Last 'free' weekend

This weekend marks the last "free" weekend that the guys will have until the end of the season as practice begins next Friday. Until April (hopefully!) everyone will be busy with practices, travel schedules, games, etc.

A lot of the guys took this time to go home and spend some downtime with family and friends before they really hit the grind (not that they're not already doing that!). I know Coach Blaine (Florida) and Coach Brown (Texas) were out of town recruiting and Coach Allen spent the weekend in D.C. with his wife and attended the Redskins-Packers game (which I do not want to talk about as the resident Cheesehead). Coach Robinson also headed home to Baltimore and hit up the Ravens game while Coach Peery went home to Roanoke.

A few of the guys decided to stay on campus and kudos to them for coming out to the Hytche and supporting the volleyball team as they defeated Morgan State (Friday) and Delaware State (today).

Hopefully everyone is now well rested, I know they're all anxious to get the season started!

Art Shell Golf Photos

Here are some photos from last week's Art Shell Celebrity Golf Open and Legends Reception. Again, sorry for the poor quality, they're from my phone.

Cool UMES crab mallets

Registration table

Event sponsors

Oceanside decorations

Art Shell hat that was given to all the celebrity golfers

Art Shell golf towel and hat

Autographed Art Shell golf bag on the auction table

UMES Athletics auction basket

NFL autographed golf bag (auction item)

Autographed Fernando Guerrero boxing gloves (auction item)

Reception tables

UMES Athletics gift shop (if you see anything you like here, give me a call at 410-651-8075 or email mlhayon@umes.edu... we have all of it for sale!)

Harry's friend Poe, from the Ravens, even came to help celebrate!

Welcome sign at the golf course

Golf Course

M&T Bank Stadium

A couple of weeks ago I attended a workshop that was held at the Ravens' Stadium - M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Nick Robinson is a huge Ravens fan, so he was sort of mad at me when I told him where it was AFTER I was done with the workshop. :-) Oh well.

I've been behind-the-scenes in all sorts of stadiums before - collegiate, NBA, MLB, MiLB, etc., but oddly, I've never been in the depths of an NFL stadium. This was a cool experience. The actual workshop was held inside the Ravens locker room.

(Let it be known that I HATE fake turf.)

If you look closely you can see people cleaning/painting the turf. I was always puzzled how they can change the paint on turf and apparently you can just take a power washer to it! They are changing the field from lacrosse to soccer.

Ginormous scoreboard. Would love to see it in action!

Salisbury University played in the Lacrosse Championships the day before!

Inside the security control room, it's crazy. They have over 20 tv monitors where they can zoom in on single people and zoom out to see the entire stadium. There was also traffic controls in this room. It was really spectacular what they can all do.

This is the last place you want to be on gameday - jail holding cells!