose when they face each other at Suburban on Monday.

Nonetheless, it's been a solid first few weeks of the season for a whole bunch of YAIAA teams and from what I've seen, I think there will be three or four district champions crowned from this league in February.

But that's enough speculation from me. Check out the full rankings and rationale after the jump. Chime in with your thoughts in the comments section.

After seven spending seven seasons in the MLB, in the farthest possible places from York County (Toronto, L.A., Florida) adoptive son Mark Hendrickson is now just a hop, skip and jump down I83 from many of his friends and supporters.

Baltimore signed the lefty to a one-year, $1.5 million deal, and as Hendrickson told Daily Record reporter Dave Sottile, he is very happy to be able "to live a normal life for a change."

But, the big question here is will Hendrickson get the call from Cal?