Exactly one year ago today at this very second I was busy moving an entire U-Haul’s worth of stuff up 4 floors and down the hall into my palatial (cough) estate on the border of Carver City and Westshore. My oh my how things have transpired since I made the exodus from Jacksonville to the Bay Area. Where do I begin?

Not very long after the final box was moved in, the initial installment of the Ignite Combine made its way to Hillsborough High School’s field and there I was smack dab in the middle of 110 players from throughout the Bay Area. I noticed then it wasn’t going to be like the rest of the places I’ve lived in this state such as DeLand, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, or even like Dunedin or Clearwater where I’ve also had the pleasure of laying my head to rest.

Combines, 7v7 Tournaments, 51 teams (Pinellas/Hillsborough) playing 10 games plus three (Jefferson, Armwood, Plant) making it all the way to Orlando. In addition, there was National Signing Day (complete madness), there were the appearances of Bright House (someone PLEASE get me a sweat rag), as well as the 6 different regional and state polls that I found myself a voter. Oh yeah, there was Basketball season too. Almost forgot about that.

This is a football town. I realize this statement is about as obvious as Charlie Sheen’s “issue”, but let me explain. I grew up playing soccer and long-believed this was a Soccer town. No. Really. I did. Before you go back and cancel your subscriptions, as well as clean up the coffee you just spit up on your screen I’ll hit you with this: There’s ONE soccer club in Pinellas County that on average sends more kids to ‘BCS Conference’ schools to play in one year (22-24 signees) than Pinellas and Hillsborough County’s combined best recruiting class. Ever. So pardon me for my aristocratic, sportingly narcissistic viewpoint regarding the “other” football. I think it’s safe to say that my world came crashing down somewhere between the Ignite and the 9 Route and that I will automatically flog myself with poisoned-tipped thorns for ever questioning who the real “king” is in this town.  Just looking at the way people react to recruiting, transfers, out-of-state matchups, and beyond.

Quickly following the combine was the lead-up into the Spring Jamborees. Now I may have been born at night, but it certainly wasn’t last night so I already expected these to be much ado about nothing.

How about much ado about EVERYTHING when it comes to the Plant v Jefferson factions and their beliefs that each was ducking the other? How about the Barnum & Bailey Circus atmosphere at Robinson? Turkey Legs anyone? You need a DJ? We got that too. Oh yeah, I’ve never seen a HALF of Spring Football celebrated, debated and/or fought over quite like this. I’m assuming neither had the people here though since Plant was getting ready to make history for the county out in Texas and this game (which was supposed to take place during the regular season) was not to be decided conventionally.

Fast forward to the Summer and the 7v7 sensation that swept the nation. I often wondered what backyard football played at a higher level would look like. I got my visual confirmation in the form of the Inaugural BCP 9-Route and then further as we hit the USF Sling-N-Shoot. Two schools of thought on this. First; the people that thought this was somehow an accurate bearing of what was to come in the Fall were left  more disappointed than finding out there was no Santa Claus. Second; This was the greatest possible way to spend time playing in the summer and gave us degenerates more time to argue about teenagers.

There’s really no substitute for putting the pads on, but when you really couldn’t give two cents about baseball season, playing touch football was better than NO football. I realize that when a Double-Winged, Wing-T team such as my DeLand Bullldogs are winning 7v7 Tournaments they really don’t mean much beyond fellowship and repetition. Boy are they fun though.

The Fall Season seemingly pulled up to the back bumper overnight once we got past the dog days of July and August and found ourselves front-and-center of what was to be a historic season in Hillsborough County. I’ll never forget getting on the plane for Texas to actually cover a game that most wouldn’t have conceived 5 years ago. I will also not forget driving back East on I-20 from Abilene to Dallas with no cell phone and seeing more animals than cars in the West Texas night.

The Regular Season saw it’s requisite ups-and-downs and was sailing along nicely. As soon as I was able to get into the rhythm of it all, things slowed-down and the articles, the polls, the posts, the pictures all took care of themselves. Now comes December and if not for the juggernaut from the ‘Glades beating Robinson, the State Finals in Orlando would have seen 50% of its representation from one county alone. I remember feeling that if this is what it’s like to experience from just a media standpoint, I can only imagine the feelings of the coaches and players. What an adrenaline rush.

Let’s move the clock just a little farther and here comes National Signing Day and all of it’s glory. (Or lack thereof) Now here is where my experience in the classroom allowed me to see things from a slightly cynical, yet very realistic point of view. I realize the business of recruiting is a multi-million dollar operation these days. However, someone should tell that to the “experts” on Madison Avenue when it comes to hyping teenagers that haven’t accomplished anything at the level their already being celebrated. Tell that to the coaches or programs that still feel like there isn’t any coverage or repercussions when they decide to say “psyche, we were just kidding” in the form of oversigning. It’s definitely not your garden-variety atmosphere of compliance and neither is it from a media coverage aspect. People should relax when it comes to banging the PR drum for a specific athlete. The term “student-athlete” should be used loosely when trying to describe an entire segment of the population. Again, this may sound harsh, but if you’re having trouble spelling student or athlete (regardless of your ACTUAL GPA) then you should hit the emergency brakes. Football is played by grown men, and if you can’t hack it in the classrooms and lecture halls or even study halls at least keeping your head above water, then you have bigger issues. It’s not like the NBA where you can go straight from Mr. Magoo’s Chemistry class to running point for the Clippers.

So as I hop in the Delorean and head “back to the future” to now, I get the overwhelming sense that this genre of sports is the most cyclical of them all. Including college. Last year at this time we were answering questions with ease before the season even started. This year we’re asking infinitely more questions than dishing out the dirt. We’re back to arguing about which Jimmy and Joe didn’t make a list. We’re arguing about transfers, and address changes. We’re now arguing (off the board) about which out-of-state team one of our “big boys” are going to play. I would say I got here at the right time. As someone once said, it’s good to be king. Now if I could find that crown somewhere.