Basketball
TV makes Blue Springs South-Rockhurst game even bigger
| Sunday August 31, 2008 11:00 AM | |||||
| Team (Record) | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Total |
| Rockhurst (9 - 2) | 7 | 7 | 21 | 7 | 42 |
| Blue Springs South (11 - 3) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 14 |
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Winston Wright stood in the corner of the Blue Springs South gymnasium Friday morning. He had arrived about 15 minutes early to rehearse his words.
“I was a little nervous,” he would explain later.
Maybe it was the roughly 1,400 students he was about to address during the school’s football pep assembly. Or thoughts of the significantly larger audience awaiting in two short days.
A few minutes past 9 a.m., the band struck up the music, and the students filed in, covering most of the gym’s bleachers. Soon enough, Wright was handed the microphone near center court.
The soft-spoken Jaguars running back didn’t need to say much.
“We’re coming up on a big game … on ESPN … with 90 million viewers!” Wright proclaimed, pacing his words in crescendo to the crowd’s approval.
His numbers may have been a tad off, but it might feel that big to some of the football players at Blue Springs South and Rockhurst. The two teams open their high school football season in a nationally televised game on ESPN at 11 a.m. today at Blue Springs South.
Heck, it didn’t even take ESPN to get Wright excited. He said thinking about the Rockhurst rematch got his heart thumping as far back as eight months ago.
There’s the rivalry — Blue Springs South beat Rockhurst in district play on its way to the 2006 Missouri Class 6 state title, and Rockhurst returned the favor last season en route to its state championship.
And there’s the marquee matchup — Rockhurst quarterback Nate Scheelhaase (committed to Illinois) squaring off against Blue Springs South QB Blaine Dalton (committed to Missouri).
“The game’s already big,” Wright said in a quieter moment Friday, after the bleachers had emptied.
But, well, it’s even a little bigger this time. Maybe not 90 million people kind of big. But big enough.
“People always try to say the whole thing that it’s just another game and things like that,” Scheelhaase said. “But you know it’s something different.”
• • •
Scheelhaase and Dalton are the draw today — accomplished varsity quarterbacks with national profiles.
They are central players in what has been one of the more intriguing rivalries in the Kansas City area over the last couple of years. The teams were both undefeated when they met in district play last Nov. 2, a game Rockhurst won 27-21.
Scheelhaase said he’s been asked several times this week about his rivalry with Dalton. It may well have started in the second grade when, as Scheelhaase recalls, his basketball team lost twice to Dalton’s. But they’ve also become pretty good friends over that time, too.
So on Thursday afternoon, Scheelhaase fired off a text message to his quarterback counterpart. “How’s everything going, big man?” he wrote to Dalton, who called him back that evening.
“We just talked for about 45 minutes,” Scheelhaase said. “We may have talked (about) maybe a couple things about the game.”
The quarterbacks have certainly caught ESPN’s interest, but the national spotlight will shine on more than two players today. For some, it’s a chance to improve their recruiting profile. For others, it will be an opportunity not soon forgotten.
“You try to think of it as a regular game,” Blue Springs South defensive end Derrion Thomas said. “But it’s not. It’s ESPN. … This is definitely a story to tell the grandkids.”
Rockhurst’s Billy Linscott said, “It’s kind of hard to step back and see how cool it really is, but 20 years from now, when we’re talking to our kids about it, I think it will mean a little bit more.”
He programmed a “Countdown to Kickoff” into his cell phone a while ago.
“I’ve been checking it every day,” he said. “Just for a daily reminder to myself that it’s getting closer and closer.”
And closer.
• • •
Wright was among the first to arrive again Saturday morning, and he leaned against a row of lockers inside a school hallway
“Twenty-four hours from now,” he said. “It came a lot quicker than I would have thought.”
Wright was first up for his on-camera interview with ESPN producers — one more reminder this game is just a little bit different. He sat in front of a spotlight in a dim Blue Springs South classroom and fiddled with his hands. He answered questions about the team, a hip injury he overcame last year and Blaine Dalton.
Thomas was next.
“I did rehearse the Blaine question for about five minutes before I went in there,” he joked afterward.
Finally, it was Dalton’s turn — but nobody could find him. Teammates called his cell phone, but there was no answer. At least a half hour passed before the quarterback arrived.
Dalton said his dogs had gotten loose at his house and he was late from trying to find them. It’s been a crazy week.
He hasn’t slept a lot, he said, because he’s been up late watching game film. He said he’s watched that Nov. 2, 2007, loss to Rockhurst “at least 10 times.”
When his time in front of the camera came, Dalton talked about the rivalry and about his career. He repeated answers until the producer was satisfied. He posed, and when he was finished, Dalton seemed ready to leave the hype and sideshow behind.
“I’m just ready to take the field,” he said, before running down the hall to put his pads on and join his teammates already out on the field for one last practice.
Over at Rockhurst a couple of hours later, Scheelhaase and three teammates went through the same procedure.
He, too, was ready.
“I can’t keep a smile off my face. The adrenaline’s pumping already,” Scheelhaase said. “… I’m ready. I couldn’t be more ready.”
submitted by RYAN YOUNG - 2008-08-30 22:17:02
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